‘You’re joking,’ Landy said.
She turned her head slowly round and looked directly at him. ‘Why should I joke?’ she asked. Her face was bright, her eyes round and bright as two diamonds.
‘He couldn’t possibly be moved.’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘This is an experiment, Mrs Pearl.’
‘It’s my husband, Dr Landy.’
A funny little nervous half-smile appeared on Landy’s mouth. ‘Well …’ he said.
‘It is my husband, you know.’ There was no anger in her voice. She spoke quietly, as though merely reminding him of a simple fact.
‘That’s rather a tricky point,’ Landy said, wetting his lips. ‘You’re a widow now, Mrs Pearl. I think you must resign yourself to that fact.’
She turned away suddenly from the table and crossed over to the window. ‘I mean it,’ she said, fishing in her bag for a cigarette. ‘I want him back.’
Landy watched her as she put the cigarette between her lips and lit it. Unless he were very much mistaken, there was something a bit odd about this woman, he thought. She seemed almost pleased to have her husband over there in the basin.
He tried to imagine what his own feelings would be if it were his wife’s brain lying there and her eye staring up at him out of that capsule.
He wouldn’t like it.
‘Shall we go back to my room now?’ he said.
She was standing by the window, apparently quite calm and relaxed, puffing her cigarette.
‘Yes, all right.’
On her way past the table she stopped and leaned over the basin once more. ‘Mary’s leaving now, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘And don’t you worry about a single thing, you understand? We’re going to get you right back home where we can look after you properly just as soon as we possibly can. And listen, dear …’ At this point she paused and carried the cigarette to her lips, intending to take a puff.
Instantly the eye flashed.
She was looking straight into it at the time, and right in the centre of it she saw a tiny but brilliant flash of light, and the pupil contracted into a minute black pinpoint of absolute fury.
At first she didn’t move. She stood bending over the basin, holding the cigarette up to her mouth, watching the eye.
Then very slowly, deliberately, she put the cigarette between her lips and took a long suck. She inhaled deeply, and she held the smoke inside her lungs for three or four seconds; then suddenly, whoosh, out it came through her nostrils in two thin jets which struck the water in the basin and billowed out over the surface in a thick blue cloud, enveloping the eye.
Landy was over by the door, with his back to her, waiting. ‘Come on, Mrs Pearl,’ he called.
‘Don’t look so cross, William,’ she said softly. ‘It isn’t any good looking cross.’
Landy turned his head to see what she was doing.
‘Not any more it isn’t,’ she whispered. ‘Because from now on, my pet, you’re going to do just exactly what Mary tells you. Do you understand that?’
‘Mrs Pearl,’ Landy said, moving towards her.
‘So don’t be a naughty boy again, will you, my precious,’ she said, taking another pull at the cigarette. ‘Naughty boys are liable to get punished most severely nowadays, you ought to know that.’
Landy was beside her now, and he took her by the arm and began drawing her firmly but gently away from the table.
‘Good-bye, darling,’ she called. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘That’s enough, Mrs Pearl.’