to do, you could have killed yourself,” Maisie was remarking, disapprovingly. “I ought to have stopped you. It was silly.”
But something in her looks belied the prim words. For just one moment, a sort of wonder shone in her plump, middle-aged face, and she raised her eyes from her knitting for a second or two and stared ahead—Not at Malcolm, oh no, but beyond him, at another Malcolm, young, and bronzed and perfect, and long vanished from the earth …
Jealousy of this young, long-ago self, who could even now bring such a look to his wife’s face, burst upon Malcolm like a storm. He felt sick and dizzy with the sheer force of it, and it was a real effort to keep his voice level and ordinary.
“I’m going to try that dive again,” he said; and looked at her.
“Yes, dear,” she answered, winding the wool twice round a needle and pulling it through the loop: and so Malcolm had to say it again, louder.
“I’m going to dive off Dead Man’s Rock again,” he said. “Now. Just you watch …”
She laughed. Well, anyone would. The mere idea of a man of his age, with a bad heart …
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that dear,” she said, but not unkindly, for the afternoon was a mellow and soothing one. “People will think you’re gaga! Why don’t you have a nice nap before we go home, or look at the paper, or something?”
Even before he reached the base of the cliff, Malcolm’s heart was pounding uncomfortably, and he began to have an uneasy feeling that he would never manage the steep, winding path to the top. Never even reach the headland, let alone dive off the end of it! He sat for a few minutes at the foot of the cliff, getting his breath and trying to clear his thoughts: and presently the pounding of his heart subsided, and he was able to start up the path.
To his surprise, his heart seemed to be taking the climb very well. True, he was giving himself plenty of rests on the way up, but only as a precaution, not once had he been forced into immobility by that awful, griping, clutching sensation behind his ribs. It occurred to him that he must be getting better; the holiday, in spite of everything, must have been doing him good. A few feet short of the top, he gave himself just one more of these precautionary breathers, facing, now, a dazzling panorama of sea and sky. He sat for a while leaning against a sun-warmed boulder, enjoying the feel of the heat on his skin; then, getting to his feet once more, he set off on the last little lap of the climb.
It was only when he reached the cliff top and was setting off, barefoot and stripped to his bathing-trunks, along the tussocky, boulder-strewn headland, that the reality of what he proposed to do hit him with full force: and for a moment he stood stock-still, absolutely horrified.
He would die. There were no two ways about it. He was taking himself to his death. There was no way that this seventy-six-year-old body, weakened by two bad heart attacks, could possibly survive the ordeal that he had planned for it. And it wasn’t just his heart, either; how could these flabby muscles of his possibly fulfil the demands he was going to make on them—the command to make this old, slack body straight and taut as a diver’sbody needs to be as it plummets towards the water, if it is not to strike the surface in a crumpled mess, with the breath battered out of it and bones broken everywhere?
It was hopeless, hopeless. How could he even expect to launch himself on the dive at all, with no spring in his ankles any more, and maybe unable even to raise himself on tiptoe? His reaction-times, too, would be all to pieces, four decades too slow. Inevitably, he would bungle the timing of his spring, of his entry into the water—everything.
I must be mad, he thought, mad!—and continued on his way.
Up here, beyond the shelter of the cliff, the wind was icy; it whipped against his spare old body like a knife, almost overbalancing him. Down there, in the sunny
But something in her looks belied the prim words. For just one moment, a sort of wonder shone in her plump, middle-aged face, and she raised her eyes from her knitting for a second or two and stared ahead—Not at Malcolm, oh no, but beyond him, at another Malcolm, young, and bronzed and perfect, and long vanished from the earth …
Jealousy of this young, long-ago self, who could even now bring such a look to his wife’s face, burst upon Malcolm like a storm. He felt sick and dizzy with the sheer force of it, and it was a real effort to keep his voice level and ordinary.
“I’m going to try that dive again,” he said; and looked at her.
“Yes, dear,” she answered, winding the wool twice round a needle and pulling it through the loop: and so Malcolm had to say it again, louder.
“I’m going to dive off Dead Man’s Rock again,” he said. “Now. Just you watch …”
She laughed. Well, anyone would. The mere idea of a man of his age, with a bad heart …
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that dear,” she said, but not unkindly, for the afternoon was a mellow and soothing one. “People will think you’re gaga! Why don’t you have a nice nap before we go home, or look at the paper, or something?”
Even before he reached the base of the cliff, Malcolm’s heart was pounding uncomfortably, and he began to have an uneasy feeling that he would never manage the steep, winding path to the top. Never even reach the headland, let alone dive off the end of it! He sat for a few minutes at the foot of the cliff, getting his breath and trying to clear his thoughts: and presently the pounding of his heart subsided, and he was able to start up the path.
To his surprise, his heart seemed to be taking the climb very well. True, he was giving himself plenty of rests on the way up, but only as a precaution, not once had he been forced into immobility by that awful, griping, clutching sensation behind his ribs. It occurred to him that he must be getting better; the holiday, in spite of everything, must have been doing him good. A few feet short of the top, he gave himself just one more of these precautionary breathers, facing, now, a dazzling panorama of sea and sky. He sat for a while leaning against a sun-warmed boulder, enjoying the feel of the heat on his skin; then, getting to his feet once more, he set off on the last little lap of the climb.
It was only when he reached the cliff top and was setting off, barefoot and stripped to his bathing-trunks, along the tussocky, boulder-strewn headland, that the reality of what he proposed to do hit him with full force: and for a moment he stood stock-still, absolutely horrified.
He would die. There were no two ways about it. He was taking himself to his death. There was no way that this seventy-six-year-old body, weakened by two bad heart attacks, could possibly survive the ordeal that he had planned for it. And it wasn’t just his heart, either; how could these flabby muscles of his possibly fulfil the demands he was going to make on them—the command to make this old, slack body straight and taut as a diver’sbody needs to be as it plummets towards the water, if it is not to strike the surface in a crumpled mess, with the breath battered out of it and bones broken everywhere?
It was hopeless, hopeless. How could he even expect to launch himself on the dive at all, with no spring in his ankles any more, and maybe unable even to raise himself on tiptoe? His reaction-times, too, would be all to pieces, four decades too slow. Inevitably, he would bungle the timing of his spring, of his entry into the water—everything.
I must be mad, he thought, mad!—and continued on his way.
Up here, beyond the shelter of the cliff, the wind was icy; it whipped against his spare old body like a knife, almost overbalancing him. Down there, in the sunny
Similar Books
