Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl

sound anyway and certainly not loud
enough to interfere with television.
      
“Doctor,” she said. “I do believe I’m suddenly getting to feel
the most enormous affection for him. Does that sound queer?”
      
“I think it’s quite understandable.”
      
“He looks so helpless and silent lying there under the water
in his little basin.”
      
“Yes, I know.”
      
“He’s like a baby, that’s what he’s like. He’s exactly like a
little baby.”
      
Landy stood still behind her, watching.
      
“There,” she said softly, peering into the basin. “From now
on Mary’s going to look after you all by herself and you’ve
nothing to worry about in the world. When can I have him
back home, Doctor?”
      
“I beg your pardon?”
      
“I said when can I have him back—back in my own house?”
      
“You’re joking,” Landy said.
      
She turned her head slowly around 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