V. Naipaul - The nightwatchman's occurrence book - and other comic inventions

The Knitmistress came out and smiled her terrible smile, baring short square teeth and tall gums, and screwing up her small eyes. She said, ‘Hallo,’ and pulled on woollen gloves, which perhaps she had just knitted on her machine. She wore a tweed skirt, a red sweater, a brown velveteen jacket and a red-and-white beret.

‘Appendix,’ Mr Cooksey said.

The Knitmistress only smiled again, and followed her husband downstairs to the 1946 Anglia.

‘A terrible thing,’ I said to Mrs Cooksey tentatively.

‘Pop-pop.’ Mr Cooksey looked at his wife.

‘Terrible thing,’ Mrs Cooksey said.

Our quarrel over the milk bottles was over.

Mr Cooksey became animated. ‘Nothing to it, Bess. Just a lot of fuss for nothing at all. Gosh, they kept that room like an oven.’

Mrs Dakin came back at about eleven. Her eyes were red but she was composed. She spoke about the kindness of the nurses. And then, to round off an unusual evening, I heard — at midnight on a weekday — the sound of the carpet-sweeper upstairs. The Knit-mistress complained in her usual way. She opened her door and talked loudly to her husband about the nuisance.

*

Next morning Mrs Dakin went again to the hospital. She returned just before midday and as soon as she got into the hall she began to sob so loudly that I heard her on the second floor.

I found her in Mrs Cooksey’s arms when I went down. Mrs Cooksey was pale and her eyes were moist.

‘What’s happened?’ I whispered.

Mrs Cooksey shook her head.

Mrs Dakin leaned against Mrs Cooksey, who was much smaller.

‘And my brother is getting married tomorrow!’ Mrs Dakin burst out.

‘Come now, Eva,’ Mrs Cooksey said firmly. ‘Tell me what happened at the hospital.’

‘They’re feeding him through a glass tube. They’ve put him on the danger list. And — his bed is near the door!’

‘That doesn’t mean anything, Eva.’

‘It does! It does!’

‘Nonsense, Eva.’

‘They’ve got him screened round.’

‘You must be brave, Eva.’

We led Mrs Dakin to Mrs Cooksey’s sittingroom, made her sit down and watched her cry.

‘It burst inside ‘im.’ Mrs Dakin made a wild gesture across her body. ‘They had to cut him clean open, and— scrape it out.’ Having uttered this terrible word, she abandoned herself to her despair.

‘Come now, Eva,’ Mrs Cooksey said. ‘He wouldn’t like you to behave like this.’

*

We all took turns to look after Mrs Dakin between her trips to the hospital. The news didn’t get better. Mrs Dakin had tea with the Cookseys. She had tea with the Knitmistress. She had tea with me. We talked gaily about everything except the sick man, and Mrs Dakin was very brave. She even related some of her adventures in the police force. She also complained.

‘The first thing Mr Cooksey said when he came up that evening was that the room was like an oven. But I couldn’t help that. My husband was cold. Fancy coming up and saying a thing like that!’

I gave Mrs Dakin many of the magazines which had been piling up on the enormous Victorian dresser in my kitchen. The Knit-mistress, I noticed, was doing the same thing.

Mr Cooksey allowed himself to grow a little grave. He discussed the operation in a sad but clinical way. ‘When it bursts inside ‘em, you see, it poisons the whole system. That’s why they had to cut ‘im open. Clean it out. They hardly ever live afterwards.’

Mrs Cooksey said, ‘He was such a nice man. I am so glad now we enjoyed ourselves on New Year’s Eve. It’s her I’m really sorry for. He was her second, you know.’

‘Aah,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘There are women like that.’

I told the Knitmistress, ‘And he was such a nice man.’

‘Wasn’t he?’

I heard Mrs Dakin sobbing in everybody’s rooms. I heard her sobbing on the staircase.

Mrs Cooksey said, ‘It’s all so terrible. Her brother got married yesterday, but she couldn’t go to the wedding. She had to send a telegram. They are coming up to see Mr Dakin. What a thing to happen on anybody’s honeymoon!’

Mrs Dakin’s brother and his bride came up from Wales on a motorbike. Mrs Dakin was at the hospital when they came and Mrs Cooksey gave them tea.

I didn’t see Mrs Dakin that evening, but late that night I saw the honeymoon couple running upstairs with bottles wrapped in tissue paper. He was a huge man — a footballer, Mrs Cooksey said — and when he ran up the steps you heard it all over the house. His bride was small, countrified and gay. They stayed awake for some time.

Next morning, when I went down to get the paper, I saw the footballer’s motorbike on the doorstep. It had leaked a lot of oil.

Again that day Mrs Dakin didn’t come to our rooms. And that evening there was another party in the flat above. We heard the footballer’s heavy footsteps, his shouts, his wife’s giggles, Mrs Dakin’s whine.

Mrs Dakin had ceased to need our solace. It was left to us to ask how Mr Dakin was getting on, whether he had liked the magazines we had sent, whether he wanted any more. Then, as though reminded of some sadness bravely forgotten, Mrs Dakin would say yes, Mr Dakin thanked us.

Mrs Cooksey didn’t like the new reticence. Nor did the rest of us. For some time, though, the Knitmaster persevered and he had his reward when two days later Mrs Dakin said, ‘I told ‘im what you said about the nervousness, and he wondered how you ever knew.’ And she repeated the story about the fall from the defective ladder, the bent arm, the foreman burning the ladder.

We were astonished. It was our first indication that the Dakins were taking an interest in the world outside the hospital.

‘Well, really!’ Mrs Cooksey said.

The Knitmistress began to complain about the noise in the evenings.

‘Pah!’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘It couldn’t ’ave burst inside him. Feeding through a glass tube!’

We heard the honeymoon couple bounding down the stairs. The front door slammed, then we heard the thunderous stutter of the motorbike.

‘He could be had up,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘No silencer.’

‘Well!’ Mrs Cooksey said. ‘I am glad somebody’s having a nice time. So cheap too. Where do you think they’re off to?’

‘Not the hospital,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘Football, more likely.’

This reminded him. The curtains were drawn, the tiny television set turned on. We watched horse-racing, then part of the football match. Mrs Cooksey gave me tea. Mr Cooksey offered me a cigarette. I was back in favour.

*

The next day, eight days after Mr Dakin had gone to the hospital, I met Mrs Dakin outside the tobacconist’s. She was shopping and her bulging bag reflected the gaiety on her face.

‘He’s coming back tomorrow,’ she said.

I hadn’t expected such a rapid recovery.

‘Everybody at the hospital was surprised,’ Mrs Dakin said. ‘But it’s because he’s so strong, you see.’ She opened her shopping bag. ‘I’ve got some sherry and whisky and’—she laughed—‘some Guinness of course. And I’m buying a duck, to have with apple sauce. He loves apple sauce. He says the apple sauce helps the duck to go down.’

I smiled at the little family joke. Then Mrs Dakin asked me, ‘Guess who went to the hospital yesterday.’

‘Your brother and his wife.’

She shook her head. ‘The foreman!’

‘The one who burned the ladder?’

‘Oh, and he was ever so nice. He brought grapes and magazines and told my husband he wasn’t to worry about anything. They’re frightened now all right. As soon as my husband went to hospital my solicitor wrote them a letter. And my solicitor says we stand a good chance of getting more than three hundred pounds now.’