The Morning Gift

Heini nodded – he must have read the same book as she had; the one which said that a bath beforehand was a good idea – and followed her into the bathroom where she lit the geyser and turned on the tap.

The effect was dramatic. There was a loud bang, gusts of steam erupted, and a purple flame.

‘Good God, we can’t use that!’ said Heini. ‘It’s worse than Belsize Park.’

‘You don’t think it’ll calm down?’

‘No I don’t.’ Heini had grabbed a towel and was holding it to his nose. ‘Emile Zola was killed by a leaking stove.’

‘Well, never mind,’ said Ruth, turning it off. (Not all the books had recommended hot baths. Some believed in naturalness.) ‘Let’s go and have some wine.’

They returned to the kitchen and she poured a glass for Heini and another for herself.

‘We’d better drink a toast,’ she said.

Heini smiled: ‘To our love!’ he said.

It was at this moment that they heard a series of frantic, high-pitched squeaks outside on the fire escape. Ruth opened the door and a black cat ran into the room, carrying a bird in its mouth. The bird was a sparrow and it was not yet dead.

‘Oh, God!’

‘Shoo it out for heaven’s sake!’

‘I think it lives here. Janet said something about a cat.’

‘It doesn’t matter if it lives here or not.’

Heini rose, chased the cat out, and bolted the door.

‘We should have killed it,’ said Ruth.

‘I can’t kill cats without a gun.’

‘Not the cat. The bird.’

Feeling distinctly queasy, she lifted her glass and drank. Sour and chill, the wine crashed into her stomach. Seemingly there was wine and wine . . .

‘Come on, Ruth! Let’s go into the bedroom.’

‘Yes. Only Heini, I’d like to get into the mood a bit. Couldn’t we have some music?’

‘I am in the mood,’ said Heini crossly. But he followed her into the sitting room where a pile of records was heaped untidily onto a low table.

‘Oh, look!’ she said delightedly. ‘They’ve got Highlights from La Traviata.’

But, of course, musicians do not listen to highlights – it is not to be expected – and Heini was beginning to look hurt.

‘You do love me, don’t you?’

‘Heini, you know I do!’

He held out both hands, boyish, appealing. She put hers into them. They made their way into the bedroom. And he was taking off his socks – someone must have warned him! It was going to be all right!’

‘Oh, damnation! This place is a tip! I’ve got a drawing pin in my foot.’

He had subsided on to the bed, clutching his left foot from which, sure enough, a drop of blood now oozed.

‘It’s not the part you pedal with,’ said Ruth who could always read his thoughts. ‘It’s right on the side. But I’ll get a bit of plaster.’

‘And some iodine,’ called Heini as she made for the door. ‘The floor must be knee-deep in germs.’

She found some iodine in the bathroom and a roll of zinc plaster, but no scissors. Carrying the plaster into the kitchen, she searched the drawers but without success. Eventually she took a kitchen knife and started to hack off a strip.

‘It’s stopped bleeding,’ called Heini. ‘If you just disinfect it, it’ll be all right.’

Carrying the iodine into the bedroom, she anointed the sole of Heini’s foot. Heini was being brave, not wincing.

‘We’ll have to wait for it to dry.’

‘It won’t take long,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you get undressed?’

‘I’ll just take the iodine back. It would be awful if we spilled it.’

She went past the life class pictures, past a small grey feather dropped from the breast of the little bird, and restored the iodine bottle. Returning, she found that Heini was in bed.

It could be postponed no longer, then – the living utterly. Ruth crossed her arms and pulled her sweater over her head.

On the same afternoon as Heini was learning to be demonic in Bloomsbury, Quin made his way to the Natural History Museum to confer with his assistant about the coming journey.

‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you,’ said Milner, climbing down from the scaffolding on which he was attending to the neck bones of a brontosaurus.

But he was smiling. Since Quin had told him they were off in June, he had been in an excellent mood.

‘What kind of bad news?’ asked Quin.

‘I’ll tell you in private,’ said Milner mysteriously, and together they made their way through the echoing dinosaur hall to Milner’s cubbyhole in the basement. ‘It’s Brille-Lamartaine,’ he went on. ‘He’s got wind of your trip and he wants to come! He’s been lurking and hinting and making a thorough nuisance of himself. I haven’t said a word, but something must have leaked out.’

‘Good God! I thought he was in Brussels.’

Brille-Lamartaine was the Belgian geologist whose spectacles had been stepped on by a yak. It isn’t often that a member of an expedition is a disaster without a single redeeming feature, but Brille-Lamartaine had achieved this distinction without even trying.

‘I wonder how he heard?’

‘He’s been spending a lot of time at the Geographical Society. Hillborough’s totally discreet but something may have leaked out.’