The Umbrella Man and Other Stories (23 page)

“Listen!” Mrs. Taylor said, interrupting him. “I think the baby’s crying.” Albert glanced up from his reading. Sure enough, a lusty yelling noise was coming from the bedroom above.

“She must be hungry,” he said.

His wife looked at the clock. “Good gracious me!” she cried, jumping up. “It’s past her time again already! You mix the feed, Albert, quickly, while I bring her down! But hurry! I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

In half a minute, Mrs. Taylor was back, carrying the screaming infant in her arms. She was flustered now, still quite unaccustomed to the ghastly nonstop racket that a healthy baby makes when it wants its food. “Do be quick, Albert!” she called, settling herself in the armchair and arranging the child on her lap. “Please hurry!”

Albert entered from the kitchen and handed her the bottle of warm milk. “It’s just right,” he said. “You don’t have to test it.”

She hitched the baby’s head a little higher in the crook of her arm, then pushed the rubber teat straight into the wide-open yelling mouth. The baby grabbed the teat and began to suck. The yelling stopped. Mrs. Taylor relaxed.

“Oh, Albert, isn’t she lovely?”

“She’s terrific, Mabel—thanks to royal jelly.”

“Now, dear, I don’t want to hear another word about that nasty stuff. It frightens me to death.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” he said.

“We’ll see about that.”

The baby went on sucking the bottle.

“I do believe she’s going to finish the whole lot again, Albert.”

“I’m sure she is,” he said.

And a few minutes later, the milk was all gone.

“Oh, what a good girl you are!” Mrs. Taylor cried, as very gently she started to withdraw the nipple. The baby sensed what she was doing and sucked harder, trying to hold on. The woman gave a quick little tug, and
plop
, out it came.

“Waa! Waa! Waa! Waa! Waa!” the baby yelled.

“Nasty old wind,” Mrs. Taylor said, hoisting the child on to her shoulder and patting its back.

It belched twice in quick succession.

“There you are, my darling, you’ll be all right now.”

For a few seconds, the yelling stopped. Then it started again.

“Keep belching her,” Albert said. “She’s drunk it too quick.”

His wife lifted the baby back on to her shoulder. She rubbed its spine. She changed it from one shoulder to the other. She laid it on its stomach on her lap. She sat it up on her knee. But it didn’t belch again, and the yelling became louder and more insistent every minute.

“Good for the lungs,” Albert Taylor said, grinning. “That’s the way they exercise their lungs, Mabel, did you know that?”

“There, there, there,” the wife said, kissing it all over the face. “There, there, there.”

They waited another five minutes, but not for one moment did the screaming stop.

“Change the nappy,” Albert said. “It’s got a wet nappy, that’s all it is.” He fetched a clean one from the kitchen, and Mrs. Taylor took the old one off and put the new one on.

This made no difference at all.

“Waa! Waa! Waa! Waa! Waa!” the baby yelled.

“You didn’t stick the safety pin through the skin, did you, Mabel?”

“Of course I didn’t,” she said, feeling under the nappy with her fingers to make sure.

The parents sat opposite one another in their armchairs, smiling nervously, watching the baby on the mother’s lap, waiting for it to tire and stop screaming.

“You know what?” Albert Taylor said at last.

“What?”

“I’ll bet she’s still hungry. I’ll bet all she wants is another swig at that bottle. How about me fetching her an extra lot?”

“I don’t think we ought to do that, Albert.”

“It’ll do her good,” he said, getting up from his chair. “I’m going to warm her up a second helping.”

He went into the kitchen, and was away several minutes. When he returned he was holding a bottle brimful of milk.

“I made her a double,” he announced. “Eight ounces. Just in case.”

“Albert! Are you mad? Don’t you know it’s just as bad to overfeed as it is to underfeed?”

“You don’t have to give her the lot, Mabel. You can stop any time you like. Go on,” he said, standing over her. “Give her a drink.”

Mrs. Taylor began to tease the baby’s upper lip with the end of the nipple. The tiny mouth closed like a trap over the rubber teat and suddenly there was silence in the room. The baby’s whole body relaxed and a look of absolute bliss came over its face as it started to drink.

“There you are, Mabel! What did I tell you?”

The woman didn’t answer.

“She’s ravenous, that’s what she is. Just look at her suck.”

Mrs. Taylor was watching the level of the milk in the bottle. It was dropping fast, and before long three or four ounces out of the eight had disappeared.

*   *   *

“There,” she said. “That’ll do.”

“You can’t pull it away now, Mabel.”

“Yes, dear. I must.”

“Go on, woman. Give her the rest and stop fussing.”

“But
Albert
 . . . ”

“She’s famished, can’t you see that? Go on, my beauty,” he said. “You finish that bottle.”

“I don’t like it, Albert,” the wife said, but she didn’t pull the bottle away.

“She’s making up for lost time, Mabel, that’s all she’s doing.”

Five minutes later the bottle was empty. Slowly, Mrs. Taylor withdrew the nipple, and this time there was no protest from the baby, no sound at all. It lay peacefully on the mother’s lap, the eyes glazed with contentment, the mouth half-open, the lips smeared with milk.

“Twelve whole ounces, Mabel!” Albert Taylor said. “Three times the normal amount! Isn’t that amazing!”

The woman was staring down at the baby. And now the old anxious tight-lipped look of the frightened mother was slowly returning to her face.

“What’s the matter with
you
?” Albert asked. “You’re not worried by that, are you? You can’t expect her to get back to normal on a lousy four ounces, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Come here, Albert,” she said.

“What?”

“I said come here.”

He went over and stood beside her.

“Take a good look and tell me if you see anything different.”

He peered closely at the baby. “She seems bigger, Mabel, if that’s what you mean. Bigger and fatter.”

“Hold her,” she ordered. “Go on, pick her up.”

He reached out and lifted the baby up off the mother’s lap. “Good God!” he cried. “She weighs a ton!”

“Exactly.”

“Now isn’t that marvellous!” he cried, beaming. “I’ll bet she must be back to normal already!”

“It frightens me, Albert. It’s too quick.”

“Nonsense, woman.”

“It’s that disgusting jelly that’s done it,” she said. “I hate the stuff.”

“There’s nothing disgusting about royal jelly,” he answered, indignant.

“Don’t be a fool, Albert! You think it’s
normal
for a child to start putting on weight at this speed?”

“You’re never satisfied!” he cried. “You’re scared stiff when she’s losing and now you’re absolutely terrified because she’s gaining! What’s the matter with you, Mabel?”

The woman got up from her chair with the baby in her arms and started towards the door. “All I can say is,” she said, “It’s lucky I’m here to see you don’t give her any more of it, that’s all I can say.” She went out, and Albert watched her through the open door as she crossed the hall to the foot of the stairs and started to ascend, and when she reached the third or fourth step she suddenly stopped and stood quite still for several seconds as though remembering something. Then she turned and came down again rather quickly and re-entered the room.

“Albert,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I assume there wasn’t any royal jelly in this last feed we’ve just given her?”

“I don’t see why you should assume that, Mabel.”

“Albert!”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, soft and innocent.

“How
dare
you!” she cried.

Albert Taylor’s great bearded face took on a pained and puzzled look. “I think you ought to be very glad she’s got another big dose of it inside her,” he said. “Honest I do. And this
is
a very big dose, Mabel, believe you me.”

The woman was standing just inside the doorway clasping the sleeping baby in her arms and staring at her husband with huge eyes. She stood very erect, her body absolutely still with fury, her face paler, more tight-lipped than ever.

“You mark my words,” Albert was saying, “you’re going to have a nipper there soon that’ll win first prize in any baby show in the
entire
country. Hey, why don’t you weigh her now and see what she is? You want me to get the scales, Mabel, so you can weigh her?”

The woman walked straight over to the large table in the centre of the room and laid the baby down and quickly started taking off its clothes. “Yes!” she snapped. “Get the scales!” Off came the little nightgown, then the undervest.

Then she unpinned the nappy and she drew it away and the baby lay naked on the table.

“But Mabel!” Albert cried. “It’s a miracle! She’s fat as a puppy!”

Indeed, the amount of flesh the child had put on since the day before was astounding. The small sunken chest with the rib bones showing all over it was now plump and round as a barrel, and the belly was bulging high in the air. Curiously, though, the arms and legs did not seem to have grown in proportion. Still short and skinny, they looked like little sticks protruding from a ball of fat.

“Look!” Albert said. “She’s even beginning to get a bit of fuzz on the tummy to keep her warm!” He put out a hand and was about to
run the tips of his fingers over the powdering of silky yellowy-brown hairs that had suddenly appeared on the baby’s stomach.

“Don’t you touch her!”
the woman cried. She turned and faced him, her eyes blazing, and she looked suddenly like some kind of little fighting bird with her neck arched over towards him as though she were about to fly at his face and peck his eyes out.

“Now wait a minute,” he said, retreating.

“You must be mad!” she cried.

“Now wait just one minute, Mabel, will you please, because if you’re still thinking this stuff is dangerous . . . That
is
what you’re thinking, isn’t it? All right, then. Listen carefully. I shall now proceed to
prove
to you once and for all, Mabel, that royal jelly is absolutely harmless to human beings, even in enormous doses. For example—why do you think we had only half the usual honey crop last summer? Tell me that.”

His retreat, walking backwards, had taken him three or four yards away from her, where he seemed to feel more comfortable.

“The reason we had only half the usual crop last summer,” he said slowly, lowering his voice, “was because I turned one hundred of my hives over to the production of royal jelly.”

“You
what
?”

“Ah,” he whispered. “I thought that might surprise you a bit. And I’ve been making it ever since right under your very nose.” His small eyes were glinting at her, and a slow sly smile was creeping around the corners of his mouth.

“You’ll never guess the reason, either,” he said. “I’ve been afraid to mention it up to now because I thought it might . . . well . . . sort of embarrass you.”

There was a slight pause. He had his hands clasped high in front of him, level with his chest, and he was rubbing one palm against the other, making a soft scraping noise.

“You remember that bit I read you out of the magazine? That bit about the rat? Let me see now, how does it go? ‘Still and Burdett found that a male rat which hitherto had been unable to breed . . . ’” He hesitated, the grin widening, showing his teeth.

“You get the message, Mabel?”

She stood quite still, facing him.

“The very first time I ever read that sentence, Mabel, I jumped straight out of my chair and I said to myself if it’ll work with a lousy rat, I said, then there’s no reason on earth why it shouldn’t work with Albert Taylor.”

He paused again, craning his head forward and turning one ear slightly in his wife’s direction, waiting for her to say something. But she didn’t.

“And here’s another thing,” he went on. “It made me feel so absolutely marvellous, Mabel, and so sort of completely different to what I was before that I went right on taking it even after you’d announced the joyful tidings.
Buckets
of it I must have swallowed during the last twelve months.”

The big heavy haunted-looking eyes of the woman were moving intently over the man’s face and neck. There was no skin showing at all on the neck, not even at the sides below the ears. The whole of it, to a point where it disappeared into the collar of the shirt, was covered all the way around with those shortish silky hairs, yellowy black.

“Mind you,” he said, turning away from her, gazing lovingly now at the baby, “it’s going to work far better on a tiny infant than
on a fully developed man like me. You’ve only got to look at her to see that, don’t you agree?”

The woman’s eyes travelled slowly downward and settled on the baby. The baby was lying naked on the table, fat and white and comatose, like some gigantic grub that was approaching the end of its larval life and would soon emerge into the world complete with mandibles and wings.

“Why don’t you cover her up, Mabel?” he said. “We don’t want our little queen to catch a cold.”