Collected Short Fiction by V.S. Naipaul

Author:V.S. Naipaul [Naipaul, V. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-59561-4
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-04-12T04:00:00+00:00

One evening, about four weeks later, I heard something like a commotion in the flat above. Footsteps pounded down the stairs, there was a banging on my door, and Mrs Dakin rushed in and cried, ‘It’s my ’usband! ’E’s rollin’ in agony.’

Before I could say anything she ran out and raced down to the Knitmasters.

‘My husband’s rollin’ in agony.’

The whirring of the Knitmaster machine stopped and I heard the Knitmistress making sympathetic sounds.

The Knitmaster said, ‘Telephone for the doctor.’

I went and stood on the landing as a sympathetic gesture. Mrs Dakin roused the Cookseys, there were more exclamations, then I heard the telephone being dialled. I went back to my room. After some thought I left my door wide open: another gesture of sympathy.

Mrs Dakin, Mrs Cooksey and Mr Cooksey hurried up the stairs.

The Knitmaster machine was whirring again.

Presently there was a knock on my door and Mr Cooksey came in. ‘Pop-pop. It’s as hot as a bloomin’ oven up there.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘No wonder he’s ill.’

I asked after Mr Dakin.

‘A touch of indigestion, if you ask me.’ Then, like a man used to more momentous events, he added, ‘One of my cleaners took ill sudden last week. Brain tumour.’

The doctor came and the Dakins’ flat was full of footsteps and conversation. Mr Cooksey ran up and down the steps, panting and pop-popping. Mrs Dakin was sobbing and Mrs Cooksey was comforting her. An ambulance bell rang in the street and soon Mr Dakin, Mrs Dakin and the doctor left.

‘Appendix,’ Mr Cooksey told me.

The Knitmaster opened his door.

‘Appendix,’ Mr Cooksey shouted down. ‘It was like an oven up there.’

‘He was cold,’ Mrs Cooksey said.

‘Pah!’

Mrs Cooksey looked anxious.

‘Nothing to it, Bess,’ Mr Cooksey said. ‘’Itler had the appendix took out of all his soldiers.’

The Knitmaster said, ‘I had mine out two years ago. Small scar.’ He measured off the top of his forefinger. ‘About that long. It’s a nervous thing really. You get it when you are depressed or worried. My wife had to have hers out just before we went to France.’

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.

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