Kiss Kiss (14 page)

      
“No.”
      
“He just happens to be about the most famous living doctor
in the world today, that’s all.”
      
Looking at him now as he buzzed around in front of the
bookcase with his bristly head and his hairy face and his
plump pulpy body, she couldn’t help thinking that somehow,
in some curious way, there was a touch of the bee about this
man. She had often seen women grow to look like the horses
that they rode, and she had noticed that people who bred
birds or bull terriers or pomeranians frequently resembled in
some small but startling manner the creature of their choice.
But up until now it had never occurred to her that her
husband might look like a bee. It shocked her a bit.
      
“And did Banting ever try to eat it,” she asked, “this royal
jelly?”
      
“Of course he didn’t eat it, Mabel. He didn’t have enough
for that. It’s too precious.”
      
“You know something?” she said, staring at him but smiling
a little all the same. “You’re getting to look just a teeny bit
like a bee yourself, did you know that?”
      
He turned and looked at her.
      
“I suppose it’s the beard mostly,” she said. “I do wish you’d
stop wearing it. Even the colour is sort of bee-ish, don’t you
think?”
      
“What the hell are you talking about, Mabel?”
      
“Albert,” she said. “Your language.”
      
“Do you want to hear any more of this or don’t you?”
      
“Yes, dear, I’m sorry. I was only joking. Do go on.”
      
He turned away again and pulled another magazine out of
the bookcase and began leafing through the pages. “Now
just listen to this, Mabel. ‘In 1939, Heyl experimented with
twenty-one-day-old rats, injecting them with royal jelly in
varying amounts. As a result, he found a precocious follicular
development of the ovaries directly in proportion to the
quantity of royal jelly injected.’ ”
      
“There!” she cried. “I knew it!”
      
“Knew what?”
      
“I knew something terrible would happen.”
      
“Nonsense. There’s nothing wrong with that. Now here’s
another, Mabel. ‘Still and Burdett found that a male rat which
hitherto had been unable to breed, upon receiving a minute
daily dose of royal jelly, became a father many times over.’ ”
      
“Albert,” she cried, “this stuff is
much
too strong to give to
a baby! I don’t like it at all.”
      
“Nonsense, Mabel.”
      
“Then why do they only try it out on rats, tell me that?
Why don’t some of these famous scientists take it themselves?
They’re too clever, that’s why. Do you think Dr Banting is
going to risk finishing up with precious ovaries? Not him.”
      
“But they have given it to people, Mabel. Here’s a whole
article about it. Listen.” He turned the page and again began
reading from the magazine. “ ‘In Mexico, in 1953, a group of
enlightened physicians began prescribing minute doses of
royal jelly for such things as cerebral neuritis, arthritis,
diabetes, autointoxication from tobacco, impotence in men,
asthma, croup, and gout. . . . There are stacks of signed
testimonials . . . A celebrated stockbroker in Mexico City
contracted a particularly stubborn case of psoriasis. He became
physically unattractive. His clients began to forsake him. His
business began to suffer. In desperation he turned to royal jelly—one
drop with every meal—and presto!—he was cured in a
fortnight. A waiter in the Café Jena, also in Mexico City,
reported that his father, after taking minute doses of this
wonder substance in capsule form, sired a healthy boy child
at the age of ninety. A bullfight promoter in Acapulco, finding
himself landed with a rather lethargic-looking bull, injected it
with one gramme of royal jelly (an excessive dose) just before
it entered the arena. Thereupon, the beast became so swift and
savage that it promptly dispatched two picadors, three horses,
and a matador, and finally . . .’ ”
      
“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
lay 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 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 stiff 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.