The Coffin Tree

‘Just,’ said Stella with a little nod. ‘Just.’ She continued with her unpacking, while her husband watched her, leaning across the pillows. ‘You look lovely in bed, darling. At your age.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re really unhappy and worried. I could feel it while you were making love to me, not really there.’

‘Not true.’ Perhaps it was though, horrible thoughts had intruded.

‘You’re getting to be megalomaniac, you know, dear. I hate to say, but I’ve seen it growing on you.’

‘You mean paranoid.’ He rested back against the pillows. ‘You could be right.’

‘But I love you, and you have a lovely, smooth …’

‘Say any more and you’ll make me blush.’

‘Temper,’ finished Stella, sitting on the edge of the bed and giggling. She threw across to him a soft, silk dressing gown. ‘Here, in thanks for your lovely smooth, rounded temper.’

‘There’s terror about,’ he said gripping her wrist. ‘It’s an infection. Like the Plague. It’s got me; I don’t want it to get hold of you.’

‘It won’t,’ and added with her elegant, brutal honesty, ‘although I am often afraid of almost anything: of the dark, of spiders, of being ill in a strange place.’

She removed her wrist. ‘You’ve got quite a grip, you know; you’d have made a good actor, I think.’

‘Why do you say that?’ One or two of his colleagues would have called him one already.

‘You get the action to fit the words; you grabbed my wrist at just the right moment. It would have looked good on stage.’ She got on with her unpacking. No more presents for him appeared, but a small collection of carefully wrapped parcels were placed on her dressing table. Stella always brought gifts back for her friends. Those who were closest to her at the time (and they varied, usually being people she had last worked with or would be working with next), could count on a bottle of scent or a little piece of jewellery or a special silk scarf. Stella prided herself on her presents.

‘Well, you won’t want me to go and see the poor woman now. She’s dead, poor love.’

‘No.’ Coffin was up and finishing a cup of coffee. Tiddles appeared at the window and was let in. ‘He must have good take-off, that cat,’ he said as he opened the window. ‘I never know how he does that jump from roof to windowsill.’

‘He’s eaten enough birds,’ said Stella, ‘he’s probably got little wings developing under that fur.’

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