Page 32 of Skin and Other Stories

She did so, then put down the glass, looking at him and waiting.

'It is worth at least half a million dollars and very probably over a million.'

'You're joking!' Her words came out in a kind of gasp.

'It's known as a pear-shape,' he said. 'And where it comes to a point at this end, it's as sharp as a needle.'

'I'm completely stunned,' she said, still gasping.

'You wouldn't have thought half a million, would you?'

'I've never in my life had to think in those sort of figures,' she said. She stood up and went over to him and gave him a huge hug and a kiss. 'You really are the most wonderful and stupendous man in the world!' she cried.

'I was totally bowled over,' he said. 'I still am.'

'Oh Robert!' she cried, gazing at him with eyes bright as two stars. 'Do you realize what this means? It means we can get Diana and her husband out of that horrid little flat and buy them a small house!'

'By golly, you're right!'

'And we can buy a decent flat for John and give him a better allowance all the way through his medical school! And Ben ... Ben wouldn't have to go on a motor-bike to work all through the freezing winters. We could get him something better. And ... and ... and ...'

'And what?' he asked, smiling at her.

'And you and I can take a really good holiday for once and go wherever we please! We can go to Egypt and Turkey and you can visit Baalbek and all the other places you've been longing to go to for years and years!' She was quite breathless with the vista of small pleasures that were unfolding in her dreams. 'And you can start collecting some really nice pieces for once in your life as well!'

Ever since he had been a student, Robert Sandy's passion had been the history of the Mediterranean countries, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt, and he had made himself into something of an expert on the ancient world of those various civilizations. He had done it by reading and studying and by visiting, when he had the time, the British Museum and the Ashmolean. But with three children to educate and with a job that paid only a reasonable salary, he had never been able to indulge this passion as he would have liked. He wanted above all to visit some of the grand remote regions of Asia Minor and also the now below-ground village of Babylon in Iraq and he would love to see the Arch of Ctsephon and the Sphinx at Memphis and a hundred other things and places, but neither the time nor the money had ever been available. Even so, the long coffee-table in the living-room was covered with small objects and fragments that he had managed to pick up cheaply here and there through his life. There was a mysterious pale alabaster ushaptiu in the form of a mummy from Upper Egypt which he knew was Pre-Dynastic from about 7000 BC. There was a bronze bowl from Lydia with an engraving on it of a horse, and an early Byzantine twisted silver necklace, and a section of a wooden painted mask from an Egyptian sarcophagus, and a Roman red-ware bowl, and a small black Etruscan dish, and perhaps fifty other fragile and interesting little pieces. None was particularly valuable, but Robert Sandy loved them all.

'Wouldn't that be marvellous?' his wife was saying. 'Where shall we go first?'

'Turkey,' he said.

'Listen,' she said, pointing to the diamond that lay sparkling on the kitchen table, 'you'd better put your fortune away somewhere safe before you lose it.'

'Today is Friday,' he said. 'When do we get back from the Renshaws?'

'Sunday night.'

'And what are we going to do with our million-pound rock in the meanwhile? Take it with us in my pocket?'

'No,' she said, 'that would be silly. You really cannot walk around with a million pounds in your pocket for a whole weekend. It's got to go into a safe-deposit box at the bank. We should do it now.'

'It's Friday night, my darling. All the banks are closed till next Monday.'

'So they are,' she said. 'Well th

en, we'd better hide it somewhere in the house.'

'The house will be empty till we come back,' he said. 'I don't think that's a very good idea.'

'It's better than carrying it around in your pocket or in my handbag.'

'I'm not leaving it in the house. An empty house is always liable to be burgled.'

'Come on, darling,' she said, 'surely we can think of a place where no one could possibly find it.'

'In the tea-pot,' he said.

'Or bury it in the sugar-basin,' she said.

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