The Wrong Venus — 9
The malevolent pulsing of the mainsprings died with
the first contact, like spiders in cyanide. They looked
at each other and winked. Then the plane dropped
from under them.
They were against the door in a frozen and
exaggerated tango step, the girl leaning backward
under him with her face against his chest, looking
upward. His clothing, which had flown off the hook,
began to settle. The shirt fell across his head like a
white burnoose. She grinned, and began to hum
“The Sheik of Araby.”
The plane was shooting upward now and he
couldn’t straighten against the pull of gravity.
Something was digging into his shoulder, and he
realized that it was the watch movement she still
had in her hand. He looked around on the floor for
the other.
“It’s in my bra,” she said.
“Oh . . . which side?”
“Don’t be so technical.”
The plane’s upward lunge ceased abruptly and it
lurched to port. Colby swung up off the door like an
inverted pendulum and staggered back in another
tango step with the girl still in his arms. He sat
down on the chemical toilet, which fortunately was
closed, and she came over onto him, clutching his
head with his face pressed into her breast.
“I can feel it,” he said.
“You can feel it? I can tell what time it stopped.”
They flew upright again. This time Colby managed
to execute a turn step before they were plastered
against the door once more, so his back was against
it.
She pulled her face out of his shoulder and turned
it up to look at him. “If you have a free hand, would
you see if you can pull my skirt down?”
Colby reached down and tugged, but it was caught
between them. “I’m sorry. Maybe on the next step
across. . . .”
The Wrong Venus — 10
“Well, I suppose at least we could introduce
ourselves. I’m Martine Randall.”
“How do you do? My name’s Lawrence Colby.”
“I’m sorry about the lipstick on your chest.”
“That’s all right—” The plane topped out and
yawed again. They took a step off the door and then
back against it. “Is your skirt all right now?” he
asked.
“I think so. I don’t feel tweed any more.”
“Is it Mrs. Randall, or Miss Randall?”
“I’m divorced.”
“So am I.”
The plane was on an even keel for a few seconds.
She removed one arm from around his neck and
shoved her hand down between them. When it
emerged she was holding the watch movement. She
glanced at it. “Ten till eleven,” she said. “I’ll
probably look like a stamped timecard the rest of my
life.”
One of the watches began to buzz in the vest,
which was lying on the floor under the washbasin.
Colby glanced at his own watch and felt the chill
along his nerves again. They were due in London in
twenty-five minutes, and so far they’d stopped two
of them.
But maybe they were out of the turbulence. The
plane continued to bore straight ahead. They
untangled themselves and he grabbed up the vest.
In a moment they had evolved a system. She pushed
them out of the pockets, Colby bit off the plastic
bag, dropped the latter in the towel disposal, dipped
the watch movement in the crème de menthe,
handed it back to her, and she returned it to the
vest. They worked swiftly and in silence. He counted
. . . ten . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . . sixty. . . .
Twenty minutes to London.
The plane slammed into another wall of
turbulence. It shot forward and to the right, and
they were against the door again. “Damn!” Colby
said.
The Wrong Venus — 11
“And just when we were doing so beautifully—”
The knob rattled, and on the other side of the door
a feminine voice called out, “I’m sorry, but I must
ask you to return to your seats—” There was a
horrified gasp, and then the voice went on, “You
can’t be in there together!”
“Why not?” Colby asked. “It doesn’t say so.”
“Of course not, but everybody knows—”
That was just what they needed, he thought—a
refresher course in la différence while the plane
continued to zero in on London at four hundred
miles an hour. Why the hell did she have to be
passing the John at that particular moment?
The knob rattled again. “Open the door
immediately, or I shall have to call the First Officer!”
The plane steadied for a moment. “I’ll get rid of
her,” Martine whispered in his ear. Snatching up the
vest, she shoved it in his hand and motioned for him
to drop it behind the chemical toilet. As he
straightened and turned, facing her and the door
again, she winked,’ opened her mouth wide, and put
her hand on her stomach with a grimace of pain.
Then she reached around in back and unlatched the
door, which flew open. It was the short, red-haired
stewardess, the one who looked Scottish, bristling
with Presbyterian outrage. Colby opened his mouth
and groaned. It was happening a little fast for him,
but that seemed to be what she’d meant.
The stewardess gasped again, staring at his naked
chest, or as much of it as was visible past Martine
Randall.
“Wider,” Martine ordered, peering intently into
the back of his mouth. Colby repeated the groan,
with his hand pressed to his lower abdomen. He
hoped this was where the pain was supposed to be.
She tilted his head a little, as though for better light.
“Strange . . . very strange. . . .”
“Really!”
“. . . certainly no evidence of Barker’s syndrome,”
Martine went on. Then, as though aware of the
The Wrong Venus — 12
stewardess for the first time, she snapped, “Yes, yes,
what is it? Must you stand there yammering?”
“This gentleman cannot be in here with his clothes
off!”
Martine turned with a withering glance. “Do you
expect him to take them off out in the cabin? Don’t
just stand there, bring me an electric torch and a
spoon.”
“What—? What for?”
Martine sighed. “My dear girl, I asked for a torch
and a spoon on the assumption that you do not have
a laryngoscope aboard your aircraft. In the event
that I have underestimated its facilities, please
accept my apologies, and bring the laryngoscope
instead. And quickly—”
The stewardess began to look uncertain. “You’re a
physician?”
“Bravo, that’s a good girl. . . . Smartly, now—”
“But what’s wrong with him? He looks all right.”
“My dear, I’m sure the airline wouldn’t want to
add the burden of medical diagnosis to your other—”
The plane lurched. The stewardess shot inward
and the door slammed shut behind her. Colby was
against the outer wall, now with two girls suspended
from his neck. Somewhere under him, in the vest
hidden behind the toilet, a watch buzzed its
rattlesnake warning, and the stewardess spoke with
Britannic firmness into his throat. “Really, I must
insist that you return to your seats.” There would
always be an England, Colby thought. Not to
mention Switzerland.
The plane shot upward. Martine peeled off and sat
down on the toilet seat. Colby and his new partner
came over against the door, and then upright again.
The door flew open. It was the Frenchwoman from
the seat behind them. She took in Colby’s naked
shoulders and the stewardess clasped in his arms.
Her eyes rolled to heaven. “Alors . . . les anglais!”
The Sikh appeared in the passageway behind her.
Oh, no, Colby thought, not two more! “Ne restez pas
The Wrong Venus — 13
—“ he began, when the plane staggered to port and
the door scooped them in. It was like a valve, he
thought, or the entrance to a lobster pot. His face
was full of beard now like a burst carton of shredded
wheat, and upward through this foliage came cries
of, “Lâchez-moi! Lâchez-moi!” and another fateful
buzzing from the vest. He closed his eyes. There was
no longer any hope.
The Wrong Venus — 14
2
The plane lurched, but there was no danger now of
being thrown from side to side; they were too tightly
wedged.
“Lâchez-moi! Ouvrez la porte, espèce de chameau
—!
“Ouvrez-la vous-même,” Colby said. “Vous êtes
plus près.”
The Sikh had somehow taken a phrase book from
the breast pocket of his jacket and was holding it
over his head. “Pouvez-vous me dire,” he asked, “où
se trouve le cabinet de toilette?”
“Just follow the crowds,” Colby said into the
beard. “You can’t miss it.”
“Oh, you are English.”
“American. . . . Can anybody reach the doorknob?”
“Au secours! Au secours!”
“Really, you must return to your seats—”
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz—!
“I can feel it,” the Sikh replied. “It is in the middle
of my back. ... It is urgent that I find the W.C.”
“Well, hang on, for Christ’s sake. . . . Try to reach
the knob—”
“I cannot—”
The Wrong Venus — 15
“You cannot reach the knob, or you cannot hang
on?”
“To the rescue!” It was the Frenchwoman; she
must have a phrase book of her own. “I am menaced
by English ravishers.”
“He certainly is not English,” the stewardess
disclaimed, speaking into the other side of his
throat. “He’s an American.”
“Comment?”
“Il n’est pas anglais—”
It would be a great place for Berlitz to open a
branch, Colby thought, if they could squeeze in. He
could feel Martine behind him, pulling herself up
along his right arm. “Can’t anybody reach the
door?” he pleaded.
She was erect behind him now, leaning on his
shoulder. “I’m going to try,” she said.
“Quoi encore?” demanded the Frenchwoman,
hearing this new voice. “Y a-t-il une autre femme?
D’où vient-elle?”
“She was sitting on the toilet,” the stewardess
explained. “Excuse me—I mean, elle était assise—”
“Alors . . . les anglais!”
“It’s all right,” Martine reassured the stewardess.
“Don’t back down an inch. I’m American, too.”
Even in all this madness, Colby was conscious of
surprise. He’d thought she was English. He felt her
lips against his ear, and she whispered, “Don’t put it
back on. I’ve got another idea.”
“So have I,” he said. “Ditch it.” Losing all that
money was better than going to prison.
“No. . . . But bring it out under your jacket.”
“If I ever get the jacket on again.”
“I think I can make it to the door, across the top.”
Her voice came from above him now, and he
realized that she had stepped up on the toilet. “If the
two of you will hold me.”
“It is of the utmost urgency—“ the Sikh began.
The Wrong Venus — 16
“Hang on! Hang on!” Colby said. “The cavalry’s
coming.” He gestured upward and behind him. “Pass
her across, and she’ll reach down behind you and
turn the knob.”
Her weight was on his shoulder. He caught her
under the arms and pushed up and outward until
she was lying in a more or less horizontal plane
across the top of the compartment above them.
“Almost there—” she gasped.
“J’ai l’mpression qu’il y a encore une autre femme,
au plafond,” the Frenchwoman remarked in a tone
that denoted only mild wonder. The English were
losing their ability to surprise her.
“On the ceiling?” the stewardess asked,
somewhere under the beard. “Really, she must
return to her seat.”
“I’ve got the knob,” Martine said. At the same
moment, the door swung open and she was face to
face with the First Officer, at a distance of some four
inches. She smiled. “Oh, hello. . . .”
The latter paled, apparently having never opened
a door on anything quite like it. Then, during that
brief rupture of the thought process when the
rational mind refuses to ingest the manifestly
impossible, automatic good manners rushed in to fill
the breach. “I am sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Martine said. “I was just coming
out.”
This time the plane yawed to starboard. They all
came out.
* * *
There was another rap on the door. "Really, you
must hurry."
The plane banked. They were already commencing
their approach. Colby fastened the collar and one
other button of his shirt, knotted the tie, and yanked
the sweater on over his head. He put on the tweed
jacket, and reached down behind the chemical toilet
for the vest. He could hear the ticking itself now; all
The Wrong Venus — 17
the remaining two hundred and forty were brimming
with poisonous vitality and chewing their way into
oncoming generations of time like an army of steelmandibled
termites. Great! Just great. Send for our
Little Gem Watch-Smuggler’s Kit, and get into this
big-paying field at once. Be the first in your
neighborhood with prison pallor.
The plane turned again, and continued to lose
altitude in their inexorable approach to the runways
at London Airport and Her Majesty’s Customs
officers. He had an impression of being poured down
through some great funnel into a jug labeled
Wormwood Scrubs, with no way to turn aside, or go
back, or even to stop or slow down. He shoved the
vest up inside the jacket, clamped it with an arm,
and buttoned the jacket. As far as he could tell, it
didn’t show.
He hurried out. Just as he started up the aisle, the
plane went into another steep bank, and he had to
cling to the back of a seat, conscious of all the
furious activity against his ribs. With only ten
minutes more, they’d have had it made.
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