Needful Things (Page 50)

Come on," she said briskly. "Into the living room. I’ll get the thermal gloves."

"Nettle, I’m all right," Polly said weakly. "I just took a pill, and I’m sure that in a few minutes-" But Nettle had an arm around her and was walking her into the living room. "What did you do? Did you sleep on them, do you think?"

"No-that would have woken me. It’s just. She laughed.

It was a weak, bewildered sound. "It’s just pain. I knew today was going to be bad, but I had no idea how bad. And the thermal gloves don’t help."

"Sometimes they do. You know that sometimes they do. Now just sit there."

Nettle’s tone brooked no refusal. She stood beside Polly until Polly sat in an overstuffed armchair. Then she went into the downstairs bathroom to get the thermal gloves. Polly had given up on them a year ago, but Nettle, it seemed, held for them a reverence that was almost superstitious. Nettle’s version of chicken soup, Alan had once called them, and they had both laughed.

Polly sat with her hands resting on the arms of the chair like lumps of cast-off driftwood and looked longingly across the room at the couch where she and Alan had made love Friday night. Her hands hadn’t hurt at all then, and that already seemed like a thousand years ago.

It occurred to her that pleasure, no matter how deep, was a ghostly, ephemeral thing. Love might make the world go round, but she was convinced it was the cries of the badly wounded and deeply afflicted which spun the universe on the great glass pole of its axis.

Oh you stupid couch, she thought. Oh you stupid empty couch, what good are you to me now?

Nettle came back with the thermal gloves. They looked like quilted oven mitts connected by an insulated electric wire. A plugin cord snaked out of the left glove’s back. Polly had seen an ad for the gloves in Good Housekeeping, of all places. She had placed a call to The National Arthritis Foundation’s 800 number and had ascertained that the gloves did indeed provide temporary relief in some cases. When she showed the ad to Dr. Van Allen, he added the coda which had been tiresomely familiar even two years ago: "Well, it can’t hurt."

"Nettle, I’m sure that in a few minutes-" -you’ll feel better," Nettle finished. "Yes, of course you will.

And maybe these will help. Hold up your hands, Polly."

Polly gave in and held up her hands. Nettle held the gloves by their ends, squeezed them open, and slipped them on with the delicacy of a bomb-squad expert covering packets of C-4 with a blast-blanket.

Her touch was gentle, expert, and compassionate.

Polly didn’t believe the thermal gloves would do a thing… but Nettle’s obvious concern had already had its effect.

Nettle took the plug, got down on her knees, and slipped it into the baseboard socket near the chair. The gloves began to hum faintly, and the first tendrils of dry warmth caressed the skin of Polly’s hands.

"You’re too good to me," Polly said softly. "Do you know that?"

"I couldn’t be," Nettle replied. "Not ever." Her voice was a trifle husky, and there was a bright, liquid shine in her eyes.

"Polly, it’s not my place to tell you your business, but I just can’t keep quiet any longer. You have to do something about your poor hands.

You have to. Things just can’t go on this way."

"I know, dear. I know." Polly made a huge effort to climb over the wall of depression which had built itself up in her mind.

"Why did you come over, Nettle? Surely it wasn’t just to toast my hands."

Nettle brightened. "I made you a lasagna!"

"Did you? Oh, Nettle, you shouldn’t have!"

"No? That’s not what I think. I think you won’t be up to cooking today, or tomorrow, either. I’ll just put it in the refrigerator."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

"I’m glad I did it. Doubly glad, now that I see you." She reached the hall doorway and looked back. A bar of sun fell across her face, and in that moment Polly might have seen how drawn and tired Nettle looked, if her own pain had not been so large. "Don’t you move, now!"

Polly burst out laughing, surprising them both. "I can’t! I’m trapped!"

In the kitchen, the refrigerator door opened and closed as Nettle put the lasagna away. Then she called, "Shall I put on the coffee?

Would you like a cup? I could help you with it."

"Yes," Polly said, "that would be nice." The gloves were humming louder now; they were very warm. And either they were actually helping, or the pill was taking hold in a way the one at five o’clock hadn’t. More probably it was a combination of the two, she thought.

"But if you have to get back, Nettle-" Nettle appeared in the doorway.

She had taken her apron out of the pantry and put it on, and she held the old tin coffee pot in one hand. She wouldn’t use the new digital Toshiba coffee-maker… and Polly had to admit that what came out of Nettle’s tin pot was better.

"I’ve no place to go that’s better than this," she said.

"Besides, the house is all locked up and Raider’s on guard."

"I’m sure," Polly said, smiling. She knew Raider very well. He weighed all of twenty pounds and rolled over to have his belly scratched when anyone-mailman, meter-reader, door-to-door salesman-came to the house.

"I think she’ll leave me alone anyway," Nettle said. "I warned her. I haven’t seen her around or heard from her, so I guess it finally sank in on her that I meant business."

"Warned who? About what?" Polly asked, but Nettle had already left the doorway, and Polly was indeed penned in her seat by the electric gloves. By the time Nettle reappeared with the coffee tray, the Percodan had begun to fog her in and she had forgotten all about Nettle’s odd remark… which was not surprising in any case, since Nettle made odd remarks quite often.

Nettle put cream and sugar in Polly’s coffee and held it up so she could sip from the cup. They chatted about one thing and another, and of course the conversation turned to the new shop before very long.

Nettle told her about the purchase of the carnival glass lampshade again, but hardly in the breathless detail Polly would have expected, given the extraordinary nature of such an event in Nettle’s life. But it kicked off something else in her mind: the note Mr. Gaunt had put in the cake container.

"I almost forgot-Mr. Gaunt asked me to stop by this afternoon.

He said he might have an item I’d be interested in."

"You’re not going, are you? With your hands like they are?"

"I might. They feel better-I think the gloves really did work this time, at least a little. And I have to do something." She looked at Nettle a trifle pleadingly.

"Well… I suppose." A sudden idea struck Nettle. "You know, I could walk by there on the way home, and ask him if he could come to your house!"

"Oh no, Nettle-that’s out of your way!"

"Only a block or two." Nettle cast an endearingly sly side-glance Polly’s way. "Besides, he might have another piece of carnival glass.

I don’t have enough money for another one, but he doesn’t know that, and it doesn’t cost anything to look, does it?"

"But to ask him to come here-"

"I’ll explain how it is with you," Nettle said decisively, and began putting things back onto the tray.

"Why, businessmen often have home demonstrations-if they have something worth selling, that is."

Polly looked at her with amusement and love. "You know, you’re different when you’re here, Nettle."

Nettle looked at her, surprised. "I am?"

"Yes. "How?"

"In a good way. Never mind. Unless I have a relapse, I think I will want to go out this afternoon. But if you do happen to go by Needful Things-"

"I will." A look of ill-concealed eagerness shone in Nettle’s eyes. Now that the idea had occurred to her, it took hold with all the force of a compulsion. Doing for Polly had been a tonic for her nerves, and no mistake.

-and if he does happen to be in, give him my home number and ask him to give me a call if the item he wanted me to see came in. Could you do that?"

"You betcha!" Nettle said. She rose with the coffee-tray and took it into the kitchen. She replaced her apron on its hook in the pantry and came back into the living room to remove the thermal gloves.

Her coat was already on. Polly thanked her again-and not just for the lasagna. Her hands still hurt badly, but the pain was manageable now.

And she could move her fingers again.

"You’re more than welcome," Nettle said. "And you know what? You do look better. Your color’s coming back. It scared me to look at you when I first came in. Can I do anything else for you before I go?"

"No, I don’t think so." She reached out and clumsily grasped one of Nettle’s hands in her own, which were still flushed and very warm from the gloves. "I’m awfully glad you came over, dear."

On the rare occasions when Nettle smiled, she did it with her whole face; it was like watching the sun break through the clouds on an overcast morning. "I love you, Polly."

Touched, Polly replied: "Why, I love you, too, Nettle."

Nettle left. It was the last time Polly ever saw her alive.

6

The lock on Nettle Cobb’s front door was about as complex as the lid of a candy-box; the first skeleton key Hugh tried worked after a little jiggling and joggling. He opened the door.

A small dog, yellow with a white bib, sat on the hall floor. He uttered his single stern bark as morning sunlight fell around him and Hugh’s large shadow fell on him.