The Complete Short Stories (34 page)

‘It might kill me if you
did that.’

‘Relax. Just relax. I’ll
only take a light one. But I do feel the need of something to make me sleep,
quite honestly.’

In the bathroom Felicity
took a white tablet from her medicine cupboard. She cleaned her teeth. Then she
looked round the door of the sitting-room. Already, the pearly shadow had gone.
To be quite sure, she searched the rest of the house before going to bed. Yes,
the pill had worked. She slept well.

‘Nurse, relax. Just
relax.’

‘He’s in the
waiting-room,’ said the nurse. It was nine-thirty the next morning, the time
when the psychiatrist’s office opened.

‘Any other patients?’
said Felicity.

‘Three more. But they
don’t seem to notice him.’

Felicity could quite
believe this. Most psychiatric patients look weird, especially while waiting
for consultation.

‘He might walk through
me again,’ wailed the nurse loudly. ‘It makes me feel awful.’

‘Hush,’ said the doctor.
‘Someone might hear you.’

The office door was
open. Someone had heard her. Dr Margaret Arkans put her head round the door. ‘Anything
wrong?’

‘Nurse Simmons isn’t
very well,’ said Felicity in a voice which suggested she had decided everything
— on a course of action, everything, from now on.

‘I’ve had a terrible
experience,’ Nurse Simmons said. ‘Last night; and now it’s going to happen
again this morning.’

Margaret and Felicity
were extremely solicitous. Felicity herself gave the nurse an injection to make
her relax, and took her to the staff rest-room to lie down.

‘Overwork.’ The two
doctors looked at each other and shook their heads knowingly. They were both
long since convinced that everyone in their department was overworked,
including themselves.

On her way back to her
office Felicity looked in on the waiting-room. The pearly shadow was not there.

Felicity recommended
that Nurse Simmons should have a month’s rest, with a course of sedatives.
Nurse Simmons lived with a large family who were extremely alarmed when she
felt a ‘presence’ in the room every time she forgot to take her pills. She
screamed a great deal. ‘She still has her delusions,’ said her sister on the
phone.

One night Pearly Shadow
visited Felicity again.

‘Are you hoping to kill
me with all these sedatives you’re giving her?’

‘Yes,’ said Felicity.

‘She might take an
overdose.’

‘Almost certainly she
will,’ Felicity said.

‘But that would kill me.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘If
you don’t leave us alone you’ll be finished soon.’

‘But I’m your patient.’

‘You won’t feel a thing,’
said the doctor. ‘Not a thing.’

The pearly shadow looked
terribly frightened.

‘Your only hope,’ said
Felicity, as she switched the television from station to station, ‘is to leave
us alone and go elsewhere for treatment.’

Nurse Simmons improved.
Neither she nor Dr Felicity Grayland saw Pearly Shadow again, but a few years
later they heard of a psychiatrist in the north who had died of an overdose of
barbiturates which had curiously made his skin translucent and pearly.

Going Up and
Coming Down

How many couples have met in an elevator
(lift,
ascenseur, ascensore
or whatever you call it throughout the
world)? How many marriages have resulted?

In their elevator there is usually an
attendant, sometimes not.

She goes up and down
every weekday. At the 1.05 crush and the 2.35 return she generally finds him in
the crowded box; looking up at the floor number display, looking down at the
floor. Sometimes they are alone. He, she discovers, comes down from the
twenty-first.

His office? On the board
downstairs six offices are listed on the twenty-first floor: a law firm, a real
estate office, an ophthalmologist, a Swiss chemicals association, a Palestine
Potassium (believe it or not) agency, a rheumatologist. Which of these offices
could he belong to? She doesn’t look at him direct, but always, at a glance,
tests the ramifying possibilities inherent in all six concerns.

He is polite. He stands
well back when the crowd presses. They are like coins in a purse.

One day she catches his
eye and looks away.

He notices her briefcase
while she has her eyes on the floor numbers. Going down. Out she pours with the
chattering human throng, turns left (the lobby has two entrances) and is gone.
On the board down there are listed four offices on Floor 16, her floor. Two law
firms, a literary agency and an office named W. H. Gilbert without further
designation. Does she work for Mr Gilbert, he wonders. Is Gilbert a private
detective? W. H. Gilbert may well be something furtive.

Day by day she keeps her
eyes on his briefcase of pale brown leather and wonders what he does. The lift
stops at Floor 9, and in sidles the grey-haired stoutish man with the extremely
cheerful smile. On we go; down, down. She wonders about the young man’s daily
life, where does he live, where and what does he eat, has he ever read the
Bible? She knows nothing, absolutely nothing except one thing, which is this:
he tries to catch a glimpse of her when she is looking elsewhere or leaving the
elevator.

On the ground floor —
seconds, and he’s gone. It is like looking out of the window of a train, he
flashes by so quickly. She thinks he might be poorly paid up there on the
twenty-first, possibly in the real estate office or with the expert on
rheumatism. He must be barely twenty-five. He might be working towards a better
job, but at the moment with very little left in his pocket after paying out for
his rent, food, clothes and insect spray.

Her long fair hair falls
over her shoulders, outside her dark green coat. Perhaps she spends her days
sending out membership renewal forms for Mr Gilbert’s arcane activity: ‘Yes, I
want to confirm my steadfast support for the Cosmic Paranormal Apostolic
Movement by renewing my subscription’, followed by different rates to be
filled in for the categories:

Individual Member,
Couple, and Senior Citizen/Unwaged/Student. Suppose there is a power failure?

She looks at his
briefcase, his tie. Everything begins in a dream. In a daydream she has even
envisaged an inevitable meeting in a room in some place where only two could
be, far from intrusions, such as in a barn, taking shelter from a storm, snowed
up. Surely there is some film to that effect.

He does not have the
married look. That look, impossible to define apart from a wedding ring, absent
in his case, is far from his look. All the same, he could be married, peeling
potatoes for two at the weekend. What sign of the zodiac is his? Has there been
an orchard somewhere in his past life as there has in hers? What TV channels
does he watch?

Her hair hangs over her
shoulders. He wonders if she dyes it blonde; her pubic hairs are possibly dark.
Is she one of those girls who doesn’t eat, so that you pay an enormous
restaurant bill for food she has only picked at?

One night the attendant
is missing. They are alone. Homicidal? —Could it possibly be? He would only
have to take off his tie if his hands alone weren’t enough. But his hands could
strangle her. When they get out at the ground floor he says, ‘Good night,’ and
is lost in the crowd.

Here in the enclosed
space is almost like bundling. He considers how, in remote parts, when it was
impossible for a courting man to get home at night, the elders would bundle a
couple; they would bundle them together in their clothes. The pair breathed
over each other but were mutually inaccessible, in an impotent rehearsal of the
intimacy to come. Perhaps, he flounders in his mind, she goes to church and is
better than me. This idea of her being morally better hangs about him all
night, and he brings it to the elevator next morning.

She is not there. Surely
she has flu, alone in her one-room apartment. Her one room with a big bed and a
window overlooking the river? Or is Mr Gilbert there with her?

When she appears next
day in the elevator he is tempted to follow her home that night. But then she
might know; feel, guess, his presence behind her. Certainly she would. She
might well think him a weirdy, a criminal. She might turn and catch sight of
him, crossing the park:

Like one, that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows, a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

Does she go to a gym
class? She must have caught me looking just now. He knows she does not wear a
wedding ring or an engagement ring. But that does not mean very much.

She looks at his
briefcase, his tie, the floor, the floor number. Could he be a diamond merchant
with a fold of tissue paper, containing five one-carat diamonds, nestling in
his inner pocket? One of the names on the board could be a cover.

Other, familiar people
join them on every floor. A woman with a white smile that no dentist could warm
edges towards him while he edges away.

One day at the lunch hour he looks at her
and smiles. She is there, too, in the evening with only four other people plus
the attendant for the elevator. He takes the plunge. Would she be free for
dinner one night? Thursday? Friday?

They have made a date.
They eat in a Polish restaurant where the clients are served by waitresses with
long hair even blonder and probably more natural than Doreen’s.

How long does it take
for floating myths and suppositions to form themselves into the separate still
digits of reality? Sometimes it is as quick or as slow, according to luck, as
fixing the television screen when it has gone haywire. Those stripes and
cloudscapes are suddenly furniture and people.

He is employed by one of
the law firms up there on the twenty-first, his speciality is marine insurance
claims. Doreen, as she is called, remarks that it must be a great
responsibility. He realizes she is intelligent even before Doreen Bridges (her
full name) tells him she works for W. H. Gilbert, (‘Bill’), an independent
literary agent, and that she has recently discovered an absolutely brilliant new
author called Dak Jan whose forthcoming first novel she has great hopes for.
Michael Pivet lives in a bachelor apartment; she shares rooms with another girl
in another part of the city.

And the curious thing
is, that all the notions and possibilities that have gone through their minds
for the past five weeks or more are totally forgotten by both of them. In the
fullness of the plain real facts their speculations disappear into immaterial
nothingness, never once to be remembered in the course of their future life
together.

You Should Have
Seen the Mess

I am now more than glad that I did not pass
into the grammar school five years ago, although it was a disappointment at the
time. I was always good at English, but not so good at the other subjects!!

I am glad that I went to
the Secondary Modern School, because it was only constructed the year before.
Therefore, it was much more hygienic than the Grammar School. The Secondary
Modern was light and airy, and the walls were painted with a bright, washable,
gloss. One day, I was sent over to the Grammar School, with a note for one of
the teachers, and you should have seen the mess! The corridors were dusty, and
I saw dust on the window ledges, which were chipped. I saw into one of the
classrooms. It was very untidy in there.

I am also glad that I
did not go to the Grammar School, because of what it does to one’s habits. This
may appear to be a strange remark, at first sight. It is a good thing to have
an education behind you, and I do not believe in ignorance, but I have had
certain experiences, with educated people, since going out into the world.

I am seventeen years of
age, and left school two years ago last month. I had my A certificate for
typing, so got my first job, as a junior, in a solicitor’s office. Mum was
pleased at this, and Dad said it was a first-class start, as it was an
old-established firm. I must say that when I went for the interview I was
surprised at the windows, and the stairs up to the offices were also far from
clean. There was a little waiting-room, where some of the elements were missing
from the gas fire, and the carpet on the floor was worn. However, Mr Heygate’s
office, into which I was shown for the interview, was better. The furniture was
old, but it was polished, and there was a good carpet, I will say that. The
glass of the bookcase was very clean.

I was to start on the
Monday, so along I went. They took me to the general office, where there were
two senior shorthand typists, and a clerk, Mr Gresham, who was far from smart
in appearance. You should have seen the mess!! There was no floor covering
whatsoever, and so dusty everywhere. There were shelves all round the room,
with old box files on them. The box files were falling to pieces, and all the
old papers inside them were crumpled. The worst shock of all was the tea-cups.
It was my duty to make tea, mornings and afternoons. Miss Bewlay showed me
where everything was kept. It was kept in an old orange box, and the cups were
all cracked. There were not enough saucers to go round, etc. I will not go into
the facilities, but they were also far from hygienic. After three days, I told
Mum, and she was upset, most of all about the cracked cups. We never keep a
cracked cup, but throw it out, because those cracks can harbour germs. So Mum
gave me my own cup to take to the office.

Then at the end of the
week, when I got my salary, Mr Heygate said, ‘Well, Lorna, what are you going
to do with your first pay?’ I did not like him saying this, and I nearly passed
a comment, but I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘What do you do in the
evenings, Lorna? Do you watch telly?’ I did take this as an insult, because we
call it TV, and his remark made me out to be uneducated. I just stood, and did
not answer, and he looked surprised. Next day, Saturday, I told Mum and Dad
about the facilities, and we decided I should not go back to that job. Also,
the desks in the general office were rickety. Dad was indignant, because Mr
Heygate’s concern was flourishing, and he had letters after his name.