‘Shall I remember?’
‘I don’t see why not. I’ve been assuming so, but it’s really up to you. We can leave it until just before I go, can’t we? See how you feel.’
‘Thanks. Would you like another of those?’
‘Well, yes, I think perhaps just one more, don’t you? Marvellous.’
I said from the drinks cupboard, ‘But you must be able to save yourself sweat without having to turn up in the flesh like this. Distance and time and so on are no object with you, after all.’
‘Distance agreed. Time’s another matter. Oh, there’s a lot in what you say. The truth is, I enjoy my trips for their own sake. Self-indulgent of me, which is why I try to limit their number. But they are fun.’
‘What sort of fun?’
He sighed again and clicked his tongue. ‘It’s difficult without denaturing the whole thing. Still. You’re a chess-player, Maurice, or you were in your undergraduate days. You remember, I mean you must remember wishing you could be down on the board among the pieces, just for two or three moves, to get the feel of it, without at the same time stopping running the game. That’s about as near as I can get.’
‘The whole thing’s a game, is it?’ I had returned with the drinks.
‘In the sense that it’s not a particularly, uh … edifying or significant business, it is, yes. In other ways it’s not unlike an art, an art and a work of art rolled into one. I know you think that’s rather frivolous. It isn’t really. It’s entirely a matter of how it’s all grown up,’ said the young man, lowering his voice and staring into his whisky. ‘Between ourselves, Maurice, I think I took some fairly disputable decisions right at the start, not having foreknowledge. Honestly, this foreknowledge business is too absurd. As if I could carry on at all if I had that! Well, then I was stuck with those decisions and their results in practice. And I couldn’t go back on them; one thing nobody’s ever credited me with is the power of undoing what I’ve done, of abolishing historical fact and so on. I often wish I could— well, occasionally I do. It’s not that I want to be cruel, not that so much as finding that’s what I seem to be turning out to be. Not an easy situation, you know. I just realized that I was there, or here, or wherever you please, and on my own, and with these powers. I must say I wonder how you’d have managed.’ He sounded slightly cross. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like to be faced with a set of choices that are irrevocable and also unique.’
‘Well, you’re supposed to be brighter than I am, though one would hardly think so, judging by results. But I had no idea you hadn’t always been … wherever you are. And whatever that means.’
‘It means everywhere, if we’re going to go into it, as you know perfectly well, though not everywhere equally all the time, of course. As for my always having been around, I have. But there have been developments. You could put a date to the point at which I found out I was around, so to speak. Quite a while ago, that was. It was at the same stage, in fact it was the same thing, as my discovery of what I was and what I could do.’
‘All that part of it, the doing, must be pretty satisfying.’
‘Oh yes, very, in a way. But it does go on rather. An awful lot of it’s not much more than duty, these days.. And I keep thinking of things it’s too late to do. And things I oughtn’t to do, but which have a certain appeal. Sweeping changes. Can you imagine the temptation of altering all the physical laws, or working with something that isn’t matter, or simply introducing new rules? Even minor things like cosmic collisions, or plonking a living dinosaur—just one—down in Piccadilly Circus? Not easy to resist.’
‘What about making life a little less hard on people?’
‘No prospect of that, I’m afraid. Much too tricky from the security point of view. I daren’t take the chance of coming that far out into the open. Some of your chaps have found out quite enough already. Your friend Milton, for instance.’ The young man nodded over at my bookshelves. ‘He caught on to the idea of the work of art and the game and the rules and so forth. Just as well it never quite dawned on him who Satan was, or rather who he was a piece of.. I’d have had to step in there, if it had.’
I looked at him, noticing again how pale he was..
‘Well….’ He turned his mouth down. ‘A little heart attack, perhaps. Paralytic stroke. That kind of thing.’
‘You must have plenty of less crude methods than that up your sleeve.’
‘Well … There’s such a lot that’s ruled out if you’ve got free will, you see. It makes life difficult for everybody, I know, but you can’t do without it. And it isn’t as if there weren’t still a very great deal that isn’t ruled out in the least. I must be off; I’ve been self-indulgent enough. But let me give you one piece of advice. Use the Church where appropriate. Oh, I don’t mean go and listen to that posturing idiot Sonnenschein making me out to be a sort of suburban Mao Tse-tung. But remember that he’s a priest of the Church, and as such he has certain techniques at his disposal. You’ll see what I mean when the time comes. Just, remember you’re getting this from someone who, whatever you think his shortcomings may be, does indisputably know more than you do. Now, in return for putting up with me, and for the whisky, you can ask me one question. Want a moment to consider?’
‘No. Is there an after-life?’
He frowned and cleared his throat. ‘I suppose there’s nothing else you could call it, really. It’s nothing like here or anything you’ve ever imagined and I can’t describe it to you. But you’ll never be free of me, while this lot lasts.’
‘Isn’t it going to last for ever?’
‘That’s a further question, but never mind. The answer is that I don’t know. I’ll have to see. I mean that. Do you know, it’s about the only absolutely fascinating, first-class, full-sized problem I’ve never started to go into? Anyway, you’ll find out. Do you want to remember what we’ve been saying, and everything?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right.’ The young man, moving like a young man, got to his feet. ‘Thank you, Maurice, I really have enjoyed it. Well meet again.
‘I’m sure we will.’
‘When I’m in my … executive capacity. Yes. You’ll come to see the point of that part of me in the end, you know. Everybody does. Some more than others, of course.’
‘Which sort am I?’
‘Oh, the sort that’s more inclined to appreciate me, obviously. You think about it, and you’ll find I’m right. Ah.’ He felt in a waistcoat pocket of the conservatively tailored suit, and brought out a small bright object, which he handed to me. ‘A little keepsake.’
It was a slender and very beautiful silver crucifix of (I would have guessed) late Italian Renaissance workmanship, but as new as if it had been fashioned an hour before.
He nodded in confirmation. ‘Nice, isn’t it? Though I say so myself. I wish I could find a way of making it genuinely difficult for somebody in my position to run up stuff like that.’
‘Is it you? I mean the …‘
‘Oh yes. A piece of me.’
‘That was coming out into the open, wasn’t it?’
‘Mm. I must have been bored, I suppose. I thought, why not? Then I thought I was heading straight for disaster. I needn’t have worried, need I? He hasn’t made much difference to anything, as you see.’
‘But you were telling me just now that the Church was important.’
‘Well, in a way. It can’t help being. After all, it was me He was a piece of. Goodbye, Maurice.’
The crucifix jerked and spun in my hand, twisted itself away before I could close my fist on it, fell non-perpendicularly to the floor and twirled off towards a corner. As I scrambled in pursuit I heard his genial, sincerely amused laugh, and then, just after the flash of silver had disappeared into a crack between wainscot and floor, a deep ascending grumble which presently resolved and separated itself into the sounds of tractor and TV set rising towards normal pitch. I was at the front window long before they had reached it, in time to see the unique sight of re
ality moving from slow motion to ordinary motion, dust particles and wisps of smoke accelerating, a man engaged in coming to life, his arm circling at an increasing rate as he returned the handkerchief to his pocket. Then everything was as it should have been.
I left the window, but with nowhere in particular to go. My heart beat twice in a fraction of a second, stopped while I plunged forward and grasped the back of a dining-chair, then gave such a slam inside me that I bent in the middle and at the knees and nearly pulled the chair over. The pain in my back came while I was in the act of moving my hand to the spot, and began steadily expanding and contracting in a new way. I felt sweat spring out on the palms of my hands and my chest and face, and my breathing quickened. All the fear I had escaped during the young man’s visit was upon me now, or its symptoms were. I found the whisky-bottle, drank a little, prevented myself from drinking more and washed down three pills with water. I realized there were two things that had to be done at once.
At the doorway I could not control a momentary hesitation, but then was out and hurrying down the passage. I found Amy, with Victor diagonally across her lap, looking at a cricket scoreboard on the screen.
‘Darling, what time is it?’
She said without moving, Twenty past four.’
‘Please look at your watch. No, show it to me.’
The small clock-face she wore at her wrist said four twenty-two. I looked at my own watch: four forty-six. A huge reason for fear departed, and left me feeling much as before. I started clumsily shifting the hands of my watch.
Still looking at the screen, Amy said conversationally, ‘So I tell lies about the time now.’
‘But you didn’t tell a lie. It was—’
‘You thought I had. You wouldn’t believe me when I told you. You had to see for yourself.’
‘Well, you hadn’t looked at your watch.’
‘Just before you came in I had.’
‘Sorry, darling, but I didn’t know that, and I wanted to make sure.’
‘Okay, Dad..’
‘Sorry.’
‘I don’t suppose you want to watch Pirate Planet with me, do you?’ she asked in the same tone as before. ‘It comes on at five five.’
‘I’ll see. I’ve got a lot to do, but I’ll try.’
‘Okay.’
Next, I went to the office and collected the still-active torch of the two Diana and I had used in the early hours of that day, fetched from the utilities room the same hammer and chisel as before, plus a jemmy, and returned to the dining-room. It took me only a few minutes to get a fair-sized section of the carpet up, but the floor-boards were of solid timber, and in the excellent repair my predecessor had put them in. I made a good deal of noise, did some damage and sweated copiously getting the first one up. There was nothing but whorls of dust and streaks of cobwebby material on the laths and plaster beneath it, or as far as my weakening light would reach between the joists. On the assumption that the crucifix had gone on behaving supernaturally after disappearing, it might be anywhere in the area generally beneath me, if indeed it had not passed altogether beyond my reach. But I could see no alternative to going on as I had started.
Time went unprofitably by. I was working on my fourth floor-board when Nick and Lucy arrived.
‘Hallo, Dad, what’s going on?’
‘Just …‘ I looked up at them, and was aware of how much like a husband and wife they seemed. ‘I dropped something down a crack in the floor. Rather a valuable thing. I thought I’d see if I could find it.’
‘What sort of thing?’ Nick sounded sceptical.
‘Well, it’s a kind of heirloom. Something Gramps gave me.’
‘Can’t you, I mean, which crack did it go down? You seem to be—’
‘No, it rolled, you see. I don’t know.’
Nick glanced at Lucy. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Dad?’
‘Fine. Bit hot.’
‘This isn’t part of all the ghost stuff and everything that’s been going on, is it? I wish you’d say if it is.’
‘No, honestly. Just this—’
‘Because you know you can tell us and it’ll be all right,’ said Lucy. ‘We won’t think you’re mentally disturbed, or tell anyone else if you don’t want us to. It’ll be all right.’
‘No, really,’ I said, thinking that her use of the plural stretched the facts a little. ‘Don’t worry; if I can’t find it soon I’ll pack up.’
When I turned back to my work, I was aware of a brief silent conference going on above my head, and ending with their departure. At the end of another five minutes or so, I had the fourth floor-board out. Nothing again; or perhaps something, an odd bulge in a joist, a small object leaning against it at arm’s length. My extended fingers touched metal.
What I held in my hand a moment later was just recognizable as the crucifix the young man had given me: speckled, worn and stained almost black in places. In its present state it testified to no sort of miracle; an impartial mind would merely add it to the endless list of mildly surprising discoveries in old houses. I dismissed it from consideration, but was still overwhelmed with what felt like rage and disappointment. These and allied emotions went on showing through while I put all the energy I could into the task of relaying floor and carpet. As soon as this was done, they returned in full.
I left the tools and the torch where I had dropped them, and walked round the room trying to master myself, which meant, or must be prefaced by, discovering what it was that oppressed me. As if in answer, my visitor’s empty glass, standing on the low table between the armchairs, presented itself to my eye. I snatched it up and saw the marks of a human hand on its surface and of a human mouth at its rim. Well, what of it? Was I to take it to a spiritualist medium, a forensic scientist or the curator of the Vatican museum? I threw it hard into the back of the fireplace, breathing fast and starting to cry. Yes, it was disappointment all right, with him for his coldness and his lightness, with myself for my failure to have brought forward any question or accusation of the least significance, and also with the triviality of the ultimate secrets I had supposedly learned. And there was fear besides. I had always thought that personal extinction was the ultimate horror, but, having taken in those few dry hints about an after-life, that pronouncement that I would never escape from him, I now knew better.
An overwhelming desire to get out of the house took hold of me and helped me to stop crying. There were more things to be done before I could leave. A quick shower and a change of underclothes took off the sweat and grime of my exertions with the floor-boards. When I had dressed I went in search of Lucy, and by good luck found her alone in the great bedroom, brushing her short head of hair with surprising energy.
‘Lucy, I’m going out now and won’t be back till late. Will you tell the others? I’ll talk to David before I go.’
‘By all means.’
‘And there’s something else I’d like you to do for me. I want everybody in bed and preferably asleep by midnight. Well, I know you can’t put them to sleep, but Joyce is never any problem, and if you could try to get Nick off in good time, that would be a great help to me.’
‘I’ll do everything I can, of course. Uh, Maurice, is this something to do with your ghosts, or is it, you know, somebody you want to see privately?’
She made this allusion to my amorous activities (I had not known that—or not bothered before now to wonder whether— she knew about them) with commendable tact of manner. ‘It’s my ghosts,’ I said.
‘I see. Would you like me as a witness?’
‘Thank you for offering, Lucy, but I’m sure he won’t come if there’s anyone else apart from me about. You believe I saw him before really, don’t you?’
‘I still think you thought you saw him, but I may be wrong. Did you find that thing you were looking for under the floor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it any good?’
‘No.’
‘Like the writing on that piece of paper?’
‘Well, let me know what happens tonight, if anything does.’
‘I will. Thanks, Lucy.’
The last thing was getting hold of David and asking him to see to it that the few expected outside diners and drinkers were similarly off the premises by midnight. The resident guests could not actually be sent to their rooms, but they were unlikely to feel like prolonged carousing in the bar the night after a funeral so close by. I supposed, at least, that talking to David would be the last thing, until I almost literally ran into Joyce and Diana in the car-park.
They had their jewellery and their garden-party look on again, and were unfeignedly sorry to see me. I thought at first that they were (as they might well be) nervous of possible embarrassment, then I thought that they were simply resentful at the intrusion of any third party, and then I saw that they were even more simply annoyed because I had turned up.
‘Hallo,’ I said brightly. At that moment I could not devise any other utterance that seemed absolutely free of irony and/or obscenity.
They exchanged their now familiar glance of consultation, and Joyce said, ‘We thought we’d go and have a drink in the village.’
‘Good idea. I’m going out myself. Don’t wait up for me.’
‘Do you want me to leave you something to eat?’
‘No thanks. See you, then.’
While they got slowly into the Mini-Cooper, I got quickly into the Volkswagen, reflecting on Diana’s silence during the last exchange. I had never before known her to be content with less than about a two-thirds share of any conversation, however brief. And her whole demeanour over those dozen seconds had been docile, almost subservient. Whatever had happened between those two had had plenty of time to happen, I decided when I looked at my watch and found that the time was exactly eight o’clock.
The Green Man Page 18