by Roald Dahl
‘Harry! Harry!’
I thought I saw a glimmer of red among the roses, like close red curls on a boy’s head. Then there was nothing.
When I told Jim about Christine’s emotional outburst he said: ‘Poor little kid. It’s always a nervy business, starting school. She’ll be all right once she gets there. You’ll be hearing less about Harry too, as time goes on.’
‘Harry doesn’t want her to go to school.’
‘Hey! You sound as if you believe in Harry yourself!’
‘Sometimes I do.’
‘Believing in evil spirits in your old age?’ he teased me. But his eyes were concerned. He thought I was going ‘round the bend’ and small blame to him!
‘I don’t think Harry’s evil,’ I said. ‘He’s just a boy. A boy who doesn’t exist, except for Christine. And who is Christine?’
‘None of that!’ said Jim sharply. ‘When we adopted Chris we decided she was to be our own child. No probing into the past. No wondering and worrying. No mysteries. Chris is as much ours as if she’d been born of our flesh. Who is Christine indeed! She’s our daughter – and just you remember that!’
‘Yes, Jim, you’re right. Of course you’re right.’
He’d been so fierce about it that I didn’t tell him what I planned to do the next day while Chris was at school.
Next morning Chris was silent and sulky. Jim joked with her and tried to cheer her, but all she would do was look out of the window and say: ‘Harry’s gone.’
‘You won’t need Harry now. You’re going to school,’ said Jim.
Chris gave him that look of grown-up contempt she’d given me sometimes.
She and I didn’t speak as I took her to school. I was almost in tears. Although I was glad for her to start school, I felt a sense of loss at parting with her. I suppose every mother feels that when she takes her ewe-lamb to school for the first time. It’s the end of babyhood for the child, the beginning of life in reality, life with its cruelty, its strangeness, its barbarity. I kissed her goodbye at the gate and said:
‘You’ll be having dinner at school with the other children, Chris, and I’ll call for you when school is over, at three o’clock.’
‘Yes, mummy.’ She held my hand tightly. Other nervous little children were arriving with equally nervous parents. A pleasant young teacher with fair hair and a white linen dress appeared at the gate. She gathered the new children towards her and led them away. She gave me a sympathetic smile as she passed and said: ‘We’ll take good care of her.’
I felt quite light-hearted as I walked away, knowing that Chris was safe and I didn’t have to worry.
Now I started on my secret mission. I took a bus to town and went to the big, gaunt building I hadn’t visited for over five years. Then, Jim and I had gone together. The top floor of the building belonged to the Greythorne Adoption Society. I climbed the four flights and knocked on the familiar door with its scratched paint. A secretary whose face I didn’t know let me in.
‘May I see Miss Cleaver? My name is Mrs James.’
‘Have you an appointment?’
‘No, but it’s very important.’
‘I’ll see.’ The girl went out and returned a second later. ‘Miss Cleaver will see you, Mrs James.’
Miss Cleaver, a tall, thin, grey haired woman with a charming smile, a plain, kindly face and a very wrinkled brow, rose to meet me. ‘Mrs James. How nice to see you again. How’s Christine?’
‘She’s very well, Miss Cleaver. I’d better get straight to the point. I know you don’t normally divulge the origin of a child to its adopters and vice versa, but I must know who Christine is.’
‘Sorry, Mrs James,’ she began, ‘our rules …’
‘Please let me tell you the whole story, then you’ll see I’m not just suffering from vulgar curiosity.’
I told her about Harry.
When I’d finished, she said: ‘It’s very queer. Very queer indeed. Mrs James, I’m going to break my rule for once. I’m going to tell you in strict confidence where Christine came from.
‘She was born in a very poor part of London. There were four in the family, father, mother, son and Christine herself.’
‘Son?’
‘Yes. He was fourteen when – when it happened.’
‘When what happened?’
‘Let me start at the beginning. The parents hadn’t really wanted Christine. The family lived in one room at the top of an old house which should have been condemned by the Sanitary Inspector in my opinion. It was difficult enough when there were only three of them, but with a baby as well life became a nightmare. The mother was a neurotic creature, slatternly, unhappy, too fat. After she’d had the baby she took no interest in it. The brother, however, adored the little girl from the start. He got into trouble for cutting school so he could look after her.
‘The father had a steady job in a warehouse, not much money, but enough to keep them alive. Then he was sick for several weeks and lost his job. He was laid up in that messy room, ill, worrying, nagged by his wife, irked by the baby’s crying and his son’s eternal fussing over the child – I got all these details from neighbours afterwards, by the way. I was also told that he’d had a particularly bad time in the war and had been in a nerve hospital for several months before he was fit to come home at all after his demob. Suddenly it all proved too much for him.
‘One morning, in the small hours, a woman in the ground floor room saw something fall past her window and heard a thud on the ground. She went out to look. The son of the family was there on the ground. Christine was in his arms. The boy’s neck was broken. He was dead. Christine was blue in the face but still breathing faintly.
‘The woman woke the household, sent for the police and the doctor, then they went to the top room. They had to break down the door, which was locked and sealed inside. An overpowering smell of gas greeted them, in spite of the open window.
‘They found husband and wife dead in bed and a note from the husband saying:
I can’t go on. I am going to kill them all.
It’s the only way.
‘The police concluded that he’d sealed up door and windows and turned on the gas when his family were asleep, then lain beside his wife until he drifted into unconsciousness, and death. But the son must have wakened. Perhaps he struggled with the door but couldn’t open it. He’d be too weak to shout. All he could do was pluck away the seals from the window, open it, and fling himself out, holding his adored little sister tightly in his arms.
‘Why Christine herself wasn’t gassed is rather a mystery. Perhaps her head was right under the bedclothes, pressed against her brother’s chest – they always slept together. Anyway, the child was taken to hospital, then to the home where you and Mr James first saw her … and a lucky day that was for little Christine!’
‘So her brother saved her life and died himself?’ I said.
‘Yes. He was a very brave young man.’
‘Perhaps he thought not so much of saving her as of keeping her with him. Oh dear! That sounds ungenerous. I didn’t mean to be. Miss Cleaver, what was his name?’
‘I’ll have to look that up for you.’ She referred to one of her many files and said at last: ‘The family’s name was Jones and the fourteen-year-old brother was called “Harold”.’
‘And did he have red hair?’ I murmured.
‘That I don’t know, Mrs James.’
‘But it’s Harry. The boy was Harry. What does it mean? I can’t understand it.’
‘It’s not easy, but I think perhaps deep in her unconscious mind Christine has always remembered Harry, the companion of her babyhood. We don’t think of children as having much memory, but there must be images of the past tucked away somewhere in their little heads. Christine doesn’t invent this Harry. She remembers him. So clearly that she’s almost brought him to life again. I know it sounds far-fetched, but the whole story is so odd that I can’t think of any other explanation.’
‘May I have the
address of the house where they lived?’
She was reluctant to give me this information, but I persuaded her and set out at last to find No. 13 Canver Row, where the man Jones had tried to kill himself and his whole family and almost succeeded.
The house seemed deserted. It was filthy and derelict. But one thing made me stare and stare. There was a tiny garden. A scatter of bright uneven grass splashed the bald brown patches of earth. But the little garden had one strange glory that none of the other houses in the poor sad street possessed – a bush of white roses. They bloomed gloriously. Their scent was overpowering.
I stood by the bush and stared up at the top window.
A voice startled me: ‘What are you doing here?’
It was an old woman, peering from the ground floor window.
‘I thought the house was empty,’ I said.
‘Should be. Been condemned. But they can’t get me out. Nowhere else to go. Won’t go. The others went quickly enough after it happened. No one else wants to come. They say the place is haunted. So it is. But what’s the fuss about? Life and death. They’re very close. You get to know that when you’re old. Alive or dead. What’s the difference?’
She looked at me with yellowish, bloodshot eyes and said: ‘I saw him fall past my window. That’s where he fell. Among the roses. He still comes back. I see him. He won’t go away until he gets her.’
‘Who – who are you talking about?’
‘Harry Jones. Nice boy he was. Red hair. Very thin. Too determined though. Always got his own way. Loved Christine too much I thought. Died among the roses. Used to sit down here with her for hours, by the roses. Then died there. Or do people die? The church ought to give us an answer, but it doesn’t. Not one you can believe. Go away, will you? This place isn’t for you. It’s for the dead who aren’t dead, and the living who aren’t alive. Am I alive or dead? You tell me. I don’t know.’
The crazy eyes staring at me beneath the matted white fringe of hair frightened me. Mad people are terrifying. One can pity them, but one is still afraid. I murmured:
‘I’ll go now. Goodbye,’ and tried to hurry across the hard hot pavements although my legs felt heavy and half-paralysed, as in a nightmare.
The sun blazed down on my head, but I was hardly aware of it. I lost all sense of time or place as I stumbled on.
Then I heard something that chilled my blood.
A clock struck three.
At three o’clock I was supposed to be at the school gates, waiting for Christine.
Where was I now? How near the school? What bus should I take?
I made frantic inquiries of passers-by, who looked at me fearfully, as I had looked at the old woman. They must have thought I was crazy.
At last I caught the right bus and, sick with dust, petrol fumes and fear, reached the school. I ran across the hot, empty playground. In a classroom, the young teacher in white was gathering her books together.
‘I’ve come for Christine James. I’m her mother. I’m so sorry I’m late. Where is she?’ I gasped.
‘Christine James?’ The girl frowned, then said brightly: ‘Oh, yes, I remember, the pretty little red-haired girl. That’s all right, Mrs James. Her brother called for her. How alike they are, aren’t they? And so devoted. It’s rather sweet to see a boy of that age so fond of his baby sister. Has your husband got red hair, like the two children?’
‘What did – her brother – say?’ I asked faintly.
‘He didn’t say anything. When I spoke to him, he just smiled. They’ll be home by now, I should think. I say, do you feel all right?’
‘Yes, thank you. I must go home.’
I ran all the way home through the burning streets.
‘Chris! Christine, where are you? Chris! Chris!’ Sometimes even now I hear my own voice of the past screaming through the cold house. ‘Christine! Chris! Where are you? Answer me! Chrrriiiiiss!’ Then: ‘Harry! Don’t take her away! Come back! Harry! Harry!’
Demented, I rushed out into the garden. The sun struck me like a hot blade. The roses glared whitely. The air was so still I seemed to stand in timelessness, placelessness. For a moment, I seemed very near to Christine, although I couldn’t see her. Then the roses danced before my eyes and turned red. The world turned red. Blood red. Wet red. I fell through redness to blackness to nothingness – to almost death.
For weeks I was in bed with sunstroke which turned to brain fever. During that time Jim and the police searched for Christine in vain. The futile search continued for months. The papers were full of the strange disappearance of the red-haired child. The teacher described the ‘brother’ who had called for her. There were newspaper stories of kidnapping, baby-snatching, child-murders.
Then the sensation died down. Just another unsolved mystery in police files.
And only two people knew what had happened. An old crazed woman living in a derelict house, and myself.
Years have passed. But I walk in fear.
Such ordinary things make me afraid. Sunshine. Sharp shadows on grass. White roses. Children with red hair. And the name – Harry. Such an ordinary name!
The Corner Shop
by Cynthia Asquith
Peter Wood’s executors found their task a very easy one. He had left his affairs in perfect order. The only surprise yielded by his methodical writing-table was a sealed envelope on which was written: ‘Not wishing to be bothered by well-meaning Research Societies, I have never shown the enclosed to anyone, but after my death all are welcome to read what, to the best of my knowledge, is a true story.’
The manuscript which bore a date three years previous to the death of the writer was as follows.
‘I have long wished to record an experience of my youth. I won’t attempt any explanations. I draw no conclusions. I merely narrate certain events.
‘One foggy evening, at the end of a day of enforced idleness in my chambers – I had just been called to the Bar – I was rather dejectedly walking back to my lodgings when my attention was drawn to the brightly lit window of a shop. Seeing the word “Antiques” on its sign-board, and remembering that I owed a wedding present to a lover of bric-à-brac, I grasped the handle of the green door. Opening with one of those cheerful jingle-jangle bells, it admitted me into large rambling premises, thickly crowded with all the traditional treasure and trash of a curiosity shop. Suits of armour, warming-pans, cracked, misted mirrors, church vestments, spinning-wheels, brass kettles, chandeliers, gongs, chess-men – furniture of every size and every period. Despite all the clutter, there was none of the dusty gloom one associates with such collections. Far from being dingy, the room was brightly lit and a crackling fire leaped up the chimney. In fact, the atmosphere was so warm and cheerful that after the cold dank fog outside it struck me as most agreeable.
‘At my entrance, a young woman and a girl – by their resemblance obviously sisters – rose from armchairs. Bright, bustling, gaily dressed, they were curiously unlike the type of people who usually preside over such wares. A flower or a cakeshop would have seemed a far more appropriate setting. Inwardly awarding them high marks for keeping the place so clean, I wished the sisters good evening. Their smiling faces and easy manners made a very pleasant impression on me; but though they were most obliging in showing me all their treasures and displayed considerable knowledge as well as appreciation, they seemed wholly indifferent as to whether or not I made any purchase.
‘I found a small piece of Sheffield plate very moderately priced and decided that this was the very present for my friend. Explaining that I was without sufficient cash, I asked the elder sister if she would take a cheque.
‘ “Certainly,” she answered, briskly producing pen and ink. “Will you please make it out to the ‘Corner Curio Shop’?”
‘It was with conscious reluctance that I left the cheerful precincts and plunged back into the saffron fog.
‘ “Good evening, sir. Always pleased to see you at any time,” rang out the elder sister’s pleasant voice, a voice
so engaging that I left almost with a sense of having made a friend.
‘I suppose it must have been a week later that, as I walked home one bitter cold evening – fine powdery snow brushing against my face, a cutting wind lashing down the streets – I remembered the welcoming warmth of the cheerful Corner Shop, and decided to revisit it. I found myself to be in the very street, and there – yes! – there was the very corner.
‘It was with a sense of disappointment out of all proportion to the event, that I found the shop wore that baffling, shut-eyed appearance, and read the uncompromising word CLOSED.
‘An icy gust of wind whistled round the corner; my wet trousers flapped dismally against my chapped ankles. Longing for the warmth and glow within, I felt annoyingly thwarted. Rather childishly – for I was certain the door was locked – I grasped the handle and shook it. To my surprise it turned in my hand, but not in answer to its pressure. The door was opened from within, and I found myself looking into the dimly lit countenance of a very old and extremely frail-looking little man.
‘ “Please to come in, sir,” said a gentle, rather tremulous voice, and feeble footsteps shuffled away ahead of me.
‘It is impossible to describe the altered aspect of the place. I suppose the electric light had fused, for the darkness of the large room was thinned only by two guttering candles, and in their wavering light, dark shapes of furniture, formerly brightly lit, now loomed towering and mysterious, casting weird, almost menacing shadows. The fire was out. Only one faintly glowing ember told that any had lately been alive. Other evidence there was none, for the grim cold of the atmosphere was such as I had never experienced. The phrase “it struck chill” is laughably inadequate. In retrospect the street seemed almost agreeable. At least its biting cold there had been bracing. One way and another the atmosphere of the shop was now as gloomy as it had been bright before. I felt a strong impulse to leave at once, but the surrounding darkness thinned, and I saw the old man busily lighting candles here and there.