I See You

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “Right,” said Kevin.

  “The third hole is DEF.”

  “Right.”

  “GHI.”

  “Of course.” His fingers were following.

  “JKL. Then MNO. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then PRS. There is no Q.”

  “Is that so?”

  “People don’t notice,” the girl said with pride, as if she had invented the dial herself. “But it’s something you’ll have to remember. All right? Next comes TUV. Then WXY.”

  “Yes.”

  “And no Z, either. The last hole is zero.”

  “I never noticed there wasn’t a Z,” said Kevin. “I mean in the days when I could see.”

  “You know now. But can you remember all that? And you want 113,” she reminded him anxiously.

  “Yes, I will remember now. God bless you,” said Kevin, heartily, astonishing himself.

  “A pleasure,” said the voice warmly.

  Kevin sat there holding the phone. He couldn’t help smiling. Then, very carefully, he dialed 113.

  “Information,” singsonged another voice.

  “Please help me,” he said. “I want the phone number of a place called Greenhill something or other. It’s a firm that employs draughtsmen. It’s somewhere near MacArthur Park.”

  “What is the full name of the firm, please?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What is the address, please?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But this is very important.”

  The voice said disapprovingly, “One moment, please.”

  Kevin sat there, holding the phone.

  The voice said, “There is a Greenhill Engineering Company in that area,” and quickly rattled off a number.

  “Oh, good. Now, please,” said Kevin, “Would you just repeat the number so that I’m sure to remember? I am blind.”

  This time he was not surprised when everything cool, remote and official fell away. The girl’s voice—for now the voice was a girl’s voice—gave the number again. Kevin repeated it.

  “Fine,” said the girl. “Now you are on your own. Good luck.”

  “Thanks a million,” said Kevin weakly.

  “Any time,” said the girl gaily. Then she was gone.

  He would never see that girl. But then he never would have seen her. So it did not pertain. Kevin realized that he had been in touch, normally, just like anybody else. It was odd. Now, as he fingered the dial and recited the number to himself, something was forming. It wasn’t a visual image exactly, but it was as if he saw, with some new sense that had at least space and order to it, the dial under his hand. He marveled fearfully. He worked his fingers, very carefully, and dialed the number.

  “Greenhill Engineering,” the phone responded.

  “Mr. James Elyot, please.” Kevin was jubilant. He had done it!

  “Mr. Elyot is not in the office at the moment,” the voice purred. “May I take a mesage?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Kevin, his spirits dashed. “When will he be back?”

  “I am not sure. May I ask him to return your call?”

  “Yes, please. Would you ask him to phone Kevin MacCleery as soon as possible? He knows the number. Thank you.”

  Kevin put the phone on the cradle. Looming in his thoughts was the strange fact that this voice had not even needed to know that he was a blind man. It hadn’t pertained, at all. There was this web, then, that was. normally sightless. How odd! But never mind that, where the devil was Elyot? Kevin began to fret. He had done wonders, for someone half-dead, but he had not yet reached Elyot, which was his sworn duty. He had not yet warned the members of his party that they were being cheated out of their experiment and why. Well, then, reach one of the girls? Yes, he must. But how?

  Helen Fielding worked in a bookshop, but he could not remember the name of it. Sonia, he thought, he would never find. She worked in some business office. What business? Where? Best wait for Elyot to ring him back. Elyot would be able to find and tell the girls. But where was Elyot?

  Kevin was reluctant to take his hands away from the telephone, which was warm from his flesh. Wait. The corset business! He had heard Sonia say that, in derision. Had she been joking? Did corsets exist in this modern world? Peerless! The word came back to him. Had Sonia been joking? Was it possible that there existed such a business to which such a word applied? How could he find out? Better try the bookshop. That should be less difficult. Well, then, who would know?

  He dialed Information again. It was a different voice this time. “Can you give me the number of a public library?” he asked. He could not upset all officialdom. This would take some time. But he thought he could find a person who would help him. He felt confident. Had he not already said, twice, on the telephone that he was blind? He knew he could say it again. A library, he thought, ought to have some person willing to find him the name and the phone number of a bookshop.

  “Which library, please?” asked Information.

  “Any one. No, wait. One in my area.” He told her where he was. Then he was holding in his mind, almost as if it were in his hand and he could touch it, the phone number of a branch library. His fingers were nimble on the dial, this time. “Can you help me, please?” he said to the voice of the library.

  “I can try,” she said politely.

  “Have you the yellow pages there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I am blind,” said Kevin. “So I am not exactly a customer of yours …”

  “You could be,” said the voice placidly. “We have a Braille room.”

  “Nothing I’d want.”

  “How do you know?” said the voice, saucily.

  “I can imagine.”

  “You cannot,” she said.

  “Look,” he said, “I am in a hurry. I’m after a couple of phone numbers that I need badly. Will you help me?”

  “I’d be glad to,” she said. “What is it that you want?”

  “I need the number of a bookshop. It’s not more than half an hour from here. It’s in this area, or not too far … I think I might recognize the name if I heard it. Now, can you dig up some bookshops?”

  “Beacon?” the voice said.

  Kevin gasped. She was very quick, he thought. “No.”

  “Courier?”

  Intelligence was on the line connected to his ear. He marveled. “No,” he said.

  “Dodd’s? I think that’s too far afield.”

  “That’s not it, anyway.”

  “King’s Bookshop?”

  “By George, I really think that’s the one. Good for you!”

  “Well, good.” She read off the phone number.

  “I’ll try it,” he said earnestly. “Now, one more. There is some company that may be called Peerless and manufactures what could be called a corset. I can’t tell you any more than that. Do you think you can dig up the phone number?”

  “I can try.” The voice was close to laughing.

  “It’s very important,” he said.

  “It must be” said the voice, stifling mirth. “Hang on.”

  “What are you doing?” he said into the silence that ensued.

  “I’m doing my best with the clues I’ve got,” the voice said cheerfully. “Now hush …”

  Kevin hushed. The line sang. He felt connected. He said into the phone, “I don’t want to read the Bible or the works of William Shakespeare.”

  “I suppose you have read them already?” she said pertly.

  “It so happens that I have.”

  “Oh, go on! Cymbeline? Nobody reads Cymbeline!”

  “I’m not going to learn Braille for the sake of Cymbeline.”

  “Oh,” said the voice, sounding enlightened. “So you can’t read! So that’s it! Well, now we have the whole truth.”

  “You don’t have to be so sarcastic …” Kevin spluttered.

  “Listen,” said the voice indignantly. “I know someone who is blind and she reads like a whiz and h
as been reading for five years now, and if she hasn’t come to the end of what she can get in Braille, pray, who are you?”

  “Who are you?” said Kevin furiously.

  “I work here; name of MacCarthy.”

  “Name of MacCleery, here,” he said.

  “An Irishman!” said MacCarthy gaily. “Here we have a Peerless Lingerie. Opaque, do you imagine?” She giggled.

  Kevin began to laugh, helplessly. “Give me the number, like a good girl.”

  “Well, yes, sir,” said MacCarthy meekly, and did so. “Wait, here’s another—Peerless Foundation.”

  “Give me that, too. I can try the both of them. And listen, MacCarthy,” said Kevin, “I may visit you, one of these days.”

  “Oh, do come and see us,” chirped MacCarthy. “Perhaps we’ll have some trifle to astonish you, though you are already as wise as an owl, having read almost everything.”

  Kevin, with the phone tight to his ear, joyously soaking up insults, now saw that someone superior to MacCarthy (before whom MacCarthy had better behave) had just come within earshot. Her voice changed. “Anything else I can do, sir?”

  “No, thank you, acushla.” Kevin was grinning.

  “Now, are you sure you can remember all three numbers?”

  “We’ll see.” Kevin reeled off all three.

  “That’s right,” said MacCarthy. He seemed to see, in the place where she was, how that inhibiting presence was moving away and how MacCarthy’s eye was following this, as her voice lost formality. “Hey, that’s pretty good!”

  “Oh, I can remember,” Kevin said jauntily.

  “You’ve got a lovely Irish voice in your mouth, well-read MacCleery,” she said, “as if you didn’t know it.”

  She hung up on him and he leaned back in the chair, feeling as if he had been struck by lightning. Or by light. Why, he could see MacCarthy. She might be a young redhead, or a plump married lady, or an elfish old spinster—but that didn’t matter. He still saw her, with an extra sense. She was a female of a certain quality of mind and spirit, and he could tell and it was like light.

  After a while, he dialed one of the two Peerless numbers she had given him. He would try Sonia first. He seemed to know that Sonia would not be upset by this disappointment, or at least not as much so as Helen would be. Looking backwards at the two girls, with this newfound sense, he felt quite sure.

  Peerless Foundation recognized Sonia’s name. “Just a moment please.” Clicks clicked at him. Kevin waited, feeling wonderfully pleased that he was connected with the right place.

  Then a man said, “Who is that, please?”

  “I wanted Miss Sonia Jones,” said Kevin, hearing, seeing a man in a huff.

  “Miss Jones has not come in today—nor telephoned,” said Huff.

  “But where is she, then?”

  “She is not at her desk,” said the man with righteous indignation. “Who is this, please?”

  “Never mind,” said Kevin. He rang off. He didn’t like Huff. But what could have happened to Sonia? He felt very uneasy. And where was Elyot? He realized that he had better stay off the phone, if he were to receive Elyot’s call.

  But he barely could stay off. He tore himself away and walked about bumping into objects, but seeing, with this new sense. In a flood of light, he saw his mother, and his heart winced with shame and sorrow. Why didn’t the phone ring?

  The phone remained silent. Finally (and with some amusement) he rationalized himself into his duty to phone the bookshop. He did so with no trouble. “Miss Helen Fielding, please.”

  “Miss Fielding has already gone out to lunch. May I give her a message?”

  “When will she be back?” Kevin was feeling a distinct alarm. Why, he still hadn’t reached any one of them.

  “I can’t say, exactly. I should think in about an hour.”

  “Please ask her to ring Kevin MacCleery.”

  “I will, Mr. MacCleery,” said the voice pleasantly.

  Kevin hung up. Lunch! He went to turn on the radio and get the time. Why, it was almost one! Where had the morning flown to? He went out to the kitchen to get the sandwich his mother had left for him and his glass of milk. Before he bit into the sandwich, Kevin MacCleery suddenly burst into song. Of course, he had a lovely Irish voice! That saucy chit in the library … He may as well make her a chit. He’d never see her, nor her appearance. But he “saw” her, well enough.

  Finally he sat down and finished his sandwich solemnly. He drank his milk. Then he got up and walked to the phone. He dialed Information again, and was given the number of a School of Braille.

  “How long does it take to learn Braille?” he inquired.

  “That depends on how bright you are,” came the reply.

  “Oh, I’m bright enough. I have never particularly wanted to learn …”

  The School said to him severely, “Unless you mean to apply yourself, Mr. MacCleery, don’t waste our time. We have others.”

  Kevin said, “Yes, ma’am,” quite humbly. It did him good.

  He hummed to himself. His voice vibrated in his chest. He bumbled around the downstairs rooms. He was feeling a tearing excitement. At last the phone rang and it was Elyot.

  Kevin began to explain to him, rapidly, what had happened. Elyot just listened. “If you’ll phone the girls—” said Kevin. “Look, I’m sorry. I tried to get you, long ago. I really am sorry.” Kevin knew that he wasn’t sounding sorry, at all. He said, “Look, Elyot, there’s something I want to do. I want to give a party. Tonight. Supper? I want to bring all the food and drink. Can we have it up in your room? The four of us? About seven? All right?”

  “All right,” said Elyot weakly. “Fine.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” said Kevin. “I want to provide the whole works. So, see you later?”

  “Fine,” said Elyot.

  Kevin hung up without noticing which of them had done all the talking. A party! Of course! Wasn’t he sworn? So, give a party and thus be “of it.” Of course!

  In his bedroom he found his wallet where his mother had laid it, long ago, in his handkerchief drawer. There was some money in it. How much, he didn’t know, didn’t care. All would be well. He could get credit. He could talk them into it.

  He went to the hall-stand and found the white stick his mother had bought for him. The delicatessen must still be in the same place. Or, if not, he would find another.

  He went out of the house. He wasn’t afraid. It was just that he had never seen any reason for going out before. But now that he was going to give a party he must see to the arrangements and provide and plan. And “of the party” he was bound to be, this day.

  Three nonsensical words. How strange that, when applied, they had turned out not to be nonsense. I must have been ready, he thought soberly, to turn into the world—to stop cowering like a—a coward. A cowering coward. It was just the prod, just the needed thing. There will be something I can make yet, and it won’t be baskets. He began to tremble. His ears were bringing the noises of the world to him and, standing on the pavement, he began to feel confused.

  Somebody’s feet halted. “Can I help you?” the person said in a polite tenor.

  “It’s a wicked thing, I think,” said Kevin blithely, “to stand in the way of a person’s kindness.”

  “When did you kiss the Blarney Stone?” said the voice. A hand took his arm.

  “If there is a delicatessen in the next street,” said Kevin, “I am going there.”

  “There is.”

  “You’re a Scot,” said Kevin alertly.

  “Watch your foot on the left,” said the person. “It’s on the brink of the curb. You’re Mary MacCleery’s son. You need a haircut.”

  Kevin said gravely, “I can see that. Would you put my foot in the barber’s shop, while you’re about it?”

  “I’d be proud to,” the person said.

  Kevin, who “saw” that this man was his elder and a good man, thought: Now, I believe it. It’s not I that should be so proud. L
et him be proud and so let us be connected. “It’s nice out of prison,” he said into the air. And “nice” was a modest word, and a word that was not too proud.

  James Elyot did not own a car. He had never needed to spend the money. He caught the bus a few minutes before eight o’clock and, choosing to wait for the exact moment, he did not unwrap his penny, nor read what was typed upon the piece of paper, until it was eight o’clock exactly.

  He was prepared for something couched in big abstract words, words like love or courage or faith. He read what was on the paper and was plunged at once into bewilderment. The last thing he had expected was that he would not even understand the motto he had sworn to live by.

  The line of typing slanted upwards on the torn scrap. It began without a capital letter but the last three letters were in upper case. It read “come to the AID.”

  Elyot stared at it. Now who, he thought crossly, had put a thing like this into the tobacco tin? Helen, he guessed. It was Helen who had spoken of the oracle and an oracle was often cryptic. But what the devil did AID stand for?

  His mind went to work at a translation. “Come” was simple enough. He turned it round into “go”—from where he sat. He was to proceed in space? Very well. But whither?

  He glanced at the man who was reading his morning paper in the seat beside him. “Excuse me,” said Elyot. “I have an instruction here and I can’t understand it. Do you happen to know what the letters A-I-D stand for?”

  “Hm? A-I what?”

  “A-I-D,” repeated Elyot patiently. “I’ve got to go there but I don’t know what the letters stand for.”

  There was something about Elyot, about his high bare brow, his heavy glasses, the thinness of his neck, that caused the male of the species to want to make fun of him. Poor Elyot was a kind of walking cartoon and the shine of his earnest eyes invited mockery. The female of the species seemed able simply to observe (but, of course, without coquetry) his freakish personality. But a man always wanted to make fun of him. It was his abysmal innocence, his very seriousness, that outraged a man, who perhaps could remember when he, too, had thought that the whole world went, by reason and in moral order, toward the ideal.

  This perfect stranger looked at Elyot glumly and said, “Associated Independent Dog-lovers.”