The young man was aware of his own clothing unsticking from the inflated vinyl, crackling slightly, a quick seam of blue static shimmering away across the back of the chair; of the snow pattern churning on the untuned screen, the color tube shifting hues under the black light, turning to gray, then brightening in the darkness, locking on an electric blue, and holding.
Morrison seemed to undergo a subtle transformation as details previously masked by shadow now came into focus. It was more than his voice, his words. It was the full size of him, no longer young but still strong, on his feet and braced in an unexpectedly powerful stance. It was the configuration of his head in silhouette, the haunted pallor of the skin, stretched taut, the large, luminous whites of the eyes, burning like radium. It was all these things and more. It was the reality of him, no longer a statistic but a man, clear and unavoidable at last.
The young man faced Morrison and his wife. The palms of his hands were sweating coldly. He put aside the questionnaire.
Six minutes to six.
“I’ll put down that you—you declined to participate. How’s that? No questions asked.”
He made ready to leave.
“It’s been such a long time,” said Mrs. Morrison again.
Mr. Morrison laughed shortly, a descending scale ending in a bitter, metallic echo that cut through the hissing. “I’ll bet it’s all crazy to you, isn’t it? This stuff.”
“No, not at all. Some of these pieces are priceless. I recognized that right away.
“Are they?”
“Sure,” said the young man. “If you don’t mind my saying so, it reminds me of my brother Jack’s room. He threw out most of his underground newspapers, posters, that sort of thing when he got drafted. It was back in the sixties—I can barely remember it. If only he’d realized. Nobody saved anything. That’s why it’s all so valuable now.”
“We did,” said Mrs. Morrison.
“So I see.”
They seemed to want to talk, after all—lonely, perhaps—so he found himself ignoring the static and actually making an effort to prolong his exit. A couple of minutes more wouldn’t hurt. They’re not so bad, the Morrisons, he thought. I can see that now.
“Well, I envy you. I went through a Marvel Comics phase when I was a kid. Those are worth a bundle now, too. My mother burned them all when I went away to college, of course. It’s the same principle. But if I could go back in a time machine . . .” He shook his head and allowed an unforced smile to show through.
“These were our son’s things,” said Mrs. Morrison.
“Oh?” Could be I remind them of their son. I guess I should be honored.
“Our son David,” said Mr. Morrison.
“I see.” There was an awkward pause. The young man felt vaguely embarrassed. “It’s nice of him to let you hold his collection. You’ve got quite an investment here.”
The minute hand of the clock on the wall ground through its cycle, pressing forward in the rush of white noise from the speakers.
“David Morrison.” Her voice sounded hopeful. “You’ve heard the name?”
David Morrison, David Morrison. Curious. Yes, he could almost remember something, a magazine cover or . . .
“It was a long time ago. He—our son—was the last American boy to be killed in Vietnam.”
It was four minutes to six and he didn’t know what to say.
“When it happened, we didn’t know what to think,” said Mrs. Morrison. “We talked to people like us. Mostly they wanted to pretend it never happened.”
“They didn’t understand, either,” said Mr. Morrison.
“So we read everything. The magazines, books. We listened to the news commentators. It was terribly confusing. We finally decided even they didn’t know any more than we did about what went on over there, or why.”
“What was it to them? Another story for The Six O’Clock News, right, Jenny?”
Mrs. Morrison drew a deep, pained breath. Her eyes fluttered as she spoke, the television screen at her back lost in a grainy storm of deep blue snow.
“Finally the day came for me to clear David’s room . . .”
“Please,” said the young man, “you don’t have to explain.”
But she went ahead with it, a story she had gone over so many times she might have been recalling another life. Her eyes opened. They were dry and startlingly clear.
It was three minutes to six.
“I started packing David’s belongings. Then it occurred to us that he might have known the reason. So we went through his papers and so forth, even his record albums, searching. So much of it seemed strange, in another language, practically from another planet. But we trusted that the answer would be revealed to us in time.”
“We’re still living with it,” said Morrison. “It’s with us when we get up in the morning, when we give up at night. Sometimes I think I see a clue there, the way he would have seen it, but then I lose the thread and we’re back where we started.
“We tried watching the old reruns, hoping they had something to tell. But they were empty. It was like nothing important was going on in this country back then.”
“Tell him about the tracks, Bob.”
“I’m getting to it . . . Anyway, we waited. I let my job go, and we were living off our savings. It wasn’t much. It’s almost used up by now. But we had to have the answer. Why? Nothing was worth a damn, otherwise . . .
“Then, a few months ago, there was this article in TV Guide. About the television programs, the way they make them. They take the tracks—the audience reactions, follow?—and use them over and over. Did you know that?”
“I—I had heard . . .”
“Well, it’s true. They take pieces of old soundtracks, mix them in, a big laugh here, some talk there—it’s all taped inside a machine, an audience machine. The tapes go all the way back. I’ve broken ’em down and compared. Half the time you can hear the same folks laughing from twenty, twenty-five years ago. And from the sixties. That’s the part that got to me. So I rigged a way to filter out everything—dialogue, music—except for the audience, the track.”
“Why, he probably knows all about that. Don’t you, young man?”
“A lot of them, the audience, are gone now. It doesn’t matter. They’re on tape. It’s recycled, ‘canned’ they call it. It’s all the same to TV. Point is, this is the only way left for us to get through, or them to us. To make contact. To listen, eavesdrop, you might say, on what folks were doing and thinking and commenting on and laughing over back then.
“I can’t call ’em up on the phone, or take a poll, or stop people on the street, ’cause they’d only act like nothing happened. Today, it’s all passed on. Don’t ask me how, but it has.
“They’re passed on now, too, so many of ’em.”
“Like the boys,” said Mrs. Morrison softly, so that her voice was all but lost in the hiss of the swirling blue vortex. “So many beautiful boys, the ones who would talk now, if only they could.”
“Like the ones on the tracks,” said Mr. Morrison.
“Like the ones who never came home,” said his wife. “Dead now, all dead, and never coming back.”
One minute to six.
“Not yet,” he said aloud, frightened by his own voice.
As Mr. Morrison cranked up the gain and turned back to the set, the young man hurried out. As Mrs. Morrison opened her ears and closed her eyes to all but the laughtrack that rang out around her, he tried in vain to think of a way to reduce it all to a few simple marks in a new pointless language on sheets of printed paper. And as the Morrisons listened for the approving bursts of laughter and murmuring and applause, separated out of an otherwise meaningless echo from the past, he closed the door behind him, leaving them as he had found them. He began to walk fast, faster, and finally to run.
The questionnaire crumpled and dropped from his hand.
Jack, I loved you, did you know that? You were my brother. I didn’t understand, either. No one did. There was
no time. But I told you, didn’t I? Didn’t I?
He passed other isolated houses on the block, ghostly living rooms turning to flickering beacons of cobalt blue against the night. The voices from within were television voices, muffled and anonymous and impossible to decipher unless one were to listen too closely, more closely than life itself would seem to want to permit, to the exclusion of all else, as to the falling of a single blade of grass or the unseen whisper of an approaching scythe. And it rang out around him then, too, through the trees and into the sky and the cold stars, the sound of the muttering and the laughter, the restless chorus of the dead, spreading rapidly away from him across the city and the world.
COME, FOLLOW by Sheila Hodgson
M.R. James (1862-1936) is recognized as The Master of the traditional ghost story. In an essay, “Stories I Have Tried to Write,” James described a number of “stories which have crossed my mind from time to time and never materialized properly. Never properly: for some of them I have actually written down, and they repose in a drawer somewhere . . . Let me recall them for the benefit (so to style it) of somebody else.” One of several writers to try a hand at building a story from James’ suggestions is Sheila Hodgson.
Born in London, Sheila Hodgson began her career in the theatre before joining the BBC in 1960 as a staff writer. Six years later she turned free lance, writing for both commercial television and the BBC in addition to working extensively for radio. She has had some twenty radio plays and two stage plays produced, and, while basically a dramatic writer, has had short stories published in New Writing and in various English magazines, and has had one novel. Inspired by M.R. James’ above-mentioned essay, Hodgson talked BBC into doing a series of six radio plays based on his story ideas. She wrote four of these plays herself during 1976-77, and adapted two of these for publication in 1978 in the venerable Blackwood’s Magazine (for which she also wrote an article on James). “Come, Follow!” based on another of James’ suggestions, was to have appeared in Blackwood’s also, but that magazine ended its century and a half of publication before the story saw print. Fortunately, editor Rosemary Pardoe rescued Hodgson’s story for Ghosts & Scholars, an annual homage to M.R. James. I think James would have nodded his approval of Hodgson’s development of his bequest.
It is a matter agreed upon among all right-thinking persons that Christmas should be spent in the bosom of the family; the picture conjured up by Mr. Charles Dickens has entered into the catalogue of English myths, a vision compounded of log fires, merry laughter and snow-bound countryside—all this despite the fact that the log fire may smoke, the snow prove nonexistent, and the company be rendered speechless by indigestion. Moreover, it will rain.
“It will rain,” said Mr. George Markham.
“What a dismal fellow you arc, George!” His companion jerked on the bridle; they were riding in a light trap down the empty Sussex road. “My uncle is the only living relative I possess and I must, I positively must, call on him at Christmas.”
“Why? The shops have a capital collection of greeting cards. Just send the old boy a robin. Or a picture of Santa Claus, signed Your Affectionate Nephew.”
“That’s ungenerous!” Paul Bernays laughed; they both laughed, for they were young men up at Cambridge in this year of 1896 and confident of their position. “He’s got no money and no prospects, he lives with some dreary cleric of his own age.”
“Worse and worse! My dear Paul, what are we going to say to a couple of elderly country bores?”
“Happy Christmas!” For some reason this struck both of them as an excellent joke; the barren hedgerows shook to their mirth, they slapped each other on the back and chortled with glee while the horse slowed to a walk and, yes, it began to rain. To either side the sepia downs curved against a wintry sky; a single bird rose above their heads and vanished over the hill.
“Confound it. Oh, let’s go back!”
They might well have been tempted; the shower looked like developing into a steady downpour; but at that moment (seeking a place to maneuver the trap) Bernays turned his head and saw a most curious apparition approaching across the fields. A man of more than average height dressed in a flapping black cloak, he held a large umbrella high above his head and jumped over the furrows in a series of odd little skips; with each jump the umbrella jerked in the air while the rising wind tugged at his cloak, giving him the semblance of an old and agitated bat. He wore no headgear—and indeed would have found some difficulty in keeping anything upon his head by reason of the wind and the fact that both his hands were occupied in an attempt to restrain the umbrella handle. So, struggling against the malice of the elements, he contrived to gain the road where he stood peering at the travelers from under dark eyebrows; strangely hairy eyebrows which almost met over the bridge of his nose.
“Mr. Bernays?”
The words were swept away on a gust of rain. The young men stared at him; then Paul recovered sufficiently to shout:
“Hullo! Are you from the rectory?” And this was more than simple guesswork: at that distance the clerical collar could be plainly observed under the sodden cloak.
“My name is Alaric Halsey. You are welcome, sir, you are most welcome. Dear, dear, dear, what singularly inclement weather!” He smiled, a long grin which etched deep lines around his mouth and displayed a set of rather good teeth. He could have been some fifty years old, the hair still black and worn en brosse, the eyes luminous under those really very peculiar eyebrows. More might have ensued only at that moment there occurred a most unfortunate accident. Whether the wind, the rain, the flapping garments or a combination of all three alarmed the horse, suffice it to say that the animal bolted. It reared abruptly, backed—nearly upsetting the cart—and then set off at a tolerable gallop, causing the Reverend Alaric Halsey to leap into the ditch. His voice echoed thinly after them, the one distinguishable word being “uncle.” It took Paul Bernays the better part of two miles to bring the horse under control. The creature then evinced a marked desire to go straight home, a point of view with which neither young man felt inclined to argue.
As they sat warming themselves before an excellent fire George Markham said: “So much for the clerical friend! We’ve shown seasonal good will, my dear chap. Do we really have to call on your uncle again?”
“Yes.” Paul stretched his legs and reached for the decanter. “I’m sorry for the man, upon my word, he’s been most shabbily treated.”
“How?”
Rain spat against the window, the firelight made little amber gleams in the port. Bernays poured himself another glass before replying.
“Ancient history. He should have inherited this house. But he quarreled with his father over certain companions, a pretty scandalous affair—don’t ask me what!—and the whole West Farthing estate came to me. Uncle Nicholas went abroad; and didn’t return to England till, oh, some time in 1895, I believe.”
“Good Lord. Didn’t he contest the will?”
“No.”
“Lucky for you. Is the estate worth much . . .?” Markham drained his wine.
“I couldn’t say. Yes, I suppose so. I’ve got the house and about two hundred acres of land. Mostly mixed farming, we passed the farm on the way up.” Paul spoke with a genuine unconcern; he had a young man’s easy contempt for money, a common attribute in those who have never had to do without it. They passed to other more congenial subjects such as women and horses, then went into dinner and gave the unlucky Mr. Nicholas Bernays only a passing thought and his friend the Reverend Alaric Halsey no thought at all.
It was therefore with a certain surprise on the following morning that—caught in the midst of his shaving—the owner of West Farthing looked out of the window and exclaimed:
“Good heavens. My uncle!”
A gentleman could be seen approaching the front door, a man below average height with thinning red hair and a faintly harassed expression. He glanced both right and left; seemingly troubled by something immediately behind him. Precisely what beca
me apparent when a mongrel dog came round the corner of the outbuildings to join his master on the doorstep. Before Mr. Bernays senior could announce his arrival by the conventional rat-a-tat his nephew threw up the window and shouted:
“Uncle Nicholas! I’m delighted to see you, sir! We’re spending Christmas here, I had intended to call on you—Come in, come in!”
Now it is entirely possible that the sight of a young man, his face covered in soap and one hand brandishing a cut-throat razor, startled the visitor; certainly he sprang backwards with an oath while the dog barked, leaping in the air and snapping with some display of viciousness. Both dog and master recovered their composure, however, and entered the house with haste. For the best part of an hour uncle and nephew exchanged the usual aimless remarks which pass for conversation amongst people who meet but seldom and have nothing in common when they do. If Mr. Nicholas Bernays bore any grudge against his relation he gave no sign of it. He was quite frankly a nondescript kind of fellow, he spoke in disconnected spasms and kept his eyes fixed on the carpet. The gaps in his speech grew more frequent, the undergraduates began to wonder how long he intended to stay and whether they should invite him to lunch—Paul being on the point of suggesting it when his uncle suddenly jerked round and cried, “Bless my soul! It’s raining. And I—I—I have no raincoat!”
Well, that omission could speedily be remedied; he really was an odd uncomfortable kind of guest, and they would far rather lend him a raincoat than endure his company throughout a meal—besides, he had the strangest notions. George Markham’s mackintosh fitted him tolerably neatly whereas Paul’s was manifestly too big; yet Mr. Bernays showed a marked preference for the latter and departed with surprising haste, clutching the garment round him and babbling quite excessive gratitude. As they watched him hustle away through the drizzling rain, a curious point struck both young men simultaneously.
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