The Complete Short Stories

by Muriel Spark

  ‘It was making a hell of a racket like a cat purring,’ George told him.

  ‘Any idea what it really was?’ the reporter inquired.

  George took his time to answer. ‘Well, yes,’ he said, ‘and no.’

  ‘Spode ware,’ said Miss Pinkerton.

  George continued, ‘I’m not up in these things. I’m extremely sceptical as a rule. This was a new experience to me.

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Miss Pinkerton. ‘Personally, I’ve been in china for twenty-three years. I recognized the thing immediately.’

  The reporter scribbled and inquired, ‘These flying discs appear frequently in China?’

  ‘It was a saucer. I’ve never seen one flying before,’ Miss Pinkerton explained.

  ‘I am going to ask a question,’ George said.

  Miss Pinkerton continued, ‘Mr Lake is an art framer. He handles old canvases but next to no antiques.’

  ‘I am going to ask. Are you telling the story or am I?’ George said.

  ‘Perhaps Mr Lake’s account first and then the lady’s,’ the reporter ventured.

  Miss Pinkerton subsided crossly while he turned to George.

  ‘Was the object attached to anything? No wires or anything? I mean, someone couldn’t have been having a joke or something?’

  George gave a decent moment to the possibility.

  ‘No,’ he then said. ‘It struck me, in fact, that there was some sort of Mind behind it, operating from outer space. It tried to attack me, in fact.’

  ‘Really, how was that?’

  ‘Mr Lake was not attacked,’ Miss Pinkerton stated. ‘There was no danger at all. I saw the expression. on the pilot’s face. He was having a game with Mr Lake, grinning all over his face.’

  ‘Pilot?’ said George. ‘What are you talking about — pilot!’

  Miss Pinkerton sighed. ‘A tiny man half the size of my finger,’ she declared. ‘He sat on a tiny stool. He held the little tiny steering-wheel with one hand and waved with the other. Because, there was something like a sewing-machine fixed near the rim, and he worked the tiny treadle with his foot. Mr Lake was not attacked.’

  ‘Don’t be so damn silly,’ said George.

  ‘You don’t mean this?’ the reporter asked her with scrutiny.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘I would like to know something,’ George demanded.

  ‘You only saw the underside of the saucer, George.’

  ‘You said nothing about any pilot at the time,’ said George. ‘I saw no pilot.’

  ‘Mr Lake got a fright when the saucer came at him. If he hadn’t been dodging he would have seen for himself.’

  ‘You mentioned no pilot,’ said George. ‘Be reasonable.’

  ‘I had no chance,’ said she. She appealed to the cameraman. ‘You see, I know what I’m talking about. Mr Lake thought he knew better, however. Mr Lake said, “It’s a forgery.” If there’s one thing I do know, it’s china.’

  ‘It would be most unlikely,’ said George to the reporter. ‘A steering-wheel and a treadle machine these days, can you credit it?’

  ‘The man would have fallen out,’ the cameraman reflected.

  ‘I must say,’ said the reporter, ‘that I favour Mr Lake’s long-range theory. The lady may have been subject to some hallucination, after the shock of the saucer.

  ‘Quite,’ said George. He whispered something to the photographer. ‘Women!’ Miss Pinkerton heard him breathe.

  The reporter heard him also. He gave a friendly laugh. ‘Shall we continue with Mr Lake’s account, and then see what we can make of both stories?’

  But Miss Pinkerton had come to a rapid decision. She began to display a mood hitherto unknown to George. Leaning back, she gave way to a weak and artless giggling. Her hand fluttered prettily as she spoke between gurgles of mirth. ‘Oh, what a mess! What an evening! We aren’t accustomed to drink, you see, and now oh dear, oh dear!’

  ‘Are you all right, Laura?’ George inquired severely.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Miss Pinkerton, drowsy and amiable. ‘We really oughtn’t to have done this, George. Bringing these gentlemen out. But I can’t keep it up, George. Oh dear, it’s been fun though.’

  She was away into her giggles again. George looked bewildered. Then he looked suspicious.

  ‘It’s definitely the effect of this extraordinary phenomenon,’ George said firmly to the press.

  ‘It was my fault, all my fault,’ spluttered Miss Pinkerton.

  The reporter looked at his watch. ‘I can quite definitely say you saw a flying object?’ he asked. ‘And that you were both put out by it?’

  ‘Put down that it was a small, round, flatish object. We both agree to that,’ George said.

  A spurt of delight arose from Miss Pinkerton again.

  ‘Women, you know! It always comes down to women in the finish,’ she told them. ‘We had a couple of drinks.’

  ‘Mr Lake had rather more than I did,’ she added triumphantly.

  ‘I assure you,’ said George to the reporter.

  ‘We might be fined for bringing the press along, George. It might be an offence,’ she put in.

  ‘I assure you,’ George insisted to the photographer, ‘that we had a flying saucer less than an hour ago in this room.’

  Miss Pinkerton giggled.

  The reporter looked round the room with new eyes; and with the air of one to whom to understand all is to forgive all, he folded his notebook. The cameraman stared at the pool of sherry, the overturned flowers, the broken glass and china. He packed up his camera, and they went away.

  George gave out the tale to his regular customers. He gave both versions, appealing to their reason to choose. Further up the road at her corner shop, Miss Pinkerton smiled tolerantly when questioned. ‘Flying saucer? George is very artistic,’ she would say, ‘and allowances must be made for imaginative folk.’ Sometimes she added that the evening had been a memorable one, ‘Quite a party!’

  It caused a certain amount of tittering in the neighbourhood. George felt this; but otherwise, the affair made no difference between them. Personally, I believe the story, with a preference for Miss Pinkerton’s original version. She is a neighbour of mine. I have reason to believe this version because, not long afterwards, I too received a flying visitation from a saucer. The little pilot, in my case, was shy and inquisitive. He pedalled with all his might. My saucer was Royal Worcester, fake or not I can’t say.

  The Pearly Shadow

  ‘I’ll track him down,’ said Mr Neviss. ‘I’ll be relentless.’

  Dr Felicity Grayland offered him a caramel of which there was a bowl on her table (for the children?).

  ‘Thanks. I’ll do away with him,’ said Mr Neviss, ‘as soon as I get my hands on him.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Neviss,’ said Felicity, who was a resident psychiatrist at the nursing home. ‘We’ll both do away with him, in fact. That’s what we’re here for. I see you’re down as Mr O. Neviss. What does “O” stand for?’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone I dislike more,’ Mr Neviss said. ‘I’ll break his—’

  ‘Mr Neviss,’ said Felicity. ‘Relax. Just relax.’

  ‘O stands for Olaf. It isn’t easy to relax,’ said the patient, ‘with him standing there.’ He pointed to a spot behind her chair.

  Felicity leaned back. ‘Please describe this pearly shadow, Olaf,’ she said. ‘Simply tell me what you see, with the details. Call me Felicity —please do.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you can see for yourself. He’s standing behind you.

  ‘What is he doing?’ Felicity inquired.

  ‘Just standing,’ said Mr Neviss. ‘He’s always just standing, except when I try to get hold of him, and then —’Try,’ said Felicity, ‘to relax. What exactly do you mean by a pearly shadow?’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, woman,’ said the patient, ‘look round and see for yourself.’

  Indulgently, with a small smile, she looked round, and looked back very quickly at her patie
nt. ‘That’s the way — keep relaxed,’ she said, helping herself to a sweet. ‘Now, tell me, when did this pearly shadow business first start?’

  Felicity gave Olaf an hour. Then she showed him out to the nurse, who conveyed him to an attendant, to take him to his ward. Felicity lingered outside her consulting-room. She hesitated, then entered abruptly. Yes, the pearly shadow was still there.

  She gave the matter a moment’s thought before deciding to see the Chief about herself. Overwork, clearly. As she reached for the house phone, the nurse entered with the appointment book. ‘Only one more patient today, doctor,’ said the nurse pleasantly.

  ‘Oh,’ Felicity said, ‘I thought Neviss was the last.’ She looked at the book. ‘P. Shadow,’ she repeated. ‘He must be a new patient; have we got his previous record?’

  ‘It’s on your desk,’ said the nurse. ‘Will I show him in?’

  ‘I’m here already,’ said the pearly shadow.

  The nurse jumped. ‘Oh, Mr Shadow,’ she said, ‘you should have waited in the waiting-room, you know.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Shadow,’ said Felicity, as the nurse withdrew. She opened a drawer and took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the patient hoarsely, while Felicity glanced at his record.

  ‘I shouldn’t really offer you cigarettes,’ she smiled. ‘I see you’ve had lung trouble. And anaemia.

  ‘I’m very bloodless,’ said the pearly shadow, ‘and my voice has almost gone.

  ‘But,’ said the pearly shadow, as Felicity tried to distinguish his features, ‘I’ve come here about my nerves, you know. There’s something on my mind.’

  This put Felicity finally at her ease. She applied herself calmly to the problem before her. The luminous vagueness of the patient’s face became irrelevant. ‘I see you’re down as P. Shadow. What does “P” stand for?’

  ‘Pearly. You can call me Pearly.’

  ‘Just relax,’ said Felicity. ‘Pearly, relax.’

  ‘It isn’t easy to relax,’ said the pearly shadow, ‘when every hand is against you.

  ‘Everyone is against me. You,’ he continued, ‘are against me. You want to do away with me. You intend to exterminate me.’

  ‘Relax, Mr Shadow,’ said Felicity, who did not really believe in first-name relationships with patients. ‘Now, tell me, what gives you this idea?’

  ‘You told Neviss you’d both get rid of me. That’s what you’re here for, I heard,’ said the pearly shadow. ‘You’re giving him sedatives, aren’t you? You’re going to work me out of his system, aren’t you?’

  Felicity kept her eye fixed on what looked like a pearl tie-pin at the level of his chest. ‘I can’t discuss another patient’s treatment with you,’ she explained. ‘That would be unethical. One patient has nothing to do with another.’

  ‘They gave him a drug last night,’ the pearly shadow said, ‘and I nearly died of it. If you give him anything stronger I shall probably fade away.

  ‘You’re trying to murder me,’ the patient insisted. ‘You and all the rest of them. I know.’

  Felicity gave him an hour. Then she opened the door and let him out. She carefully wrote her report on P. Shadow, and took it to the nurse. It was her habit to exchange a friendly few words with the nurse, after the last patient had left. Felicity leaned in the doorway. ‘Another day over, nurse,’ she remarked. ‘It’s been rather a bore. In fact,’ she went on, ‘we don’t get any interesting cases these days. All quite cut to the pattern, these days. Take those last two, for instance. Neviss — illusions of being haunted; perfectly simple. Shadow — straightforward illusions of persecution. Now, if you’d been here last year, we had some really complicated… Nurse! What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘He walked right through me,’ said the nurse, heaving, ‘and he came out at the other side.’

  ‘You’ve been overworking, Nurse,’ Felicity said. ‘Take a sweet, a cigarette … Here’s some water. Now relax… just relax. He could not have walked right through you, but I think I know what you mean. He is a very insubstantial type.’ Felicity regarded the prosperous shape of the nurse. ‘Did you feel any sensation when he appeared to walk through you?’

  ‘Well, he’s luminous, isn’t he? Where’s he gone?’

  ‘Home, I imagine. He’s an out-patient. If you’re feeling better, Nurse, I’m afraid I have to close the office. It’s been a heavy day.’

  Felicity was still firmly decided to consult the Chief about herself and her confused delusion, but it was too late. Everyone had gone home.

  Dr Felicity Grayland, as she left her office, regretted that she had not been able to remember the name of the nurse, and so make her chatty interlude more personal. She rarely remembered the names of the people around her or of the people she met. Without referring to the cards, she did not remember many of her patients. She drove home, trying hard, for some reason, to think of her last patient’s name. She had no success, and when she put the car away she deliberately gave up.

  Her supper of mixed green salad, Roquefort cheese and fruit, with brown bread and butter, was laid out on the dining-room table. Felicity set about it with relish, reading the morning’s newspaper. She could never read the papers until the evening. Now she also remembered that she had decided to see the Chief about herself.

  About herself? Herself? Why? There must be some mistake. She went into the sitting-room and turned on the television, tuning in to a quiz show, her favourite programme. The subject was the Armada. What age exactly was Philip of Spain when he embarked upon this enterprise? The girl student with black glossy hair and round-eyed glasses, who was already winning thousands of pounds, opened her mouth confidently to answer. But just at that moment the television turned itself off although the lights were still on. ‘I hate quiz programmes,’ said a thin voice. ‘They get too much money.

  Felicity looked round and saw that patient of hers. The name?

  ‘How did you get in here?’ she said.

  ‘Through the door.’

  The front door was locked, but she supposed he meant that he always proceeded like a ghost through walls and doors.

  ‘If you want to consult me professionally,’ Felicity said, ‘you’ll have to see me at my office in the clinic. This is my home, Mr —?’

  ‘P. Shadow,’ he said. ‘First name, Pearly. I prefer not to attend that clinic. I frighten the nurses.’

  Felicity was used to strange patients, but she was thoroughly annoyed that her privacy had been violated. Quite sensibly, she didn’t see the point of arguing with Shadow. Instead, she decided to ring a colleague to see if he would come round and help her to chuck out the unwanted patient. She phoned a number while P. Shadow made himself comfortable in an armchair with the newspaper.

  There was no reply to the number Felicity rang. She paused a moment and started looking up another number in her address book.

  She came to the name she was looking for: Margaret Arkans, a gynaecologist married to James Arkans, another gynaecologist. When she thought of them, sun-bronzed, young, with white teeth flashing as they laughed, she felt a fool.

  The shadow sat on. He had put aside her paper and from what she could make out of his features, he looked more anxious than before.

  ‘Mr Shadow, what’s troubling you?’ she said.

  ‘I gather you’re looking for medical friends,’ said the pearly shadow. ‘They might advise you to take a sleeping pill or something.’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ said Felicity, beginning to see some way out of the situation. ‘I’ll take a sleeping pill anyway.

  ‘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. Y
es, 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.’