by James Wilson
‘You were talking to someone in your room. I heard you.’
Normally, he approached any delicate subject so obliquely that you barely knew you were being interrogated at all. Now he sounded like an irate headmaster.
Flustered, I burbled:
‘I wasn’t with a woman, if that’s what you were thinking.’
‘Who, then? Or what? You’re looking very pale, I must say.’
The waitress came to collect our order. I waved her away.
‘Have you ever heard of anyone reacting strangely to aspirin?’ I asked.
‘Strangely how?’
‘Having hallucinations?’
He shook his head. ‘So it was a hallucination, was it?’ he said softly.
‘I … Look, I’m sorry, I’m not very well,’ I said, getting up. ‘I need to see a doctor.’
‘Oh, you poor chap. We’ll ask nice Mrs. whatever-her-name-is at the desk. She’s bound to be able to recommend some more or less decent local fellow.’
‘My own doctor. I’ll have to go home tomorrow, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, but –’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I’ll take the train.’
And bolted for my room.
VII
I came closer to true mania that night, I think, than I have ever been in my life. The poles had vanished from my world, leaving me compassless. I just managed to get myself into bed – but then lay there, rigid with fear, waiting for the movements in my head to start again, pushing me irrevocably into madness. They never did – but the depth of my dread left me powerless to protect myself against the terrors crowding around me. When a strange billowing shape suddenly appeared at the window, I tried appealing to common sense – and immediately found I had hardly more reason, now, for believing it to be merely the curtain, stirred by a gust of wind, than I did for thinking it was a vengeful spirit. On the few occasions I managed to doze off, I would come to again with a jolt a few minutes later, wondering why the recollection that I had succeeded in finding Mary Wilson again seemed to fill me not with joy, but with an overwhelming dread. And then, with the force of a tidal wave, the answer would burst in upon me.
It was not until the first light of dawn began to dissolve the darkness that I was at last able to get my imagination under some kind of control. I got up, and quickly packed. I could not face Jessop again, so I left him a note, apologizing for my abrupt departure, and thanking him for all his kindness to me. Then, after wiring Chieveley to say I should be back that evening, I took the first train from Langley Mill to Derby, where I was able to pick up the London express. Five hours later, I was pulling into Henley.
I had originally intended to go back and settle myself in the cabin before doing anything else; but, as I came out of the station, and saw the all-too-familiar jumble of buildings that told me I was no more than half an hour from home, it suddenly hit me that in my present condition I would be quite incapable of sustaining a conversation with Violet, or even the Chieveleys. So I found a cab, and asked the driver to take me direct to Dr. Lewis’s house instead.
Lewis’s housekeeper answered the bell, and told me that he had already left on his evening visits. But just as she was shutting the door, I saw Lewis himself striding into the hall behind her, clutching his bag. He reached for his coat, then caught sight of me and dropped it back on the hook.
‘Hullo, Roper!’ he said. He smiled, and nodded at my suitcase. ‘You look as if you’ve come to stay.’
I just managed to laugh.
‘Something the matter?’
‘I was wondering if you might be able to spare me ten minutes?’
He peered at me, then glanced at his watch. ‘All right. Come in.’
‘Thank you.’
He lifted his arm, weighing the bag. ‘Shall I be needing my instruments of torture?’
‘No.’
‘Let’s go into my study, then.’
I followed him into a dark, chilly room smelling of stale cigar smoke. It was smaller than I would have expected, and more untidy, with papers strewn across the desk, and piles of journals on the floor, and books stuffed at odd angles into the shelves. Lewis pokered the dying fire into life, and lit an oil lamp on the mantelshelf.
‘Useful stuff, electricity,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t be without it. But I still think this is cosier.’ He waved at the two armchairs flanking the fireplace, and then at the desk. ‘Friendly, or formal?’
‘Friendly.’
He nodded, and we sat facing each other across the hearth. He tugged at his trousers, then leaned back with a comfortable sigh and smiled.
‘So, what can I do for you?’
I cleared my throat. ‘This is all a bit awkward, I’m afraid. I should have mentioned it weeks ago, only …Well, it was pure hubris, that’s the long and the short of it. I thought I could manage on my own, and it turns out I couldn’t.’
He nodded sympathetically. ‘Well, you’re telling me now, at any rate.’
‘I really don’t know what you’re going to think of me.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘I shouldn’t worry. You hear some pretty queer things when you’re a doctor.’
‘I doubt whether you’ve ever heard anything as queer as this.’
He nodded again and opened his hand, inviting me to go on.
‘All right,’ I said. And, taking a deep breath, I told him the entire history of my meeting with Mary Wilson, and what had happened since. I knew that if I watched him too closely it would only inhibit me, so I studiously avoided his gaze as I spoke – until, that is, the very end, when I was so hungry to see his reaction that I could not keep myself from glancing surreptitiously at his face. I expected to see horror there, or at least perplexity; but the mask of polite professional interest had barely changed.
‘Is that it?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Hm.’ He pressed his fingertips together and stared at them meditatively for a few seconds, a secular monk at prayer. ‘Well, the best thing I can do for you, I think, is to refer you to a specialist in nervous diseases.’
‘You think that’s what it is, then? A –’
‘I’m certain of it – though I can’t give you a more precise diagnosis myself. The human mind’s a complex and sensitive mechanism, and I’m no expert in it. All I can say with any confidence is that yours has taken a nasty knock, poor old fellow, and been thrown a bit out of kilter. And the sooner we can take steps to put things right again, the better. So …’ He consulted his watch again. ‘There’s one chap in particular I have in mind, a Dr. Enticknap. He’s up in town, of course, as you’d expect. So doubtless gets a lot of fashionable ladies suffering from the vapours. But don’t let that put you off. He’s got a first-rate reputation. You won’t find a sounder man anywhere.’ He got up, moved nimbly to the door, and held it open for me. ‘And now, I’m afraid, I really must be on my way. Ailing infants to see, and worried mamas. But I’ll write to Enticknap tonight, I promise, and let you know how we get on.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. But I could hear the disappointment in my own voice. And Lewis must have noticed it, too, because as I walked past him he added:
‘No, tell you what, even better: why don’t I telephone him in the morning, and see if we can get things moving at once?’
*
It took me almost an hour to get home, because my suitcase was so heavy that I had to keep setting it down to rest my arms. But at least the physical effort stopped me from dwelling too much on the implications of what Lewis had told me.
I was still hoping to slip in unobserved and make my way straight to the cabin – and only then, when I had staked my claim, as it were, by depositing my luggage, to go in search of the Chieveleys. So, rather than walking up the drive, I took a detour across the lawn, darting – as well as I could, under the burden I was carrying – from the sanctuary of one bush to the next. I had almost reached the side of the house, where I knew I should be safe, when the front door suddenly opened, and a man ap
peared. Though I could not see his face, I recognized him immediately from the silhouette he made against the light of the hall.
I froze, but it was too late: he stiffened; turned towards me for a moment; then spun round, and started to go inside again.
He was the last person I wanted to talk to; but he had caught me skulking through my own garden like a criminal, and if I failed to acknowledge him, he must take it as tacit proof that, indeed, I felt I had no right to be there.
‘Mr. Dolgelly!’ I called.
He said nothing, but stopped, and looked back at me. I dropped my case and began towards him. He made no move to come and meet me, but merely stood there, one hand on the door – as if he had not quite decided how to respond, and wanted to leave open the possibility of slamming it in my face at the last moment.
‘A word, if you please,’ I said, as I approached, though I still had no idea what I was going to say, or what tone I should adopt.
‘A word about what?’ he said. His voice was deeper than I had expected, and marked by a faint Welsh accent.
And then, all at once – as if someone else had slipped the thought into my mind – I heard myself saying:
‘I want to consult you about something. You are a spiritualist, are you not?’
He shrugged. ‘That is what people call us.’
‘What would you call yourself?’
‘A bridge. Between this world and the other side.’
I was almost upon him now, and could see the scowl on his face, and the nervous way he jigged his weight from one foot to the other.
‘Well, then,’ I said. ‘What I want to know is this. A still-born child. A little boy. Would it be possible for him to cross the bridge?’
‘Of course. We all do, when our time comes.’
‘But what I mean is: could he then come back again? And haunt someone? Possess someone, even?’
He looked startled – though whether at the question, or simply at the fact that I was asking it, I couldn’t tell. Then, to my surprise, he smiled, and said:
‘No. A still-born child would be insufficiently developed to have an individual spirit. It would be nothing more, at that point, in fact, than raw undifferentiated energy. All that would happen is that it would be reabsorbed in the One, and then reappear in a new form altogether.’
‘You are certain of that?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Thank you,’ I said, with a perfunctory nod. ‘Good night, then.’
I could feel his gaze on me as I made my way back to the suitcase. He was desperately curious to know why I had raised the matter, but he could not bring himself to ask me. Only when I was past the corner of the house, and he could no longer see me, did I finally hear the front door closing again.
I felt a sudden flurry in my head – and, the next moment, a tiny voice seemed to whisper above my ear:
‘And yet, here I am!’
I stopped and leaned against the wall, to keep myself from falling. My neck and back prickled with sweat. This time, no question about it, I wasn’t dreaming.
I stood there, my head resting on my arm, waiting for the initial shock to fade and be replaced with an overwhelming sense of horror. But it wasn’t: in fact, to my astonishment, I found myself suffused with a kind of giddy lightness that felt very like exhilaration.
Baffled though I was, I decided not to risk provoking another catastrophe by examining the roots of my feelings too closely. It was, after all, the recognition of my own failure to understand them that had brought me to this crisis, and driven me to seek medical advice. I had agreed to put myself in the hands of a specialist: now there was nothing to be done but wait for his opinion.
*
At nine the next morning, while I was still finishing my breakfast, my wife came to see me. The only warning I had was a quick faltering of the light as something passed the window. A few seconds later, there was a knock, and I heard her calling:
‘Are you decent?’
I got up and opened the door. She was shivering, despite her grey winter coat, and her eyes were puffy and rimmed with pink, as if she hadn’t slept.
‘Hullo, Violet,’ I said.
I was expecting an outburst, but instead she strained her face into a smile and started fumbling inside her sleeve.
‘A certain someone wanted me to bring him to see you,’ she said.
I knew what was coming, and tried frantically to think of some way to avert it; but after ten years of marriage the conversational tram-lines were worn so deep it was impossible to escape them without causing a catastrophe.
‘Here.’ She drew out the black bear, and held him towards me. He was more battered than ever: one ear had come adrift, and the left eye had disappeared altogether, leaving nothing but a little pig’s-tail of cotton.
‘He wants to know if you’re orl right. Don’t you?’ she said, then bobbed his head in agreement.
‘I’m well enough, thank you.’
‘Only you were gone a dredful long time, he thinks. And a little bird told him that when you got back last night you wented to the doctor.’
She must have heard it from Lewis himself. For an uneasy moment I wondered how much more he might have said. Then I steadied myself again: it would have been quite out of character for him to betray a professional confidence, even to my wife – and if by any chance he had done it, she would not be behaving like this.
‘Well, that’s perfectly true,’ I said. ‘But nothing to worry about.’
She waited for me to go on. When I didn’t, she said:
‘You can’t expect Bear to be satisfied with that.’ She put her lips against the good ear and bellowed, ‘Can he?’ before turning back to me and mouthing: ‘You know what an old fuss he is.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But really, I’m all right.’
‘Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we? What’s that?’ She held the bear to her own ear. ‘He says: it’s jolly cold out ’ere. Why don’t ’e ask us in?’
‘All right,’ I said.
She heard the reluctance in my voice, but misinterpreted the reason for it.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said, as she bustled through the door. ‘We’re used to a bit of muddle, aren’t we? Kissy?’
She waggled the bear against my face. I kissed it.
‘That makes him feel better, doesn’t it?’
She hovered for a moment, uncertain where she should go. I waved her to my place by the stove. She inspected it apprehensively, as if she imagined I might have hidden a knife among the cushions. Then she sat down gingerly and looked round, searching for something she evidently couldn’t find. Finally she asked:
‘Where are all Bear’s pals?’
‘The other toys? I put them away weeks ago.’
‘Well, that’s not very friendly, is it, Bear?’ She paused, then gave a shrill little laugh. ‘Do you know what he says? He says: That’s coz the only pal you ever fink about now is that Cyril Jessop.’
‘Why would he say that?’
She started to blush. ‘Because you’ve just spent two weeks with the man, I suppose.’
I wheeled out the desk-chair and sat down to face her.
‘How do you know that?’
She grimaced, trying to cover her mistake. ‘You’ll have to ask Bear.’ And then, when I didn’t reply: ‘Sybil dropped me a line.’ She laughed uneasily. ‘Suggesting that since the husbands had gone away on holiday together, the wives really ought to do something similar.’
‘But you weren’t tempted?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ she said, as if the very thought of a woman having the same freedom as a man were absurd. But then, realizing how false it must sound, sitting in the hut to which she had banished me, she went on brightly:
‘Anyway, you had a jolly time?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
She nodded. ‘I always thought that life would suit you. Campfires, and countryside, and fresh air. And absolutely no need to dress for dinner, or make polite sma
ll talk.’
‘Well, yes,’ I said, thinking perhaps she meant to try to use it as a pretext for excluding me from the house permanently. ‘But it has its inconveniences.’
‘Really? I’d have imagined it would have been perfect heaven for you.’
‘You make it sound as if you wish I hadn’t come back.’
‘Oh, no, of course I don’t wish that! I’m just thinking of you, my dear, that’s all.’ She tried to laugh, but it sputtered out, like a motor-car engine that refuses to spring into life. ‘You oughted to have married a gypsy woman. That’s what Bear says. He thinks she’d have made you much happier than I ever managed to do.’
She had never talked to me like this before – and for her to concede so much now, even in the character of Black Bear, could only mean she wanted something tremendous in return. I still had no idea what it might be, but I knew it would be unwise to seem to accept the logic of her argument too readily, in case it carried me somewhere I didn’t want to go.
‘Hm,’ I murmured. ‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Well, the other toys would agree, wouldn’t they, Bear? Yes, he says, they would. Why don’t you get them out and ask them?’
It was no good: catastrophe or no, I had lost the power of ventriloquism, and nothing would revive it. As gently as I could, I said:
‘Look, do you think, just for once, we might try to communicate with each other directly? Rather than putting words into the mouths of imaginary animals, and expecting them to do our business for us?’
She gasped and stiffened as if I had hit her. I readied myself for a storm of tears and recriminations. But in the end she only gulped and said quietly:
‘All right.’ She put the bear down, picked him up, put him down again, and began nervously smoothing her dress with her fingertips. ‘The fact is, my dear, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since you went away. This obviously isn’t a very satisfactory arrangement for you. And I’m well aware, believe me, that it’s partly my fault. I haven’t been as … well, as understanding as I might have been. So now I want to try to put things on a better footing.’
‘Ah.’
‘Wouldn’t you like that, too?’