The Shift Key

by John Brunner

  There was a pause, silent save for the ticking on the mantelshelf of a Victorian clock in a carved ebony case.

  ‘I don’t know much about music,’ Mr Phibson said at last. ‘It’s one of your interests, is it?’

  ‘I suppose you’d say so.’

  Then you should be introduced to our choral group, if they haven’t cornered you already … Excuse me: I’m digressing. But, you know, everything you’ve so far said confirms me in the view I’ve tentatively reached.’

  ‘Which is –?’

  ‘Let me offer a little more evidence before I explain in detail. Were you called to attend Mrs Flaken this morning?’

  ‘I haven’t been called to attend anybody today,’ was Steven’s bitter answer. ‘Word of my ridiculous mistake got around so fast, thanks presumably to Mr Ratch and/or Mrs Weaper – Wait: that’s not quite true.’ Suddenly he seemed fully alert. ‘I did have to wipe the blood off a couple of local farmers who’d been fighting. I sent one of them to hospital; his nose was broken.’

  ‘That would have been Ken Pecklow and Harry Vikes,’ the parson said. ‘I heard about their – their contretemps. But you weren’t told about Mary Flaken?’

  ‘I never even heard the name.’

  ‘Scarcely surprising … But suppose I were to say – Oh, this wasn’t in a confessional context, and besides, dozens of people must have heard her say the same by now. Suppose I were to tell you that she came to me in tears at lunchtime and admitted being plagued by jealousy because her oldest friend from school married the man she’d set her own heart on … and now lives next door.’

  He was pacing his exposition according to the reaction he read on Steven’s face.

  ‘And woke up today convinced that she and this man were married and his wife was an intruder.’

  Steven sat with mouth ajar.

  ‘She came to me because she needed to admit to somebody impersonal and in authority that she had attacked Hannah Blocket and her husband Bill – pelted them with eggs, to be exact – and it wasn’t until her real husband Philip showed her their marriage certificate that she could make herself believe she’d been mistaken.’

  There was a terrible solemnity in his voice.

  ‘After what happened to me, and her, and you – and, as I am informed, certain other persons in Weyharrow, or who live here or nearby, such as our JP, Mr Basil Goodsir, who reportedly disgraced himself today in court at Chapminster – I feel driven to an inescapable conclusion. I don’t imagine it will meet with your approval, but my vocation requires me to maintain a more open mind than most people do in this corrupt and secular age.’

  Steven sat immobile as a statue. Eventually he husked, ‘Go on.’

  ‘Are you familiar with Mr Draycock’s theories about the name of our village?’

  Steven licked his lips. ‘I don’t believe so.’

  ‘Well, there’s no reason why you should be. Suffice it to say that he’s been sowing discord in the Weyharrow Society with his claims that Wey means “pagan idol”, Harrow means “site of a heathen temple” and Goodsir is a nickname for the Devil!’

  ‘I don’t know much about the history of place-names,’ Steven muttered.

  Mr Phibson rose and replaced his glass on the tray next to the decanter.

  ‘He’s right, it seems to me, in one sense at least. And, in passing, I have the suspicion I may have been unintentionally misleading when I said earlier that I had it in mind to call on you. I meant: I felt in duty bound to do so owing to Dr Tripkin’s absence abroad. You see, this was undoubtedly an ancient pagan site, a haunt of the being whom we term the Evil One. And, for what reasons we may not even guess, the Father of us all has chosen now to turn him loose again! Maybe it’s owing to our laxity in morals, our tolerance of the wicked who infest the village every summer … Wait! That’s it! It has to be!’

  Standing up slowly, Steven ventured, ‘You mean …?’

  ‘I mean we are being assailed by the armies of evil – and our defences are already breached!’

  There was another pause, during which countless half-formed answers flashed through Steven’s mind. He had no time to utter them. Having waited only a few seconds, Mr Phibson glanced at the clock.

  ‘Now you must excuse me. Duty calls.’

  Steven rose. ‘I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time. I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking. You see, there’s no evening surgery on Thursday, only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday …’ He realized he was gabbling, and broke off.

  ‘No need to apologize!’ the parson said, escorting him to the door. ‘I’ve found this discussion very helpful. What were the memorable words Marlowe put into the mouth of Mephistopheles? Ah yes: “It’s sweet to have companions in adversity!” And our affliction is a dreadful one!’

  Steven ventured, ‘Don’t you think that before mentioning your theory to – uh – in public, you ought to consult somebody else? You mentioned your archdeacon. Wouldn’t he –?’

  ‘No need! The evidence is incontrovertible! The signs are all around us!’

  Abruptly it dawned on Steven that Mr Phibson must have been consoling himself from the decanter before his own arrival at the parsonage. He said, ‘But –’

  ‘“But me no buts!”’ – with hand upraised and gleaming eyes. The Evil One is at work in Weyharrow, and we must fight back with all our force. I’m right. I know I’m right. You’ll see!’

  Grey clouds had closed overhead during the afternoon, broomed along by a chilly wind. The change in the weather matched Steven’s mood.

  Despite the cold, however, he noticed that an unusually large number of people were heading towards the church for evensong. What on earth were they likely to make of Mr Phibson’s claims about a visitation from the Devil?

  Maybe they just wanted to see him lose his mind again. It wasn’t every day a priest went crazy …

  Lord, how come this village was making him so cynical so soon?

  Dead leaves rustled around his feet as he trudged across the green back to the Doctor’s House. During his stay he had the use of the family’s guestroom, fending for himself in the kitchen of a morning, taking a snack lunch at the Bridge Hotel and his evening meal with Mr and Mrs Weaper, who lived half a mile from the green on the Fooksey road.

  Mrs Weaper was far from an outstanding cook. But it was not the prospect of indigestion that made Steven so apprehensive about heading for the Weaper’s now. It was the reception he could picture in his mind.

  Should he brazen things out with affected defiance? After all, if a parson could blame his lapse on the Devil, a doctor ought to be able to find some equivalent excuse. Suppose, for instance, he were to bark: ‘Mrs Weaper! Kindly do not remind me again of the fact that both Mr Ratch and yourself seem to be woefully unacquainted with certain medical techniques of, I must say, respectable antiquity!’

  (By that time, with luck, she would be blinking at him behind her glasses, totally at a loss.)

  ‘Gaining the patient’s confidence in what one prescribes is half the battle! I can hardly expect Mr Cashcart to feel much confidence in me after a mere pharmacist took it on himself to overrule my judgment! Be so kind as to inform him that he doesn’t know everything!’

  For a second he convinced himself that it might work. Then the picture in his imagination wavered and blurred, and he heard the sound of mocking laughter.

  Sighing, he felt for his door-key.

  At that moment, however, a car pulled up behind him, and a clear high voice called, ‘Excuse me!’

  He turned to see, getting out of a blue Mini, a blonde girl wearing a denim jacket, jeans and a black sweater.

  ‘You’re Dr Gloze, aren’t you? Look, I know I haven’t made an appointment, and I’m not even a patient here – I go to Dr Grail in Chapminster. But …’ She hesitated, twisting her ring of car-keys round and round. Then, in a rush: ‘I’ve got to talk to somebody! I’m afraid of losing my mind!’

  Oh no. Not another of us!

  Steven had been about t
o say, by reflex, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no surgery this evening.’ He cancelled the words because by this time he had taken a proper look at her. She stood some five foot three, with bright blue eyes and short and curly hair. Her round face was innocent of make-up, which he hated. She was not so much plump as – he sought the right word – chubby. His hands desired at once to curve around her … Stop!

  There had been something familiar about her voice. He said slowly, ‘You know who I am. May I know who you are?’

  ‘My name’s Jenny Severance. I work for the Chapminster Chronicle. Actually we spoke on the phone on Monday, do you remember? I put a bit about your standing in for Dr Tripkin in this week’s issue. It’ll be out tomorrow.’ She was talking much too fast, and her hands kept folding and unfolding round those keys.

  Suddenly Steven felt reckless.

  ‘Miss Severance, how long have you been imagining that you might be losing your mind?’

  ‘Well’ – a pass of a delectable pink tongue over equally pink lips – ‘only since this morning, to be honest. I did something stupid that I scarcely remember. Now, it’s as vague as though I’d dreamed the whole thing. But I didn’t! It’s left too many traces in reality!’

  ‘And what, as a doctor, would you expect me to do for you if I did have a surgery this evening? Send you to hospital? Listen to you for a while, pretending not to yawn, and pack you off home with a bottle of tranquillizers? Or what?’

  His tone was sharper than he had intended. She turned away with a sigh.

  ‘I’m sorry to be a nuisance. Like I said, I just need to talk to somebody. I don’t know many people here – I’m in lodgings – and I blotted my copybook at work, so I wasn’t inclined to discuss my trouble with anybody in the office. I suppose I might try Mr Phibson. Excuse me.’

  Steven called after her, ‘He’s in church! And in any case you wouldn’t get much sense out of him – Damn. I had no business saying that.’

  Hand on the door of her car, she turned back with a puzzled expression. She said at length, ‘We had a lot of very weird phone-calls at the paper today.’

  ‘Were any of them about me?’ Steven grated.

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ Straightening, she gazed at him defiantly. ‘And others were about Mr Phibson!’

  ‘I see.’ Steven felt suddenly calmer. ‘Yet you decided to appeal to me anyway, or him instead. Why?’

  ‘In the hope that I might turn out not to be the only person living in Weyharrow who lost their marbles today. I mean, I don’t see how I can be. Not after what happened to Basil Goodsir. Did you hear about that? I was there!’

  ‘Mr Phibson said something … But no. Not in detail.’

  She recounted the story of her day in crisp terms, concluding, ‘And my editor had the gall to tick me off!’

  A sense of certainty grew in Steven’s mind. He said, ‘Miss Severance, I can’t believe there’s anything worse wrong with you than there is with me, or the parson, or this magistrate you just told me about. I need to talk to someone, too. I prescribe a long chat over a few stiff drinks. At the hotel? Or the Marriage?’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit irregular for a doctor to –?’

  ‘Nonsense! You’re not a patient of mine, or even Dr Tripkin’s. And I know even fewer people in the area than you do. What about it?’

  A haunted look came and went on her face. At last she said, half-inaudibly, ‘All right … But what did you mean about my not getting much sense out of Mr Phibson?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Forget it.’

  ‘No. Wait.’ Light was dawning in her face. ‘I’ve met him plenty of times since I moved here. And if what that person said who phoned the paper is to be believed …’

  She drew a deep breath.

  ‘Never tell me he thinks the Devil is at work in Weyharrow!’

  Steven started. ‘How on earth did you guess? This very moment that’s what he’s telling his congregation! At least, that’s what he was threatening to tell them.’

  ‘You’re right. A drink is called for. Jump in.’

  ‘Do you mind if we walk? I need the fresh air.’

  ‘Okay. Just let me lock the car.’

  6

  No one any longer called the Marriage at Cana by its full name, though it was still to be read on the sign fixed to the wall facing the road, and that sign still depicted a jovial rustic wedding-party spilling gallons of purple wine over a long trestle table. Countless attempts had been made, especially in Victorian times, to change its name back to the Slaking House, or to anything else, but the villagers had resisted on stubborn principle. An unspoken compromise had eventually been reached: the sign had been repainted, and repainted and repainted, with no attempt to portray Jesus among the company, and ‘Marriage’ had been made larger and the other words smaller.

  Nowadays, anyway, not one customer in ten would have recognized the reference.

  Tonight there was an air of gloom in the pub, totally out of keeping with the jollity portrayed on the sign. On a high shelf a colour television played a quiz game against itself, unheeded. Among a bunch of cronies at one end of the room sat swollen-lipped Ken Pecklow, recounting to everybody who would listen how Harry Vikes had turned cattle into his field of turnips, and how he was going to have the law on him. At the other end sat Harry, a triangular mask of plaster supporting the bridge of his broken nose, with two or three companions who had as much reason as he did to dislike the Pecklows. The feud between the families went back so far, not even they themselves had any clear idea of how it had arisen.

  In between, on stools at the bar, were people with no axe to grind one way or another, but problems of their own to brood about. They included Tom Fidger, trying to live down the fact that he had driven his bus on the wrong side of the road; Roy Jacksett, who had sent people items they hadn’t ordered; Phil Flaken, whose wife Mary – so he said – was crying non-stop and making their home unlivable; and his old friend and neighbour Bill Blocket and Bill’s brother Jerry whom he’d asked along to show there were no hard feelings; and Moira O’Pheale, who was still extracting a succession of free drinks from men who wanted to find out exactly what Miss Knabbe had tried to do when she got into bed with her … not that they were learning much.

  Behind the bar, alert for trouble, hovered Colin Jeggs, the landlord, and his fat wife Rosie, who was long past the stage where one could call her merely plump. Now and then they conferred in quiet tones. So long, though, as they could keep the rate of drinking down, and the Vikes and Pecklow factions separated by a neutral zone … If only a few more uninvolved customers would show up!

  Colin brightened as the door swung wide and just the kind of folk he had been hoping for came in: Jenny, the young reporter, and the temporary doctor. He positively beamed as they sat down at the one remaining empty table in the dead centre of the room and lapsed into deep and private conversation.

  He’d taken the precaution of phoning Yvonne Book, to warn her that Joe might have his evening’s telly-watching interrupted, but with luck it wouldn’t happen after all.

  Pleasantly tired after his day’s work, Stick headed for the entrance to the Marriage. He was coming to like his job more and more, even though he got precious little money for it and still less thanks. People didn’t seem to realize what a chore it was on a windy afternoon to gather leaves into neat heaps around the green, then wheel them off by barrowloads to rot for compost. Someone had even asked him – yesterday? the day before? – why he didn’t pile them on a bonfire, and he’d had to spend half an hour explaining why the slow fire of nature was better for the land.

  It had done no good. Around here they still burned their stubble in the autumn, regardless of how many hedges caught alight, how many cars collided when their drivers were blinded by the drifting smoke …

  Time, though, for a jar in here, his usual evening pint of local cider. And he could afford to take a flagon home to Sheila, too, which they would share when the kids were safe in bed. He didn’t hold
with giving children alcohol.

  Thinking of children: how could he have imagined that Hilary and Sam were boys? He must have dreamed it!

  ‘Evening all!’ he called as he walked in.

  And checked in mid-stride.

  Everybody seemed to have stopped talking simultaneously save for two people at a table in the middle of the room. He knew one by sight – the fair and pretty girl who worked for the local paper – but the man with her …? Oh, of course. The locum standing in for Dr Tripkin.

  Stick had his own opinions about modern medicine, but he believed in everybody doing their own thing. He wouldn’t hold that against the guy.

  ‘Usual, please, Colin!’ he said breezily.

  When the golden pint was handed to him, he looked around for somebody to chat with. But the ranks had closed. Backs were turned whichever way he looked, except at the doctor and reporter’s table, where there was the one remaining vacant chair.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ he said.

  ‘Ah …!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not here to play gooseberry! I just want a chance to rest my legs while I sink this lot.’ He kicked the chair around and settled on it with a sigh of gratitude, adding as he gulped his drink, ‘Cheers …! I’m Stick, by the way. I try to keep the village clean. You wouldn’t believe how much junk people can generate in a small place like this. It makes me glad we haven’t got a fish-and-chipper. Greasy wrapping-paper blowing down the road – Excuse me, I didn’t mean to drive you away!’

  Blinking, as the young doctor rose.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he muttered. ‘It was your mentioning fish and chips. I need to make a phone-call. Won’t be a second, Jenny.’

  And he headed for the phone at the end of the room.

  Stick sank a third of his pint, glug-glug. And looked at Jenny.

  ‘What’s wrong with everyone tonight? Any idea?’