The Shift Key

by John Brunner

  ‘Right, let’s see if anyone’s around that we can ask.’

  *

  Moira was distraught this morning. She hadn’t really meant to carry out her threat about finding a man for the night, because there were damned few men in Weyharrow that she fancied. She’d just wanted to rub Phyllis Knabbe’s nose in the mess she’d created. Then, of course, it had dawned on her that if she went back to sharing the cottage with her, after doing such a grand job of noising her complaints abroad, people were bound to start imagining that they did have an unnatural relationship after all. Having had only a sandwich by way of supper, but accepted drink after drink from men at the Marriage – all of whom seemed eager to help her prove that she was normal, married ones as well as single – she had finally gone home with Bill Blocket’s unmarried younger brother, Jerry.

  It had been pretty much of a disaster. By the time they quit the pub he was lined up for a bad case of brewer’s droop, and she’d been grateful enough when the same happened to her late husband Declan never to have learned any ways of curing that sort of trouble. If it hadn’t been pouring with rain she’d have left his bed in the small hours and walked back across the bridge and past the green to the cottage.

  Well, she was doing it now, by daylight, because she had no option. All her belongings were there, and she had to get changed and eat some breakfast, because on Fridays and Saturdays she had a part-time job in Mr Jacksett’s general store, re-stocking the shelves and the frozen meat cabinet, maybe lending a hand with unloading the wholesaler’s van.

  She saw few people until she had crossed the bridge, and then she noticed the tents that had sprung up on the green. She halted in mid-stride, then hastened onward.

  But as she passed the church a group of untidy strangers accosted her, and she was obliged to stand and answer them, clutching her bag tightly in both hands.

  All they wanted, as it happened, was to know where ‘Sheila’ lived. The only person of that name Moira knew in Weyharrow was Sheila Surrean, and the two were far from friendly. In her heart of hearts Moira was a trifle jealous; Stick had the reputation of being a very nice person, and Sheila wasn’t even married to him, and Declan had been such a brute …

  She gave the best directions she could, though, and they thanked her quite politely.

  When she regained the cottage, she let herself in by the back door, hoping she was unobserved. Fortunately there was no sign of Phyllis – or Rufus either, save an empty saucer and an open window. Moving hastily and quietly, Moira went up to her bedroom, finding the door of the other one shut, changed, washed, cleaned her teeth, made up and brushed her hair. That left just enough time to brew a cup of tea and gobble down some cereal, by which time Phyllis had still not appeared.

  Much relieved, she locked and bolted the back door – something neither of them usually did, but with all these strangers in the village it seemed wisest – and left the front way. The school bus was picking up its passengers as she passed; it was Fred Fidger’s turn to drive it today. She forced a smile in response to his call of greeting.

  Were people going to spend today commiserating about what Phyllis had tried to do?

  She hoped and prayed not. At least Roy and Judy Jacksett seemed to have other things on their minds; they set her to work at once restoring to their places goods that had been sent out in error yesterday. By the time they opened the door and the first customers came in at nine o’clock, Moira felt almost normal.

  Until she, and they, realized that those first customers were shabby, unkempt, bearded and/or long-haired strangers. Once they’d left, in came the regulars, all of whom seemed to have been told already that news of Mr Phibson’s claims about the Devil had reached the papers, and all of whom were poised between relief and disappointment because they couldn’t find any mention of it.

  Jenny, on the other hand, who had rushed out to buy all the papers as soon as the post office cum newsagent’s opened, was very definitely relieved. Even if the story started to make national news tomorrow, it would still be strong enough to stand up in the Sundays.

  ‘So long, Chapminster,’ she found herself murmuring. ‘Fleet Street, here I come!’

  She sang to herself while driving to the office. The only thought of Steven that crossed her mind was a mental note to pick his brains as soon as she got the chance.

  Even when facing his first-ever solo surgery as a locum, Steven could not remember being so nervous. Mrs Weaper’s taciturn reaction to his offer of a good morning served to make matters worse. She looked so disapproving, it was clear she fully expected him to start cupping and bleeding, or telling patients to dance widdershins around a fire in the dark of the moon.

  That last image came naturally. Looking out of the window, he had seen the bus by the green, the bonfire, and the tents.

  He asked Mrs Weaper about them, but all she said was that she hoped to heaven they would disappear as quickly as they’d come. Sighing, he retreated to the consulting-room, surprised at the number of patients’ records he had been handed – he’d half expected that no one would show up – steeled himself, and called for the first person waiting. According to the notes he had been given, it was a girl called Penny Wenstowe, aged eighteen.

  And it was obvious at a glance what her problem was. She had curly brown hair, a shapely figure, a face that was pretty and piquant … but she was suffering just about the worst case of acne he had ever laid eyes on.

  Riffling through her records, he saw with sinking heart that Dr Tripkin had already prescribed all the standard treatments short of isotretinoin. Was she just here for a fresh prescription? Scarcely; that could have been dealt with by Mrs Weaper making out. a repeat form for his signature … He adopted his best professional manner.

  ‘Well, young lady! What can I do for you today?’

  Her answer amazed him.

  ‘You saw Willy yesterday, didn’t you? Mr Cashcart, that works for my dad? Mr Wenstowe the builder?’

  Steven’s heart quailed, but he confessed the truth.

  ‘Well, he did like you said. Says it helped a lot. He’s going to keep on with it. Not every day, like, just when the pain gets bad. My dad says it’s probably better than taking all these pills that upset people so, sending them to sleep when they’re at work like, or giving them’ – she blushed – ‘a runny tummy … A great one for natural things, my dad is. So what I want to know is this.’

  And she proceeded to explain, with many false starts and hesitations, that her granny, who was deaf but hadn’t lost her wits, wanted her to try washing her face with urine. It took about five minutes for that simple statement to emerge, and when it finally did her cheeks were glowing fiery red, but Steven sat patiently listening until Penny concluded, ‘I did try to tell Dr Tripkin, but before I even finished he said it was all quackery and I must take his pills and use his ointment. And you can see all the good that did, can’t you?’

  Steven hesitated for a long moment. Then, suddenly, the memory of one of his professors at medical school came to his rescue. An unusually open-minded and experienced man, he had been fond of quoting Ambroise Paré – ‘I dress the wounds, but God heals them’ – and impressing on his students that there were plenty of effective remedies whose mode of operation was still a mystery, but that was no reason not to take advantage of them.

  He had also pointed out, by way of example, that a good many skin conditions, particularly warts, were reliably reported to yield to autosuggestion or hypnosis.

  Steven drew a deep breath. What could he say to make his verdict sound properly professional? Ah!

  ‘Do you smoke, Miss Wenstowe?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Do you drink? Alcohol, I mean?’

  ‘Well – well, sometimes on Saturday I go to a pub.’

  ‘That’s all? What about tea or coffee?’

  ‘Not much coffee, but – well – I do like my cuppa.’

  Tannin, as a matter of fact, might do some good. Did it survive passage through the k
idneys? To his dismay Steven realized he couldn’t remember … but it didn’t really matter, did it? He cancelled the impulse to reach for one of the textbooks above the desk.

  ‘I’m going to be absolutely frank with you,’ he said in a solemn tone. ‘The suggested treatment is unorthodox, but I can call to mind one condition that it is notoriously effective for, and that’s chilblains. Now insofar as your trouble is partly due to poor circulation in the epidermis – that’s the outer layer of the skin – because if it were functioning properly the body’s natural repair mechanism would be capable of getting rid of these annoying blemishes, and insofar as chilblains are a manifestation of a similar shortcoming in the metabolism …’

  He was obviously striking the right note: plenty of authoritative-sounding jargon leading up to final approval.

  ‘I can only say that you need have no hesitation in trying it. After all, people suffered from acne long before modern drugs were invented, and a great many of them are known to have recovered. I would recommend particularly that you do it first thing in the morning, and also last thing at night so you can leave it on to dry … I must ask one further question; excuse me. I see you’re not wearing a ring, but of course in these days … Do you have – ah – a boyfriend?’

  ‘Well –’

  To be brutally frank: do you sleep alone?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, and the single syllable made it very clear that she wished she didn’t. Come to that: if she didn’t, the condition might well clear up of its own accord. It was notoriously hormone-related.

  Then go ahead along the lines I’ve suggested. If you feel embarrassed about doing it, there’s no need to tell anyone. When the improvement starts to show, which with luck might be within, say, a fortnight, just tell people you’re growing out of it, and laugh. How about that?’

  ‘Oh, doctor!’ She jumped to her feet. ‘If you knew how much better you’ve made me feel already …!’

  And what do I do if it doesn’t help? Well, I shan’t be here to find out, shall I? Though I suppose I should have said a month, rather than a fortnight … Never mind!

  That was only the beginning of the story. It seemed as though half the inhabitants of Weyharrow had been put off by Dr Tripkin’s curt and bossy manner, and were now hesitantly prepared to bring their complaints to the notice of a doctor they regarded as more open-minded. The surgery ran far past the usual closing-time of noon; it was almost a quarter to one when Steven was able to sit back in relief and say over the intercom, ‘That’s the lot, isn’t it, Mrs Weaper?’

  In a tone noticeably more cordial than it had been earlier she replied, ‘There’s someone else waiting to see you.’

  Steven double-checked the papers before him. ‘I don’t seem to have any more records here –’

  ‘Not a patient,’ she cut in. ‘A reporter.’

  Steven’s heart leapt. ‘You don’t mean Jenny Severance?’

  ‘No, doctor, I don’t. He’s from London. And he particularly wants to talk to you.’

  Clearly audible in the background: ‘Ask whether he’d care to have lunch with me, would you?’

  Steven hesitated. He was reluctant. But it might offer the chance to undo some of the harm he suspected Jenny of causing, even though nothing had been in the papers yet …

  He reached an abrupt decision.

  ‘Very well. There aren’t any housebound cases for me today, are there?’

  ‘I don’t think so … No.’

  ‘Is there any news of Mrs Ellerford?’

  ‘Yes, we had a call from Chapminster General. They’ve decided to transfer her to Hatterbridge.’

  Steven tensed. ‘You mean it’s psychological –? Don’t answer that; I’ll ring Hatterbridge myself this afternoon.’ And I suppose I’d better call on Mr Phibson too, the poor old so-and-so … ‘I’m on my way.’

  The reporter was a tubby man with a ginger moustache, wearing a brown open-necked shirt under a safari jacket with all its pockets bulging. He proffered his hand.

  ‘Dr Gloze, I’m Wallace Jantrey of the Sunday Banner. If you could spare me an hour of your time I’d be obliged. I’ve been here long enough to figure out that something odd is going on, but also that I dare not risk taking what I’m told at its face value. Oh – and likewise long enough to be told that the only decent food in town is at the Bridge Hotel. My photographer should be there already. She’s been taking pictures of the hippie camp.’

  9

  Wallace Jantrey and Lisa Jopp – the latter tall and fortyish, with prominent teeth and greying hair – had timed their arrival in Weyharrow for eleven o’clock, when the pubs opened. Wallace was forever saying that pubs were the best place to pick up information.

  He had been somewhat discomforted to find that there was only one pub qua pub, and it was empty but for Colin and Rosie. Not even the hippie visitors were in there yet, and the landlord indicated darkly what sort of a welcome they would get if they did try and enter. When his wife dared to point out that during the summer they had been at least as well-behaved as any average customer, he countered, ‘What customers? I can’t see any! I never thought anyone would take Joyce seriously! Sink of iniquity, indeed!’

  ‘It’s not just her, is it?’ his wife said sombrely. ‘It’s Parson.’

  ‘Ah, the parson!’ Wallace leaned eagerly across the bar. ‘Is it true that –?’

  ‘I’m not saying another word!’ Colin snapped.

  After vainly trying to draw him out for as long as it took him to down a pint of bitter and Lisa a gin and tonic, Wallace gave up and wandered off in search of other leads. His quest rapidly grew even more frustrating.

  The Miss Severance who had fed the story to his paper, he was told firmly when he tracked down the house she lodged in, was at work. But when he phoned the Chronicle office he discovered she wasn’t there. She’d been sent to cover a wedding, or a funeral, or something, and wouldn’t be back until about three. When he asked why she wasn’t in Weyhar-row the person he was speaking to uttered a sound between a snort and a laugh and put the phone down.

  Not a reaction, Wallace thought, calculated to inspire much belief in the story she had recounted last night …

  No one in any of the shops, not even the post office, was prepared to talk to him; at the parsonage he was met by a stern-faced elderly woman who said sharply, ‘Mr Phibson isn’t talking to anybody, even me!’; and when in near-desperation he tried some of the hippie visitors he quickly discovered that none of them knew much more than he did, except that the parson must still be off his head because he’d ordered them out of morning service.

  That, as Wallace glumly said to Lisa, might make headlines in the Church Times, but it was scarcely enough to satisfy the Banner.

  Eventually, so as not to waste the trip, she wandered off to shoot a reel or two of film before the light turned bad; the sunshine of early morning was giving way, as it had done yesterday, to a wave of dense cloud moving from the west. Disconsolately strolling about on his own, Wallace finally struck lucky when it occurred to him to chat up a fresh-faced, bearded man in dungarees, whom at first sight he had mistaken for one of the outsiders, but who was at work with rake and broom and wheelbarrow.

  ‘I’m Stick!’ he announced cheerfully. In his downcast mood Wallace heard it as ‘I’m sick!’ and flinched away, afraid he’d run across one of the lunatics that government policy was turning out of asylums all over the country. But a repetition reassured him.

  ‘What do you make of these goings-on?’ he demanded.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Stick was carrying on with his job as he talked, and his words were punctuated with the clatter of empty soft-drink cans and the rustle of paper and dry leaves. The person you ought to ask is Cedric.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Cedric Goodsir. Up at the Court. His old man went off his rocker yesterday, same as Parson. Seems a good few people did, including me. But my trip wasn’t serious.’

  That made Wallace nervous all over again, but he s
tuck to his guns.

  ‘Who’s his “old man”?’

  ‘Cedric’s? Oh, his father. Name of Basil. But I don’t suppose he wants to talk to anyone about it.’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘Be my guest!’

  But when Wallace rang the Court he was met with another blank refusal. Maybe he’d go there in person this afternoon; for the time being, it made sense to pump Stick a little further.

  ‘They won’t talk to me. Who might, apart from you?’

  ‘Well, you could try Chris the Pilgrim.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That’s what he calls himself now. His real name is Utterley, so you can’t blame him, can you?’

  ‘Is he local?’

  ‘No, he’s one of that lot’ – pointing at the camp on the green. Thinking he was waving at them, two or three of the women and children waved back and went on about the task of contriving lunch out of what they could afford to buy plus what they’d rescued before the dust-cart ground away with the week’s rubbish.

  ‘Thanks,’ Wallace said dryly. ‘I tried some of his mates already, and they don’t know any more than I do.’

  ‘Well, there’s Joe Book, the long arm of the law. Don’t get me wrong – he’s a decent enough guy. But I haven’t seen him around since … What time did you get here?’

  ‘About eleven.’

  ‘You’d have missed him, then. He whistled up a couple of carloads of fuzz at breakfast-time – something about a fight in the church, which Chris said didn’t really happen, and I believe him, because the fuzz didn’t make any aggro about it. Then he went off with them. I don’t know where he is now. You could try his wife Yvonne, I suppose, but I think she went shopping in Chapminster. She usually does on Friday. Takes the morning bus with the schoolkids. Hey, you’re a reporter, right? Why aren’t you talking to Jenny, then – Jenny Severance?’

  ‘I would if I could,’ Wallace said crossly. ‘Isn’t there anybody in the village that something odd happened to yesterday who’d like to tell me all about it?’