“And I’m yours . . . ?”
“You’re not a child any longer,” she said.
He finished up the dishes, his fingers numb and shaking.
“Mom, about last night,” he said.
“I don’t care about it,” she said.
“But . . .”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “This part is ending.”
Now, he thought, almost with pain. This part. Now she would talk about afterlife and heaven and reward for the just and eternal penitence for the sinning.
She said, “Let’s go out and sit on the porch.”
He didn’t understand. He walked through the quiet house with her. He sat next to her on the porch steps and thought. I’ll never see Grace again. Or Doris. Or Norman or Spencer or Mary or anybody . . .
He couldn’t take it all in. It was too much. All he could do was sit there woodenly and look at the red sky and the huge sun about to swallow them. He couldn’t even feel nervous any more. Fears were blunted by endless repetition.
“Mom,” he said after a while, “why . . . why haven’t you spoken about religion to me? I know you must want to.”
She looked at him and her face was very gentle in the red glow.
“I don’t have to, darling,” she said. “I know we’ll be together when this is over. You don’t have to believe it. I’ll believe for both of us.”
And that was all. He looked at her, marveling at her confidence and her strength.
“If you want to take those pills now,” she said, “it’s all right. You can go to sleep in my lap.”
He felt himself tremble. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“I want you to do what you think is best.”
He didn’t know what to do until he thought of her sitting there alone when the world ended.
“I’ll stay with you,” he said impulsively.
She smiled.
“If you change your mind,” she said, “you can tell me.”
They were quiet for a while. Then she said, “It is pretty.”
“Pretty?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, “God closes a bright curtain on our play.”
He didn’t know. But he put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned against him. And he did know one thing.
They sat there in the evening of the last day. And, though there was no actual point to it, they loved each other.
LONG DISTANCE CALL
Just before the telephone rang, storm winds toppled the tree outside her window and jolted Miss Keene from dreaming sleep. She flung herself up with a gasp, her frail hands crumpling twists of sheet in either palm. Beneath her fleshless chest the heart jerked taut, the sluggish blood spurred. She sat in rigid muteness, her eyes staring at the night.
In another second, the telephone rang.
Who on earth? The question shaped unwittingly in her brain. Her thin hand faltered in the darkness, the fingers searching a moment and then Miss Elva Keene drew the cool receiver to her ear.
“Hello,” she said.
Outside a cannon of thunder shook the night, twitching Miss Keene’s crippled legs. I’ve missed the voice, she thought, the thunder has blotted out the voice.
“Hello,” she said again.
There was no sound. Miss Keene waited in expectant lethargy. Then she repeated. “Hel-lo,” in a cracking voice. Outside the thunder crashed again.
Still no voice spoke, not even the sound of a phone being disconnected met her ears. Her wavering hand reached out and thumped down the receiver with an angry motion.
“Inconsideration,” she muttered, thudding back on her pillow. Already her infirm back ached from effort of sitting.
She forced out a weary breath. Now she’d have to suffer through the whole tormenting process of going to sleep again—the composing of jaded muscles, the ignoring of abrasive pain in her legs, the endless, frustrating struggle to turn off the faucet in her brain and keep unwanted thoughts from dripping. Oh, well, it had to be done; Nurse Phillips insisted on proper rest. Elva Keene breathed slowly and deeply, drew the covers to her chin and labored hopefully for sleep.
In vain.
Her eyes opened and, turning her face to the window, she watched the storm move off on lightning legs. Why can’t I sleep, she fretted, why must I always lie here awake like this?
She knew the answer without effort. When a life was dull, the smallest element added seemed unnaturally intriguing. And life for Miss Keene was the sorry pattern of lying flat or being propped on pillows, reading books which Nurse Phillips brought from the town library, getting nourishment, rest, medication, listening to her tiny radio—and waiting, waiting for something different to happen.
Like the telephone call that wasn’t a call.
There hadn’t even been the sound of a receiver replaced in its cradle. Miss Keene didn’t understand that. Why would anyone call her exchange and then listen silently while she said, “Hello,” over and over again? Had it actually been anyone calling?
What she should have done, she realized then, was to keep listening until the other person tired of the joke and put down the receiver. What she should have done was to speak out forcefully about the inconsideration of a prankish call to a crippled maiden lady in the middle of a stormy night. Then, if there had been someone listening, whoever it was would have been properly chastened by her angry words and . . .
“Well, of course.”
She said it aloud in the darkness, punctuating the sentence with a cluck of somewhat relieved disgust. Of course, the telephone was out of order. Someone had tried to contact her, perhaps Nurse Phillips to see if she was all right. But the other end of the line had broken down in some way, allowing her phone to ring but no verbal communication to be made. Well, of course, that was the case.
Miss Keene nodded once and closed her eyes gently. Now to sleep, she thought. Far away, beyond the country, the storm cleared its murky throat. I hope no one is worrying, Elva Keene thought, that would be too bad.
She was thinking that when the telephone rang again.
There, she thought, they are trying to reach me again. She reached out hurriedly in the darkness, fumbled until she felt the receiver, then pulled it to her ear.
“Hello,” said Miss Keene.
Silence.
Her throat contracted. She knew what was wrong, of course, but she didn’t like it, no, not at all.
“Hello?” she said tentatively, not yet certain that she was wasting breath.
There was no reply. She waited a moment, then spoke a third time, a little impatiently now, loudly, her shrill voice ringing in the dark bedroom. “Hello!”
Nothing. Miss Keene had the sudden urge to fling the receiver away. She forced down that curious instinct—no, she must wait; wait and listen to hear if anyone hung up the phone on the other end of the line.
So she waited.
The bedroom was very quiet now, but Elva Keene kept straining to hear; either the sound of a receiver going down or the buzz which usually follows. Her chest rose and fell in delicate lurches, she closed her eyes in concentration, then opened them again and blinked at the darkness. There was no sound from the telephone; not a click, not a buzz, not a sound of someone putting down a receiver.
“Hello!” she cried suddenly, then pushed away the receiver.
She missed her target. The receiver dropped and thumped once on the rug. Miss Keene nervously clicked on the lamp, wincing as the leprous bulb light filled her eyes. Quickly, she lay on her side and tried to reach the silent, voiceless telephone.
But she couldn’t stretch far enough and crippled legs prevented her from rising. Her throat tightened. My God, must she leave it there all night, silent and mystifying?
Remembering then, she reached out abruptly and pressed the cradle arm. On the floor, the receiver clicked, then began to buz
z normally. Elva Keene swallowed and drew in a shaking breath as she slumped back on her pillow.
She threw out hooks of reason then and pulled herself back from panic. This is ridiculous, she thought, getting upset over such a trivial and easily explained incident. It was the storm, the night, the way in which I’d been shocked from sleep. (What was it that had awakened me?) All these things piled on the mountain of teeth-grinding monotony that’s my life. Yes, it was bad, very bad. But it wasn’t the incident that was bad. It was her reaction to it.
Miss Elva Keene numbed herself to further premonitions. I shall sleep now, she ordered her body with a petulant shake. She lay very still and relaxed. From the floor she could hear the telephone buzzing like the drone of far-off bees. She ignored it.
—
Early the next morning, after Nurse Phillips had taken away the breakfast dishes, Elva Keene called the telephone company.
“This is Miss Elva,” she told the operator.
“Oh, yes, Miss Elva,” said the operator, a Miss Finch. “Can I help you?”
“Last night my telephone rang twice,” said Elva Keene. “But when I answered it, no one spoke. And I didn’t hear my receiver drop. I didn’t even hear a dial tone—just silence.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Elva,” said the cheery voice of Miss Finch, “that storm last night just about ruined half our service. We’re being flooded with calls about knocked down lines and bad connections. I’d say you’re pretty lucky your phone is working at all.”
“Then you think it was probably a bad connection,” prompted Miss Keene, “caused by the storm?”
“Oh yes, Miss Elva, that’s all.”
“Do you think it will happen again?”
“Oh, it may,” said Miss Finch. “It may. I really couldn’t tell you, Miss Elva. But if it does happen again, you just call me and then I’ll have one of our men check on it.”
“All right,” said Miss Elva. “Thank you, dear.”
She lay on her pillows all morning in a relaxed torpor. It gives one a satisfied feeling, she thought, to solve a mystery, slight as it is. It had been a terrible storm that caused the bad connection. And no wonder when it had even knocked down the ancient oak tree beside the house. That was the noise that had awakened me of course, and a pity it was that the dear tree had fallen. How it shaded the house in hot summer months. Oh, well, I suppose I should be grateful, she thought, that the tree fell across the road and not across the house.
The day passed uneventfully, an amalgam of eating, reading Angela Thirkell and the mail (two throw-away advertisements and the light bill), plus brief chats with Nurse Phillips. Indeed, routine had set in so properly that when the telephone rang early that evening, she picked it up without even thinking.
“Hello,” she said.
Silence.
It brought her back for a second. Then she called Nurse Phillips.
“What is it?” asked the portly woman as she trudged across the bedroom rug.
“This is what I was telling you about,” said Elva Keene, holding out the receiver. “Listen.”
Nurse Phillips took the receiver in her hand and pushed back gray locks with the earpiece. Her placid face remained placid. “There’s nobody there,” she observed.
“That’s right,” said Miss Keene. “That’s right. Now you just listen and see if you can hear a receiver being put down. I’m sure you won’t.”
Nurse Phillips listened for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t hear anything,” she said and hung up.
“Oh, wait!” Miss Keene said hurriedly. “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” she added, seeing it was already done. “If it happens too often, I’ll just call Miss Finch and they’ll have a repairman check on it.”
“I see,” Nurse Phillips said and went back to the living room.
—
Nurse Phillips left the house at eight, leaving on the bedside table, as usual, an apple, a cookie, a glass of water and the bottle of pills. She puffed up the pillows behind Miss Keene’s fragile back, moved the radio and telephone a little closer to the bed, looked around complacently, then turned for the door, saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It was fifteen minutes later when the telephone rang. Keene picked up the receiver quickly. She didn’t bother saying hello this time—she just listened.
At first it was the same—an absolute silence. She listened a moment more, impatiently. Then, on the verge of replacing the receiver, she heard the sound. Her cheek twitched, she jerked the telephone back to her ear.
“Hello?” she asked tensely.
A murmuring, a dull humming, a rustling sound—what was it? Miss Keene shut her eyes tightly, listening hard, but she couldn’t identify the sound; it was too soft, too undefined. It deviated from a sort of whining vibration . . . to an escape of air . . . to a bubbling sibilance. It must be the sound of the connection, she thought, it must be the telephone itself making the noise. Perhaps a wire blowing in the wind somewhere, perhaps . . .
She stopped thinking then. She stopped breathing. The sound had ceased. Once more, silence rang in her ears. She could feel the heartbeats stumbling in her chest again, the walls of her throat closing in. Oh, this is ridiculous, she told herself. I’ve already been through this—it was the storm, the storm!
She lay back on her pillows, the receiver pressed to her ear, nervous breaths faltering from her nostrils. She could feel unreasoning dread rise like a tide within her, despite all attempts at sane deduction. Her mind kept slipping off the glassy perch of reason; she kept falling deeper and deeper.
Now she shuddered violently as the sounds began again. They couldn’t possibly be human sounds, she knew, and yet there was something about them, some inflection, some almost identifiable arrangement of . . .
Her lips shook and a whine began to hover in her throat. But she couldn’t put down the telephone, she simply couldn’t. The sounds held her hypnotized. Whether they were the rise and fall of the wind or the muttering of faulty mechanisms, she didn’t know, but they would not let her go.
“Hello?” she murmured, shakily.
The sounds rose in volume. They rattled and shook in her brain.
“H-e-l-l-o,” answered a voice on the telephone. Then Miss Keene fainted dead away.
—
“Are you certain it was someone saying hello?” Miss Finch asked Miss Elva over the telephone. “It might have been the connection, you know.”
“I tell you it was a man!” a shaking Elva Keene cried. “It was the same man who kept listening to me say hello over and over and over again without answering me back. The same one who made terrible noises over the telephone!”
Miss Finch cleared her throat politely. “Well, I’ll have a man check your line, Miss Elva, as soon as he can. Of course, the men are very busy now with all the repairs on storm wreckage, but as soon as it’s possible . . .”
“And what am I going to do if this—this person calls again?”
“You just hang up on him, Miss Elva.”
“But he keeps calling!”
“Well.” Miss Finch’s affability wavered. “Why don’t you find out who he is, Miss Elva. If you can do that, why, we can take immediate action, you see and . . .”
After she’d hung up, Miss Keene lay against the pillows tensely, listening to Nurse Phillips sing husky love songs over the breakfast dishes. Miss Finch didn’t believe her story, that was apparent. Miss Finch thought she was a nervous old woman falling prey to imagination. Well, Miss Finch would find out differently.
“I’ll just keep calling her and calling her until she does,” she said irritably to Nurse Phillips just before afternoon nap.
“You just do that,” said Nurse Phillips. “Now take your pill and lie down.”
Miss Keene lay in grumpy silence, her vein-rutted hands knotted at her sides. It was after two and, exc
ept for the bubbling of Nurse Phillips’s front-room snores, the house was silent in the October afternoon. It makes me angry, thought Elva Keene, that no one will take this seriously. Well—her thin lips pressed together—the next time the telephone rings I’ll make sure that Nurse Phillips listens until she does hear something.
Exactly then the phone rang.
Miss Keene felt a cold tremor lace down her body. Even in the daylight with sunbeams speckling her flowered coverlet, the strident ringing frightened her. She dug porcelain teeth into her lower lip to steady it. Shall I answer it? The question came and then, before she could even think to answer, her hand picked up the receiver. A deep ragged breath; she drew the phone slowly to her ear. She said, “Hello?”
The voice answered back, “Hello?”—hollow and inanimate.
“Who is this?” Miss Keene asked, trying to keep her throat clear.
“Hello?”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“Hello?”
“Is anyone there!”
“Hello?”
“Please . . . !”
“Hello?”
Miss Keene jammed down the receiver and lay on her bed trembling violently, unable to catch her breath. What is it, begged her mind, what in God’s name is it?
“Margaret!” she cried. “Margaret!”
In the front room she heard Nurse Phillips grunt abruptly and then start coughing.
“Margaret, please . . . !”
Elva Keene heard the large-bodied woman rise to her feet and trudge across the living room floor. I must compose myself, she told herself, fluttering hands to her fevered cheeks. I must tell her exactly what happened, exactly.
“What is it?” grumbled the nurse. “Does your stomach ache?”
Miss Keene’s throat drew in tautly as she swallowed. “He just called again,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“That man!”
“What man?”
“The one who keeps calling!” Miss Keene cried. “He keeps saying hello over and over again. That’s all he says—hello, hello, hel . . .”
The Best of Richard Matheson Page 28