Chocky

by John Wyndham

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to try a little harder, darling, won’t you?’ she said.

  Polly stood passively for a moment, then she broke away across the room, and fumbled with the door-knob.

  I got up, and closed the door behind her.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ I said as I came back. ‘In fact I’m ashamed of myself-but really…! I don’t believe we’ve had a meal in the last two weeks without this infernal squabbling. And it’s Polly who provokes it every time. She keeps on nagging and picking at him until he has to retaliate. I don’t know what’s come over her: they’ve always got on so well together…’

  ‘Certainly they have,’ Mary agreed ‘– Until quite recently,’ she added.

  ‘Another phase, I suppose,’ I said. ‘Children seem to be just one phase after another. Letting them get through them becomes a bit wearisome once you’ve grasped that the next phase is likely to be just as tedious in its own way as the last.’

  ‘I suppose you could call this a phase – I hope it is,’ Mary said thoughtfully. ‘But it’s not one confined to children.’

  Her tone caused me to look at her inquiringly. She asked:

  ‘My dear, don’t you see what Polly’s trouble is?’

  I went on looking at her blankly. She explained.

  ‘It is just plain, ordinary jealousy – only jealousy, of course is never ordinary to the sufferer.’

  ‘Jealousy…?’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes, jealousy.’

  ‘But – of whom, of what? – I don’t get it.’

  ‘Surely that should be obvious enough. Of this Chocky, of course.’

  I stared at her.

  ‘But that’s absurd. Chocky is only – well, I don’t know what he, she, or it is, but it’s not even real – doesn’t even exist, I mean.’

  ‘Whatever does that matter? Chocky’s real enough to Matthew-and, consequently, to Polly. Polly and Matthew have always got on very well, as you said. She admires him tremendously. She’s always been his confidante, and his aide, and it’s meant a lot to her. But now he has a pew confidante. This Ghocky has displaced her. She’s on the outside now. I’m not in the least surprised she’s jealous.’

  I felt bewildered.

  ‘Now you’re beginning to talk as if Chocky were real.’

  Mary reached for a cigarette, and lit it.

  ‘Reality is relative. Devils, evil spirits, witches and so on became real enough to the people who believed in them. Just as God is to people who believe in Him. When people live their lives by their beliefs objective reality is almost irrelevant.

  ‘That’s why I wonder if we are doing the right thing. By playing up to Matthew we are strengthening his belief, we are helping to establish the existence of this Chocky more firmly – until now we have Polly believing in her, too – to the point of a wretched jealousy.… It’s some – how getting beyond a game of make-believe – and I don’t like it. I think we ought to get advice on it before it goes further.’

  I could see that this time she meant it seriously.

  ‘All right,’ I agreed. ‘Perhaps it would be—’ I was beginning when I was cut off by the sound of the door bell.

  I went to answer it, and opened the door to find myself facing a man I knew I should have recognized. I was just beginning to get him lined up – that is, I had got as far as connecting him with the Parents’ Association meeting – when he introduced himself.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Gore. I don’t expect you’ll remember me. Trimble’s my name. I take your Matthew for maths.’

  I led him into the sitting-room. Mary joined us, and greeted him, by name.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Trimble. Matthew’s just upstairs, doing his homework, I think. Shall I call him?’

  Trimble shook his head.

  ‘Oh, no, Mrs Gore. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. It’s really yourselves I wanted to see – about Matthew, of course.’

  We sat him down. I produced a bottle of whisky. Trimble accepted his drink gratefully.

  ‘Well, now, what’s the trouble?’ I asked.

  Trimble shook his head. He said reassuringly:

  ‘Oh, no trouble. Nothing of that kind.’ He paused, and went on: ‘I do hope you don’t mind my calling on you like this. It’s quite unofficial. To be honest, it’s chiefly curiosity on my part – well, a bit more than that really. I’m puzzled.’ He paused once more, and looked from me to Mary and back again. ‘Is it you who is the mathematician of the family?’ he asked.

  I denied it.

  ‘I’m just an accountant. Arithmetic, not mathematics.’

  He turned to Mary.

  ‘Then it must be you, Mrs Gore.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Indeed not, Mr Trimble. I can’t even get arithmetic right.’

  Trimble looked surprised, and a little disappointed.

  ‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘I was sure – perhaps you have a relative, or some friend, who is?’

  We both shook our heads. Mr Trimble continued to look surprised.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘somebody has been helping – no perhaps that’s not the right word – shall we say, giving your son ideas about his maths – hot that I mind that,’ he hurried to explain. ‘Indeed, in a general way I’m all for anything that gets ’em along. But that’s really the point. When a child is trying to cope simultaneously with two different methods it’s more likely to confuse him than get him along…

  ‘I’ll be frank. I won’t pretend that your Matthew is one of those boys you sometimes find, with a natural quick grasp of figures. He’s about average, perhaps a shade above, and he’s been doing quite all right – until lately. But it has seemed to me recently that someone has been trying to – well, I suppose the idea was to push him on, but the stuff he’s been given isn’t doing that; it’s getting him mixed up.’ He paused again, and added apologetically: ‘With a boy with a real gift for figures it might not matter; in fact, he’d probably enjoy it. But, frankly, I think it’s too much for your Matthew to grasp at the moment. It’s muddling him, and that’s holding him back.’

  ‘Well, just as frankly,’ I told him, ‘I’m completely at a loss. Do you mean that he’s trying to get ahead too fast – missing out some of the steps?’

  Trimble shook his head.

  ‘Oh, no, not that. It’s more – more a conflict of systems, like – well, something like trying to think in two languages at the same time. At first I couldn’t understand what had got out of gear. Then I managed to collar some sheets of his rough work, and get a line on it. I’ll show you.’

  And, with pencil and paper, he did, for more than half an hour. As an audience we disappointed him, but I managed to get a grip on some of it, and ceased to be surprised that Matthew appeared muddled. Trimble went off into realms quite beyond me, and when we eventually saw him off, it was with some relief. Still, we appreciated the concern that had brought him along to see us in his own time, and promised to do our best to find the source of Matthew’s confusion.

  ‘I don’t know who it can be,’ Mary said as we returned to the sitting-room. ‘I can’t think of anyone he sees often enough.’

  ‘It must be one of the other boys at school who’s a natural whizz at maths, and got him interested although it’s a bit beyond him,’ I said. ‘It’s certainly no one I can think of. Anyway, I’ll try to find out.’

  I left it until the following Saturday afternoon. Then, when Mary had taken away the tea things, and Polly, too, Matthew and I had the veranda to ourselves. I picked up a pencil and scribbled on a newspaper margin:

  YNYYNNYY

  ‘What do you reckon that means, Matthew?’ I asked.

  He glanced at it.

  ‘A hundred and seventy-nine,’ he said.

  ‘It seems complicated when you can just write 179,’ I said. ‘How does it work?’

  Matthew explained the binary code to me, much as Trimble had.

  ‘But do you find that way easier?’ I asked.

  ‘Only somet
imes – and it does make division difficult,’ Matthew told me.

  ‘It seems such a long way round. Wouldn’t it be simpler to stick to the ordinary way?’ I suggested.

  ‘Well, you see, that’s the way I have to use with Chocky because that’s the way she counts,’ Matthew explained. ‘She doesn’t understand the ordinary way, and she thinks it’s silly to have to bother with ten different figures just because you’ve ten fingers, when all you really need is two fingers.’

  I continued to look at the paper while I thought how to go on. So Chocky was in on this – I might have known…

  ‘You mean when Chocky counts she just talks Ys and Ns?’ I inquired.

  ‘Sort of – only not actually. What I mean is, I just call them Y and N for Yes and No, because it’s easier.’

  I was still wondering how best to handle this new incursion of the Chocky element, but apparently I looked merely baffled, for Matthew went on to explain, patiently.

  ‘See Daddy. A hundred is YYNNYNN and because each one is double the one on its right that means, if you start from the right hand end 1 – No, 2 – No, 4 – yes, 8 – No, 16 – No, 32 – yes, 64 – yes. You just add the Yesses together, and it’s a hundred. You can get any number that way.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Yes, I see, Matthew. But, tell me, where did you first come across this way of doing it?’

  ‘I just told you, Daddy. It’s the way Chocky always uses.’

  Once more I was tempted to call the Chocky bluff, but I put a thumb on my impatience. I said, reasonably:

  ‘But she must have got it from somewhere. Did she find it in a book, or something?’

  ‘I don’t know. I expect somebody taught her,’ Matthew told me, vaguely.

  I recalled one or two other mathematical, queries that Trimble had raised, and put them, as far as I understood them. I was scarcely surprised to learn that they, too, were devices that Chocky was accustomed to use.

  So there we were, at an impasse. I was just about to end the rather fruitless session when Matthew stopped me, disturbingly. He emerged from silent reflection, as if he had made up his mind to something. With a some – what troubled expression, and his eyes fixed on mine he asked:

  ‘Daddy, you don’t think I’m mad do you?’

  I was taken aback. I think I managed not to show it.

  ‘Good heavens, no. What next? What on earth put such an idea into your head?’

  ‘Well, it was Colin, really.’

  ‘You haven’t told him about Chocky?’ I asked, with a quickening concern.

  Matthew shook his head.

  ‘Oh, no. I haven’t told anyone but you, and Mummy – and Polly,’ he added a little sadly.

  ‘Good,’ I approved. ‘If I were you I’d keep it that way. But what about Colin?’

  ‘I only asked him if he knew anyone who could hear someone talking kind of inside himself. I wanted to know,’ he explained seriously. ‘And he said no, because hearing voices was a well known first sign of madness, and people who did hear them either got put in asylums, or burnt at the stake, like Joan of Arc. So I sort of wondered…’

  ‘Oh, that’ I said, with more conviction than I was feeling.

  ‘That’s something quite different.’ I searched hurriedly and desperately for a valid-sounding difference.’ He must have been thinking of the kind of voices that prophesy, tell of disasters to come, and try to persuade people to do foolish things so they get muddled over what’s right and what’s wrong, and what’s sensible and what isn’t. That’s a different kind of voices altogether from ones that ask questions and tell about the binary code, and so on; quite different. He’s probably only heard of the other kind, so he didn’t understand what you meant. No, I should just forget it. You’ve no need to worry about that-no need at all.’

  I must have sounded more convincing than I felt. Matthew relaxed, and nodded.

  ‘Good,’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘I think I’d hate to go mad. You see, I don’t feel at all mad.’

  When I reported on our session to Mary I suppressed any reference to the last part of it. I felt it would simply add to her anxiety without getting us any further, so I concentrated on my inquiries into the Y and N business.

  ‘This Chocky affair seems to get more baffling,’ I confessed. ‘One expects children to keep on making discoveries – well, hang it, that’s what education’s all about – but one also expects them to be pretty pleased with themselves for making them. There seems to me to be something psychologically unsound, if it isn’t downright screwy, when all progress is attributed to a sort of familiar, instead of to self. It just isn’t normal – And yet we’ve got to admit that his interests have widened. He’s taking more notice of more things than he used to. And lately he’s been gaining a – a sort of air of responsibility: had you noticed that?… I suppose the important question is whether once-removed approach is likely to do any harm – the man Trimble wasn’t very happy about the results of it, was he?’

  ‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Mary put in, ‘I had a note to-day from Miss Toach who takes him for geography. It’s a bit confused, but I think it is meant to thank us for helping to stimulate his interest in the subject while at the same time suggesting tactfully that we shouldn’t try to push him too much.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘More Chocky?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I rather suspect he’s been asking her the sort of awkward questions he asked me – about where Earth is, and so on.’

  I thought it over for some moments.

  ‘Suppose we were to change our strategy – hit out at Chocky a bit…?’ I suggested.

  Mary shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she told me. ‘I don’t think that’s the way. She’d probably go underground – I mean, he’d lose confidence in us, and turn secretive. And that’d be worse really, wouldn’t it?’

  I rubbed my forehead.

  ‘It’s all very difficult. It doesn’t seem wise to go on encouraging him; and it seems unwise to discourage him. So what do we do?’

  Four

  We were still trying to make up our minds the next Tuesday.

  That was the day I stopped on the way home to take delivery of a new car. It was a station-wagon that I’d been hankering after for some time. Lots of room for everyone, and for a load of gear in the back as well. We all piled in, and took it out for a short experimental run before supper. I was pleased with the way it handled and thought I’d get to like it. The others were enthusiastic, and by the time we returned it was generally voted that the Gore family was entitled to tilt its chins a degree or two higher.

  I left the car parked in front of the garage ready to take Mary and me to a friend’s house later on, and went to write a letter while Mary got the supper.

  About a quarter of an hour later came the sound of Matthew’s raised voice. I couldn’t catch what he was saying; it was a noise of half-choked, inarticulate protest. Looking out of the window I noticed that several passers-by had paused and were looking over the gate with expressions of uncertain amusement. I went out to investigate. I found Matthew standing a few feet from the car, very red in the face, and shouting incoherently. I walked towards him.

  ‘What’s the trouble, Matthew?’ I inquired.

  He turned. There were tears of childish rage running down his flushed cheeks. He tried to speak, but choked on the words, and grabbed my hand with both of his. I looked at the car which seemed to be the focus of the trouble. It did not appear damaged, nor to have anything visibly amiss with it. Then, conscious of the spectators at the gate, I led Matthew round to the other side of the house, out of their sight. There I sat down on one of the veranda chairs, and took him on my knee. I had never seen him so upset. He was shaking with anger, half-strangled by it, and still with tears copiously streaming. I put an arm round him.

  ‘There now, old man. Take it easy. Take it easy,’ I told him.

  Gradually the shaking and the tears began to subside. He breathed more easily. By degrees the ten
sion in him relaxed, and he grew quieter. After a time he heaved a great, exhausted sigh. I handed him my handkerchief. He plied it a bit, and then he blew.

  ‘Sorry, Daddy,’ he apologized through it, still chokily.

  ‘That’s all right, old man. Just take your time.’

  Presently he lowered the handkerchief and plucked at it, still breathing jerkily. A few more tears, but of a different kind, overflowed. He cleaned up once more, sighed again, and began to be more like his normal self.

  ‘Sorry, Daddy,’ he said again. ‘All right now – I think.’

  ‘Good,’ I told him. ‘But dear, oh dear, what was all that about?’

  Matthew hesitated, then he said,

  ‘It was the car.’

  I blinked.

  ‘The car! For heaven’s sake. It seems to be all right. What’s it done to you?’

  ‘Well, not the car, exactly,’ Matthew amended. ‘You see, it’s a jolly nice car, I think it’s super, and I thought Chocky would be interested in it, so I started showing it to her, and telling her how it works, and things.’

  I became aware of a slight sinking, here-we-go-again feeling.

  ‘But Chocky wasn’t interested?’ I inquired.

  Something seemed to rise in Matthew’s throat, but he took himself in hand, swallowed hard and continued bravely:

  ‘She said it was silly, and ugly, and clumsy. She – she laughed at it!’

  At the recollection of this enormity his indignation swelled once more, and all but overwhelmed him. He strove to fight it down.

  I was beginning to feel seriously worried. That the hypothetical Chocky could provoke such a near-hysterical condition of anger and outrage was alarming. I wished I knew more about the nature and manifestations of schizophrenia. However, one thing was clear, this was not the moment for debunking Chocky, on the other hand it was necessary to say something. I asked:

  ‘What does she find so amusing about it?’

  Matthew sniffed, paused, and sniffed again.

  ‘Pretty nearly everything,’ he told me, gloomily. ‘She said the engine is funny, and old-fashioned, and wasteful, and that an engine that needed gears was ridiculous anyway. And that a car that didn’t use an engine to stop itself as well as make itself go was stupid. And how it was terribly funny to think of anyone making a car that had to have springs because it just bumped along the ground on wheels that had to have things like sausages fastened round them.