by Paul Ableman
“I’m off now, old son,” announces Arthur, coming hesitantly into the room. For a moment I hardly see him and then I repeat stupidly:
“Off, are you? To your office, I suppose?”
“To my office, old son.”
He lingers and I feel dully that he is in a communicative mood.
“Wistful mood, old son,” he corrects me. “Unlike me, I know. Can’t place it at all. For instance, I had a silly notion this morning that I haven’t had since I was a child—thought a fish might swim through the water tap.”
“And none did?”
“How could it? It was just silly. I know it was silly. Surely you can see that!”
“Yes, of course, Arthur.”
Arthur sighs and approaches closer.
“There’s a young child in the next room,” he confides. “She belongs there all right. What are you thinking of, anyway?”
“I’ve just seen the professor,” I explain. “Arthur, could you draw the curtains?”
“They are drawn, old son.”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I meant—did you bump into the professor? He was in the house.”
“You’ve had a professor here, have you?”
“Don’t be angry, Arthur.”
“Look, don’t tell me that.” Arthur lights a cigar with trembling fingers. He looks at me aggressively. “What did he talk about?”
“Fish—mostly. Starfish and little shells with soft bodies inside, soft bits of slime—and bigger fish too.”
“Fish,” snorts Arthur, and continues sarcastically, “I suppose he was a professor of fish? Does a man like that catch fish? Does he merely inspect fish? Or what?”
“He only mentioned fish,” I explain anxiously. “He was really a professor of spirits.”
“No,” exclaims Arthur. “I know your games. He was a professor of fish all right. Now, you see that the notion angers me and you say something different. You’ve got no guts.”
“Yes, I have, Arthur. In my own way. The truth is, I never asked him his subject. I think it was stars as a matter of fact.”
“What did he say about stars?”
“He said it to Cousin Susan and I couldn’t hear. She kept clearing her throat.”
“I’m a slave to my staff,” exclaims Arthur. “They’ll all be congregating now. I have to dash down and set the wheels turning. If it wasn’t for that, I’d stay a while I promise you. I’d stay and get to the bottom of this. In any case, I’ll ask Susan,” he begins to storm out but stops again. “Why did you want a professor anyway?”
I can only shake my head vaguely.
“Everything felt strange this morning,” Arthur resumes, but this time with a note of almost pathetic bewilderment in his voice. “Everything—the garden hut. I’ve already mentioned the tap and my foolish notion. I stopped in to see Jane. How often do I do that? You know what a rush I’m always in, but this morning I stopped by her door and then looked in. ‘There’s a young child in there,’ I thought to myself, ‘She’s asleep.’ That seemed as if it should lead to a host of, I won’t say wonders, but pregnant notions. Nothing came of it. And then I was about to go to the garage—incidentally I first read the weather report, it said ‘cloudy.’ I looked up and out at the sky and saw a number of clouds and then I thought ‘man arranges the skies,’ I just mention that incidentally—I was about to go to the garage and I had the final disturbing thought. I thought, ‘the car will be there’ and that seemed to me not exactly wrong—that would be silly—but inadequate. Anyway, it was then I decided to visit you. I say all this so that you’ll see, it wasn’t just idly or casually that I dropped in—”
“I know it wasn’t, Arthur,” I can not help exclaiming, “I do know that.”
“Possibly you do—but then you can see why I couldn’t welcome your news, your communication. I could only think ‘what’s a fish professor doing in my house? How did he get in without anyone telling me?’ Surely, that’s obvious.”
“He was all right, Arthur,” I plead. “You wouldn’t have disapproved. You can go to your office with an easy mind about him.”
Surprisingly Arthur’s expression softens.
“Come down later, old son,” he urges. “Make your way down to the office. We’ll have another chat. It’s all right about the professor. I won’t ask Susan—she probably had good reasons. Don’t think about it anymore and come down to the office later.”
“All right, Arthur,” I promise. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to.”
“Cheerio, old son,” he calls and hurries out of the house. I hear the distinctive sounds of his departure and then the sound of his engine finally being absorbed by all the engines in the city.
I lie back contentedly. When Cousin Susan brings my latest egg I tell her that Arthur wants me to call at his office that morning.
“I think he’s considering some enterprise,” I explain. “Some joint enterprise that we could undertake together.”
“You think he’s got something definitely in mind?” asks Cousin Susan doubtfully.
“I think so, yes.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“He said that he was planning a brand new enterprise or development. He plans to market stars or eggs—no I’ve forgotten what it was he wants to sell—perhaps fish—and he thought I’d be invaluable.”
“You’d be valuable?”
It is plain that she is still dubious and I wonder how I can convince her.
“It was less in what he said,” I urge, “than in his manner. You know how he gets when he’s stimulated by something? He tends to pat certain objects in his pocket and scratch a certain part of his body. Well, he was doing both those things. You must know, Susan, living intimately with him the way you do, what the signs are.”
“Not so intimately,” retorts Susan humorously. “Still, if he’s really serious—taking into account what the professor said—”
“That rather sinister character,” I interject.
“I didn’t take to him,” confesses Susan. “But he helped Mr. Groggins. Groggins speaks very highly of him”
She stands still and looks at me thoughtfully for a few moments.
“It’s worth trying,” she says finally.
“Oh splendid,” I can not help exclaiming. “Now if you’ll only warm my things, I’ll jump straight up and get ready.”
“Now, not so fast. Don’t worry about your things. I’ll get them up to blood heat.”
“A bit warmer, Susan,” I plead, “to make me tingle a bit. Heat’s activity. Arthur will want me to be active.”
“And don’t expect too much,” she warns; “The man has his moments but still—don’t expect wonders.”
This warning rather depresses me. Not that I had expected wonders. Really, I suppose, I hadn’t formed any very clear idea of what to expect at all. Susan pounds fiercely on the wall to induce Jones to decrease the volume of sound that is at present streaming through the thin walls. It is a terrible medley of sound that reaches us, Jones’ rip-saw working on crusts and beds, on lovely objects, on bone and gum, together with sly voices from the air that, having bounced about the earth, end up in Jones’ receiver to menace my current powers of concentration. Fortunately, I have no need for concentration at the moment and a few minutes serve to put me, if only temporarily, beyond the reach of Jones’ bought voices.
“Would you tell Arthur I’m here?” I ask the girl in the outer office.
“Don’t you recognize me?” she asks. “How did you get here, Arthur may want to know that.”
“I came in Hunter’s van,” I tell her, looking at her intently. “I think I do recognize you.”
“You probably do,” she agrees. “At least you ought to. Arthur’s not here.”
“Not here?”
“He’s flown somewhere. A message came from somewhere. Some stores or supplies are stuck somewhere. He’s gone off to beat himself against recalcitrant authorities. You can wait if you want. But don’t pursue the matter of recogni
zing me.”
“Didn’t I recognize you?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. You may have seen me. My image, of a thousand swiftly lost, may have lodged unforgettably in your heart. That’s from a film.”
“A film?”
“Yes, a lovely film about—love and—don’t you go to the films?”
“I did once,” I affirm, “but they only had Chinese scenes. I’ve probably seen better films than you.”
“It’s too early,” sighs the girl. “If it wasn’t so unbearably early I’d let you take me to the films. Do you like monster films?”
“Monster films?”
“Films about monsters, heaving up out of the ooze and menacing the world?”
“I’ve never seen that sort of film,” I admit. “As a matter of fact I haven’t seen any films for a long time. Anyway, I don’t think I’d like monster films.”
“They’re silly, really,” concedes the girl. She looks thoughtful and I again find something familiar in her appearance. “The monsters are made of rubber and wire usually. You can sometimes see the joints. And they always seize pretty girls. Well that’s silly, isn’t it? I mean, why should a monster want a pretty human girl? It would be more interested in a pretty monster. Do you see what I mean? It wouldn’t think of a female monster as being a monster at all.”
“If you’d like to go with me,” I offer, “I’d be very glad to take you to a monster film. However, I think I’d better wait for Arthur now.”
“Oh, I can’t go now,” exclaims the girl. “I have to stay here and take messages. The other girl that works with me is away. You’d like her. She’s really pretty, not like me.”
“You’re really pretty,” I protest. “In fact I was almost afraid to ask you because you’re so pretty.”
“Are you shy?” she asks me. “I used to be shy—there, there’s a message. You go and sit down and I’ll talk to you again later.”
I obey her instructions and go and sit on the padded bench provided doubtless for the teeming contacts that normally throng Arthur’s office. The girl takes a number of messages. Finally she calls me over again. “I used to work in that tavern,” she admits, avoiding my glance. “I was the waitress. I recognized you the moment you came in, but then, when you didn’t recognize me, I didn’t like to say anything.”
“You worked in the tavern?” I ask. “The tavern?”
It seems impossible. My incredulity derives less from the difficulty of imagining this attractive secretary in a tavern than from a feeling of disbelief that such a place ever existed. And yet the knowledge of it is clear in my mind. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the knowledge of it that is in my mind is incontrovertible. There was such a place that someone visited and whose recollections and glancing memories of it are securely lodged in my mind. And for a moment, forgetting my newfound purpose, I can not repress a sign of nostalgia.
“But why did you leave?” I ask. “Weren’t you happy there? Didn’t we have some splendid times?”
“I suppose I was happy there,” she admits. “But I didn’t have much fun. It was all right for you. You only came in for breakfast and found it all tidy and polished and a blazing fire in winter. But I had to lay the fire and chop the wood, and I only had a tiny little room upstairs. It was dark and had mice and I hardly even had any time off.”
“But,” I can not help protesting, “you had other things—trees and clear air, and solid, real things all around you—real chairs, real food—things weren’t all melting and changing the way they are here. You had a life.”
“I do miss it sometimes,” she admits. “But not for long—I can always go to the films. That takes my mind off it. And I don’t have to work nearly as hard here and I have much nicer things. Anyway, I couldn’t have been so very happy or I wouldn’t have listened to you with such interest.”
“Listened to me?” I ask, mystified. “When did you listen to me?”
“Oh, you’ve forgotten. I’m not surprised. As a matter of fact I never really had the feeling that you knew what words you were using even as you used them. You never talked like other customers. They’d say, ‘Good morning’ or ‘Lovely morning’ or ‘Got any haddock?’ and the words would be exactly what was in their mind at the moment. And then they’d think of the next thing and say that. But you never used words in that way. I could tell. I always had the feeling that what was in your mind was something quite different from the words and that the words were just experiments, to see if they had anything to do with that thing, whatever it was. If you said ‘Bring me some haddock,’ I always felt that you’d be surprised if haddock arrived, or at least that you might just as well have expected eggs or coconuts or a thunderstorm.”
“Do you mean,” I ask, struck by what she is saying, “with thunderbolts?”
“Oh, I don’t know about thunderbolts. I saw a film once where a thunderbolt struck an old mansion—still that’s not the point. What I was going to say was that even knowing this, knowing that if another customer said ‘There’s going to be a dance, or a race or a war,’ it was probably based on something he knew and might be true, still I was more interested in the sort of things that you used to say although I didn’t think they had any real meaning at all.”
“Yes they did,” I affirm. “I hope you won’t talk like this in front of Arthur. This is about my last chance to please him.”
“I remember one morning you came down and you were in such a hurry you wouldn’t even stop for breakfast. You said something about having to rush off and win me eternal fulfillment, eternal enthusiasm. I had hardly any idea what you meant and I had a pretty strong suspicion that you didn’t either, but I couldn’t help brooding about what you’d said. As a matter of fact, I think that was the last time I saw you. Well—I don’t suppose you found it, did you?”
“Well,” I begin, and even as I begin, strange memories of myself, of myself at other times, in other places, with lakes, mountains, stars, with happy or unhappy people and different races of people, seem as if they are trying to invade me. They seem to flit towards me and break like desperate ghosts on the impenetrable body of my momentary self. “I don’t think you should say things like that. After all, I’ve got to get on. This may be my last chance. The professor thought so, I could tell. And Arthur’s patience won’t last forever. If I said anything that distressed you, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, but you shouldn’t reproach me—I’m not doing wrong. I’m just trying to—trying to—”
“Oh, it’s all right,” she exclaims, “don’t upset yourself. I’ve forgotten all those things now. I was only giving them as an example of why I must be happier now—I don’t feel any need for the sort of things that you used to say anymore.”
For a moment I wish to protest, but the desire is instantly thwarted and negated by understanding. She is quite right. She must be right, otherwise how could she say it? It is only my dullness that I complain of. Otherwise I have done right. I had to accept Arthur’s invitation. I had to follow the professor’s advice and all the other things that preceded my being here—all those had to be absorbed somehow, somehow into my course. But being here, having followed them, how can I say anything, the sort of wild consolations that now wrack me? Are they not negated by my presence, my neat or untidy clothes, my immobility?
“At least,” I plead, “at the very least, don’t call me metaphor.”
“You’re doing it again,” she complains. “I don’t understand that, and I’m not even going to think about it—even if I had time between these electric messages that keep pulsing into my head. And I mustn’t neglect those. That circuit is the work of the world. But all right, if it pleases you, I promise not to call you that—there, do you hear?”
“Yes,” I answer. “Activity—someone approaching.”
“That’s Arthur now, approaching rapidly. He must have settled his affairs.”
At the thought that Arthur is about to enter I feel a slight shock of apprehension but this at least has the
effect of clearing from my mind all the confused remorse and nostalgia that the girl’s words have evoked. I try to think of exactly the right attitude with which to meet Arthur but before I have decided on anything the door has opened and he has hurried in.
“All settled,” he cries boisterously, not, since I have retired to the wall, noticing me at first. “The goods are flowing again, exports buy imports. Imports persuade men to make exports—the flow of trade, back and forth. Mind you, I had to be firm—ah, you’ve come.”
He has turned, in response to the girl’s signal.
“Well, step forth. Don’t huddle against the wall. This,” he announces, presenting me, not without a certain exuberant and good-natured contempt, to the now-smiling girl, “is my younger brother. He’s going to learn the trade. He’s had a long holiday—not like us poor slaves (ha, ha)—but then, he’s not been very well—have you, old son?”
“Not very I suppose, Arthur, still—”
“Yes, never mind, you can tell her your symptoms later. Well,” he asks the girl, “what do you think of him? Good material? Think he’ll shape well? Think we can do anything with him?”
The girl does not answer. In fact, by the deliberate way in which she reaches for her message pad, as if she had not been addressed, I feel sure that she is not prepared to assist Arthur’s mocking, albeit good-humored, banter. I feel that Arthur senses this too for, in a slightly different tone, he asks:
“Have you two been talking? I suppose you’ve got to know each other a bit. Been waiting long?” he asks me.
“I don’t think so, Arthur. I came down as soon as Susan—”
