Nightmare

by Lynn Brock

  For some weeks he toyed with the idea of trying to obtain some sort of clerical employment. But he knew that the project was a futile one. In Dunpool, as elsewhere, staffs were being cut down. He was a stranger—without introductions and recommendations—over forty—in bad health. He refused to consider Elsa’s suggestion that her sister’s husband might perhaps find some place for him at the foundries. It was bad enough to have to put up with Canynge’s supercilious smile as an equal. He resumed his efforts to write, feverishly.

  Time flew. It was always seven o’clock—the factory sirens were screaming down in the city. He dreaded awakening … Another day … Today the bedroom and the bathroom must be done. Elsa’s weekly cheque must be written—two pounds five. The electric-light bill must be settled—three pounds five … The same old round … Bogey-Bogey and the same old walks … The same old Downs … The same old clothes … The same old liver … The same old noises overhead … Everything fading—decaying—going. His pyjamas had slit down the back again. He sprang out of bed and saw the long, still drowsy eyes that smiled up at him. Her hands came out from beneath the bedclothes and drew him once more into the warm fragrance of her arms. He bent and kissed her eyes and remained for a little space in that world of sunlit courage in which her spirit lived and laughed. But then his head twisted to see the little clock on the table between the beds. Five past seven. Bogey-Bogey was whimpering and scratching at the door, impatient for his walk, damaging the paint. There was no time—even for her. He picked up his ragged old dressing-gown. The sunlight faded. Overhead Mr and Mrs Prossip had begun an angry argument in bed …

  The novel, after many falterings, came again to a standstill at the end of April. Whalley spent a long time over the Morning Post now and sometimes brought home other papers over which he brooded in the afternoons. The housework fell into arrears and was completely neglected sometimes for days on end. Elsa found him one afternoon standing in the passage looking about him vaguely.

  ‘Don’t tell me that you’re thinking of repapering the passage, Si?’ she smiled.

  He shook his head, still looking about him. ‘No. I wasn’t thinking of that.’

  ‘Of what, then?’

  ‘I don’t know really. I’ve had a funny feeling lately about this flat somehow—a feeling that there’s something hidden in it somewhere—waiting for some frightful disaster that is going to happen to us. I can’t shake it off. Oh! damn that fiddle …’

  ‘Sh. They can hear, you know …’

  The noises overhead began to worry him acutely. Miss Prossip had gradually extended her hours of practice, and when, at the beginning of June, he resumed the novel with renewed hope, he decided to offer a protest. To avoid personal collision with Mr Prossip’s truculence, he put his remonstrance in writing.

  ‘DEAR MR PROSSIP.—Would it be possible for Miss Prossip to shorten her violin-practice somewhat for at all events some weeks to come? I am endeavouring to complete some literary work, and you will understand, I feel sure, that the practically continuous sound of a violin overhead renders concentration upon mental work of any sort very difficult. I think it possible that you are not aware that sounds from your flat are very clearly audible in ours, and trust that you will not consider my request unreasonable.

  ‘Yrs. sincerely,

  ‘S. WHALLEY.’

  He went up one Saturday morning and dropped this missive into the Prossips’ letter box. A couple of hours later he found it in his own box, enclosed in a crested envelope addressed ‘Whalley’, and torn into small pieces. While he and Elsa were still standing in the dark little passage, discussing this discovery in undertones, a gramophone began to play in the Prossips’ flat, just above their heads. It was a raucous, powerful instrument, and the sudden outbreak of its blaring startled Bogey-Bogey into a yelp of alarm. The Whalleys had not known that the Prossips possessed a gramophone. Their eyes rose towards the sound sharply and remained fixed on a small square of white-painted boarding which in one place broke the plaster of the passage’s ceiling. The gramophone, they divined, stood on the upper surface of this boarding.

  They recognised the tune which it was playing, an air popular with messenger-boys a couple of years back. A nasal baritone sang the refrain, ‘I can’t give you anything but love, Baby.’ The banal melody was repeated and came to a blaring close. Instantly the same tune was begun again. When again it ended, it began again. Again it ended—began again … ended, began again. The Whalleys retreated to the kitchen and listened. At the end of the tenth repetition there was a brief silence. But footsteps hurried from the Prossips’ kitchen along their passage. The dismaying blare burst out again.

  Elsa laughed, not very successfully. ‘Well, I must get on with my lunch. Don’t get worried, dear. They’ll soon tire of it. Take Bogey-Bogey for his walk.’

  She busied herself with her pots and pans. Whalley went out into the passage again and listened.

  The gramophone did not tire. It played that day from eleven o’clock until lunchtime—from two o’clock until half-past four—and from five until half-past six. It played always the same record and each performance was continuous. Whenever its blaring ceased for a moment or two, footsteps hurried along the Prossips’ passage, usually from their kitchen, but sometimes from their sitting-room. Long after it had ceased to play, the Whalleys heard it still playing.

  During the following day—a Sunday—nothing was heard of it. But on Monday morning it began at eight o’clock and played until ten. It began again shortly after one o’clock and played until four. At ten o’clock it began again and played until eleven. It played always the same record, and when it stopped Miss Prossip’s violin began.

  On Tuesday, with slight variations of hour, this programme was repeated—on Wednesday—on Thursday. On Friday Whalley wrote a letter of complaint to Mr Penfold, the landlord. But there had been trouble with Mr Penfold over his failure to keep his promises as to repainting and repapering. There was little hope of help from him. He tore his letter up. Besides, the Whalleys agreed, the wisest and most effective course was to avoid letting the Prossips see that the gramophone annoyed or disturbed them in the least. The Prossips had to pay pretty dearly for their amusements. They would tire of it. They must tire of it soon. The mere labour of keeping the gramophone going was enormous. It was incredible that at all events the elder Prossips could stand its noise much longer. And the performance of the gramophone had necessarily cut down the performance of Miss Prossip’s fiddle. She, too, would tire of it very soon. Much the best plan was to grin and bear it.

  So the Whalleys argued. The incredible went on happening however. The gramophone continued to play. When it had played for eleven days Whalley forgot his counsels of prudence and consulted a solicitor. The solicitor was doubtful, but wrote a guarded letter of complaint to Mr Prossip, to which Mr Prossip’s solicitors replied in a letter of guarded defiance. Further letters were exchanged, the solicitors held conferences; Whalley had to attend one of them. It was a day of heavy rain, and his raincoat and umbrella were too shabby to face the solicitor’s office; his best suit suffered considerable damage. Growing alarmed at the prospect of a large bill, he paid five guineas and withdrew his complaint. The only result of this serious expenditure was a further addition to the disturbances overhead.

  Not a word had been written since the gramophone had declared war. His mind was a mere prickling, impotent irritation, incapable of any coherent thought that did not lead to the gramophone. He knew that it was entirely useless to attempt to work. None the less, every day after lunch he put on a clean collar, changed into his second-best suit, and shut himself up in the sitting-room, to sit there until teatime in vacant torpor, scribbling on his writing-block.

  He was sitting there on the afternoon following his final interview with his solicitor when a violent thump shook the ceiling of the room and set its windows a-rattle. Someone had jumped violently on the floor of the room overhead.

  Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  H
e half rose from his chair, but sat down again, looking upwards, waiting.

  Thump. Thump. Thump …

  CHAPTER III

  1

  MR KNAYLE heard a good deal of Rockwood gossip at the Edwarde-Lewins’ that thundery afternoon. One piece of news which concerned Mr Loxton interested him particularly and made him rather thoughtful during the remainder of his stay. Before he left he took his hostess into the garden and induced her to cut off a large number of her cherished roses.

  As he drove homewards his blue eyes remained fixed upon the big posy whose fragrance filled the coupé. Their habitual slight surprise was more marked than usual and tinged with doubt. For he was both surprised and doubtful—surprised that he intended to present Mrs Whalley with a large bunch of roses, and doubtful that, in the end, he would do anything of the kind. His whole state of mind had suddenly—within the last couple of hours—become surprised and doubtful—restless—fluid—unsteady—utterly different from the calm, stable, reliable equilibrium in which his standards of judgment had balanced themselves for half a century. He seemed to have no standards. He couldn’t judge things. He didn’t want to judge them, really. He wanted to do things without thinking whether it was prudent or becoming to do them. He wanted to do things without thinking of what other people would think of them—of what their consequences might be. He didn’t know what things—just things generally. He felt at once uneasy and extraordinarily gay and happy and a little silly. From time to time he smiled at the roses somewhat fatuously, then became dubious and perplexed again.

  There they were in his hand, and he was bringing them to her. He had no clear idea now why. After tea, while he had been chatting with Vera Edwarde-Lewin as they strolled round the garden, a sudden warm, tender eagerness had flooded him—a delightful, even thrilling, sensation—and he had asked her to give him some roses for his sitting-room. He had encouraged her to make the bunch larger and larger—pointed out the finest roses. At the time it had seemed to him perfectly clear why he was doing this, but now, though he was striving to do so, he could recover nothing of that tender, eager warmth—no explanation that satisfied common sense. He had no clear idea at all why he had done it.

  There had been that piece of news which he had heard concerning old Loxton. That had come into it. It had seemed to him that it would be a kind, sympathetic, consoling thing to bring her some roses. An absurd idea. As if the gift of a few roses from a friend could in any way soften a blow like that when it fell. Perhaps it had fallen already. Perhaps she had heard the news about old Loxton. He had not spoken to her for some days. Though, from behind the curtains of his sitting-room he had seen her twice that morning in the garden, going to and returning from her shopping. She had appeared, as always, bright and smiling and happy. No. Probably the blow was still to fall. Old Loxton, it seemed, had kept the whole thing very dark …

  A serious blow for her and her husband—a very serious blow, he was afraid. Things were going badly with them. Apparently Whalley was never going to recover anything like decent health. He looked badly, poor devil—white and strained and haggard. No wonder, leading the life he did, shut up there all day long except when he went out to prowl about for a bit on the Downs. Knew no one, apparently. Finding difficulty, too, with his writing, he said—especially since this business of the gramophone had started. Not much money in writing—except for a few lucky ones—at the best of times. And now, of course, with this depression in every business … Whalley appeared to have ‘world-depression’ on the brain—always brought it up when one stopped to chat to him for a minute—seemed possessed by the idea that a general crash was coming. Quite strung up about it. Partially Irish, of course … and the artistic temperament. He must be pretty hard-up to wear those shabby clothes, and not to be able to afford a servant of some sort. Jolly hard on her. Possibly no private means … constant anxiety … probably no provision for her if anything happened him. No doubt he had built all along on old Loxton. It would be a very serious blow indeed … Not much use in bringing her a bunch of roses …

  Well, well—these things happened. What was it to him if things were going badly for her.

  Yes. That was the point. He was coming to it now.

  What was she to him? Why had he begun to think of her so often of late? Why had he begun to watch her from behind his curtains as she went in or out—to contrive meetings with her in the garden? Why had he been so concerned, on her account, by the spiteful hostility of the Prossips? Why, on her account, was he concerned about her husband’s ill-health and inability to earn money … about this business of Mr Loxton? What had been the real truth and essence of that warm, delicious, urging, reckless impulse that had suddenly moved him to bring her a bunch of roses? Had he … there it was; it must be answered … had he, after over thirty-five years of entirely platonic friendship, suddenly fallen in love with her?

  Naturally, Mr Knayle did not speak his thoughts aloud, but he heard the words ‘in love with her’ distinctly, and their sound was like the pealing of triumphant clarions. He saw them distinctly, too, written across the cream and crimson splendour of the roses. The perfume of the roses became intoxicating. His eyes closed for a moment. A dancing rapture surged upwards within him. He wanted to dance and snap his fingers and sing: ‘I am in love with her.’ His body had no age—no weight—no substance. His mind was a marvelling exultation in the thing that had happened to him. Actually, he hummed a little, lest his chauffeur, Chidgey, should detect some outward symptom of his agitation. He ceased to look at the roses, for it was decided now—he knew. He was bringing them to her because he was in love with her. Impatiently he watched the well-known houses and lamp-posts and side-streets go by. In a few minutes he would be giving them to her … close to her … touching her little cool hand with his …

  It was marvellous. For—yes she must be thirty-eight now—and he had known her since she could walk. Longer than that—he must have seen her often in her perambulator down at Whanton, though he had no recollection of it. For that matter all his recollections of her were rather indistinct, until the period during which she had lived in Rockwood. Even then, for a long time, he had merely been aware of her as one of the daughters of an old friend of his own parents—a flapper, like other flappers. Then had come a period when he had met her at dances and other functions of the sort—grown-up—grown slight and very pretty and gay … But no. He had admired her, certainly—thought her a charming girl and all that, but no, he couldn’t recall having taken any but the most ordinary of friendly interests in her. During the War he had met her much less frequently. He could not recall that her marriage had had any but the most ordinary of friendly interests for him either. After that she had disappeared from Rockwood for ten years. He could not remember having even thought about her during all those years. Certainly he had been sorry, a couple of years ago, to discover that her husband was seriously ill. Certainly he had been very glad to assist her in finding a flat. And certainly, during the past two years, he had enjoyed casual meetings with her, and occasional visits to her flat. But no … there had been no change in his views of her during those two years … until …

  Until when?

  Mr Knayle’s memory travelled back, eager to discover the first moment of enchantment. It came to a pause, provisionally, at a morning, about three weeks back, on which he had found himself standing by one of the windows of his sitting-room, concealed behind one of its curtains, and keeping watch on the front garden. Never before in his life had he kept watch from behind a curtain. And his breakfast had been cooling in his dining-room. But he had continued to stand there until a trim, slim little figure in jade had flitted down the garden and out through its gate. He had had then, he realised now, no idea at all why he had allowed his breakfast to become uneatable that morning in order to see her depart to her marketing. He had simply found himself watching. None the less it was almost certainly the marvellous truth that he had turned away to his congealed bacon and eggs a lover.

  Fo
r three weeks, then, this stupendous secret had been locked away within him, and he had guessed nothing of it. When he had started for the Edwarde-Lewins’ that afternoon he had guessed nothing of it. He remembered that he had looked up to her windows as he drove away from his flat and thought merely that it was a pity that Whalley was taking the feud with the Prossips so seriously. The first premonition of the astounding truth had come, he saw now, when, to his surprise, he had told Edwarde-Lewin that he would remain on at 47 Downview Road. How utterly inconceivable it was now that he could have even contemplated separating himself from her …

  It was marvellous—a revolution—the birth of a new Harvey Knayle—a whole new world. He was neither unmanly nor selfish nor cynical, and he had known thousands of charming women, many of them intimately. He had liked them, admired them, respected them, sympathised with them, found in them all the virtues, but no magic. None of them had been able to make this marvellous, delicious, painful thing happen to him. He had believed that it couldn’t happen to him—to regard it as a thing that happened to other people and led, generally, to unprofitable and troublesome consequences. And now it had happened to him, and he didn’t care a jack straw what the consequences might be—so long as he could serve her. That was it—he wanted to serve her—to help her—to shield her.