Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories

In the wide beam of silvery light from the open door, she looked like a fairy in a pantomime.

'Darling, what has happened?' she cried.

She stretched her hands up to my shoulders and, even though my shoulders were touched with sleet, kept them there. It occurred to me at once that she was gaining time for someone to make off. I could not bring myself actually to force her away, to push her down into the freezing whiteness.

'Who was talking to you?' I cried. But my voice was caught up in the tightness within me and only made a cackle, completely ridiculous.

'Silly boy!' said Ursula, still holding me in such a way that I could not throw her off without a degree of force that neither of us could forgive.

'Who?' I gurgled out, and then began coughing.

'It was just the bird crying out,' she replied, and let go of me altogether. I knew that I had forced her into saying something she had not wished to say. Her ceasing to hold me also: it was true that a visitor would by then have had time to make away, but it was also true that I had behaved in a manner to forfeit her embrace.

Still choking and coughing, quite ludicrous, I dashed into the house; and inside was something which was not ludicrous at all. The hallway and the living-room were less than half-lighted (it would hardly have been possible even to read, I thought subsequently), but, dim though it was, I saw that indeed a bird there seemed to be: not merely squawking but actually flapping round, just under the living-room ceiling, and more than once striking itself with a rap or thud against the fittings.

It was very frightening, and I made a fool of myself. I cried out 'Keep it off! Keep it off!' I covered my eyes with my hands, and should have liked to cover my ears also.

It lasted only a matter of seconds. And then Ursula had entered the room behind me and turned the lights full on from the switchplate at the door. She had a slightly detached expression, as of one reluctantly witnessing the inevitable consequence of a solemn warning disregarded.

'It was just the bird crying out,' she said again soberly.

But what I saw, now that the light was on, was the look of the cushion on the sofa opposite to the sofa on which Ursula had been sitting. Someone had been seated opposite to her, and there had been no time to smooth away the evidence of it.

As for the bird, it had simply vanished in the brighter light.

All I could do was drag upstairs in order to deal with my attack of coughing. When, after a considerable time, I came down again, the cushions were all as smooth as in a shop, and Ursula was on her feet offering me a glass of sherry. We maintained these little formalities almost every evening.

That night, as we lay together, it struck me that Ursula herself might have sat, for some reason, first on one sofa then on the other, her usual one.

All the same, Ursula had once actually admitted that a man sometimes came to mess about with the clocks; and about six months after the evening I have just described, I was provided with third-party evidence of it. And from what a quarter!

It was young Wally Walters. He is not a man I care for — if you can call him a man. He seems to think the whole suburb has nothing to do but dance to the tune of his flute. He has opinions of his own on everything, and he puts his nose in everywhere — or tries to. He has had a most unfortunate influence on the Parochial Church Council, and the Amateur Dramatic Society has never been the same since he took it over. What is more, I strongly suspect that he is not normal. I saw a certain amount of that during the war, but men who are continually under fire can, I fancy, be excused almost anything. In our suburb, it is still very much objected to, whatever may be the arguments on the other side. Be that as it may, young Walters always greets me when we happen to meet, as he does everyone else, and I have no wish actually to quarrel with him. Besides, it would probably by now be a mistake.

Young Wally Walters never says 'Good morning' or 'Good evening' in the normal way, but always something more casual and personal, such as 'Hello, Joe' — that at the least, and soon he is trying to put his hand on one's arm. He makes a point of behaving as if everyone were his intimate friend.

And so it was that evening — for it was another case of things happening in the evening.

'Hello, Joe,' Wally Walters cooed at me as I stepped round the corner of the road into sight of my home. 'You're just in time to miss something.'

'Evening,' I rejoined. Almost always he has something silly to say, and I make a point of refusing ever to rise to it, if only for the simple reason that it is never worth rising to.

'I said you've just got back in time to miss something.'

'I heard you say that,' I replied, smiling.

But nothing ever stopped him saying his piece, just like the village idiot.

'Great tall bloke with clocks all over him,' said Wally Walters. 'Man a mile high at least.'

I admit that this time it was I who clutched at him. In any case, he was watching me very steadily with his soft eyes, as I have noticed that he seems to watch everyone.

'Covered with clocks,' he went on. 'All up his back and all round his hat. Just as in the song. And pendulums and weights dangling from both hands. He must be as strong in the back and arms as a full-time all-in wrestler. I missed most of his face. Unfortunate. I'd have given a shilling to see all of it. But he was dressed like an old-fashioned undertaker. Wide-brimmed black hat — to carry the clocks, I suppose. And a long black coat — a real, old bedsider, I should call it. Perhaps he is a turn of some kind? What do you say? I presume he's a family friend. He came out of your front gate as if he lived there. I say, lay off holding me like an old boa constrictor. I haven't said something out of place, have I?' Of course he said that knowing he had, and knowing that I knew he had.

'Where were you?' I asked him, taking my hand off him. I was determined not to over-react.

'Coming out of Doctor Young's. I'm collecting for the Sclerosis, if it interests you, but the doctor's answer was a dusty one.'

'Where did the man go?' I asked him, quite calmly and casually; almost, I thought, in his own style.

'You mean, the man with the tickers and tockers?'

Wally Walters was continuing to stare at me in the way I have described. I have never been able to decide whether his gaze is as penetrating as it seems, or whether it is all somewhat of an act.

I nodded, but concealing all impatience.

'Well,' said Wally Walters, 'I can tell you this. He didn't go into any of the other houses that I could see.'

'So,' I enquired, as offhandedly as I could, 'you followed him for some of the way?'

'Only with my eyes, Joe,' he replied with that slightly mocking earnestness of his. 'But my eyes followed him until he vanished. He wasn't carrying on like the ordinary door-to-door salesman. He seemed to be making a special call on you. That was why I spoke. Do you collect fancy clocks, Joe?'

'Yes,' I replied, looking clean away from him. 'As a matter of fact, my wife does collect clocks.'

'She'll have had the offer of some weird ones this time,' responded Wally Walters. 'Bye, Joe.' And he sauntered off, looking to right and left for someone else with whom to pass his special time of day.

I stormed into my house, banging several doors, but failed to find Ursula all dressed up in the living-room, in accordance with our usual routine.

I tracked her down in the kitchen, where she was slicing up rhubarb, always one of her favourite foodstuffs. 'Sorry, darling,' she said, wiping her hands on her apron, and stretching up to kiss me. 'I'm late and you're early.'

'No,' I replied. 'I'm late. I've just missed a visitor.'

And, as so often, one of the clocks chose that precise moment to shout at me. 'Cuckoo. Cuckoo.' Only I suppose it said it five times, or six: whichever hour it was.

'Yes,' said Ursula, looking away, and not having kissed me after all. 'All the clocks have been adjusted.'

I could tell that they had. There was an almost simultaneous clamour of booming and screeching from all parts of the house.

'I'm sure that's very useful,' I jeered feebly; or I may have said 'helpful'.

'It's very necessary,' Ursula observed calmly, but with more spirit than usual, at