The Green Man

look at myself in the glass to do my hair, and caught sight of a small fly circling silently round my head. Although I was absolutely certain it was only a fly, I found I could not stop myself falling on to the bed and screaming and sobbing into my pillow for a time, still counting. I gave myself an extension of a hundred thousand for that period, which was fair, because I had not allowed for it when I set my original figure, and it could not have gone on for less than a minute and a half. I had my dinner-jacket on and was out of the door at the count of four hundred and twenty-seven thousand, so that there was a chance I would not see the bird again for a time.

I had no trouble getting to the landing with one eye shut and the other mostly shut. Here I ran into Magdalena, and sent her off to find Nick, or, failing him, David. Then I went back into the dining-room, mainly by feel, sat down, avoiding the chair that faced the front window, and, kept both eyes shut. After less than a minute, I heard hurrying footsteps and opened my eyes again; I stopped counting, which I had gone on doing with no particular purpose in mind. By now I was breathing normally.

Nick hurried in with Jack Maybury. They both looked concerned, Nick in Nick’s way, Jack professionally, but with no hint of censoriousness. He came close and peered at me.

‘What’s the trouble, Maurice?’

‘I saw something.’

‘Not more ghosts?’ He glanced at Nick and then back at me. ‘I’ve been hearing about your encounters with the spirit world.’

‘Why are you here, Jack?’

‘I dropped in for a drink on the way back to my surgery. Just as well, it appears. Nick, would you ring Diana and tell her I’ll be late?’ He gave the number and Nick went. ‘Now, Maurice, let’s have your story,’ he went on, gently for him.

I told him enough about the green man, and about the woman’s screams, and that Amy had said she had heard them too. I did not mention the other noise we had both heard.

‘So you think Amy shared your experience, or part of it? I see. When was this? I see. But there’s more, is there?’

‘Yes. I saw a bird flying round the bathroom. Very small, it was.’ At this point I began sobbing again. ‘But it was flying like a big bird. Beating its wings slowly. It went away quite soon. I’d had a big drink not long before, because I was so relieved that Amy had heard the screams, that somebody else as well as me had, I mean. I expect that had something to do with it.’

‘Well, possibly, yes, but it’s a much longer-term thing than that. You need a slow build-up normally.’

‘I suppose it was…’

‘It does sound like a little D.T., certainly, whereas your wooden chap on the whole doesn’t much. Have you had that sort of dream before, Maurice?’

‘I told you, it wasn’t a dream. I never dream.’

‘Couldn’t you just have nodded off in your chair? Surely you—’

‘No, I saw it.’

‘All right.’ He started to take my pulse.

‘What will that tell you?’

‘Very little, probably. Still sweating a lot?’

‘Not today.’

‘Had the shakes at all?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘Right. Now, whatever you see in this way can’t harm you. I can understand your being frightened by these things, but try to remember that that’s as much as they can do. Delirium tremens is a warning, not a disaster in itself, and we can deal with it. It’s usually brought on by emotional strain, plus drink, of course, and I’d put all this down to your father’s death. I think these ghosts of yours were a sort of prelude to the business in the bathroom, and your general idea that there are sinister and hostile characters around is very common in these cases. Are you with me?’

‘In the sense that I understand what you mean, yes.’

‘Okay. What you need is some time off. Now, young David’s a very competent lad, and Joyce—’

‘I’m not going inside, Jack.’

‘It’s not inside, for Christ’s sake. It’s a nursing home that deals with all sorts of things, with a very nice—’

‘I’m not going. There’s too much to see to here. I’ve got my father’s funeral tomorrow, for one thing. Later, perhaps. You’ve got to tide me over. Tell me what I …‘ I heard returning footsteps and speeded up. ‘Keep your mouth shut and get me some pills. There are pills, aren’t there?’

Nick came in.

‘Of a sort. All right. But I disagree.’ Jack turned to Nick. ‘Okay?’

‘Yes. Sorry, it was engaged all the time.’

‘Yes, I know. Well, the verdict on your father is that he’s been hitting the bottle a bit too hard. So he’s going to cut it down, with medical help.’

‘Cut it down, hell,’ I said. ‘I shan’t want another drink for the next fifty years.’

‘No, Maurice. That’s the surest way to, uh, run into trouble. You’re to cut down your intake by half in the first instance, and I mean half, not more. Take things as easy as you can. Lean on young David. And talk to Nick and Joyce about this. That’s medical advice. Well, I’m not going to be as late as I thought. Nick, if you like to pop round in about half an hour there’s some stuff for him I’d like you to pick up, if you would. Ring me any time you like, Maurice. This’ll pass off in a couple of days, provided you do as I say. Goodbye now.’

‘I’ll see you out, Jack,’ said Nick.

‘Oh, there’s no … All right. Thanks.’

As soon as they had gone, I shut my eyes. Just a precaution: I was already feeling better, or less bad. Except under the immediate threat of death, life can never be only one thing. Bird or no bird, I was going to pick up Diana later and find out what Underhill had had buried with him. The doing of that would probably be frightening, but so much the better. I would not be able to be frightened of seeing the bird while I was frightened of what might happen in the graveyard.

Nick came back and pulled up a low chair next to mine.

‘He didn’t drop in by chance, Nick, did he?’

‘No. I asked him to. Just as well, as he said.’

‘What did you ask him a minute ago?’

‘Whether he thought you were going off your head. He said some things did point that way, but on the whole he thought not.’

‘Well, that’s cheering, I must say.’

‘What’s wrong, Dad? I mean really wrong.’

‘Nothing. Hitting the bottle. You heard all that. Jack’s a terrible puritan about drink. It’s his way of—’

‘Balls. With the greatest disrespect along with a lot of respect, balls. You’ve decided not to tell me. And you think that’s pretty marvellous of you. Heroic sensitive Maurice Allington keeps his mouth shut as to what’s weighing on his heroic sensitive soul. But it isn’t like that. You’re just too lazy and arrogant and equal to everything (you think) to take the trouble to notice people like your son, and your wife, and deem them bloody well worthy of being let into the great secret of how you feel and what you think about everything, in fact what you’re like. Sorry, Dad, it wasn’t the time to say it, I know, but there’s nothing good about being self-sufficient except over things that don’t matter or when you’ve got to be because there just isn’t anybody else around, but that isn’t so in your case—it’s bad that you don’t depend on other people, especially the ones that depend on you. I can see you’re feeling rotten, but if anything really crappy happened and it could have been prevented by you telling someone like me, or Joyce, what was going on beforehand, then you’d only have yourself to blame, or rather I’d blame myself too for not going on at you about it. Which I’ll stop doing now, but I’ll go on with it when you’re feeling better. Sorry, Dad. Forget it for now.’ He put out his hand and I gripped it. ‘You just say how you want things to be this evening, and I’ll see to it that’s how they are.’

I stated some vague preferences about everything being normal, and about perhaps a look at television. Without giving any reason, Nick said that he would move the (family, non-Amy) set from the drawing-room, where it spent nine-tenths of its time, and plug it into its sockets here in the dining-room. He did all that, and shortly