The Infinite Moment (14 page)

Curious that she should remember Arthur now. It must be years since she had thought of him...

She had been quite sure that he would propose that afternoon. It was before she had even heard of Cohn Dolderson. And she would have agreed. Oh yes, she would have accepted him.

There had never been any explanation. She had never known why he had not come thenor any more. He had never written to her. Ten days, perhaps a fortnight later there had been a somewhat impersonal note from his mother telling her that he had been ill, and the doctor had advised sending him abroad. But after that, nothing at alluntil the day she had seen his name in a newspaper, more than two years later.

She had been angry of coursea girl owed that to her prideand hurt, too, for a time... Yet how could one know that it had not been for the best, in the end? Would his children have been as dear to her, or as kind, and as clever as Harold and Cynthia...?

Such an infinity of chances... all those genes and things they talked about nowadays The thump of tennisballs had ceased, and the players had gone; back, presumably, to their recondite work. Bees continued to hum purposefully among the flowers; half a dozen butterflies were visiting there too, though in a dilettante, unairworthylooking way. The further trees shimmered in the rising heat. The afternoon's drowsiness became irresistible. Mrs. Dolderson did not oppose it. She leant her head back, half aware that somewhere another humming sound, higher in pitch than the bees', had started, but it was not loud enough to be disturbing. She let her eyelids drop...

Suddenly, only a few yards away, but out of sight as she sat, there were feet on the path. The sound of them began quite abruptly, as if someone had just stepped from the grass on to the pathonly she would have seen anyone crossing the grass... Simultaneously there was the sound of a baritone voice, singing cheerfully, but not loudly to itself. It, too, began quite suddenly; in the middle of a word in fact: "

"rybody's doin" it, doin" it, do"

The voice cut off suddenly. The footsteps, too, came to a dead stop.

Mrs Dolderson's eyes were open nowvery wide open. Her thin hands gripped the arms of her chair. She recollected the tune: more than that, she was even certain of the voiceafter all these years... A silly dream, she told herself... She had been remembering him only a few moments before she closed her eyes... How foolish And yet it was curiously undrearnlike... Everything was so sharp and clear, so familiarly reasonable... The arms of the chair quite solid under her fingers...

Another idea leapt into her mind. She had died. That was why it was not like an ordinary dream. Sitting here in the sun, she must have quietly died. The doctor had said it might happen quite unexpectedly... And now it had! She had a swift moment of reliefnot that she had felt any great fear of death, but there had been that sense of ordeal ahead. Now it was overand with no ordeal. As simple as falling asleep. She felt suddenly happy about it; quite exhilarated... Though it was odd that she still seemed to be tied to her chair.

The gravel crunched under shifting feet. A bewildered voice said: "That's rum! Dashed queer! What the devil's happened?"

Mrs Dolderson sat motionless in her chair. There was no doubt whatever about the voice.

A pause. The feet shifted, as if uncertain. Then they came on, but slowly now, hesitantly. They brought a young man into her view. Oh, such a very young man, he looked. She felt a little catch at her heart...

He was dressed in a striped clubblazer, and white flannel trousers. There was a silk scarf round his neck, and, tilted back off his forehead, a straw hat with a coloured band. His hands were in his trousers" pockets, and he carried a tennisracket under his left arm.

She saw him first in profile, and not quite at his best, for his expression was bewildered, and his mouth slightly open as he stared towards the spinney at one of the pink roofs beyond.

"Arthur," Mrs Dolderson said gently.

He was startled. The racket slipped, and clattered on the path. He attempted to pick it up, take off his hat, and recovered his composure all at the same time; not very successfully. When he straightened his face was pink, and its expression still confused.

He looked at the old lady in the chair, her knees hidden by a rug, her thin, delicate hands gripping the arms. His gaze went beyond her, into the room. His confusion increased, with a touch of alarm added. His eyes went back to the old lady. She was regarding him intently. He could not recall ever having seen her before, did not know who she could beyet in her eyes there seemed to be something faintly, faintly not unfamiliar.

She dropped her gaze to her right hand. She studied it for a moment as though it puzzled her a little, then she raised her eyes again to his.

"You don't know me, Arthur?" she asked quietly.

There was a note of sadness in her voice that he took for disappointment, tinged with reproof. He did his best to pull himself together.

"II'm afraid not," he confessed. "You see Ieryouer" he stuck, and then went on desperately: "You must be Thelma'sMiss Kilder'saunt?"

She looked at him steadily for some moments. He did not understand her expression, but then she told him: "No. I am not Thelma's aunt."

Again his gaze went into the room behind her. This time he shook his head in bewilderment.

"It's all differentno, sort of halfdifferent," he said, in distress. "I say, I can't have come to the wrong?" He broke off, and turned to look at the garden again. "No, it certainly isn't that," he answered himself decisively. "But whatwhat has happened?"

His amazement was no longer simple; he was looking badly shaken. His bewildered eyes came back to her again.

"PleaseI don't understandhow did you know me?" he asked.

His increasing distress troubled her, and made her careful.

"I recognised you, Arthur. We have met before, you know."

"Have we? I can't remember... I'm terribly sorry..."

"You're looking unwell, Arthur. Draw up that chair, and rest a little."

"Thank you, MrserMrs?"

"Dolderson," she told him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Dolderson," he said, frowning a little, trying to place the name.

She watched him pull the chair closer. Every movement, every line familiar, even to the lock of fair hair that always fell forward when he stooped. He sat down and remained silent for some moments, staring under a frown, across the garden.

Mrs Dolderson sat still, too. She was scarcely less bewildered than he, though she did not reveal it. Clearly the thought that she was dead had been quite silly. She was just as usual, still in her chair, still aware of the ache in her back, still able to grip the arms of the chair and feel them. Yet it was not a dreameverything was too textured, too solid, too real in a way that dream things never were Too sensible, toothat was, it would have been had the young man been any other than Arthur Was it just a simple hallucination? A trick of her mind imposing Arthur's face on an entirely different young man?

She glanced at him. No, that would not dohe had answered to Arthur's name. Indubitably he was Arthurand wearing Arthur's blazer, too... They did not cut them that way nowadays, and it was years and years since she had seen a young man wearing a straw hat A kind of ghost...? But nohe was quite solid; the chair had creaked as he sat down, his shoes had crunched on the gravel... Besides, whoever heard of a ghost in the form of a thoroughly bewildered young man, and one, moreover, who had recently nicked himself in shaving...?

He cut her thoughts short by turning his head.

"I thought Thelma would be here," he told her. "She said she'd be here. Please tell me, where is she?"

Like a frightened little boy, she thought. She wanted to comfort him, not to frighten him more. But she could think of nothing to say beyond: "Thelma isn't far away."

"I must find her. She'll be able to tell me what's happened." He made to get up.

She laid a hand on his arm, and pressed down gently.

"Wait a minute," sh told him. "What is it that seems to have happened? What is it that worries you so much?"

"This," he said, waving a hand to include everything about them. "It's all differentand yet the sameand yet not... I feel as ifas if I'd'gone a little mad."

She looked at him steadily, and then shook her head.

"I don't think you have. Tell me, what is it that's wrong?"

"I was coming here to play tenniswell, to see Thelma really," he amended. "Everything was all right thenjust as usual. I rode up the drive and leant my bike against the big fir tree where the path begins. I started to come along the path, and then, just when I reached the corner of the house, everything went funny..."

"Went funny?" Mrs Dolderson enquired. "Whatwent funny?"

"Well, nearly everything. The sun seemed to jerk in the sky. The trees suddenly looked bigger, and not quite the same. The flowers in the bed over there went quite a different colour. This creeper which was all over the wall was suddenly only halfway upand it looks like a different kind of creeper. And there are houses over there. I never saw them before it's just an open field beyond the spinney. Even the gravel on the path looks more yellow than I thought. And this room... It is the same room. I know that desk, and the fireplaceand those two pictures. But the paper is quite different. I've never seen that beforebut it isn't new, either... Please tell me where Thelma is... I want her to explain it... I must have gone a bit mad..."

She put her hand on his, firmly.

"No," she said decisively. "Whatever it is, I'm quite sure it's not that."

"Then what?" He broke off abruptly, and listened, his head a little on one side. The sound grew. "What is it?" he asked, anxiously.

Mrs Dolderson tightened her hand over his.

"It's all right," she said, as if to a child. "It's all right, Arthur."

She could feel him grow tenser as the sound increased. It passed right overhead at less than a thousand feet, jets shrieking, leaving the buffeted air behind it rumbling back and forth, shuddering gradually back to peace.

Arthur saw it. Watched it disappear. His face when he turned it back to her was white and frightened. In a queer voice he asked: "Whatwhat was that?

Quietly, as if to force calm upon him, she said: "Just an aeroplane, Arthur. Such horrid, noisy things they are."

He gazed where it had vanished, and shook his head.

"But I've seen an aeroplane, and heard it. It isn't like that. It makes a noise like a motorbike, only louder. This was terrible! I don't understandT don't understand what's happened..." His voice was pathetic.

Mrs Dolderson made as if to reply, and then checked at a thought, a sudden sharp recollection of Harold talking about dimensions, of shifting them into different planes, speaking of time as though it were simply another dimension... With a kind of shock of intuition she understoodno, understood was too firm a wordshe perceived. But, perceiving, she found herself at a loss. She looked again at the young man. He was still tense, trembling slightly. He was wondering whether he was going out of his mind. She must stop that. There was no kind waybut how to be least unkind?

"Arthur," she said, abruptly.

He turned a dazed look at her.

Deliberately she made her voice brisk.

"You'll find a bottle of brandy in that cupboard. Please fetch itand two glasses," she ordered.

With a kind of sleepwalking movement he obeyed. She filled a third of a tumbler with brandy for him, and poured a little for herself.

"Drink that," she told him. He hesitated. "Go on," she commanded. "You've had a shock. It will do you good. I want to talk to you, and I can't talk to you while you're knocked halfsilly."

He drank, coughed a little, and sat down again.

"Finish it," she told him firmly. He finished it. Presently she enquired: "Feeling better now?"

Hi nodded, but said nothing. She made up her mind, and drew breath carefully. Dropping the brisk tone altogether, she added: "Arthur. Tell me, what day is it today?"

"Dy?" he said, in surprise. "Why, it's Friday. It's the ertwentyseventh of June."

"But the year, Arthur. What year?"

He turned his face fully towards her.

"I'm not really mad, you know. I know who I am, and where I amI think... It's things that have gone wrong, not me. I can tell you"

"What I want you to tell me, Arthur, is the year." The peremptory note was back in her voice again.

He kept his eyes steadily on hers as he spoke.

"Nineteenthirteen, of course," he said.

Mrs Dolderson's gaze went back to the lawn and the flowers. She nodded gently. That was the yearand it had been a Friday; odd that she should remember that. It might well have been the twentyseventh of June... But certainly a Friday in the summer of nineteenthirteen was the day he had not come... All so long, long ago...

His voice recalled her. It was unsteady with anxiety.

"Whywhy do you ask me thatabout the year, I mean?"

His brow was so creased, his eyes, so anxious. He was very young. Her heart ached for him. She put her thin fragile hand on his strong one again.

"I-I think I know," he said shakily. "It'sI don't see how, but you wouldn't have asked that unless... That's the queer thing that's happened, isn't it? Somehow it isn't nineteenthirteen any longerthat's what you mean? The way the trees grew... that aeroplane..." He stopped, staring at her with wide eyes. "You must tell me... Please, please... What's happened to me? Where am I now?

Where is this... "My poor boy..." she murmured.

"Oh, please..

The Times, with the crossword partly done, was pushed down into the chair beside her. She pulled it out halfrereluctantly. Then she folded it over and helt it towards him. His hand shook as he took it.

"London, Monday, the first of July," he read. And then, in an incredulous whisper: "Nineteensixtythree!"

He lowered the page, looked at her imploringly.

She nodded twice, slowly.

They sat staring at one another without a word. Gradually, his expression changed. His brows came together, as though with pain. He looked round jerkily, his eyes darting here and there as if for an escape. Then they came back to her. He screwed them shut for a moment. Then opened them again, full of hurtand fear.