J. Ballard: The Complete Short Stories

Ten minutes later it happened again.

I sat up. ‘That’s funny,’ I said slowly. ‘Haven’t they spotted it yet? They can’t all be asleep.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Helen asked, looking up from her needle basket. ‘Is something wrong with the set?’

‘I thought you were watching. I told you we’d seen this before. Now they’re playing it back for the third time.’

‘They’re not,’ Helen insisted. ‘I’m sure they aren’t. You must have read the book.’

‘Heaven forbid.’ I watched the set closely. Any minute now an announcer spitting on a sandwich would splutter redfaced to the screen. I’m not one of those people who reach for their phones every time someone mispronounces meteorology, but this time I knew there’d be thousands who’d feel it their duty to keep the studio exchanges blocked all night. And for any goahead comedian on a rival station the lapse was a god-send.

‘Do you mind if I change the programme?’ I asked Helen. ‘See if anything else is on.’

‘Don’t. This is the most interesting part of the play. You’ll spoil it.’

‘Darling, you’re not even watching. I’ll come back to it in a moment, I promise.’

On Channel 5 a panel of three professors and a chorus girl were staring hard at a Roman pot. The question-master, a suave-voiced Oxford don, kept up a lot of crazy patter about scraping the bottom of the barrow. The professors seemed stumped, but the girl looked as if she knew exactly what went into the pot but didn’t dare say it.

On 9 there was a lot of studio laughter and someone was giving a sports-car to an enormous woman in a cartwheel hat. The woman nervously ducked her head away from the camera and stared glumly at the car. The compre opened the door for her and I was wondering whether she’d try to get into it when Helen cut in: ‘Harry, don’t be mean. You’re just playing.’

I turned back to the play on Channel 2. The same scene was on, nearing the end of its run.

‘Now watch it,’ I told Helen. She usually managed to catch on the third time round. ‘Put that sewing away, it’s getting on my nerves. God, I know this off by heart.’

‘Sb!’ Helen told me. ‘Can’t you stop talking?’

I lit a cigarette and lay back in the sofa, waiting. The apologies, to say the least, would have to be magniloquent. Two ghost runs at £100 a minute totted up to a tidy heap of doubloons.

The scene drew to a close, the old man stared heavily at his boots, the dusk drew down and — We were back where we started from.

‘Fantastic!’ I said, standing up and turning some snow off the screen. ‘It’s incredible.’

‘I didn’t know you enjoyed this sort of play,’ Helen said calmly. ‘You never used to.’ She glanced over at the screen and then went back to her petticoat.

I watched her warily. A million years earlier I’d probably have run howling out of the cave and flung myself thankfully under the nearest dinosaur. Nothing in the meanwhile had lessened the dangers hemming in the undaunted husband.

‘Darling,’ I explained patiently, just keeping the edge out of my voice, ‘in case you hadn’t noticed they are now playing this same scene through for the fourth time.’

‘The fourth time?’ Helen said doubtfully. ‘Are they repeating it?’

I was visualizing a studio full of announcers and engineers slumped unconscious over their mikes and valves, while an automatic camera pumped out the same reel. Eerie but unlikely. There were monitor receivers as well as the critics, agents, sponsors, and, unforgivably, the playwright himself weighing every minute and every word in their private currencies. They’d all have a lot to say under tomorrow’s headlines.

‘Sit down and stop fidgeting,’ Helen said. ‘Have you lost your bone?’

I felt round the cushions and ran my hand along the carpet below the sofa.

‘My cigarette,’ I said. ‘I must have thrown it into the fire. I don’t think I dropped it.’

I turned back to the set and switched on the give-away programme, noting the time, 9.03, so that I could get back to Channel 2 at 9.15. When the explanation came I just had to hear it.

‘I thought you were enjoying the play,’ Helen said. ‘Why’ve you turned it off?’

I gave her what sometimes passes in our flat for a withering frown and settled back.

The enormous woman was still at it in front of the cameras, working her way up a pyramid of questions on cookery. The audience was subdued but interest mounted. Eventually she answered the jackpot question and the audience roared and thumped their seats like a lot of madmen. The compere led her across the stage to another sports car.

‘She’ll have a stable of them soon,’ I said aside to Helen.

The woman shook hands and awkwardly dipped the brim of her hat, smiling nervously with embarrassment.

The gesture was oddly familiar.

I jumped up and switched to Channel 5. The panel were still staring hard at their pot.

Then I started to realize what was going on.

All three programmes were repeating themselves.

‘Helen,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘Get me a scotch and soda, will you?’

‘What is the matter? Have you strained your back?’

‘Quickly, quickly!’ I snapped my fingers.

‘Hold on.’ She got up and went into the pantry.

I looked at the time .9.12. Then I returned to the play and kept my eyes glued to the screen. Helen came back and put something down on the end-table.

‘There you are. You all right?’

When it switched I thought I was ready for it, but the surprise must have knocked me flat. I found myself lying out on the sofa. The first thing I did was reach round for the drink.

‘Where did you put it?’ I asked Helen.

‘What?’

‘The scotch. You brought it in a couple of minutes ago. It was on the table.’

‘You’ve been dreaming,’ she said gently. She leant forward and started watching the play.

I went into the pantry and found the bottle. As I filled a tumbler I noticed the clock over the kitchen sink .9.07. An hour slow, now that I thought about it. But my wristwatch said 9.05, and always ran perfectly. And the clock on the mantelpiece in the lounge also said 9.05.

Before I really started worrying I had to make sure.

Mulivaney, our neighbour in the flat above, opened his door when I knocked.

‘Hello, Bartley. Corkscrew?’

No, no,’ I told him. ‘What’s the right time? Our clocks are going crazy.’

He glanced at his wrist. ‘Nearly ten past.’

‘Nine or ten?’

He looked at his watch again. ‘Nine, should be. What’s up?’

‘I don’t know whether I’m losing my—’ I started to say. Then I stopped.

Mullvaney eyed me’ curiously. Over his shoulder I heard a wave of studio applause, broken by the creamy, unctuous voice of the giveaway compre.

‘How long’s that programme been on?’ I asked him.

‘About twenty minutes. Aren’t you watching?’

‘No,’ I said, adding casually, ‘Is anything wrong with your set?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing. Why?’

‘Mine’s chasing its tail. Anyway, thanks.’

‘OK,’ he said. He watched me go down the stairs and shrugged as he shut his door.

I went into the hall, picked up the phone and dialled.

‘Hello, Tom?’ Tom Farnold works the desk next to mine at the office. ‘Tom, Harry here. What time do you make it?’

‘Time the liberals were back.’

‘No, seriously.’

‘Let’s see. Twelve past nine. By the way, did you find those pickles I left for you in the safe?’

‘Yeah, thanks. Listen, Tom,’ I went on, ‘the goddamdest things are happening here. We were watching Diller’s play on Channel 2 when—’ ‘I’m watching it now. Hurry it up.’