Gerald Kersh - The Best of Gerald Kersh

‘Not a word,’ I said.

‘I must have had a temperature,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me, but I seem to have caught a virus, or something——’ Mavis began to struggle for breath, and the sound that she made – how can I describe it? – was as if she had been caught at that fine point between breathing-in and breathing-out. She agonised, at last, in a convulsive combination of coughing and sneezing.

‘The doctor says this has something to do with atmospheric pressure,’ I told her. ‘As soon as he gives permission, I’ll take you home. I’m sorry our little holiday turned out so wretchedly.’

Mavis said: ‘Please, Rod, let it be soon! I can’t breathe here…. Do you very much mind not kissing me, Rod? This might be catching. Yes, that’s it – it might be catching. Do you mind awfully leaving me alone a bit? Pretty please?’

I had to say: ‘Look, Mavis – did you mean what you said last night about loving Abaloni?’

She became angry at this, and cried: ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, do try to be civilised just for once in your life! Please leave me alone, Rod. Sort of go away, kind of, for the moment; and tomorrow, perhaps.’

So I left her, and went to see the doctor. He handed me a cablegram. It was from my uncle’s solicitor, Mr Coote. My uncle, Sir Arnold Arnold, had died suddenly in Paris: would I, his heir and executor, return to London at my earliest convenience?

When I read this, I put my head between my hands and sat for a while rocking to and fro in deep grief. Then this grief was overlaid with black fear. Was it I who killed him? I wondered. But I reassured myself – this could not be: oysters would not be in season until the first of September. So I went back to Mavis’s bedside.

‘Oh, please, Rod——’ she began.

‘– I must go back to England immediately,’ I said. ‘My uncle’s dead.’

Her face was radiant as she cried: ‘Oh, how – terrible! Oh, I’m so – sorry!’

I could almost have killed her then. But I stooped to kiss her. I hope I shall not long remember – I am sure that I shall never forget – the quick little gesture of revulsion with which she turned away as soon as my lips touched her cheek. ‘Better hurry, Rod, darling,’ she said: and began to weep.

‘You’re crying!’ I said.

‘So are you,’ said she.

‘I loved the old man very much, I think,’ I said, ‘and you even more, Mavis. Until soon. Good-bye.’

I arranged for transportation to the nearest airport. Before I left I sent for the woman who had given of her blood to my wife and, in genuine gratitude, put some money into her hand, and thanked her most warmly.

She burst into tears and rushed out of the room.

When I went to see Mr Coote in his office in Staple Inn, my worst fears were confirmed. Discreetly congratulating me upon my inheritance, which, even after death duties had been paid, would still leave me rich – Coote told me the story of my uncle’s death:

‘… As you no doubt know, the late Sir Arnold was of – de mortuis nil nisi bonum – an impatient, an impetuous disposition. Oh dear! In a nutshell: the oyster season being over, he resented having to live on “slops” – he said he’d be damned if he would, and said in Paris they served oysters all the year round. “And what the devil’s the matter with a fat Portuguese oyster, damn it all?” Sir Arnold said.’

‘Go on, Mr Coote!’

‘To proceed … Sir Arnold went to Paris. He went straight from the train to Fratelli’s Restaurant, ordered three dozen of the finest Portuguese oysters and half a bottle of wine. He ate the oysters, drank the wine, and collapsed in a convulsion; a sort of asthmatic convulsion, but of the most violent kind. And this, I regret to say, was too much for his poor heart…. Now, please, oh, please, you really must pull yourself together! … Dunhill! A glass of water, quick!——’

For, at this, I fainted.

The Victorian novelists used to call it a ‘brain fever’. Now, I believe, we refer to my condition then as a ‘nervous breakdown’. I was put to bed and given opiates and sedatives – bromide of this, bromide of that. But always, when the world slipped away, and I slid out of it into the cool dark, I was snatched out of my black, drugged peace by fantastic nightmares.

In these, invariably, my Uncle Arnold appeared, curiously blue in the face and unpleasantly bloated, wheezing: ‘Give me credit for it, Rod, my boy – never dreamed you had it in you to kill your old uncle! … But you ought to have done it with a poker, or even the paper-knife, face-to-face like a man … I could have forgiven you for that, Rod. But yours was a woman’s trick, a poisoner’s trick…. I’ll lime you for that, my fine-feathered friend – I’ll give you a taste of your own medicine – I’ll give you a dose of your own poison, you woman, you!’

Then my uncle coughed himself into dissolution, and I awoke with a loud cry.

I might have lain there for a week or more; only on the third morning there came a telegram from Mavis, saying that she was arriving at Victoria Station by the boat train from Paris the following day. I got out of bed at once, and made myself presentable, and was pacing the platform a good hour before the train came in. She was more beautiful than ever. ‘Oh, Mavis, Mavis!’ I cried, kissing her.

To my horror and astonishment, her eyes filled with tears, and her chest heaved in a fit of coughing that sounded like thin steel chains being shaken in a cardboard box. ‘For God’s sake go away!’ she said, as soon as she could talk. ‘You make me ill!’

I am too tired to write more. What Mavis said is true. Literally, I make her ill. I understand, now, the sudden violent emotion of the woman who gave Mavis her blood in that transfusion – Solomona, her name was, I think. I have inquired since, and tests have been made. Solomona is violently allergic to my kind of red hair.

Therefore Mavis, who is all I have to live for, finds that my presence is poisonous to her. So she has left me, and I am dreadfully alone.

It is impossible for her to live with me. But it is impossible for me to live without her.

I see no occasion further to prolong my existence.

With this, I end the narrative of my confession: God is just.

CERTAIN others I know, in my position, sir, have gone out of their minds – took to parading the streets with banners, and what not, shouting UNFAIR ! Well, thank God, I was always steady-minded. I could always see the other side of things. So, although I really was unjustly dismissed the Force, I could still keep my balance. I could see the reason for the injustice behind my dismissal, and could get around to blaming myself for not keeping my silly mouth shut.

Actually, you know, I wasn’t really sacked. I was told that if I wanted to keep what there was of my pension, I had better resign on grounds of ill-health. So I did, and serve me right. I should never have made my statement without first having my evidence corroborated. However, no bitterness – that ends badly, mark my words. Justifiable or unjustifiable, bitterness leads to prejudice, which, carried far enough, is the same thing as madness. … I started life in the Army, d’you see, where you learn to digest a bit of injustice here and there; because, if you do not, it gets you down and you go doolally.

Many is the good man I’ve known who has ruined himself by expecting too much justice. Now I ask you, what sane man in this world really expects to get what he properly deserves? Right or wrong?

If I had been thirty years wiser thirty years ago, I might have been retired now on an Inspector’s pension. Only, in the matter of an Open Verdict, I didn’t have the sense to say nothing. I was young and foolish, d’you see, and therefore over-eager. There was a girl I was very keen on, and I was anxious to better myself – she was used to something a cut above what I could offer her. D’you see?