Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

Charles was caught up in an unexpected flurry of office work that day and towards late afternoon telephoned his flat that he would have to miss dinner and (since it was his night for fire-watching) would not be home till next morning. He left this message with the woman who came in to clean and tidy up; she said Jane had been out all day and had not telephoned. This was fairly unusual, but there were a dozen possible reasons; the whole fabric of wartime life was interwoven with such unusualness. Charles thought little of it, ate a sandwich at his desk, and worked throughout the evening. Towards eight o’clock he telephoned again, just to say hello, but there was no answer. This was on the way to being unusually unusual, since even if Jane had gone out again for the evening after receiving his message she would hardly do so without giving him a ring. He therefore telephoned again just before nine, which was his hour for beginning watch and ward; still no answer. It was an eight-hour spell, and after it of course he could go home, but generally he finished the night on the army cot that the government had austerely installed in his office. Etheridge was sharing duty with him. He did not tell Etheridge why or where he kept dialling fruitlessly every hour or so. Etheridge was sleepy and dozed part of the time on his own cot; Charles was ready to wake him in any emergency. But there was no raid that night. About four o’clock Charles decided that as soon as he was free he would go to his flat immediately. He was already disturbed enough to wonder at what time a call to the police would cease to seem panicky. After half an hour of wondering he didn’t even care, and a few minutes later he felt he could wait no longer. He telephoned the police from the office. They put him on to some young woman whose job seemed to be nothing but dealing with that kind of problem, and after he had given all the details, he fancied he caught in her answering voice an implied rebuke for his premature anxiety. Actually this comforted him a good deal during the hour or so before the same voice spoke to him again.

He was then alone in his office, preparing to leave. He could not at first accept what he heard, but soon it fell into a perspective of credibility, being no more unlikely than much else one heard about every day. He sat at the desk for a moment, his hand still on the telephone. Then Etheridge came in. Etheridge did not apparently notice anything wrong, or perhaps he was too tired to observe Charles closely. Presently Charles said: ‘Etheridge, I’ve just had… what may be bad news… about my wife… It seems… they say… by the way, where’s Marlow Terrace? Isn’t it near Sloane Square?’

Etheridge came over and gripped his arm. Charles then turned to him with a stricken face and a remark that sounded foolishly like the kind he might have made at a cocktail party: ‘You met my wife once, I think?’

Etheridge accompanied him to Marlow Terrace, but there was nothing to see or do and hardly any more to learn. The rather remarkable circumstance, even for those times, was that there was just the slightest possibility that Jane might still turn up from somewhere else if one could think of any plausible reason for her continued absence from home. Charles, as the hours passed, could think of fewer and fewer such reasons. That she had had business in Marlow Terrace on the previous morning was verifiable, and that she had actually gone there was verifiable, but many had been killed who might have been with or near her at the time, and a postman delivering letters further along the street had already said he had seen someone roughly answering her description, just about where it happened and before he was blown unconscious. He had noticed her particularly, he said, because she had been doing her job so briskly and cheerfully, handling a group of evacuees as if (in his own words) she were ‘running a school treat or something’.

The hair-line of doubt, the ten-thousand-to-one chance, preoccupied Charles for weeks and drove him near what he himself felt to be a dangerous edge of mental balance. Perhaps he was saved because he thus felt it, and could therefore exert the necessary controls. But there were times when control was uncertain. It was surprising how many people, seen at a distance or passingly for a few seconds, looked like Jane; and how plausible then became the theory that Jane might have walked away from all the commotion unnoticed and unhurt except for complete loss of memory. There were stories about things like that. One afternoon he was on top of a bus along the Strand when he saw Jane (his recognition was quite positive) standing outside a cinema. He started up like a madman, ran down the steps and dodged traffic at the risk of his life, but too late to intercept her before she entered. His excitement at the box office and subsequent explanations of why he was wandering up and down the aisles to peer along rows of dim faces, did not satisfy the ushers, who ordered him out and threatened to call the police if he didn’t clear off. He went on explaining, so they called the police, who listened more tolerantly and advised him to go home. He did not go home, but waited three hours till the show was over, watching the main entrance from as close as he dared. But there was a side-street exit that he could not also watch.

Again he saw Jane in the Burlington Arcade leading a Pomeranian. That was strange, because she had always preferred big dogs. He hurried up to her. ‘Jane… JANE!…’ She smiled a professional smile and took his arm, but the little dog yapped and snapped at his heels. From the way she scolded the animal he knew she could not be Jane at all. He apologized. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ the woman jibed. She called after him as he walked away: ‘Nuts, that’s what you are!’ Odd, he reflected, suddenly sane inside his normal self, how American slang was driving out English slang—though ‘nuts’ was certainly a good word, as good as a good monosyllable can be.

This sort of thing disturbed Charles so much that he thought he might do well to see a doctor or a psychiatrist, but he shrank from the ordeal of discussing his affairs with a stranger. Then he remembered somebody who was not a stranger. On impulse he called on Blainey in Welbeck Street, catching the surgeon just about to leave for his hospital. They talked for a short while. Blainey was sympathetic, but had to insist he was unqualified to give more than the most general advice. He could, however, recommend a colleague —Heming Wentworth, just across the street…

Charles said: ‘I suppose the real reason I came to you is because you were a witness that time of my father’s somewhat—er—peculiar behaviour, and I thought—I wondered if—by any chance— things like that… father to son, you know… not necessarily the SAME kind of peculiarity, but… But you’re probably reluctant to give an opinion?’

‘I couldn’t as an expert, Anderson, but for what it’s worth I’d say your father’s trouble is entirely his own affair—nothing to do with yours, which sounds to me like a very understandable result of what you’ve recently been through… You need rest, probably that’s all. And mental rest. Haven’t they found any trace—some piece of jewellery or something you can identify and then feel sure about it?’

‘There was part of a wristwatch that might have been hers.’

‘What do you mean—MIGHT HAVE BEEN?’

‘It was the same type. But I went to the shop and made enquiries— they said it was manufactured in thousands before the war.’

‘So you still feel… but that IS the trouble, isn’t it?’

‘I know. It’s foolish. Like going back to the front door to try the lock when you know it’s closed.’

‘You don’t really BELIEVE she’s still alive?’