Robert Aickman: Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories

"How long did it go on?" I put in.

"It seemed like hours and hours, with poor Mrs Richardson doing so much of the work, and having such a struggle."

"Perhaps the man had to look after the stowing?"

"No," they all agreed. "Until near the end he just stood there, twiddling his thumbs." Then two of them added separately, "Just twiddling his thumbs."

At which a silence fell.

I was forced to put the next question into words. "What happened in the end?" I enquired.

In the end, Ursula had mounted the big black van beside the driver and been driven away.

"In which direction?" I asked quite feebly.

They pointed one of the ways the road went.

"We all thought it so strange that we dashed in to one another at once."

I nodded.

"It was as if Mrs Richardson had to fight with the clocks. As if they just didn't want to go. And all the time the man just stood there watching her struggle."

"What do you mean by struggle?" I asked. "You mean that some of the clocks were very heavy and angular?"

"Not only that," the same lady replied, perhaps bolder with her words than the others. "No, it was just as if the clocks — or some of the clocks — were fighting back." She stopped, but then looked up at the other two. "Wasn't it?" she said in appeal to them. "Didn't you think it was like that?"

"I must say it looked like it," said one of the others. The third lady expressed no view.

"And did you get the same impression with the big clocks?" I asked the lady who had taken the initiative.

But this time they all replied at once: No, the man having weighed in at that stage, the big clocks had been "mastered" at once, and single-handed.

"What are you going to do?" asked a lady. One can never believe that such a question will be put, but always it is.

I am practised in social situations and after a moment's thought, I produced a fairly good response. "My wife must have decided to sell her collection of clocks. I am not altogether surprised. I myself have been thinking for some time that we had rather too many for the size of the house."

That made the ladies hesitate for a moment in their turn.

Then one of them said, "You'll find it quieter now." She was obviously meaning to be pleasant and sympathetic.

"Yes," I said, smiling, as one does in the office, and when with clients generally. "Quieter for all of us, I suspect." I knew perfectly well how far the din from Ursula's clocks had carried.

"Not that those clocks wanted to leave," repeated the lady who had just now taken the initiative. "You and Mrs Richardson must have given them a good home," she smiled sentimentally.

The other ladies plainly thought this was a point in no need of repetition, and the slight embarrassment engendered facilitated our farewells.

I closed the front door, shot the bolts, and returned to the living-room. Presumably, the spare parts which nestled among the roses on the carpet, had fallen off during Ursula's "struggle". And, presumably, the hideous monster I had just stepped across and through in the hallway had successfully defied even Ursula's thumb-twiddling friend; had defeated him, though at the cost of its own life.

I traversed the entire house, step by step. Every one of the clocks had gone, apart from a scrap or section here and there on the floor; all the clocks but three. Three clocks survived, two of them intact. As well as the monster in the hallway, there remained Ursula's small travelling clock that had accompanied us on our honeymoon. She appeared to have delved it out from its hiding place — and then done no more with it. I found it on our dressing-table, going but not exactly ticking. It never had exactly ticked, of course. But I wondered if it had ever stopped going, even when hidden away for years. There was also the clock that had been left to my mother in old Mr Rosenberg's will: a foursquare, no nonsense, British Midlands model that had always gained at least five minutes in every two hours, so that it was as good as useless for actually telling the time. My mother had fiddled endlessly with the so-called regulator, and I too in my late adolescence, but I have never found the regulators of clocks to give one any more control than do those press-buttons at pedestrian crossings.

I stumped wearily round from room to room and up and down the stairs, assembling all the clock parts into a compact heap on the rosy living-room carpet. I went about it carefully, taking my time; and then I placed the two surviving and intact clocks on top of the heap. Next I unlocked a drawer in my little dressing-room or sanctum and got out my club.

My club was a largely home-made object that had come in remarkably useful for a variety of purposes, including self-protection, during my schooldays. A number of the chaps had things somewhat like it. Since then, I had never had occasion to use my club, though I had always thought that there might again be moments for which it would be exactly the thing — moments, for example, where my home might be invaded from outside at a time when I was within to defend it.

I staggered downstairs once more, worn through to the bone; but not so worn, even then, that I lacked the force to club the heap on the living-room carpet to smithereens, whatever — exactly — they may be. I included the two intact clocks in the carnage. Indeed, I set them in the forefront of the battle. There are no beautiful clocks. Everything to do with time is hideous.

Then I edged the shattered bits into dustsheets and, while the neighbours were possibly taking a rest from watching me, I carried through my second clock burial in the back garden.

When, for three days, there was no sign of or word from my wife, I thought it wise to notify the police.

And now whole weeks have passed.

O Ursula, Ursula.