Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

Sherry from the decanter was still dripping from the sideboard.

‘I’d better clear the place up. George, help me!’ She fluttered nervously, and started to pack the fire with small coals.

‘No, leave everything as it is,’ the reporter advised her. ‘Did the apparition make this mess?’

George and Miss Pinkerton spoke together.

‘Well, indirectly,’ said George.

‘It wasn’t an apparition,’ said Miss Pinkerton.

The reporter settled on the nearest chair, poising his pencil and asking, ‘Do you mind if I take notes?’

‘Would you mind sitting over here?’ said Miss Pinkerton. ‘I don’t use the Queen Annes, normally. They are very frail pieces.’

The reporter rose as if stung, then perched on a table which Miss Pinkerton looked at uneasily.

‘You see, I’m in antiques,’ she rattled on, for the affair was beginning to tell on her, as George told himself. In fact he sized up that she was done for; his irritation abated, his confidence came flooding back.

‘Now, Laura, sit down and take it easy.’ Solicitously he pushed her into an easy chair.

‘She’s overwrought,’ he informed the pressmen in an audible undertone.

‘You say this object actually flew in this window?’ suggested the reporter.

‘That is correct,’ said George.

The cameraman trained his apparatus on the window.

‘And you were both here at the time?’

‘No,’ Miss Pinkerton said. ‘Mr Lake was in the kitchen and I called out, of course. But he didn’t see inside the bowl, only the outside, underneath where the manufacturer’s mark is. I saw the pattern so I got the steps to make sure. That’s how Mr Lake knocked my things over. I saw inside.’

‘I am going to say something,’ said George.

The men looked hopefully towards him. After a pause, George continued, ‘Let us begin at the beginning.’

‘Right,’ said the reporter, breezing up.

‘It was like this,’ George said. ‘I came straight in when Miss Pinkerton screamed, and there was a white convex disc, you realize, floating around up there.’

The reporter contemplated the spot indicated by George.

‘It was making a hell of a racket like a cat purring,’ George told him.

‘Any idea what it really was?’ the reporter inquired.

George took his time to answer. ‘Well, yes,’ he said, ‘and no.’

‘Spode ware,’ said Miss Pinkerton.

George continued, ‘I’m not up in these things. I’m extremely sceptical as a rule. This was a new experience to me.

‘That’s just it,’ said Miss Pinkerton. ‘Personally, I’ve been in china for twenty-three years. I recognized the thing immediately.’

The reporter scribbled and inquired, ‘These flying discs appear frequently in China?’

‘It was a saucer. I’ve never seen one flying before,’ Miss Pinkerton explained.

‘I am going to ask a question,’ George said.

Miss Pinkerton continued, ‘Mr Lake is an art framer. He handles old canvases but next to no antiques.’

‘I am going to ask. Are you telling the story or am I?’ George said.

‘Perhaps Mr Lake’s account first and then the lady’s,’ the reporter ventured.

Miss Pinkerton subsided crossly while he turned to George.

‘Was the object attached to anything? No wires or anything? I mean, someone couldn’t have been having a joke or something?’

George gave a decent moment to the possibility.

‘No,’ he then said. ‘It struck me, in fact, that there was some sort of Mind behind it, operating from outer space. It tried to attack me, in fact.’

‘Really, how was that?’

‘Mr Lake was not attacked,’ Miss Pinkerton stated. ‘There was no danger at all. I saw the expression. on the pilot’s face. He was having a game with Mr Lake, grinning all over his face.’

‘Pilot?’ said George. ‘What are you talking about — pilot!’

Miss Pinkerton sighed. ‘A tiny man half the size of my finger,’ she declared. ‘He sat on a tiny stool. He held the little tiny steering-wheel with one hand and waved with the other. Because, there was something like a sewing-machine fixed near the rim, and he worked the tiny treadle with his foot. Mr Lake was not attacked.’

‘Don’t be so damn silly,’ said George.

‘You don’t mean this?’ the reporter asked her with scrutiny.

‘Of course I do.’

‘I would like to know something,’ George demanded.

‘You only saw the underside of the saucer, George.’

‘You said nothing about any pilot at the time,’ said George. ‘I saw no pilot.’

‘Mr Lake got a fright when the saucer came at him. If he hadn’t been dodging he would have seen for himself.’

‘You mentioned no pilot,’ said George. ‘Be reasonable.’

‘I had no chance,’ said she. She appealed to the cameraman. ‘You see, I know what I’m talking about. Mr Lake thought he knew better, however. Mr Lake said, “It’s a forgery.” If there’s one thing I do know, it’s china.’

‘It would be most unlikely,’ said George to the reporter. ‘A steering-wheel and a treadle machine these days, can you credit it?’

‘The man would have fallen out,’ the cameraman reflected.

‘I must say,’ said the reporter, ‘that I favour Mr Lake’s long-range theory. The lady may have been subject to some hallucination, after the shock of the saucer.

‘Quite,’ said George. He whispered something to the photographer. ‘Women!’ Miss Pinkerton heard him breathe.

The reporter heard him also. He gave a friendly laugh. ‘Shall we continue with Mr Lake’s account, and then see what we can make of both stories?’

But Miss Pinkerton had come to a rapid decision. She began to display a mood hitherto unknown to George. Leaning back, she gave way to a weak and artless giggling. Her hand fluttered prettily as she spoke between gurgles of mirth. ‘Oh, what a mess! What an evening! We aren’t accustomed to drink, you see, and now oh dear, oh dear!’

‘Are you all right, Laura?’ George inquired severely.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Miss Pinkerton, drowsy and amiable. ‘We really oughtn’t to have done this, George. Bringing these gentlemen out. But I can’t keep it up, George. Oh dear, it’s been fun though.’

She was away into her giggles again. George looked bewildered. Then he looked suspicious.

‘It’s definitely the effect of this extraordinary phenomenon,’ George said firmly to the press.

‘It was my fault, all my fault,’ spluttered Miss Pinkerton.

The reporter looked at his watch. ‘I can quite definitely say you saw a flying object?’ he asked. ‘And that you were both put out by it?’

‘Put down that it was a small, round, flatish object. We both agree to that,’ George said.

A spurt of delight arose from Miss Pinkerton again.

‘Women, you know! It always comes down to women in the finish,’ she told them. ‘We had a couple of drinks.’

‘Mr Lake had rather more than I did,’ she added triumphantly.

‘I assure you,’ said George to the reporter.

‘We might be fined for bringing the press along, George. It might be an offence,’ she put in.

‘I assure you,’ George insisted to the photographer, ‘that we had a flying saucer less than an hour ago in this room.’

Miss Pinkerton giggled.

The reporter looked round the room with new eyes; and with the air of one to whom to understand all is to forgive all, he folded his notebook. The cameraman stared at the pool of sherry, the overturned flowers, the broken glass and china. He packed up his camera, and they went away.

George gave out the tale to his regular customers. He gave both versions, appealing to their reason to choose. Further up the road at her corner shop, Miss Pinkerton smiled tolerantly when questioned. ‘Flying saucer? George is very artistic,’ she would say, ‘and allowances must be made for imaginative folk.’ Sometimes she added that the evening had been a memorable one, ‘Quite a party!’