Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

‘Yes, but I still say all this couldn’t possibly have been meant for me and there’s still been a mistake, it must just have happened at an earlier stage, for heaven’s sake. Surely.’

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry to say that’s not the case either,’ continued Chatterton’s voice for a moment before an abrupt return to the earlier stockbroking inflection. ‘You’ll have to take my word for that, my dear fellow. I was present when this thing was set up and you, Adrian Hugo Hollies of Parkes & Richards, were at the centre of the picture right from the beginning.’

‘Oh. What is this thing you mention?’

‘You know some of the answer to that already. A mechanism for removing you from your daily life and imprisoning you for an indefinite period somewhere you’ll never escape or be rescued from.’

This silenced Adrian, but only for a moment. ‘Is that all?’ ‘It’s what you might have inferred unassisted. Some of the rest is that your experience here is an end in itself. Nothing is required of you in the shape of information, your signature to a confession or any other action or reaction. Whatever happens you stay. Yes?’

‘I was going to ask, though why I should hope to get anything helpful out of you I don’t really know, I was going to ask if this is supposed to be a punishment for something I’ve done.’

The man Adrian was always to think of as Chatterton shook his head. It was a rather handsome head, in fact his whole being radiated something like distinction. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ll tell you what is true, that indeed you have done something that displeased somebody, but to tell you what it is or was would be to immediately forfeit the anonymity that is of the essence of this enterprise, and… and after all, punishment suffered without knowledge of either the offence or the offended party can hardly be called punishment at all. So, let’s call it revenge. Somebody intends to satisfy himself — or herself — by retaliating upon your person for some wrong you’ve inflicted upon him or her.’ Chatterton appeared less than pleased with this formulation, but after a pause continued fluently enough, ‘And that satisfaction and that wrong correspond to no legal definition, otherwise my principal would no doubt have looked for redress through the courts.’ He finished strongly and with an air of triumph, smiling as he spoke and springily adjusting his position behind the desk.

‘You mean any sensible person would think that whatever it is I’m meant to have done is ridiculously disproportionate to all this elaborate and obviously very expensive bloody fuss .’

Chatterton looked wary. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hollies, I’m not sure I follow you.’

‘Really? Well, just consider. I’m a literary agent and as such I must have inflicted a great many wrongs on people, or what they might see as wrongs. And in my private life I’ve done quite a few things I’m ashamed of, like many of us. But nothing on this scale . Unless your principal is mad. Well, is he? Or is she?’

The question seemed to flummox Chatterton a little. ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that. Or rather, I can assure you between ourselves that for practical purposes he or she is… is entirely sane.’

‘Have I injured you?’ asked Adrian quickly.

‘Oh no, Mr Hollies, you’ve never done anything to me, anything at all. Why, you’ve never set eyes on me before, have you?’ For a moment there, the shadowy presence of Sergeant Chatterton, and the absence of Chatterton QC or FRCS, was unmistakable. ‘You and I have no quarrel.’

‘So how much does this carry?’

But this time upmarket Chatterton was prepared. ‘The organization will naturally see to it that I don’t lose by this interruption of my more regular activities.’

‘Such as resting, eh?’ When this brought no reply but a huffy toss of the head, Adrian went on, ‘How long do you expect this interruption to last?’

‘That’s easy,’ said Chatterton with a less pleasant smile than before. ‘As long as it takes.’

‘As long as what takes? As long as it takes to what?’

‘We have a modest programme arranged for you, Mr Hollies, but I’m afraid it would be premature at this stage to speculate on its likely duration. It’ll last quite long enough to satisfy you, you’ll find.’ The last part was delivered in a tone that seemed to lack some of the required conviction.

‘I see. I mean I see I’m not going to get anything out of you if you can help it. Why did you have me fetched along here, to this room?’

‘If you really want to know, removing any unhelpful theories you might have formed about the reason for your presence here, impressing you with—’

‘But leaving a big question mark over the disparity between size of punishment and crime.’

‘From our point of view there’s nothing unhelpful about question marks being left in your mind,’ said Chatterton with some complacency. After a pause he added in a different tone, ‘And I wanted to have a look at you.’

‘I hope the sight’s been worth the trouble.’

‘Aren’t you frightened, Mr Hollies?’

‘One of your underlings asked me that. I told him of course I was, but I was trying not to let it interfere with my powers of observation and thought.’

‘Admirable. If true.’ Chatterton paused again before hurrying on, ‘I’ve got news for you, Hollies. You won’t be done any physical harm. Nothing actually painful’s going to happen to you, nothing… messy , you understand?’ Then, with yet another change of mood or idiom, he continued, ‘But before this is over you’re going to wish that all you had to put up with was something along those lines, something painful in that way, something that really… hurts . Right, I’ve said enough already. Ah, here we are.’

A door opened and the man earlier called PC Llewelyn, no doubt summoned a few moments before, came into the room. He entered in a lounging, rolling fashion before a kind of military yelp from Chatterton smartened him up in an instant. Coming to something like a posture of attention he said loudly, ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Wake up, Llewelyn.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, truly I am.’ This was said in a noticeable Welsh accent. The fellow had taken his jacket off but still wore his uniform trousers. Although there seemed to be no other definable change in his appearance, he looked uncommonly scruffy.

‘Convey Mr Hollies back to his room and secure the door.’

‘Right, sir.’ Llewelyn at any rate spoke sharply.

Adrian looked from one to the other of the two as they went through their performance. His expression evidently offended Chatterton, who gave him a curt nod of dismissal and gestured impatiently to Llewelyn to remove him.

His return trip along the corridor was less smooth than the outward journey. Scruffy or not, Llewelyn was quite strong, and provided unnecessary encouragement to continue to move by means of a hand clamped on his upper arm. The door of the room he had woken up in was ajar and Llewelyn’s hand propelled him across the threshold. Before the door could be shut Adrian said clearly,

‘The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!’

Llewelyn stared back at him with a look of puzzlement, surprise, dismay or of all three, but for a moment he neither spoke nor moved.

‘Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.’

At this, Llewelyn scowled ferociously and gave Adrian a push in the chest forceful enough to send him staggering and almost falling. When he had recovered himself the door was shut and, he soon discovered, fastened. His instinct was for setting about getting it open again, but he had no way of doing so, certainly no quick or non-noisy way. No such decisive move would in any case make sense without knowledge of where he might find an exit from the house. And a means of using it. If any. It looked as if he might as well heed the advice he had received on waking, that he would not escape by his own efforts.