Kingsley Amis - The Green Man

Then, slightly to left of centre, and almost dazzlingly bright, and instantaneously, a light or flame sprang up, a yellowish green in colour. After a few moments another switched itself on, apparently in the sky and of tremendous size, like a sun, only jigsaw in shape and of a deep blue. There was a longer pause before two more such flared into being almost together, a second yellowish-green one near the first and another, larger blue one on the opposite side of the sky. The former of these, shaped like a fat, slightly jagged pillar, had a thin dark vertical bar running up nearly through the middle of it. I recognized this, at first without being able to name it, then saw that it was part of a telegraph-pole. Further lights appeared at short, irregular intervals, like splotches of molten metal thrown on to a dark photographic plate. Three of them coalesced to give me a view of some yards of sun-lit metalled road. I took my fingers out of my ears. More rapidly than any physical approach would have made possible, the noise of a car grew in volume outside. I heard men’s voices and the sound of a front door being opened and shut—my front door. When there were only a few isolated patches of darkness remaining, the door into the room opened behind me..

I turned sharply. Victor galloped up, threw himself at my feet and fell on to his side. Behind him was Amy. I hurried to her and put my arms round her.

‘What’s happening, Daddy?’

‘Nothing. It’s all right. I was just feeling a bit sad.’

‘Oh. Didn’t you hear the screaming?’

‘The what?’

‘The screaming. Somebody in the street, it sounded like. A long way off, but sounding sort of as if it was near. Didn’t you hear it?’

‘Yes.’ Trying to look and sound calm was such a severe effort that I could hardly speak. ‘But … weren’t you playing your…?’

‘I was between records and it was all quiet.’

‘It wasn’t dark outside, was it?’

‘Dark? No. How could it be?’

‘What sort of person was it who screamed, do you think?’

‘You said you heard them.’

‘Yes,’ I said, picking up my whisky and draining it, ’but I want to hear what you thought.’

‘Oh. Well … it was a lady. She sounded very frightened.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it was that, darling. More like just one of the village girls having a lark.’

‘It didn’t sound like that to me.’

‘Did you hear any other sort of noise?’

‘No. Ooh yes. A sort of … calling-out howling noise, or like someone singing without any words, just going on and on. And going up and down all the time. You heard it, didn’t you?’

‘Oh yes. Just people fooling about.’

Amy said nothing for a moment, then, ‘Would you like to come and watch Pick of the Hits with me? It comes on at five forty.’

‘I don’t think I will, thank you, Ame.’

‘You said you enjoyed it last time.’

‘Did I? Yes, but I’m going to be busy tonight. I’ll have to change and get downstairs as quick as I can.’

‘Okay, Dad.’

‘I’ll look in later.’

‘Okay.’

She went off quite pacifically. For once, I should have preferred an outbreak of temper. Amy was not reconciled, only preoccupied, and not in any comfortable way: she knew I had not told her the truth. But how could I say that there was no need to worry about what she had heard, because it had happened in 1680-something?

Despite this, and despite feeling fairly thoroughly shaken up by what I had witnessed and how, I was much relieved. Few people are tough enough to rest solely on an inner conviction that, in the face of what might be impressive evidence to the contrary, they are not going mad. In celebration, as much as anything else, I drank two brimming tumblers of Scotch and water in two minutes and with no effort. Then I went to have my bath.

Lying torpidly back in the hot water, I felt almost all right. It was certainly true that heart and back had kept themselves to themselves since first thing that morning. Jack Maybury would have had something to say about that, though I could hardly tell him what had formed a substantial part of the day’s distractions from egotistical brooding. I felt sober, or rather, since feeling completely sober had been disagreeable to me for some years, fairly sober. Very nearly completely all right. The green man. The Green Man. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of English pubs and inns bear the name, in reference, I remembered reading somewhere, either to a Jack-in-the-green, a character in traditional May Day revels, or merely to a game-keeper, who would formerly have worn some kind of green suit. Was it possible that my own house, which had been so called from its beginnings in the late fourteenth century, was a different case, that Underhill’s supernatural employee had existed even then? If true, to christen the place after such a creature was an odd way of inviting custom. But an interesting speculation.

I grew more torpid. Staring in an unfocused way towards the junction of wall and ceiling, I saw a small scarlet and green object moving slowly from right to left. First lazily, then as alertly as I could, I tried to decide what it was. A fly of some sort, or a moth. But surely there were none of either coloured like that, not in England. And the thing was not travelling with a fly’s quick darting motion, such that wings and legs disappear into a round or roundish dark blob, nor in the un-steady, fluttering style of a moth. The wings of what I saw— two of them—were beating the air in an easily perceptible slow rhythm, and, not so easy to make out, its legs—two of them— were tucked up underneath the body, and there was a neck, and a head. It was a bird. A bird the size of a fly, or small moth.

I splashed to my feet and looked more closely. The thing was still a bird: I could see the sheen on its plumage and, by straining my eyes, the separate claws of its feet, and I could just hear a tiny beating of wings. I put my hand out to grab it, and it disappeared for a moment, then came into view again, flying out of the back of my hand. I picked up my towel, rolled it into a ball and screamed into it with my eyes shut for perhaps two minutes. When I opened them again, the bird had gone. I whimpered and sobbed into the towel for another two or three minutes, then dried myself with it as quickly as possible, counting in my head, and ran to the bedroom. If I could get dressed before I had reached four hundred and fifty thousand, I would not see the bird again, or not for some time. I kept my eyes shut whenever I could, and got my evening bow tied without once having to open them, but had to look at myself in the glass to do my hair, and caught sight of a small fly circling silently round my head. Although I was absolutely certain it was only a fly, I found I could not stop myself falling on to the bed and screaming and sobbing into my pillow for a time, still counting. I gave myself an extension of a hundred thousand for that period, which was fair, because I had not allowed for it when I set my original figure, and it could not have gone on for less than a minute and a half. I had my dinner-jacket on and was out of the door at the count of four hundred and twenty-seven thousand, so that there was a chance I would not see the bird again for a time.

I had no trouble getting to the landing with one eye shut and the other mostly shut. Here I ran into Magdalena, and sent her off to find Nick, or, failing him, David. Then I went back into the dining-room, mainly by feel, sat down, avoiding the chair that faced the front window, and, kept both eyes shut. After less than a minute, I heard hurrying footsteps and opened my eyes again; I stopped counting, which I had gone on doing with no particular purpose in mind. By now I was breathing normally.

Nick hurried in with Jack Maybury. They both looked concerned, Nick in Nick’s way, Jack professionally, but with no hint of censoriousness. He came close and peered at me.