Out of Time, page 19
“It happened two days ago, Monsieur le Curé. Mother had gone to market and I was alone here in this room. I had just finished a long scarf on my knitting machine, and I was watching people going by on the other side of the street. I suddenly had the impression that, behind me, the room had gone all dark, and when I looked over my shoulder, I was afraid because, although the sun was shining outside, it is true, the room was all dark. And then, in the corner over there, but higher than the ceiling, in a blue hole that became full of sunlight, I saw the Virgin Mary! And she said something that doesn’t make sense…but she said it, Monsieur le Curé, and you must believe me…She said: ‘Raymonde, I have just collected a pair of perfectly good but useless legs. They are for you.’ And, as I looked at her spellbound without saying anything, she smiled again and said: ‘Stand up, Raymonde. Stand up and walk!’ And when I walked towards her, she disappeared.”
“Such dreams are current, my child, and you…”
“No, Monsieur le Curé, it wasn’t a dream. Look, you are the first to see,” said Raymonde, throwing the old blanket off her legs and slowly standing up.
She hesitated a moment, then gently pushing aside the priest’s hand, she walked slowly, very slowly, step by step, round his chair.
THE DROP OF FORGETFULNESS
To the charming Edna who saved me from this fate the day she married another.
Falling, falling! That terrible nightmare fall! It is only a dream, the same old dream, I know, but it is pure, abstract knowledge which cannot possibly change the dream or alleviate the mental and physical horror of the endless fall. I shall only wake up after the sickening jerk that will leave me panting and lost under my bedclothes where I shall then panic until I can struggle out. Those seconds, no worse but as bad as the dream, are for me seconds of a rebirth, seconds of real agony during which I can remember nothing and where in a total cessation of knowledge, in the grip of a primeval fear, the instinct of survival is so powerful that I once tore my way right through a blanket in which I was entangled.
It is what psychiatrists call a recurrent nightmare. As a child, I had it often. Two or three times a week, my poor mother would have to pull me out of the tangled sheets and blankets, screaming my head off. I know full well what my doctor would say, and after reading Freud, Adler, Jung and some more, I dislike the idea of consulting a psychoanalyst with whom I would be cheating from the very start. My dream may well be the fearful memory of my birth, as some of them would assure me, but it is something more; it is an end of knowledge which, each time, returns after a short while but which may well one night fail me completely. If my heart then goes on beating, I shall be little more than a sort of mobile vegetable.
As I grew up, my dream seemed to fade in intensity and only bothered me at long intervals, and it had completely disappeared by the time I married Edna. Then came war and my first parachute jump. It was simply my old nightmare come true: falling, falling and suffocating in the slipstream, the air wrapped round my head just like my sheets, and I had to scream. The jerk of the harness as the ’chute opened silenced me but for the rest of the descent I was empty of all knowledge, little more than an overgrown, minute-old baby struggling for its first breath of air. I told no one about it, but every jump was the same agony of my dream come true.
But it was only after the war, after our second honeymoon—there is no flop like that of a second honeymoon—that my old nightmare returned. To this day, it is still the same, except that, of late, there is something particular which I have been trying to remember, something that has nothing to do with the dream, really, but which, I am sure, would put a stop to it. It is something to do with Edna’s death, I know, although long ago, when I was a little boy, there was always something I could never remember.
What was it that had gone wrong, that I could not remember? Throughout the trial, I had tried so hard to remember. I killed Edna all right, that much I know, but what I cannot remember is how I killed her. It is vital that I should remember, for I know that, somehow, I am innocent. Two of the jury seemed to sense this, two men who must have had wives like Edna; it was fascinating to watch their faces while they listened to Edna’s tape* recording.
They could only hear it, but I had merely to close my eyes to reconstruct the setting, the light, the heat of the fire, every move we made, the light on Edna’s pale face * as she coldly, deliberately worked on me to make me renew my boast about Florence, the metallic glint of her dark green eyes, the smoke of her cigarette that floated in layers like elongated clouds on a hazy afternoon, layers that swirled and tore each time I snapped back at what I thought was mere nagging. But what was it, what is it that I know and that the jury and the judge and the police ( and the lawyers will never know unless I remember? And yet, I was asked dozens, hundreds of questions about Edna, about our past, about our tempers! No one asked the question that would have made me remember the one fact that will render them helpless, all of them.
I had sense enough to plead not guilty, although my lawyers did not somehow seem to think it could make much difference. The evidence was, of course, so frightfully damning. I myself had proved my own guilt, explained it in so many words, but words meant for Edna, not for a court of law! That is the great thing, and that is where memory fails me. I kept telling them all that I could not remember but that I would sooner or later. My lawyers had naturally enough tried to suggest that I was insane. I am not, and they did not get away with it. All the doctors agreed that I was both sane and responsible, all except one who said something about my memory having failed over some important detail. He could sense that it was indeed an important detail and he pitied me. But what weight can such statements have against the fearful cold-bloodedness of my angry but so very precise explanations on the tape-recorder? Even with that taperecording, it is better than a perfect crime for the simple reason that, though I killed Edna, there is no crime—in other words, the ne plus ultra of murder.
When the judge passed sentence on me, it made me feel queer, but it did not worry me unduly for I knew that I would finally remember. I asked to be allowed to hear the tape-recording again, but the judge said no. It does not matter much. I heard it twice in court and think I know it by heart. My lawyers wanted me to object to the tape-recording, but that would have been silly. I had to prepare the ground if only by proving that I am not even afraid of my own evidence, and I know that when I do remember, it will give added strength to the proof of my innocence.
Whereas the majority of men under a death sentence grow nervous and ill and cannot eat or sleep properly, I have a good appetite and sleep soundly, especially when I feel that I am going to have my nightmare. Of course, the guards in the cell—I am never left alone—got frightened at first and shook me roughly out of my sleep. But, having explained to them that that is the only way I shall remember the one detail, the silly little detail that will send them all running like mad to prove my innocence, they now leave me alone.
At first, I used to think Edna was a reincarnated cat, but she was a fake. Her luminous eyes, the way she smiled, her studied litheness, her attitudes—she should have been a ballet dancer—the very way she could slip through a half open door, spring over the back of the couch in front of the fire, the way she curled up, everything was put on. And that was precisely what I had fallen for! Had there been no war, I might have got used to it. It was the second honeymoon that showed her up, because she acted it all over again, as if I did not know what she really was: a rather lazy slut who cultivated nonchalance and laisser-aller, who thought herself immensely fascinating and who would have purred had she known how to. She kept up her fake reincarnation business because she one day discovered that it annoyed me and, there perhaps, she was rather like a cat playing with a mouse. She thoroughly enjoyed becoming quieter and cooler as I got madder. And yet, she hated cats; truth be told, she hated all animals and, within a month of our marriage, I”ad been given the choice between my dog and her. What a cad I was! What a wonderful opportunity I missed! My only excuse is that I was still in love…if not with her, then with her aping, with the role she was playing.
The very first time I had my nightmare, after our second honeymoon, Edna got up, took the eiderdown and finished the night on the drawing-room couch. Next day, when I got home from work, I found twin beds installed. I could have obtained a divorce for that, I suppose, but it would have meant telling all sorts of people about my dream and, worse still, how Edna had decided to put a stop to it. Each time that, lost under the bedclothes, I started screaming and fighting my way out, she pulled a long cane from under her bed and without even taking the trouble to sit up, whacked away at me with all her might.
It all started the day she fixed new curtains in the back room. She loved to run and spring up the stepladder, fingers and toes hardly touching it. But Edna was not a real cat, not even a reincarnated cat and, that day, she came down with a crash, right across a dresser. She was badly hurt in her pride and sufficiently winded for me to telephone the local doctor. Bamley was a nice young man, really, but he soon fell for the cat business, first the luminous eyes and the triangular smile, then the curling up and, as she got well again, the feline litheness of all her movements. Since she was no longer acting for my benefit, I was in the position of an amused off-stage visitor watching all the tricks, such as that charming way she had of putting her hands flat down in her lap, or of tucking in a curl round the back of her neck and sweeping her hand over her ear and down the side of her face, like a cat washing itself. She made a point of nibbling biscuits and of tasting her tea with quick little jabs of her red, pointed tongue.
The tape recording was not at all typical of Edna’s scenes of nagging, bickering, veiled threats and endless arguments. She had a purpose and a part to act. She was sick and tired of me, and young Doctor Bamley had a rather lovely family mansion with only an aged mother living in it. True he had two dogs, but I was sure that, when the time came, he would willingly enough sacrifice them for Edna. She did not tell him about her heart trouble, or her liver trouble, oh no! She wanted him to think that she was fitness and joy of living personified, beautifully catlike and provokingly cheerful. And in order to lure him round, she had him come to visit me! She had the cheek to tell him about my nightmare. Bamley must have been an honest enough physician, however, for though Edna seemed to think I should have gone to a home, he persisted in finding nothing wrong with me. Truth is, I was happier than I had been in years for I had just discovered how much I hated Edna’s guts. Why is it that cat guts seem much easier to hate than any other sort of guts? “Cat guts—hate guts…cat guts—hate guts…cat guts—hate guts…had become my little hymn of revolt, which I sang to myself every morning and every night in the tube as it rattled along to or from the City.
Oh, that fearful fall! Why is it I can never awake before the final sickening stop, after which, of course, I yell my head off. Let me think, where was I? The trial, perhaps?
Of course, I said nothing about Doctor Bamley at the trial. It was because of him that we had both decided to bring things to an end between us. Edna had had the idea of the tape recording; my ideas were somewhat different, perhaps because I felt a sort of sympathy for young Barn-ley and wanted to save him from Edna. She must have switched it on when, half way through our argument, she had gone lightly round the room to turn out the lights, leaving only the lamp by the fire, in front of which she had curled up on the carpet.
“You can say what you like, James Faller, I shall ever be patient with you.”
Edna used to call me by my full name when she was particularly pleased or proud of me, especially in front of people. It had however gradually become akin to an expression of her coldness. “You can say what you like…” these were the first words on the tape. What the jury did not hear was what had come before, the ‘say what I liked’, as Edna termed it. I could have told them, of course, but it was not nearly so important as what I was trying so hard to remember.
“Patient as a cat!” I had snarled in answer, and from the sudden dignified look on the faces of the jury, I saw that Edna was already spring against me.
“You hate me, don’t you, James?”
“I loathe you, Edna.”
“And you would do anything to get rid of me.”
“Certainly, darling.”
“No! Don’t go. We must have this out once and for all!”
“I’m only going to get the tea.”
Here, I had had to explain that every evening, I had been in the habit of making a pot of tea. I could have added that having it out once and for all had become an almost nightly habit of Edna’s, but that also was unimportant. She had not stopped the recorder and for about three minutes, there had been nothing but the muffled noise of the fire in the grate and the door opening when I had returned with the tray.
“What about this Florence woman? Have you made up your mind about her, James?”
“What do you mean?”
“You keep telling me that you are going to leave me to go away with her. I can’t go on like that much longer, you know.”
Naturally, they had wanted to know who Florence was. So had the police before them. They had not found Florence, however, and I had refused to say anything about her at the trial. Had I told them the truth, that Florence had simply been an imaginary person to counter Edna’s cat-love-affair with Doctor Bamley, they would not have believed me.
“I shall marry her and have a real wife instead of a cat.”
“So, you want to divorce me in order to…to marry your mistress, is that it?”
“No, Edna.”
“How then can she be your wife?”
“Here, take your tea.”
Afterwards, when it was too late, I found the microphone tucked under the cushion over which she had been cat-curling. That is why the noise of the cup and saucer was so perfectly clear on the tape recording.
“Ugh! What a horrid taste! Where’s the sugar?”
“Sorry, I forgot. Here, help yourself.”
“Janies, you didn’t answer my question.”
“Drink your tea and shut up. You make me sick.”
“The most disgusting tea I’ve ever had. What on earth did you brew it in?”
“Good cat. Give me your cup. Here goes mine into the fire.”
The sizzling noise of the tea turned to steam came over the tape recording quite distinctly.
“Jim! You frightened me.”
“Did I? Good. And now, I can answer your question, hell-cat.”
“About your…mistress?”
“Funny, you usually call her other names. Well, yes, about Florence. Within a month or two we shall get married.”
“You don’t really think that you can get a divorce just like that, do you?”
“Won’t need a divorce from a cat-wife.”
“You’re mad! Why don’t you leave me and go and live with this…this Florence woman of yours?”
“Can’t, my pugs. It wouldn’t look nice right after your funeral.”
“My funeral?”
“Yes. And like that, Florence can come to live here. And Florence loves dogs, not at all like you, my puss. Let me see, a cat has nine lives, hasn’t it? Well, I put in enough to kill ten people!”
“Do be serious, James Faller. What are you talking about?”
“Poison, Edna. Good old fashioned poison. Yes, I know, you can feel it now, burning a hole in the pit of your stomach. Yes, my love, yes, puss…That is why I threw my cup of tea into the fire and why I am going to wash out your cup and the teapot in a few minutes.”
“Jim! NO!”
Edna’s scream was perfect. Twice it had the same effect on the jury. Their faces hardened and turned to stone, and as grey as stone.
“Yes, Edna. A beautiful poison that leaves no trace but that kills rapidly, if a little painfully. But cats can stand more pain than any other animal, so you won’t suffer half as much as a normal human being, will you?”
Her renewed screams, our scuffle as I threw her on the couch when she tried to make for the door and the telephone in the other room, everything was perfectly audible on the tape recording. And her dying words, as she rolled off the couch, evidently in an attempt to get closer to the microphone, came through with remarkable clarity.
“James Faller, my husband, has…poisoned me!” she gasped.
And the long moan that followed and ended in’ a sort of throaty rattle put the finishing touch to it all. After the court had heard it for the second time, I knew there was no hope whatsoever, unless I remembered why I was innocent.
Doctor Barnley testified, how I had called him late that night, how he had found the patient, his immediate suspicions by the look of agony on Edna’s face and, finally, his discovery of the tape-recorder.
Come to think of it, he jolly soon found that tape-recorder hidden away in the little cupboard by the fireplace. He and Edna had probably planned that recording so that she could get enough evidence for a divorce in her favour. But they had not considered the possibility that I might well play first.
Of course they found me guilty—who wouldn’t? They did not know that I had not poisoned Edna. I killed the hell cat all right, but legally. I know I am going to wake up tangled in my bedclothes. Oh, if I could only remember before! Awake, I never seem to remember anything.
If I keep my eyes tight shut and keep quite still, the fall will go on a little while longer, before I wake shouting. Just a little longer…I can feel my heart pounding and I know, that is a sign that I am soon going to wake up.
My heart…Edna’s heart! It was I made it stop…I never poisoned her…I bluffed…I fooled her. The mysterious poison that left no trace was a half teaspoonful of mustard! She thought she was poisoned and died of heart failure. And now, I remember, the Harley Street man who had several times examined her heart and who had never been called at the trial! I would have to see the prison Director first thing in the morning and tell him everything. An autopsy would soon show that Edna had died of heart failure. They had already cut her up and examined her cat guts but had found no trace of anything and they tried so hard to get me to tell them what poison I had used. Some of the doctors even suggested names of poisons. They would never have believed me if I had told them that it was plain mustard and a little persuasion. Now, if they dug her up again—and they would jolly well have to—they would find by examining her heart that fear, fear alone had made it stop, or burst, or whatever a heart does when people die of fright. And I would be free! No man can be accused of killing his wife if she chooses to die of fright!
