The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

“If he was awake at all before he had left the house, he and I exchanged a few perfectly friendly words. I had no feeling of anything blowing up. If I let him form the impression that I’d been spending the evenings at movies with girl friends I’d begun to make at the depot, then going back to their flats to mix Ovaltine – well, that seemed to me the considerate thing to do. If he’d even been more interested in my life – but he wasn’t interested in anything but his work. I never picked on him about that – I must say, I do know when a war’s a war. Only, men are so different. You see, this other man worked just as hard but was interested in me. He said he found me so restful. Neville never said that. In fact, all the month we were in that house, I can’t remember anything Neville said at all.

“No, what she couldn’t bear was my going out, like I did. She was either a puritan, with some chip on her shoulder, or else she’d once taken a knock. I incline to that last idea – though I can’t say why.

“No, I can’t say why. I have never at all been a subtle person. I don’t know whether that’s a pity or not. I must say I don’t care for subtle people – my instinct would be to give a person like that a miss. And on the whole I should say I’d succeeded in doing so. But that, you see, was where her advantage came in. You can’t give a . . . well, I couldn’t give her a miss. She was there. And she aimed at encircling me.

“I think maybe she had a poltergeist that she brought along with her. The little things that happened to my belongings . . . Each evening I dressed in that room I lost five minutes – I mean, each evening it took me five minutes longer to dress. But all that was really below her plane. That was just one start at getting me down before she opened up with her real technique. The really subtle thing was the way her attitude changed. That first time (as I’ve told you) I felt her disliking me – well, really ‘dislike’ was to put it mildly. But after an evening or two she was through with that. She conveyed the impression that she had got me taped and was simply so damned sorry for me. She was sorry about every garment I put on, and my hats were more than she was able to bear. She was sorry about the way I did up my face – she used to be right at my elbow when I got out my make-up, absolutely silent with despair. She was sorry I should never again see thirty, and sorry I should kid myself about that . . . I mean to say, she started pitying me.

“Do you see what I mean when I say her attitude could have been quite infectious?

“And that wasn’t all she was sorry for me about. I mean, there are certain things that a woman who’s being happy keeps putting out of her mind. (I mean, when she’s being happy about a man.) And other things you keep putting out of your mind if your husband is not the man you are being happy about. There’s a certain amount you don’t ask yourself, and a certain amount that you might as well not remember. Now those were exactly the things she kept bringing up. She liked to bring those up better than anything.

“What I don’t know is, and what I still don’t know – why do all that to a person who’s being happy? To a person who’s living the top month of her life, with the may in flower and everything? What had I ever done to her? She was dead – I suppose? . . . Yes, I see now, she must have taken a knock.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I know now how a knock feels.”

“Oh . . .?”

“Don’t look at me such a funny way. I haven’t changed, have I? You wouldn’t have noticed anything? . . . I expect it’s simply this time of year: August’s rather a tiring month. And things end without warning, before you know where you are. I hope the war will be over by next spring; I do want to be abroad, if I’m able to. Somewhere where there’s nothing but pines or palms. I don’t want to see London pink may in flower again – ever.”

“Won’t Neville . . .?”

“Neville? Oh, didn’t you really realize? Didn’t I. . .? He, I, we’ve – I mean, we’re living apart.” She rose and took the full, fuming ashtray across to another table, and hesitated, then brought an empty tray back. “Since we left that house,” she said. “I told you we left that house. That was why. We broke up.

“It was the other thing that went wrong,” she said. “If I’d still kept my head with Neville, he and I needn’t ever – I mean, one’s marriage is something. . . . I’d thought I’d always be married, whatever else happened. I ought to have realized Neville was in a nervy state. Like a fool I spilled over to Neville; I lost my head. But by that time I hadn’t any control left. When the one thing you’ve lived for has crashed to bits . . .