Wyndham, John (9 page)

Standing there, and at that time, my heart still resisted
what my head was telling me. Still I had the feeling that it was all something
too big, too unnatural really to happen. Yet I knew that it was by no means the
first time that it had happened. The corpses of other great cities are lying
buried in deserts and obliterated by the jungles of Asia. Some of them fell so
long ago that even their names have gone with them. But to those who lived
there their dissolution can have seemed no more probable or possible than the
necrosis of a great modem city seemed to me. ...

It must be, I thought, one of the race’s most persistent and
comforting hallucinations to trust that “it can’t happen here”- that one’s own
little time and place is beyond cataclysms.

And now it was happening here. Unless there should be some
miracle, I was looking on the beginning of the end of London—and very likely,
it seemed, there were other men, not unlike me, who were looking at the
beginning of the end of New York, Paris, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Bombay,
and all the rest of the cities that were destined to go the way of those others
under the jungles.

I was still looking out when a sound of movement came from
behind me. I turned, and saw that Josella had come into the room. She was
wearing a long, pretty frock of palest blue georgette with a little jacket of
white fur. In a pendant on a simple chain a few blue-white diamonds flashed;
the stones that gleamed in her ear clips were smaller but as fine in color. Her
hair and her face might have been fresh from a beauty parlor. She crossed the
floor with a flicker of silver slippers and a glimpse of gossamer stockings. As
I went on staring without speaking, her mouth lost its little smile.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked with childish halt disappointment.

“It’s lovely—you’re beautiful,” I told her. “I—well, I just
wasn’t expecting anything like this

Something more was needed. I knew that it was a display
which had little or nothing to do with me. I added:

“You’re—saying good-by?”

A different look came into her eyes.

“So you do understand. I hoped you would.”

“I think I do. I’m glad you’ve done it. It’ll be a lovely
thing to remember,” I said.

I stretched out my hand to her and led her to the window.

“I was saying good-by too—to all this.”

What went on in her mind as we stood there side by side is
her secret. In mine there was a kind of kaleidoscope of the life and ways that
were now finished—or perhaps
it
was more like flipping through a huge
volume of photographs with one, all-comprehensive “do-you-remember?”

We looked for a long time, lost in our thoughts. Then she
sighed. She glanced down at her dress, fingering the delicate silk.

“Silly? Rome burning?” she said with a rueful little smile.
“No—sweet,” I said. “Thank you for doing it. A gesture— and a reminder that
with all the faults there was so much beauty. You couldn’t have done—or
looked—a lovelier thing.”

Her smile lost its ruefulness.

“Thank you, Bill.” She paused. Then she added: “Have I said
thank you before? I don’t think I have. If you hadn’t helped me when you did

“But for you,” I told her, “I should probably by now be
lying

maudlin and sozzled in some bar.
I
have just as much
to

thank you for. This is no time to be alone.” Then, to change
the trend, I added: “And speaking of drink, there’s an excellent amontillado
here, and some pretty good things to follow. This is a very well-found
apartment.”

I poured out the sherry, and we raised our glasses.

“To health, strength—and luck,” I said.

She nodded. We drank.

“What,” Josella asked as we started on an expensive-tast
ing
pate, “if
the owner of all this suddenly comes back?”

In that case we will explain—and he or she should be only
too thankful to have someone here to tell him which bottle is which, and so
on—but I don’t think that is very likely to happen.”

“No,” she agreed, considering. “No. I’m afraid that’s not
very likely. I wonder “ She looked round the room. Her eyes paused at a fluted
white pedestal. “Did you try the radio—I suppose that thing
is
a radio,
isn’t it?”

“It’s a television projector too,” I told her. “But no good.
No power.”

“Of course. I forgot. I suppose we’ll go on forgetting
things like that for quite a time.”

“But I did try one when I was out.” I said. “A battery affair.
Nothing doing. All broadcast bands as silent as the grave.”

“That means it’s like this everywhere?”

“I’m afraid so. There was something pip-pipping away around
forty-two meters. Otherwise nothing. I wonder who and where he was, poor chap.”

“It’s—it’s going to be pretty grim, Bill, isn’t it?”

“It’s— No, I’m nor going to have my dinner clouded,” I said.
“Pleasure before business-and the future is definitely business. Let’s talk
about something interesting, like how many love affairs you have had and why
somebody hasn’t married you long before this—or has he? You see how little I
know, Life story, please.”

“Well,” she said, “I was born about three miles from here.
My mother was very annoyed about it at the time.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“You see, she had quite made up her mind that I should be an
American. But when the car came to take her to the airport it was just too
late. Full of impulses, she was—I think I inherited some of them.”

She prattled on. There was not much remarkable about her
early life, but I think she enjoyed herself in summarizing it and forgetting
where we were for a while. I enjoyed listening to her babble of the familiar
and amusing things that had all vanished from the world outside. We worked
lightly through childhood, schooldays, and “coming out”—insofar as the term
still meant anything.

I did nearly get married when I was nineteen,” she admitted,
“and aren’t I glad now it didn’t happen. But I didn’t feel like that at the
time. I had a frightful row with Daddy, who’d broken the whole thing up because
he saw right away that Lionel was a spizzard and—”

“A what?” I interrupted.

“A spizzard. A sort of cross between a spiv and a lizard —
the lounge kind. So then I cut my family off and went and lived with a girl I
knew who had an apartment. And my family cut off my allowance, which was a very
silly thing to do, because it might have had just the opposite effect from what
they intended. As it happened, it didn’t, because all the girls I knew who were
making out that way seemed to me to have a very wearing sort of time of it. Not
much fun, and an awful lot of jealousy to put up with—and so much planning.
You’d never believe how much planning it needs to keep one or two second
strings in good condition—or do I mean two or three spare strings?” She
pondered.

“Never mind,” I told her. “I get the general idea. You just
didn’t want the strings at all.”

“Intuitive, you are. All the same, I couldn’t just sponge on
the girl who had the apartment. I did have to have some money, so I wrote the
book.”

I did not think I’d heard quite aright.

“You made a book?” I suggested.

“I
wrote
the book.” She glanced at me and smiled. “I
must look awful dumb—that’s just the way
they
all used to look at me
when I told them I was writing a book. Mind you, it wasn’t a very good book—I
mean, not like Aldous or Charles or people of that kind—but it worked.”

I refrained from asking which of many possible Charleses
this referred to. I simply asked:

“You mean it did get published?”

“Oh yes. And it really brought in quite a lot of money. The
film rights—”

“What was this book?” I asked curiously.

“It was called
Sex is My Adventure.”

I stared and then smote my forehead.

“Josella Playton, of course. I couldn’t think why that name
kept on nearly ringing bells. You wrote that thing?” I added incredulously.

I couldn’t think why I had not remembered before. Her
photograph had been all over the place—not a very good photograph, now I could
look at the original, and the book had been all over the place too. Two large
circulating libraries had banned it, probably on the title alone. After that
its success had been assured, and the sales went rocketing up into the hundred
thousands. Josella chuckled. I was glad to hear it.

“Oh dear,” she said. “You look just like all my relatives
did.”

“I can’t blame them,” I told her.

“Did you read it?” she asked.

I shook my head. She sighed.

“People are funny. All you know about it is the title and
the publicity, and you’re shocked. And it’s such a harmless little book,
really. Mixture of green-sophisticated and pink-romantic, with patches of
schoolgirly-purple. But the title was a good idea.”

“All depends what you mean by good,” I suggested. “And you
put your own name to it, too.”

“That,” she agreed, “was a mistake. The publishers persuaded
me that it would be so much better for publicity. From their point of view they
were right. I became quite notorious for a hit—it used to make me giggle inside
when I saw people looking speculatively at me in restaurants and places—they
seemed to find it so hard to tie up what they saw with what they thought. Lots
of people I didn’t care for took to tinning up regularly at the apartment, so
to get rid of them, and because I’d proved that I didn’t
have
to go
home, I went home again.

“The book rather spoiled things, though. People would be so
literal-minded about that title. I seem to have been keeping up a permanent
defensive ever since against people I don’t like—and those I wanted to like
were either scared or shocked. What’s so annoying is that it wasn’t even a
wicked book—it was just silly-shocking, and sensible people ought to have seen
that.”

She paused contemplatively. It occurred to rue that the sensible
people had probably decided that the author of
Sex Is My Adventure
would
be silly-shocking too, but I forebore to suggest it. We all have our youthful
follies, embarrassing to recall—but people somehow find it hard to dismiss as a
youthful folly anything that has happened to be a financial success.

“It sort of twisted everything,” she complained. “I was
writing another book to try to balance things up again. But I’m glad I’ll never
finish it—it was rather bitter.”

“With an equally alarming title?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It was to be called
Here the Forsaken.”

“H’m—well, it certainly lacks the snap of the other,” I
said. “Quotation?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Mr. Congreve: ‘Here the forsaken Virgin
rests from Love.’”

“Er—oh,” I said, and thought that one over for a bit.

“And now,” I suggested, “I think it’s about time we began to
rough out a plan of campaign. Shall I throw around a few observations first?”

We lay back in two superbly comfortable armchairs. On the
low table between us stood the coffee apparatus and two glasses. Josella’s was
the small one with the cointreau. The plutocratic-looking balloon with the
puddle of unpriceable brandy was mine. Josella blew out a feather of smoke and
took a sip of her drink. Savoring the flavor, she said:

“I wonder whether we shall ever taste fresh oranges again?
Okay, shoot.”

“Well, it’s no good blinking facts. We had better clear out
soon. If not tomorrow, then the day after. You can begin to see already what’s
going to happen here. At present there’s still water in the tanks. Soon there
won’t be. The whole city will begin to stink like a great sewer. There are
already some bodies lying about—every day there will be more.” I noticed her
shudder. I had for the moment, in taking the general view, forgotten the
particular application it would have for her. I hurried on: “That may mean
typhus, or cholera, or God knows what. It’s important to get away before
anything of that kind starts.”

She nodded agreement to that.

“Then the next question seems to be, where do we go? Have
you any ideas?” I asked her.

“Well—I suppose, roughly, somewhere out of the way. A place
with a good water supply we can be sure of—a well, perhaps. And I should think
it would be best to be as high up as we reasonably can—some place where
there’ll be a nice clean wind.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’d not thought of the clean wind part, but
you’re right. A hilltop with a good water supply—that’s not so easy offhand.” I
thought a moment. The Lake District? No, too far. Wales, perhaps? Or maybe
Exmoor or Dartmoor— or right down in Cornwall? Around Land’s End we’d have the
prevailing southwest wind coming in untainted over the Atlantic. But that, too,
was a long way. We should be dependent on towns when it became safe to visit
them again.

“What about the Sussex Downs?” Josella suggested. “I know a
lovely old farmhouse on the north side, looking right across toward Pulborough.
It’s not on the top of hills, but it’s well up the side. There’s a wind pump
for water, and I think they make their own electricity. It’s all been converted
and modernized.”

Desirable residence, in fact. But it’s a hit near populous
places. Don’t you think we ought to get farther away?”

“Well, I was wondering. How long is it going to be before
it’ll be safe to go into the towns again?”

“I’ve no real idea,” I admitted. “I’d something like a year
in mind—surely that might to be a safe enough margin?”

“I see. But if we do go too far away, it isn’t going to be
at all easy to get supplies later on.”

“That is a point, certainly,” I agreed.

We dropped the matter of our final destination for the moment
and got down to working out details for our removal. In the morning, we
decided, we would first of all acquire a truck—a capacious truck—and between us
we made a list of the essentials we would put into it. If we could finish the
stocking-up, we would start on our way the next evening; if not— and the list
was growing to a length which made this appear much the more likely—we would
risk another night in London and get away the following day.