‘Harry,’ she said, taking his hands where he sat on the edge of the bed with his shoulders slumped, ‘what is this all about? I know you’ve had a bug of some sort or other and that you’re still feeling low, and I know that when you’re a bit down in the mouth it really seems like the end of the world to you, but here we are married for just eight weeks and you sound as if you expect to be dead by the spring! Yes, and me shortly after! I’ve never heard anything so silly! Just a week ago you were swimming, fighting, skating, full of life – so what is it that’s suddenly bothering you?’
At that he decided he really couldn’t hedge any longer. Anyway she was his wife now and it was only right that she should know. And so he sat her down and told her everything, with the exception of his dream of the tombstones, and of course excluding the death of Viktor Shukshin. He passed off his aggressive ‘exercising’ of the past few months as simply a means of ensuring his fitness for work still to come, work which could well prove dangerous; which in turn led him to speak of the British ESP organisation, but not in any depth. It was sufficient
she should know that he wasn’t the only strangely talented person – that in fact there were many more – and that there were foreign powers ranged against the free world who were not above using such talents to its detriment. Part of Harry’s work with the organisation would be to ensure that these alien powers failed in their objectives; his talent as a necroscope would be used as a weapon against them; the future therefore seemed at best . . . uncertain. His talk of wills and such had been simply an expression of this uncertainty: he thought it was best to be prepared for any eventuality.
Even telling her all of this – and while not being too specific on any point – still he wondered if perhaps he was making a mistake, if it would have been better to keep her entirely in the dark. And he wondered at his own motives: was he really confiding in her in order to prepare her for … for whatever? Or was it that she was right, that he was feeling at a low ebb and so needed someone to share the load?
Or there again, was it guilt? He had a course to run now and must pursue it; the chase was not at an end; Shukshin had merely been a faltering step in the right direction. Did he feel that because he chose to go in that direction Brenda was at risk? The dream epitaph – his mother’s warning – had said nothing about Brenda dying as a result of anything Harry was yet to do. He had impregnated her, yes, which would result in a birth; but how could any course he took now influence the physical event of the birth itself? And yet a nagging voice in the back of his mind told him that indeed it could.
And so it seemed to him that his motive for telling her was chiefly one of guilt, and also because he needed to tell someone – needed to tell a friend. The trouble was that he seemed to be leaning on the very one he endangered, which aggravated and magnified the guilt aspect out of all proportion!
It was all very confusing and abstruse, and trying to muddle through it made him more tired than ever, so that when he was done talking he was glad to sit back and let her think it over.
Strangely, she accepted everything he said almost as a matter of course – indeed with visible relief – and at once set about to explain why:
‘Harry, I know I’m not as clever as you, but I’m not stupid either. I’ve known there was something in the air ever since you told me that story of yours – about the necroscope. I sort of sensed that you hadn’t finished it, that you wanted to say more but you were scared to. Also, there’ve been times up in Harden when Mr Hannant has stopped me and asked after you. The way he talked, I knew he thought there was something strange about you, too . . .’