`Has Mummy gone to bed?’ he inquired.
I nodded.
`Some time ago. It’s where you ought to be,’ I told him.
`Good.’ he said, and came in, carefully closing the door behind him. He was wearing his dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, and his hair was all on end. (*) I wondered if he had been having a nightmare.
`What’s the matter?’ I asked.
He glanced back at the door as if to make sure it was closed.
‘It’s Chocky,’ he told me.
My spirits sank a little.
‘I thought she’d come away – for good,’ I said.
Matthew nodded.
‘She did. But she’s come back now. She says she wants me to tell you some things.’
I sighed. It had been a relief to think that we had finished with all that, but Matthew was looking very earnest and somewhat troubled. I took a cigarette, lit it, and leaned back.
`All right,’ I said. `I’m all attention. What things?’
But Matthew had become abstracted. He did not appear to hear. He noticed my expression though.
`Sorry, Daddy. Just a minute,’ he said, and reverted to his look of abstraction. His changes of expression and the small movements of his head gave one a sensation of seeing one side of a television conversation, with the sound cut off. It ended with him nodding and saying aloud: ‘Okay. I’ll try,’ though rather doubtfully. Looking at me again he explained:
‘Chocky says it’ll take an awful long time if she has to tell me and then I have to tell you because sometimes I can’t think of the right words for what she means; and sometimes they don’t quite mean it when I can; if you see what I mean.’
‘I think I do,’ I told him. `Lots of other people have. difficulty over that at the best of times. And when it’s a kind of translation, too, it must be quite hard work.’
‘Yes, it is, ‘ Matthew agreed, decidedly. `So Chocky thinks it would be better if she talks to you herself.’
‘Oh,’ I said. `Well – tell her to go ahead. What do I do?’
‘No, not the way she talks to me, I don’t understand why, but she says that only words with some people. It doesn’t with you, so she wants to try and see if we can do it another way.’
‘What other way?’ I inquired.
‘Well, me talking, but sort of letting her do it … Like my hands and the painting,’ he explained, not very adequately.
‘Oh,’ I said again, this time doubtfully, I was feeling at sea, (*) unclear what was implied, uncertain whether it ought to be encouraged, `I don’t know. Do you think …?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. `But Chocky’s pretty sure she can work it okay, so I expect she can. She’s usually right about things like that.’
I was uneasy, with a feeling that 1 was being forced to take part in something suspiciously like a seance. (*) I stalled.
‘Look here,’ I said. ‘If this is going to take some time, don’t you think it would be better if you were in bed, You’d keep warmer there.’
‘All right,’ agreed Matthew.
So we went up to his room. He got back to bed, and I sat down in a chair. I still had misgivings, a feeling that I ought not to be allowing this to go on – and a conviction that if Mary were here she would disapprove strongly and 1 only hoped that once Matthew was back in bell again he would fall asleep.
Matthew leant his head back on the pillow, and closed his eyes.
‘1 am going to think of nothing,’ he said.
I hesitated. Then:
‘Look here, Matthew. Don’t you …?’ I began, and then broke off as his eyes reopened, They were not looking at me now, nor, seemingly,, at anything else. His lips parted, came together two or three times without a sound, parted again, and his voice said:
‘It is Chocky talking.’
There was no air of seance about it, nothing of the medium about Matthew: no pale face, no change in his rate of breathing. Except for the unfocussed look in his eyes he was apparently quite himself. The voice went on:
‘I want to explain some things to you. It is not easy because I can use only Matthew’s understanding, and only his’ – there was a slight pause – ‘vocabulary, which is simple, and not large, and has some meanings not clear in his mind.’
The voice was characteristically Matthew’s, but thc flatness of its delivery was certainly not. There was an impression of intended decisiveness blurred, and frustrated; an athlete condemned to take part in a sack-race. (*) Unwillingly fascinated I said:
‘Very well, I’ll do my best to follow you.’
‘I want to talk to you because I shall not come back again after this. You will be glad to hear this: the other part of his parent, I mean Matthew, I mean your wife, will be gladder because it is afraid of me and thinks I am bad for Matthew, which is a pity because I did not mean me, I mean you, I mean Matthew, any harm. Do you understand?’
‘1 think so,’ I said, cautiously. `But wouldn’t it be best to tell me first who you are, what you are, why you are here at al?’
`I am an explorer, I mean scout, I mean missionary – no, I mean teacher. I am here to teach things.’
`Oh, are you? What sort of things?’
There was a pause, then
`Matthew hasn’t words for them – he doesn’t understand them.’
`Not, perhaps, a very successful teacher?’
`Not yet. Matthew is too young. He can only think in too simple words for difficult ideas. If I think in maths, or physic, we do not meet. Even numbers are difficult. This is a good thing, I mean, lucky.’
I have quoted the above exchanges as closely as I can remember in order to give some idea of what I was up against, and to justify my corrections and simplifications from now on. A word-for-word record would be impossible. The usual words and usages came easily enough, but less familiar words brought holdups.
Add to that thc necessity to wade through a mess of Matthew’s favourite, and not very specific, adjectives: sort-of, kind-of, and I-mean, and the conversation became so intricate that it is quite necessary for me to edit ruthlessly in order to extract and attempt to convey Chocky’s intended meaning – in so far as I could grasp it, which was not always.
I could see from the beginning that it was not going to be easy. The sight of Matthew lying there, quite expressionless as he spoke, his eyes with that unfocussed stare was too disturbing for rlle to give the words the fuli attention they needed.
I turned otlt the light as an aid to concentration – and in sneaking hope that without it he might fall asleep.
‘AII right. Go ahead,’ I said into the darkness. `You are a missionary – or a teacher – or an explorer. Where from?’
‘Far away.’
‘Far? How far?’
‘I do not know, Many, many parsecs.’ (*)
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘I was sent here to find out what kind of a planet this is.’
‘Were you indeed. Why?’
‘To see, in the first place, whether it would be useful to us. You see, we are a very old people compared with you, on a very old planet compared with yours. It has long been clear to us that if we want to survive we must colonize. But that is difficult. A ship that can travei only at the speed of light takes a very long time to get anywhere. One cannot send out ships on time chance of their finding a suitable planet. There are innumerable millions of planets. It is extrernely hard to find a suitable one.
‘So a scout – an explorer – is sent out in this way. Because mind has no mass it takes no time to travel. The scout makes his report. If he reports that it would be a suitable planet for a colony, other scouts are sent to check. lf their reports are favourable, the astronomers go to work to locate the planet. If it is found to be within practicable range they may send a ship of colonists. But this is very rare. It has happened only four times in a thousand of your years. And only two colonies have been established.’
‘I see. And when are we to expect a ship here?’
‘Oh, this planet is not any use to us. Your planet is exceptional, and very beautifu], but it is much too cold for us, and there is a great deal too much water. There are plenty of reasons wily it is quite impossible fot us. I could tell that at once.’
‘Then why stay hete? Why not go and find a more suitable planet?’