Wyndham, John – Chocky

`Sorry, Daddy,’ he apologized through it, still chokily.

`That’s all right, old man. Just take your time.’ (*)

Presently he lowered the handkerchief and plucked at it, still breathing jerkily. A few more tears, but of a different kind, overflowed. He cleaned up once more, sighed again, and began to be more l like his normal self.

`Sorry, Daddy,’ he said again. `All right now – I think.’

`Good,’ I told him. `But dear, oh dear, what was all that about?’

Matthew hesitated, then he said.

`It was the car.’

I blinked.

`The car! For heaven’s sake. It seems to be all right. What’s it done to you?’

`Well, not the car, exactly,’ Matthew corrected himself.

`You see, it’s a jolly nice car. I think it’s super, and I thought chocky would be interested in it, so I started showing it to her, and telling her how it works, and things.’

I became aware of a slight sinking, here-we-go-again feeling. (*)

`But Chocky wasn’t interested?’ I inquired. Something seemed to rise in Matthew’s throat, but he took himself in hand, swallowed hard and continued bravely:

`She said it was silly, and ugly, and clumsy. She – she laughed at it!’

At the recollection of this enormity his indignation swelled once more, and all but overwhelmed him. (*) He tried to fight it down.

I was beginning to feel seriously worried. That the hypothetical Chocky could provoke such a near-hysterical condition of anger and outrage was alarming. I wished I knew more about the nature and manifestations of schizophrenia. However, one thing was clear, this was not the for debunking Chocky, on the other hand it was necessary to say something. I asked:

`What does she find so a musing about it?’ Matthew sniffed, paused, and sniffed again.

`Pretty nearly everything,’ he told me, gloomily. She said the engine is funny, and old-fashioned, and wasteful, and that an engine that needed gears was ridiculous anyway. And that a car that didn’t use an engine to stop itself as well as make itself go was stupid. And how it was terribly funny to think of anyone making a car that to have springs because it just bumped along the ground on wheels that had to have things like sausages fastened round them.

`So I told her that’s how cars are, anyway and ours is a new car, and a jolly good one. And she said that was nonsense because our car is just silly, and nobody with any brains would make anything so clumsy and dangerous, and nobody with any sense would ride in one. And then well, it’s a bit muddled after that because I got angry. But, anyway, I don’t care what she thinks: I like our new car.’

It was difficult. His indignation was authentic: a stranger would not have doubted for a moment that he had been engaged in a dispute which was not only genuine, but impassioned. Any doubt I may have had as to whether we really needed advice about Matthew was swept away then. However, rather than risk a wrong step now, I kept up the front. (*)

`What does she think cars ought to be like, then?’ I asked.

`That’s what I asked her when she started on our car,’ said Matthew. `And she said that where she comes from the cars don’t have wheels at all. They go along a bit above the ground, and they don’t make any noise, either She said that our kind of cars that have to keep to roads are bound to run into one another pretty often, and that, anyway, properly made cars are made so that they can’t run into one another.’

`There’s quite a lot to be said for that – if you can manage it,’ I admitted. `But, tell me, where does Chocky come from?’

Matthew frowned.

`That’s one of the things we can’t find out,’ he said. It’s too difficult. You see, if you don’t know where anything else is, how can you find out where you are?’

`You mean no reference points?’ I suggested.

`I expect that’s it,’ Matthew said, a little vaguely. But I think where Chocky lives must be a very, very, long way away. Everything seems to be different there.’

`H’m,’ I said. I tried another tack. `How old is Chocky?’ I asked.

`Oh, pretty old,’ Matthew told me. `Her time doesn’t go like ours though. But we worked it out that if it did she’d be at least twenty. Only she says she’ll go on living until she’s about two hundred, so that sort of makes twenty seem less. She thinks only living until you’re seventy or eighty like we do, is silly and wasteful.’

`Chocky, I suggested, `appears to think a great many things silly.’

Matthew nodded emphatically.

`Oh, she does,’ he agreed. `Nearly everything, really, he added, in amplification.

`Rather depressing,’ I commented.

`It does get a bit boring pretty often,’ Matthew conceded.

Then Mary called us to supper.

I found myself at a loss to know what to do about it. Matthew had evidently had enough sense of self-protection not to tell any of his friends or school-fellows about Chocky. He had confided in Polly possibly, I thought with some idea of sharing Chocky with her, but that had certainly been a failure. Yet, quite clearly, he found it a relief to talk about her – and after the car incident I had undoubtedly provided a very sorely needed safety-valve. (*)

Mary, when I told her about the car incident that evening, was inclined to favour the straight forward line of asking our regular doctor, Dr Aycott, to recommend a consultant. I was not. Not that I had anything against old Aycott. I wouldn’t deny that the old boy was an adequate enough pill-pusher, (*) but I couldn’t help feeling that the Matthew problem was not in his line. (*) Moreover, I pointed out, Matthew did not like him so it was improbable that he would confide in him. It seemed much probable that he would consider we had abused his confidence by mentioning the matter to Aycott at al; in which case there was a risk that he would go silent altogether.

Mary, upon reflection, admitted the validity of that.

`But,’ she said, `It’s getting to the point where we can’t just go on letting it drift. We must do something… An d you can’t simply pick a psychiatrist out of a list with a pin. You want the right kind of psychiatrist, proper recommendations, and all the rest of it…’

`I think I may have a line on that,’ (*) I told her. `You remember Alan, a friend of mine? He was my best man at our wedding. So I was telling him about it the other day, and he mentioned a man I used to know slightly at Cambridge; a fellow called Landis – Roy Landis. Alan knew him rather better, aud he’s kept in touch with him. It appears that after Landis graduated he went in for mental disorders. He’s got a job at a well-reputed clinic now, so he must be some good at it. Alan suggested it might be worth having a try at him – informally just to give us a lead. If he were wiling to have a look at Matthew he’d be abe to tel us whether we ought to consult somebody professionally, and who would be the best man for the job. Or, possibly it might be in his,own line, and he’d take it on himself.

`Good,’ Mary approved. ‘You tackle him, then, and see if you can get him to come down. At least we shall feel that we’re doing something…’

Time, and professional look can work wonders. I could scarcely recognize the rather untidy undergraduate I remembered in the well brushed, neatly bearded, elegantly suited Roy Landis who joined Alan and me at the club for dinner.

I started and at once stressed that our immediate need was advice upon the best steps to take, and told him something of Matthew. His professional caution relaxed as he listened, and his interest plainly grew. The episode with the new car particularly seemed to intrigue him. He asked a number of questions which I answered as best I could, beginning to feel hopeful. In the end he agreed to drive down to Hindmere the following Sunday. He also gave me some instructions on preparing the ground for the visit, so that I was able to return home to report to Mary with a feeling of relief that, at last, we had things under way. (*)

The next evening I told Matthew:

`I had dinner with an old friend of mine last night. I think you might like to meet him.’

`Oh,’ said Matthew, not much interested in my old friends.

`The thing was,’ I went on, ‘we were talking cars, and he seems to have some of the same ideas as you told me Chocky has about them. He thinks our present cars are rather crude.’

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