Wyndham, John – The Midwich Cuckoos

‘ “I think you’d better see him,” I said. “Fair put the wind up me, you did.”

‘ “I’m sorry about that,” he said. And then after a bit of a pause he went on: “Mrs Williams, I’m sure you can keep a secret?”

‘ “As well as the next, I reckon,” I told him.

‘ “Well, I’d be very grateful if you’d not mention this – lapse of mine to anyone.”

‘ “I don’t know,” I said. “To my way of thinking you ought to see the doctor.”

‘He shook his head at that.

‘ “I’ve seen a number of doctors, Mrs Williams, expensive and important ones. But one just can’t help growing old, you see, and as one does, the machinery begins to wear out, that’s all.”

‘ “Oh, Mr Zellaby, sir -” I began.

‘ “Don’t distress yourself, Mrs Williams. I’m still quite tough in a lot of ways, so it may not come for some little time yet. But, in the meantime, I think it is rather important that one should not trouble the people one loves any more than can be helped, don’t you think? It is an unkindness to cause them useless distress, I’m sure you’ll agree?”

‘ “Well, yes, sir, if you’re sure that there’s nothing – ?”

‘ “I am. Quite sure. I am already in your debt, Mrs Williams, but you will have done me no service unless I can rely on you not to mention it. Can I?”

‘ “Very well. If that’s the way you want it, Mr Zellaby,” I told him.

‘ “Thank you, Mrs Williams. Thank you very much,” he said.

‘Then, after a bit, I asked him:

‘ “You saw it all happen, then, sir? Enough to give anyone a shock, it must’ve been.”

‘ “Yes,” he said. “I saw it – but I didn’t see who it was in the car.”

‘ “Young Jim Pawle,” I told him, “from Dacre Farm.”

‘He shook his head.

‘ “I remember him – nice lad.”

‘ “Yes, sir. A good boy, Jim. Not one of the wild ones. Can’t think how he’d come to be driving mad in the village. Not like him at all.”

‘Then there was quite a pause till he said in a funny sort of voice:

‘ “Before that, he hit one of the Children – one of the boys. Not badly, I think, but he knocked him across the road.”

‘ “One of the Children -” I said. Then I suddenly saw what he was meaning. “Oh no, sir! My God, they couldn’t’ve -” but then I stopped again, because of the way he was looking at me.

‘ “Other people saw it, too,” he told me. “Healthier – or, possibly less shockable people – Perhaps I myself should have found it less upsetting if, at some previous stage of my quite long life, I had already had the experience of witnessing deliberate murder …” ‘

*

The account that Zellaby himself gave us, however, ended at the point where he had sat shakily down on the bench. When he finished, I looked from him to Bernard. There was no lead at all in Bernard’s expression, so I said:

‘You’re suggesting that the Children did it – that they made him drive into that wall?’

‘I’m not suggesting,’ said Zellaby with a regretful shake of his head, ‘I’m stating. They did it, just as surely as they made their mothers bring them back here.’

‘But the witnesses – the ones who gave evidence …?’

‘They’re perfectly well aware of what happened. They only had to say what they actually saw.’

‘But if they know it’s as you claim – ?’

‘Well, what then? What would you have said if you had known, and happened to be called as a witness? In an affair such as this there has to be a verdict acceptable to authority – acceptable, that means, to our well-known figment, the reasonable man. Suppose that they had somehow managed to get a verdict that the boy was willed to kill himself – do you imagine that would stand? Of course it wouldn’t. There’d have to be a second inquest, called to bring in a “reasonable” verdict, which would be the verdict we now have, so why should the witnesses run the risk of being thought unreliable, or superstitious, for nothing?

‘If you want evidence that they would be, take a look at your own attitude now. You know that I have some little reputation through my books, and you know me personally, but how much is that worth against the thought-habits of the “reasonable man”? So little that when I tell you what actually occurred, your immediate reaction is to try to find ways in which what appeared to me to have occurred could not in actual fact have done so. You really ought to have more sense, my dear fellow. After all you were here when those Children forced their mothers to come back.’

‘That wasn’t quite on a level with what you are telling me now,’ I objected.

‘No? Would you care to explain the essential difference between being forced into the distasteful, and being forced into the fatal? Come, come, my dear fellow, since you’ve been away you have lost touch with improbability. You’ve been blunted by rationality. Here, the unorthodox is to be found on one’s doorstep almost every morning.’

I took an opportunity to lead away from the topic of the inquest.

‘To an extent which has caused Willers to abandon his championship of hysteria?’ I asked.

‘He abandoned that some little time before he died,’ Zellaby replied.

I was taken aback. I had meant to ask Bernard about the doctor, but the intention had been mislaid in our talk.

‘I’d no idea he was dead. He wasn’t much over fifty, was he? How did it happen?’

‘He took an overdose of some barbiturate drug.’

‘He – you don’t mean – ? But Willers wasn’t that sort …’

‘I agree,’ said Zellaby. ‘The official verdict was that “the balance of his mind was disturbed”. A kindly meant phrase, no doubt, but not explanatory. Indeed, one can think of minds so steady that disturbance would be a positive benefit. The truth is, of course, that nobody had the least idea why he did it. Certainly not poor Mrs Willers. But it had to suffice.’ He paused, and then added: ‘It was not until I realized what the verdict on young Pawle would have to be that I began to wonder about that on Willers.’

‘Surely you don’t really think that?’ I said.

‘I don’t know. You yourself said Willers was not that sort. Now it has suddenly been revealed that we live much more precariously here than we had thought. That is a shock.

‘One has, you see, to realize that, though it was the Pawle boy who came round the corner at that fatal moment, it might as easily have been Angela, or anyone else … It suddenly becomes clear that she, or I, or any of us, may accidentally do something to harm or anger the Children at any moment … There’s no blame attached to that poor boy. He tried his very best to avoid hitting any of them, but he couldn’t – And in a flare of anger and revenge they killed him for it.

‘So one is faced with a decision. For myself – well, this is by far the most interesting thing that has ever come my way. I want very much to see how it goes. But Angela is still quite a young woman, and Michael is still dependent on her, too … We have sent him away already. I am wondering whether I should try to persuade her to go, too. I don’t want to do it until I must, but I can’t quite decide whether the moment has arrived.

‘These last few years have been like living on the slopes of an active volcano. Reason tells one that a force is building up inside, and that sooner or later there must be an eruption. But time passes, with no more than an occasional tremor, so that one begins to tell oneself that the eruption which appeared inevitable may, perhaps, not come after all. One becomes uncertain. I ask myself – is this business of the Pawle boy just a bigger tremor, or is it the first sign of the eruption? – and I do not know.

‘One was more acutely aware of the presence of danger years ago, and made plans which came to seem unnecessary; now one is abruptly reminded of it, but is this where it changes to an active danger which justifies the breaking up of my home, or is it still only potential?’

He was obviously, and very genuinely, worried, nor was there any trace of scepticism in Bernard’s manner. I felt impelled to say, apologetically:

‘I suppose I have let the whole business of the Dayout fade in my mind – it needs a bit of adjustment when one’s brought up against it once more. That’s the subconscious for you – trying to pass off the uncomfortable by telling me that the peculiarities would diminish as the Children grew older.’

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