Chocky

  I watched him closely, and had a strong impression he was on the verge of tears.

  ‘Look, old man. I’ve got to go down to Chichester today. Would you like to come along?’ I suggested.

  He shook his head again.

  ‘No, thank you, Daddy. I’d rather – Mummy, can I just have some sandwiches, please?’

  Mary looked at me in question. I nodded.

  ‘All right, darling. I’ll cut you some after breakfast,’ she said.

  Matthew ate a little more, and then disappeared upstairs.

  ‘Twinklehooves went off his feed when his friend Stareyes died. It was very sad,’ Polly remarked.

  ‘You go up and brush that hair. It’s disgusting,’ Mary told her.

  When we were alone she said:

  ‘I’m sure it’s something that man told him yesterday.’

  ‘Could be,’ I admitted. ‘But I don’t think so. He wasn’t at all upset yesterday evening. Anyway, if he wants to get away by himself, I think we ought to let him.’

  When I went out to get the car I found Matthew strapping a sketching-block, his paint-box, and a packet of sandwiches on to the carrier of his bicycle. I hoped the sandwiches would survive it.

  ‘Go carefully. Remember it’s Saturday,’ I told him.

  He did not come back until six o’clock, and went straight up to his room. At dinner he was still up there. I inquired.

  ‘He says he doesn’t want any,’ Mary told me. ‘He’s just lying on his bed staring at the ceiling. I’m sure he must be sickening for something.’

  I went up to see. Matthew was, as Mary had said, lying on his bed. He looked very tired.

  ‘Feeling played out, old man?’ I asked him. ‘Why don’t you get right into bed? I’ll bring you something on a tray.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No thanks, Daddy. I don’t want anything.’

  ‘You ought to have something, you know.’

  He shook his head again.

  I looked round the room. There were four pictures I had not seen before. All landscapes. Two propped up on the mantel shelf, two on the chest of drawers.

  ‘Did you do these today? May I look?’ I asked.

  I moved closer to them. One I recognized immediately, a view across Docksham Great Pond, another included a part of the pond in one corner, the third was taken from a higher point looking across a village to the Downs beyond, the fourth was like nothing I had ever seen.

  It was a view across a plain. As a background a line of rounded, ancient-looking hills, topped here and there by squat, domed towers, was set against a cloudless blue sky. In the middle-ground, to the right of centre, stood something like a very large cairn. It had the shape, though not the regularity of a heightened pyramid, nor were the stones – if stones they were – fitted together; rather they seemed, as far as one could tell from the drawing, to be boulders piled up. It could scarcely have been called a building, yet it quite certainly was not a natural formation. In the foreground were rows of things precisely spaced and arranged in curving lines – say ‘things’ because it was impossible to make out what they were; they could have been bulbous succulent plants, or haycocks, or, perhaps even, huts, there was no telling, and to make their shape more difficult to determine, each appeared to throw two shadows. From the left of the picture a wide, cleared strip ran straight as a ruler’s edge to the foot of the cairn, where it changed direction towards a bank of haze at the foot of the mountains. It was a depressing vista, all except the blue of the sky, in unrelieved browns, reds, greys, filled with a sense of aridity, and the feeling of intolerable heat.

  I was still looking at the thing, bewildered, when there was a gulp from the bed behind me. Matthew said, with difficulty:

  ‘They’re the last pictures, Daddy.’

  I turned round. His eyes were screwed up, but tears were trickling out of them. I sat down on the bed beside him and took his hand.

  ‘Matthew, boy, tell me. Tell me what the trouble is.’

  Matthew sniffed, choked, and then stammered out:

  ‘It’s Chocky, Daddy. She’s going away – for ever…’

  I heard Mary’s feet on the stairs, crossed swiftly to the door, and closed it behind me.

  ‘What is it? Is he ill?’ she asked.

  I took her arm and moved away from the door.

  ‘No. He’ll be all right,’ I told her, leading her back to the stairs.

  ‘But what is the matter?’ she insisted.

  I shook my head. When we were down in the hall, safely out of earshot of Matthew’s room I told her.

  ‘It’s Chocky. Apparently she’s leaving – clearing out.’

  ‘Well, thank goodness for that,’ Mary said.

  ‘Maybe, but don’t let him see you think that.’

  Mary considered.

  ‘I’d better take him up a tray.’

  ‘No. Leave him alone.’

  ‘But the poor boy must eat.’

  ‘I think he’s – well, saying good-bye to her – and finding it difficult and painful,’ I said.

  She looked at me uncertainly, with a puzzled frown.

  ‘But, David, you’re talking as if – I mean, Chocky isn’t real.’

  ‘To Matthew she is. And he’s taking it hard.’

  ‘All the same, I think he ought to have some food.’

  I have been astonished before, and doubtless shall be again, how the kindliest and most sympathetic of women can pettify and downgrade the searing anguishes of childhood.

  ‘Later on, perhaps,’ I said. ‘But not now.’

  Throughout the meal Polly chattered constantly and boringly of ponies. When we had got rid of her Mary asked:

  ‘I’ve been thinking. Do you think it’s something that man did?’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘That Sir William Something, of course,’ she said, impatiently. ‘After all he did hypnotize Matthew. People can be made to do all kinds of things through hypnotic suggestion. Suppose he said to Matthew, when he was in a trance: “Tomorrow you friend Chocky is going to tell you she is going away. You are going to be very sorry to say good-bye to her, but you will. Then she will leave you,

  and gradually you will forget all about her” – something like that. I don’t know much about it, but isn’t it possible that a suggestion of that kind might cure him, and clear up the whole thing?’

  ‘ “Cure him”?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I mean…’

  ‘You mean you’ve gone back to thinking Chocky is an illusion?’

  ‘Not exactly an illusion…’

  ‘Really, darling – after the swimming, after watching him at his painting last week-end, you can still think that…?’

  ‘I can still hope that. At least it’s less alarming than what your friend Landis talked about – possession. And this does seem to bear it out, doesn’t it? I mean, he goes to this Sir William man, and the very next day he tells you that Chocky is going away…’

  I had to admit that she had a point there. I wished I knew more about hypnosis in general, and Matthew’s in particular. I also wished very much that, if Sir William could contrive to expel Chocky by hypnosis, he could have contrived to do it in some way that would have caused Matthew less distress.

  In fact, I found myself displeased with Sir William. It began to look as if I had taken Matthew to him for a diagnosis – which I had not yet got – and possibly been given instead a treatment, which I had not, at this stage, requested. The more I considered it, the more unsatisfactory, not to say high-handed, it seemed.

  On our way to bed we looked into Matthew’s room in case he were feeling hungry now. There was no sound except his regular breathing, so we shut the door quietly and went away.

  The next morning, Sunday, we let him sleep on. He emerged about ten o’clock looking dazed with sleep, his eyes pink about the rims, his manner distrait, but with his appetite hugely restored.

  About half past eleven a large American car with a front like a juke-box turned
into the drive. Matthew came thundering down the stairs.

  ‘It’s Auntie Janet, Daddy. I’m off,’ he said, breathlessly, and shot down the passage to the back door.

  We had a trying day. Rather like a reception without the guest of honour – or, perhaps, a freak-show without the freak. Matthew had been wise. There was a lot of discussion, mostly one-sided, on the viability of guardian angels, and a lengthy disquisition, with illustrative anecdotes, on the characteristics of an artist in the family, presenting almost all of them as undesirable, if not actually disruptive.

  I do not know when Matthew returned. He must have come in, burgled the larder, and crept upstairs while we were talking. After they had gone I went up to his room. He was sitting looking out of the open window at the sinking sun.

  ‘You’ll have to face her sooner or later,’ I told him. ‘But I must say today was not the day. They were most disappointed not to see you.’

  Matthew managed a grin.

  I looked round. The four paintings were propped up again on display. I commented favourably on the views of Docksham Pond. When I came to the last picture I hesitated, wondering whether to ignore it. I decided not to.

  ‘Wherever is that supposed to be?’ I inquired.

  Matthew turned his head to look at it.

  ‘That’s where Chocky lives,’ he said, and paused. Then he added. ‘It’s a horrid place, isn’t it? That’s why she thinks this world is so beautiful.’

  ‘Not at all an attractive spot,’ I agreed. ‘It looks terribly hot there.’

  ‘Oh, it is in the daytime. That fuzzy bit at the back is vapour coming off a lake.’

  I pointed to the great cairn.

  ‘What is that thing?’

  ‘I don’t know, really,’ Matthew admitted.’ Sometimes she seems to mean a building, and sometimes it comes like a lot of buildings, more like a town. It’s a bit difficult without words when there isn’t anything the same here.’

  That, I felt, must considerably understate the perplexities of mentally conveying an alien concept.

  ‘And these lumps?’ I pointed to the rows of symmetrically spaced mounds.

  ‘Things that grow there,’ was all he could tell me.

  ‘Where is it?’ I asked.

  Matthew shook his head.

  ‘We still couldn’t find out – or where our world is, either,’ he said.

  I noted his use of the past tense, and looked at the picture again. The harsh monotony of the colouring, and the feeling of arid heat struck me once more.

  ‘You know, if I were you I’d keep it out of sight when you’re not here. I don’t think Mummy would like it very much.’

  Matthew nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. So I put it away today.’

  There was a pause. We looked out of the window at the red arc of sun fretted by the treetops as it set. I asked him:

  ‘Has she gone, Matthew?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy.’

  We were silent while the last rim of the sun sank down and disappeared. Matthew sniffed. His eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Oh, Daddy.… It’s like losing part of me…’

  Matthew was subdued, and perhaps a little pale the next morning, but he went off resolutely enough to school. He came back looking tired, but as the week went by he improved daily. By the end of it he seemed more like his normal self again. We were relieved; for the same reasons, but on different premises.

  ‘Well, thank goodness that’s over,’ Mary said to me on Friday evening. ‘It looks as if Sir William Thing was right after all.’

  ‘Thorbe,’ I said.

  ‘Well, Thing or Thorbe. The point is that he told you that it was just a phase, that Matthew had built up an elaborate fantasy system, that it was nothing very unusual at his age, and there was nothing for us to worry about – unless it were to become persistent. He thought that unlikely. In his opinion the fantasy would break up of itself, and disperse – probably quite soon. And that’s exactly what’s happened.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. It was the simplest way, and, after all, what did it matter now if Thorbe had been right off the beam. Chocky was, in one way or another, gone.

  Nevertheless when I had received his letter on the Tuesday, I had found it exceedingly hard to take. The swimming he dealt with by explaining that Matthew had in fact learned to swim some time before, but a deep-seated fear of the water had caused him to suppress the ability, thus rendering it merely latent. This dormancy had persisted until the shock of the emergency caused by his sudden immersion had broken down the mental block, and allowed the latent ability to manifest itself. Naturally, his conscious mind remained ignorant of the inhibiting block, and had attributed the ability to an extraneous influence.

  Rather similarly with the pictures. Undoubtedly Matthew had in his subconscious mind a strong desire to paint. This had remained suppressed, quite possibly as a result of terror inspired in him by the sight of horrifying pictures at an early age. Only when his present fantasy had grown potent enough to affect both his conscious and his subconscious minds, forming, as it were, a bridge between them, had the urge to paint become liberated and capable of expressing itself in action.

  There were explanations of the car incident, and others, along roughly the same lines. And though much of what I considered worthy of attention had been ignored I had little doubt he could have explained that away, too, upon request.

  It was not only one of the most disappointing letters I have ever waited for; it was insulting in the naive smoothness of its elucidations, and patronizing in its reassurances. I was furious that Mary could take it at face value; still more furious that events appeared to justify her in doing so. I realized that I had expected a lot from Thorbe: I felt that all I had got was a brush-off, and a let-down.

  And yet the fellow had been right.… The Chocky-presence had dispersed, as he put it. The Chocky-trauma seemed to be mending – though I felt less sure of that…

  So I contented myself with a simple ‘yes’, and let Mary go on telling me in as sympathetic a way as possible how wrong I had been to perceive subtle complexities in what had, after all, turned out to be just a rather more developed, and certainly more troublesome, version of Piff. It did her quite a lot of good. So, fair enough.

  I had always thought from the evidence of newspapers that Societies, particularly Royal ones of this and that, must spend some considerable time in serious conclave checking upon the standing of commenders, the credibility of eye-witnesses, the authenticity of the represented circumstances, and the moral integrity of everyone connected with the event before they would sanction the presentation of one of their precious awards. All this, I reckoned, might take an authenticating minimum of six months, whereafter one might expect that sooner or later the recipient would be summoned to a presentation in the presence of the Council, this may be the procedure in some Societies: it is not so, however, with the Royal Swimming Society.

  Their tribute arrived unheralded, and prosaically by registered post on the Monday morning addressed to Mr Matthew Gore. Unfortunately I was unable to intercept it. Mary signed for it, and when Matthew and I arrived in the dining-room together it was lying beside his plate.

  Matthew glanced at the envelope, stiffened and sat quite still looking at it for some moments. Then he turned to his cornflakes. I tried to catch Mary’s eye, but in vain. She leant forward.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ she asked, encouragingly.

  Matthew looked at it again. His eyes roved round the table, looking for an escape. They encountered his mother’s expectant expression. Very reluctantly he picked up his knife and slit the envelope. A small red, leather-covered box slid out. He hesitated again. Slowly he picked it up, and opened it. For some seconds he was motionless, gazing at the golden disc gleaming in its bed of blue velvet. Then:

  ‘I don’t want it,’ he blurted.

  This time I did manage to catch Mary’s eye, and gave a slight shake of my head.

  Matthew’s lower lip came out a litt
le. It shook slightly.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ he said. ‘It’s Chocky’s – she saved me and Polly It’s not true, Daddy…’

  He went on looking at the medal, head down. I felt a poignant memory of those desolate patches of disillusion which are the shocks of growing up. The discovery that one lived in a world which could pay honour where honour was not due, was just such a one. The values were rocked, the dependable was suddenly flimsy, the solid became hollow, gold turned to brass, there was no integrity anywhere…

  Matthew got up, and ran blindly out of the room. The medal, gaudily shining in its case, lay on the table.

  I picked it up. The obverse was a trifle florid. The Society’s name in full ran round the edge, then there was a band of involved ornament with a suggestion of debased art-nouveau, in the centre a boy and a girl standing hand in hand looking at half a sun which radiated vigorously, presumably in the act of rising.

  I turned it over. The reverse was plainer. Simply an inscription within a circular wreath of laurel leaves. Above:

  AWARDED TO

  then, engraved in a different type-face:

  MATTHEW GORE

  and, finally, the all-purpose laudation:

  FOR A VALOROUS DEED

  I handed it to Mary.

  She examined it thoughtfully for some moments, and then put it back in its case.

  ‘It’s a shame he’s taken it like that,’ she said.

  I picked up the case, and slipped it into my pocket.

  ‘It’s unfortunate it arrived just now,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll keep it for him until later on.’

  Mary looked as if she might demur, but at that moment Polly arrived babbling, and anxious not to be late for school.

  I looked upstairs before I left, but Matthew had already gone – and left his books of homework lying on the table…

  He turned up again about half past six, just after I had got home.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘and where have you been all day?’

  ‘Walking,’ he told me.

  I shook my head.

  ‘It won’t do, Matthew, you know. You can’t just go cutting school like that.’

  ‘I know,’ he agreed.