The Best of Gerald Kersh

In a Room Without Walls

‘IF it could only be like this for ever!’ said the quiet girl called Linda, looking over Jimmy’s shoulder at the dim grey face of the clock. ‘Oh, Jimmy, this is heaven! How happy I am! What can I have done, to deserve such happiness?’

She felt Jimmy smiling. ‘Are you happy too?’ she asked Jimmy. He nodded, observing the reflection of the clock face in the long mirror on the wardrobe door. He had been grimacing.

Last year, he thought chafing and trying not to fidget, I made a hundred and four thousand five hundred pounds. All that money in three hundred and sixty-five days. It works out at … what? … Twelve-pound-ten an hour. I have given this girl twenty-five pounds’ worth of my time, at that rate. Four shillings and twopence a minute – nearly a penny a second. I’ve thrown away twenty-five pounds, being gracious to Linda for two hours. And she talks of this going on for ever – for ever, at a penny a second! There isn’t that much money in the world!

Linda, with a luminous glory behind her somewhat faded face, closed her eyes and, resting her chin upon his shoulder and caressing his cheek with her forehead, said: ‘How sweet, Jimmy! How sweet! How can I ever tell you how grateful I am to you for making me so happy? Ah, my dear darling – now, just now, do you know what? I’m so full of love and happiness that another tiny bit would be too much … I’d die. But this is Heaven: I’ll never want any Heaven but this – to be here, with you, exactly like this, loving you as I do and knowing that you love me. You do love me?’

Jimmy was inclined to say: ‘Oh, nonsense! Love? Ha! You? Bah! What, me? Love you? Who are you? A laundress. I am Jimmy – you know who I am – Jimmy the Star. I could have world-famous actresses, take my choice of the beauties of five continents. The world is mine, and all the women in it. Titled women, even. Because a whim takes hold of me, and I beckon to a poor pale creature in a clutching crowd of infatuated fans – because I, like a god, confer upon you the glory of my intimacy for a moment you talk of love? Love? My love? For you? At four-and-twopence a second, do you realise what a lingering look is worth?’

But he said: ‘Of course I love you,’ and he looked at the reversed reflection of the clock that told the time.

‘All my life,’ said Linda, ‘all my life I’ve dreamt of such a moment. Don’t laugh – I felt somehow that it might happen to me. I never dared to say to anybody that I had a dream of love. They would have laughed; I’m so plain and ordinary, Oh, dear God, but I love you, Jimmy! You’re too good for me!’

In spite of his seething distaste, Jimmy muttered: ‘Nothing of the sort. Charming girl!’

‘Ah, my own dear love! My dream-come-true! Do you know what? I believe you if you say so. I believe! I believe! I believe in you. This morning I was washing sheets, and you were only a picture, a splendid vision. And now I’m here, with you, in your arms, hearing you telling me you love me. There is a God! Where is yesterday? Where is the grey when the sunlight bleaches it away? Why do you love me?’

‘Sweet,’ said Jimmy, with his eye on the time. The movement of the big hand was worth thirty-four shillings an inch.

He was in an ecstasy of boredom and visitation. Oh, to be rid of this ridiculously happy woman! he thought. Why did I do it? Why? Why?

‘Tell me why you love me,’ she said. ‘No, never mind. Just say it again.’

What was Jimmy to say? If he could have said: ‘I only said so to please you. It tickled my vanity to beckon you out of the mob around the stage door. You helped me to condescend, you made me feel greater’ – then he would have been talking like an honest man. If he had had the courage to say: ‘You were such a whole-hearted worshipper that I wanted to be a god,’ then he would not have been where he was at that moment. If he could have told the truth he would have been an honest man – not a man in anguish, caressing a woman with his hand while he gritted his teeth and watched the clock.

But he said: ‘Of course I love you!’

There was a silence: it seemed to cling to his ears for a lifetime. Then it came away with a sort of thick sucking noise, and he heard the sharp tick of the round white clock. His face looked drawn in the darkening mirror. He had a desperate yearning to speak a little truth.

‘And you promise to stay with me always?’ Linda asked.

He had meant to say ‘No,’ but heard himself muttering: ‘Mm.’

‘Jimmy! Hold me!’

Although he had intended to get up and go away, Jimmy found himself embracing Linda and looking into her eyes.

‘Always?’ she whispered.

He answered: ‘Always.’ Candour stuck in his throat.

‘Oh, Jimmy, if this could go on for ever!’

Unutterably weary, he muttered: ‘Uh-uh; sure!’ He was sick, sick to the heart, of pent-up truth.

‘Did you say “sure”? Do you mean it?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you say you mean it, I know you mean it,’ said Linda. ‘Dearest, there is a God. There is a Heaven!’

‘Oh yes, yes. Sure, sure,’ said Jimmy, with a half-laugh. ‘This is Heaven, isn’t it?’

He shifted, meaning to pull himself away from her. Something happened; he moved in the wrong direction. Linda was in his arms.

‘It is! It is!’ she whispered.

He sneered. ‘And hell? Where’s hell?’

Something comparable to a bladder, a grey strained veinous membrane, seemed to burst in a splash of pure, cold light. Out of the indefinable centre of this light a grave, clear voice said: ‘Think!’

Jimmy looked at the clock. Its hands still marked seven minutes to four of a drizzling February afternoon.

He remembered that there had been a judgement, a hundred thousand years ago. Linda, on his shoulder, had achieved paradise; and he was damned. And for all eternity the clock had stopped.