Technical Slip“Prendergast,” said the Departmental Director, briskly, “there’ll be that Contract XB2S23 business arising today. Look after it, will you?”
“Very good, sir.”
•
Robert Finnerson lay dying. Two or three times before he had been under the impression that he might be dying. He had been frightened, and blusterously opposed to the idea; but this time it was different: he did not bluster, for he had no doubt that the time had come. Even so, he was still opposed; it was under marked protest that he acknowledged the imminence of the nonsensical arrangement.
It was so absurd to die at sixty, anyway, and, as he saw it, it would be even more wasteful to die at eighty. A scheme of things in which the wisdom acquired in living was simply scrapped in this way was, to say the least, grossly inefficient. What did it mean? That somebody else would have to go through the process of learning all that life had already taken sixty years to teach him; and then be similarly scrapped in the end. No wonder the race was slow in getting anywhere—if, indeed, it were getting anywhere—with this cat-and-mouse, ten-forward-and-nine-back system.
Lying back on one’s pillows and waiting for the end in the quiet, dim room, the whole ground plan of existence appeared to suffer from a basic futility of conception. It was a matter to which some of these illustrious scientists might well pay more attention—only, of course, they were always too busy fiddling with less important matters; until they came to his present pass, when they would find it was too late to do anything about it.
Since his reflections had revolved thus purposelessly, and several times, upon somewhat elliptical orbits, it was not possible for him to determine at what stage of them he became aware that he was no longer alone in the room. The feeling simply grew that there was someone else there, and he turned his head on the pillow to see who it might be. The thin clerkly man whom he found himself regarding, was unknown to him, and yet, somehow, unsurprising.
“Who are you?” Robert Finnerson asked him.
The man did not reply immediately. He looked about Robert’s own age, with a face, kindly but undistinguished, beneath hair that had thinned and grayed. His manner was diffident, but the eyes which regarded Robert through modest gold-rimmed spectacles were observant.
“Pray do not be alarmed, Mr. Finnerson,” he requested.
“I’m not at all alarmed,” Robert told him testily. “I simply asked who you are.”
“My name is Prendergast—not, of course, that that matters—”
“Never heard of you. What do you want?”
Prendergast told him modestly: “My employers wish to lay a proposition before you, Mr. Finnerson.”
“Too late now for propositions,” Robert replied shortly.
“Ah, yes, for most propositions, of course, but I think this one may interest you.”
“I don’t see how—all right, what is it?”
“Well, Mr. Finnerson, we—that is, my employers—find that you are—er—scheduled for demise on April 20, 1963. That is, of course, tomorrow.”
“Indeed,” said Robert calmly, and with a feeling that he should have been more surprised than he felt. “I had come to much the same conclusion myself.”
“Quite sir,” agreed the other. “But our information also is that you are opposed to this—er—schedule.”
“Indeed!” repeated Mr. Finnerson. “How subtle! If that’s all you have to tell me, Mr. Pendlebuss——”
“Prendergast, sir. No, that is just by way of assuring you of our grasp of the situation. We are also aware that you are a man of considerable means; and, well, there’s an old saying that ‘you can’t take it with you,’ Mr. Finnerson.”
Robert Finnerson looked at his visitor more closely.
“Just what are you getting at?” he said.
“Simply this, Mr. Finnerson. My firm is in a position to offer a revision of schedule—for a consideration.”
Robert was already far enough from his normal for the improbable to have shed its improbability. It did not occur to him to question its possibility. He said, “What revision—and what consideration?”
“Well, there are several alternative forms,” explained Prendergast, “but the one we recommend for your consideration is our Reversion Policy. It is quite our most comprehensive benefit—introduced originally on account of the large numbers of persons in positions similar to yours who were noticed to express the wish ‘if only I had my life over again.’ ”
“I see,” said Robert, and indeed he did. The fact that he had read somewhere or other of legendary bargains of the kind went a long way to disperse the unreality of the situation. “And the catch is?” he added.
Prendergast allowed a trace of disapproval to show.
“The consideration,” he said, with some slight stress upon the word. “The consideration in respect of a Revision is a down-payment to us of seventy-five percent of your present capital.”
“Seventy-five percent! What is this firm of yours?”
Prendergast shook his head.
“You would not recall it, but it is a very old-established concern. We have had—and do have—numbers of notable clients. In the old days we used to work on a basis of—well—I suppose you would call it barter. But with the rise of commerce we changed our methods. We have found it much more convenient to have investable capital than to accumulate souls—especially at their present depressed market value. It is a great improvement in all ways. We benefit considerably, and it costs you nothing but money you must lose anyway—and you are still entitled to call your soul your own: as far, that is, as the law of the land permits. Your heirs will be a trifle disappointed, that’s all.”
The last was not a consideration to distress Robert.
“My heirs are round the house like vultures now,” he said. “I don’t in the least mind their having a little shock. Let’s get down to details, Mr. Snodgrass.”
“Prendergast,” said the visitor, patiently. “Well now, the usual method of payment is this . . .”
•
It was a whim, or what appeared to be a whim, which impelled Mr. Finnerson to visit Sands Square. Many years had passed since he had seen it, and though the thought of a visit had risen from time to time there had seemed never to be the leisure. But now in the convalescence following the remarkable, indeed, miraculous recovery which had given such disappointment to his relatives, he found himself for the first time in years with an abundance of spare hours on his hands.
He dismissed the taxi at the corner of the square, and stood for some minutes surveying the scene with mixed feelings. It was both smaller and shabbier than his memory of it. Smaller, partly because most things seem smaller when revisited after a stretch of years, and partly because the whole of the south side including the house which had been his home was now occupied by an overbearing block of offices: shabbier because the new block emphasized the decrepitude of those Georgian terraces which had survived the bombs and had therefore had to outlast their expected span by twenty or thirty years.
But if most things had shrunk, the plane trees now freshly in leaf had grown considerably, seeming to crowd the sky with their branches, though there were fewer of them. A change was the bright banks of tulips in well-tended beds which had grown nothing but tired-looking laurels before. Greatest change of all, the garden was no longer forbidden to all but residents, for the iron railing, so long employed in protecting the privilege, had gone for scrap in 1941, and never been replaced.
In a recollective mood and with a trace of melancholy, Mr. Finnerson crossed the road and began to stroll again along the once familiar paths. It pleased and yet saddened him to discover the semi-concealed gardener’s shed looking just as it had looked fifty years ago. It displeased him to notice the absence of the circular seat which used to surround the trunk of a familiar tree. He wandered on, noting this and remembering that, but in general remembering too much, and beginning to regret that he had come. The garden was pleasant—better looked after than it had been—but, for him, too full of ghosts. Overall there was a sadness of glory lost, with shabbiness surrounding.
Copyright © 2024 by John Wyndham. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
