The Day of the Triffids(7)

“I’m from the hospital,” I said. “I want a drink.”

“Don’ ’member y’r voice. Can you see?”

“Yes,” I told him.

“Well, then, for God’s sake get over the bar, Doc, and find me a bottle of whisky.”

“I’m doctor enough for that,” I said.

I climbed across and went round the corner. A large-bellied, red-faced man with a graying walrus mustache stood there clad only in trousers and a collarless shirt. He was pretty drunk. He seemed undecided whether to open the bottle he held in his hand or to use it as a weapon.

“?’F you’re not a doctor, what are you?” he demanded suspiciously.

“I was a patient—but I need a drink as much as any doctor,” I said. “That’s gin again you’ve got there,” I added.

“Oh, is it! Damned gin,” he said, and slung it away. It went through the window with a lively crash.

“Give me that corkscrew,” I told him.

I took down a bottle of whisky from the shelf, opened it, and handed it to him with a glass. For myself I chose a stiff brandy with very little soda, and then another. After that my hand wasn’t shaking so much.

I looked at my companion. He was taking his whisky neat, out of the bottle.

“You’ll get drunk,” I said.

He paused and turned his head toward me. I could have sworn that his eyes really saw me.

“Get drunk! Damn it, I am drunk,” he said scornfully.

He was so perfectly right that I didn’t comment. He brooded a moment before he announced:

“Gotta get drunker. Gotta get mush drunker.” He leaned closer. “D’you know what? I’m blind. Thash what I am—blind’s a bat. Everybody’s blind’s a bat. ’Cept you. Why aren’t you blind’s a bat?”

“I don’t know,” I told him.

“?’S that bloody comet. Thash what done it. Green shootin’ shtarsh—an’ now everyone’s blind’s a bat. D’ju shee green shootin’ shtarsh?”

“No,” I admitted.

“There you are. Proves it. You didn’t see ’em: you aren’t blind. Everyone else saw ’em”—he waved an expressive arm—“all’s blind’s bats. Bloody comets, I say.”

I poured myself a third brandy, wondering whether there might not be something in what he was saying.

“Everyone blind?” I repeated.

“Thash it. All of ’em. Prob’ly everyone in th’world—’cept you,” he added as an afterthought.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“?’S’easy. Listen!” he said.

We stood side by side, leaning on the bar of the dingy pub, and listened. There was nothing to be heard—nothing but the rustle of a dirty newspaper blown down the empty street. Such a quietness held everything as cannot have been known in those parts for a thousand years and more.

“See what I mean? ’S’obvious,” said the man.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “Yes—I see what you mean.”

I decided that I must get along. I did not know where to. But I must find out more about what was happening.

“Are you the landlord?” I asked him.

“Wha’ ’f I am?” he demanded defensively.

“Only that I’ve got to pay someone for three double brandies.”

“Ah—forget it.”

“But look here——”

“Forget it, I tell you. D’ju know why? ’Cause what’s the good ’f money to a dead man? An’ thash what I am—’s good as. Jus’ a few more drinks.”

He looked a pretty robust specimen for his age, and I said so.

“Wha’s good of living blind’s a bat?” he demanded aggressively. “Thash what my wife said. An’ she was right—only she’s more guts than I have. When she found as the kids was blind too, what did she do? Took ’em into our bed with her and turned on the gas. Thash what she done. An’ I hadn’t the guts to stick with ’em. She’s got pluck, my wife, more’n I have. But I will have soon. I’m goin’ back up there soon—when I’m drunk enough.”

What was there to say? What I did say served no purpose, save to spoil his temper. In the end he groped his way to the stairs and disappeared up them, bottle in hand. I didn’t try to stop him or follow him. I watched him go. Then I knocked off the last of my brandy and went out into the silent street.





THE COMING OF THE TRIFFIDS


This is a personal record. It involves a great deal that has vanished forever, but I can’t tell it in any other way than by using the words we used to use for those vanished things, so they have to stand. But even to make the setting intelligible I find that I shall have to go back farther than the point at which I started.



* * *



—

When I, William Masen, was a child we lived, my father, my mother, and myself, in a southern suburb of London. We had a small house which my father supported by conscientious daily attendance at his desk in the Inland Revenue Department, and a small garden at which he worked rather harder during the summer. There was not a lot to distinguish us from the ten or twelve million other people who used to live in and around London in those days.