Read Online The Shift Key by John Brunner - Free Book Online

language!’
    Mr Phibson rose to pour more sherry for them both. Resuming his chair, he said, ‘I feel much the same. Therewas one mischief-maker in this morning’s congregation who took it on himself, or herself, to phone my archdeacon, who then phoned me. Unless I can plead my way out of it, I could find myself arraigned before an ecclesiastical court. What an end that would be to my career, undistinguished though it may have been!’
    Steven, cradling his glass, blinked in amazement.
    ‘Do they still do that sort of thing? I mean, heresy trials and all that?’
    ‘I assure you they do. This Church of ours isn’t called “established” without reason. But – Ah, you said you’re not religious.’
    Steven hesitated. At length he muttered, sounding embarrassed, ‘I lost my faith when I first had to tend an injured baby. She was in a car that crashed and caught on fire. She went on crying till her strength was spent, and then she died.’
    ‘Hearing you say that,’ said Mr Phibson, ‘brings to mind not so much the heretical beliefs that this morning I felt convinced my congregation shared, as the conclusion I find myself being driven to this evening, concerning the all-too-concrete reality of evil as a Power.’ He contrived to make the capital letter audible. ‘I plan to address that subject at evensong, and again on Sunday when I can expect a somewhat larger – ah – audience … But you didn’t come to hear my plaints. It is clear that you are deeply troubled. Though a weak unworthy vessel, can I help?’
    Gazing at the carpet, Steven said, ‘Did Mr Ratch explain exactly what I did?’
    ‘He said something about telling someone – let me see – to plunge his hand into a new-killed chicken.’
    ‘That’s correct.’ Steven drained his glass with a gesture like a blow to an enemy. ‘Later, though, I remembered where I got it from! It’s real!’
    Mr Phibson stared. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘It
isn’t
a real treatment for arthritis! But it
was!
It wasprescribed for Schumann! I was listening to a concert on Radio 3 yesterday, and the fact was mentioned. That’s what made me think of it when Mr Cashcart turned up! But how on earth I could have been so – so deluded … That’s what I can’t understand!’
    There was a pause, silent save for the ticking on the mantelshelf of a Victorian clock in a carved ebony case.
    ‘I don’t know much about music,’ Mr Phibson said at last. ‘It’s one of your interests, is it?’
    ‘I suppose you’d say so.’
    Then you should be introduced to our choral group, if they haven’t cornered you already … Excuse me: I’m digressing. But, you know, everything you’ve so far said confirms me in the view I’ve tentatively reached.’
    ‘Which is –?’
    ‘Let me offer a little more evidence before I explain in detail. Were you called to attend Mrs Flaken this morning?’
    ‘I haven’t been called to attend anybody today,’ was Steven’s bitter answer. ‘Word of my ridiculous mistake got around so fast, thanks presumably to Mr Ratch and/or Mrs Weaper – Wait: that’s not quite true.’ Suddenly he seemed fully alert. ‘I did have to wipe the blood off a couple of local farmers who’d been fighting. I sent one of them to hospital; his nose was broken.’
    ‘That would have been Ken Pecklow and Harry Vikes,’ the parson said. ‘I heard about their – their contretemps. But you weren’t told about Mary Flaken?’
    ‘I never even heard the name.’
    ‘Scarcely surprising … But suppose I were to say – Oh, this wasn’t in a confessional context, and besides, dozens of people must have heard her say the same by now. Suppose I were to tell you that she came to me in tears at lunchtime and admitted being plagued by jealousy because her oldest friend from school married the man she’d set her own heart on … and now lives next door.’
    He was pacing his exposition according to the reaction he read on Steven’s face.
    ‘And woke up today