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

for evensong. What on earth were they likely to make of Mr Phibson’s claims about a visitation from the Devil?
    Maybe they just wanted to see him lose his mind again. It wasn’t every day a priest went crazy …
    Lord, how come this village was making him so cynical so soon?
    Dead leaves rustled around his feet as he trudged across the green back to the Doctor’s House. During his stay he had the use of the family’s guestroom, fending for himself in the kitchen of a morning, taking a snack lunch at the Bridge Hotel and his evening meal with Mr and Mrs Weaper, who lived half a mile from the green on the Fooksey road.
    Mrs Weaper was far from an outstanding cook. But it was not the prospect of indigestion that made Steven so apprehensive about heading for the Weaper’s now. It was the reception he could picture in his mind.
    Should he brazen things out with affected defiance? After all, if a parson could blame his lapse on the Devil, a doctor ought to be able to find some equivalent excuse. Suppose, for instance, he were to bark: ‘Mrs Weaper! Kindly do not remind me again of the fact that both Mr Ratch and yourself seem to be woefully unacquainted with certain medical techniques of, I must say, respectable antiquity!’
    (By that time, with luck, she would be blinking at himbehind her glasses, totally at a loss.)
    ‘Gaining the patient’s confidence in what one prescribes is half the battle! I can hardly expect Mr Cashcart to feel much confidence in me after a mere pharmacist took it on himself to overrule my judgment! Be so kind as to inform him that he doesn’t know everything!’
    For a second he convinced himself that it might work. Then the picture in his imagination wavered and blurred, and he heard the sound of mocking laughter.
    Sighing, he felt for his door-key.
    At that moment, however, a car pulled up behind him, and a clear high voice called, ‘Excuse me!’
    He turned to see, getting out of a blue Mini, a blonde girl wearing a denim jacket, jeans and a black sweater.
    ‘You’re Dr Gloze, aren’t you? Look, I know I haven’t made an appointment, and I’m not even a patient here – I go to Dr Grail in Chapminster. But …’ She hesitated, twisting her ring of car-keys round and round. Then, in a rush: ‘I’ve got to talk to somebody! I’m afraid of losing my mind!’
    Oh no. Not another of us!
    Steven had been about to say, by reflex, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no surgery this evening.’ He cancelled the words because by this time he had taken a proper look at her. She stood some five foot three, with bright blue eyes and short and curly hair. Her round face was innocent of make-up, which he hated. She was not so much plump as – he sought the right word – chubby. His hands desired at once to curve around her …
Stop!
    There had been something familiar about her voice. He said slowly, ‘You know who I am. May I know who you are?’
    ‘My name’s Jenny Severance. I work for the
Chapminster Chronicle.
Actually we spoke on the phone on Monday, do you remember? I put a bit about your standing in for Dr Tripkin in this week’s issue. It’ll be out tomorrow.’ She was talking much too fast, and her hands kept folding and unfoldinground those keys.
    Suddenly Steven felt reckless.
    ‘Miss Severance, how long have you been imagining that you might be losing your mind?’
    ‘Well’ – a pass of a delectable pink tongue over equally pink lips – ‘only since this morning, to be honest. I did something stupid that I scarcely remember. Now, it’s as vague as though I’d dreamed the whole thing. But I didn’t! It’s left too many traces in reality!’
    ‘And what, as a doctor, would you expect me to do for you if I did have a surgery this evening? Send you to hospital? Listen to you for a while, pretending not to yawn, and pack you off home with a bottle of tranquillizers? Or what?’
    His tone was sharper than he had intended. She turned away with a sigh.
    ‘I’m sorry to be a