The Year's Best Science Fiction 9

MR. WATERMAN Peter Redgrave

“Now, we’re quite private in here. You can tell me your troubles. The pond I think you said . . .”

“We never really liked that pond in the garden. At times it was choked with a sort of weed, which, if you pulled one thread, gleefully unraveled until you had an empty basin before you and the whole of the pond in a soaking heap at your side. Then at other times it was as clear as gin, and lay in the grass staring upwards. If you came anywhere near, the gaze shifted sideways, and it was you that was being stared at, not the empty sky. If you were so bold as to come right up to the edge, swaggering and talking loudly to show you were not afraid, it presented you with so perfect a reflection that you stayed there spellbound and nearly missed dinner getting to know yourself. It had hypnotic powers.”

“Very well. Then what happened?”

“Near the pond was a small bell hung on a bracket, which the milkman used to ring as he went to tell us upstairs in the bedroom that we could go down and make the early-morning tea. This bell was near a little avenue of rose trees. One morning, very early indeed, it tinged loudly and when I looked out I saw that the empty bottles we had put out the night before were full of bright green pond-water. I had to go down and empty them before the milkman arrived. This was only the beginning. One evening I was astounded to find a brace of starfish coupling on the ornamental stone step of the pool, and, looking up, my cry to my wife to come and look was stifled by the sight of a light peppering of barnacles on the stems of the rose trees. The vermin had evidently crept there, taking advantage of the thin film of moisture on the ground after the recent very wet weather. I dipped a finger into the pond and tasted it: it was brackish.”

“But it got worse.”

“It got worse: one night of howling wind and tempestuous rain I heard muffled voices outside shouting in rural tones: ‘Belay there, you lubbers!’ ‘Box the foresail capstan!’ ‘A line! A line! Give me a line there, for Davy Jones’ sake!’ and a great creaking of timbers. In the morning, there was the garden-seat, which was too big to float, dragged tilting into the pond, half in and half out.”

“But you could put up with all this. How did the change come about?”

“It was getting playful, obviously, and inventive, if ill-informed, and might have got dangerous. I decided to treat it with the consideration and dignity which it would probably later have insisted on, and I invited it in as a lodger, bedding it up in the old bathroom. At first I thought I would have to run canvas troughs up the stairs so it could get to its room without soaking the carpet, and I removed the flap from the letter box so it would be free to come and go, but it soon learnt to keep its form quite well, and get about in mackintosh and galoshes, opening doors with gloved fingers.”

“Until a week ago . . .”

“A week ago it started sitting with us in the lounge (and the electric fire had to be turned off, as the windows kept on steaming up). It had accidentally included a goldfish in its body, and when the goggling dolt swam up the neck into the crystal-clear head, it dipped its hand in and fumbled about with many ripples and grimaces, plucked it out, and offered the fish to my wife, with a polite nod. She was just about to go into the kitchen and cook the supper, but I explained quickly that goldfish were bitter to eat, and he put it back. However, I was going to give him a big plate of ice cubes, which he would have popped into his head and enjoyed sucking, although his real tipple is distilled water, while we watched television, but he didn’t seem to want anything. I suppose he thinks he’s big enough already.”

“Free board and lodging, eh?”

“I don’t know what rent to charge him. I thought I might ask him to join the river for a spell and bring us back some of the money that abounds there: purses lost overboard from pleasure steamers, rotting away in the mud, and so forth. But he has grown very intolerant of dirt, and might find it difficult to get clean again. Even worse, he might not be able to free himself from his rough dirty cousins, and come roaring back as an impossible green seething giant, tall as the river upended, buckling into the sky, and swamp us and the whole village as well. I shudder to think what would happen if he got as far as the sea, his spiritual home: the country would be in danger. I am at my wits’ end for he is idle, and lounges about all day.”

“Well, that’s harmless enough . . .”

“If he’s not lounging, he toys with his shape, restlessly. Stripping off his waterproof, he is a charming dolls’-house of glass, with doors and windows opening and shutting; a tree that thrusts up and fills the room; a terrifying shark-shape that darts about between the legs of the furniture, or lurks in the shadows of the room, gleaming in the light of the television tube; a fountain that blooms without spilling a drop; or, and this image constantly recurs, a very small man with a very large head and streaming eyes, who gazes mournfully up at my wife (she takes no notice), and collapses suddenly into his tears with a sob and a gulp. Domestic, pastoral-phallic, maritime-ghastly, stately-gracious or grotesque-pathetic: he rings the changes on a gamut of moods, showing off, while I have to sit aside slumped in my armchair unable to compete, reflecting what feats he may be able to accomplish in due course with his body, what titillating shapes impose, what exaggerated parts deploy, under his mackintosh. I dread the time (for it will come) when I shall arrive home unexpectedly early, and hear a sudden scuffle away in the waste pipes, and find my wife (‘Just out of the shower, dear’) with that moist look in her eyes, drying her hair: and then to hear him swaggering in from the garden drains, talking loudly about his day’s excursion, as if nothing at all had been going on. For he learns greater charm each day, this Mr. Waterman, and can be as stubborn as winter and gentle as the warm rains of spring.”

“I should say that you have a real problem there, but it’s too early for a solution yet, until I know you better. Go away, take a week off from the office, spend your time with your wife, relax, eat plenty of nourishing meals, plenty of sex and sleep. Then come and see me again. Good afternoon.

“The next patient, nurse. Ah, Mr. Waterman. Sit down, please. Does the gas fire trouble you? No? I can turn it off if you wish. Well now, we’re quite private in here. You can tell me your troubles. A married, air-breathing woman, I think you said . . .”