Free The Best of Gerald Kersh by Gerald Kersh

believe, we refer to my condition then as a ‘nervous breakdown’. I was put to bed and given opiates and sedatives – bromide of this, bromide of that. But always, when the world slipped away, and I slid out of it into the cool dark, I was snatched out of my black, drugged peace by fantastic nightmares.
    In these, invariably, my Uncle Arnold appeared, curiously blue in the face and unpleasantly bloated, wheezing : ‘Give me credit for it, Rod, my boy – never dreamed you had it in you to kill your old uncle! … But you ought to have done it with a poker, or even the paper-knife , face-to-face like a man … I could have forgiven you for that, Rod. But yours was a woman’s trick, a poisoner’s trick…. I’ll lime you for that, my fine-feathered friend – I’ll give you a taste of your own medicine – I’ll give you a dose of your own poison, you woman, you!’
    Then my uncle coughed himself into dissolution, and I awoke with a loud cry.
    I might have lain there for a week or more; only on the third morning there came a telegram from Mavis, saying that she was arriving at Victoria Station by the boat train from Paris the following day. I got out of bed at once, and made myself presentable, and was pacing the platform a good hour before the train came in. She was more beautiful than ever. ‘Oh, Mavis, Mavis!’ I cried, kissing her.
    To my horror and astonishment, her eyes filled with tears, and her chest heaved in a fit of coughing that sounded like thin steel chains being shaken in a cardboard box. ‘For God’s sake go away!’ she said, as soon as she could talk. ‘You make me ill!’
    I am too tired to write more. What Mavis said is true. Literally, I make her ill. I understand, now, the sudden violent emotion of the woman who gave Mavis her blood in that transfusion – Solomona, her name was, I think. I have inquired since, and tests have been made. Solomona is violently allergic to my kind of red hair.
    Therefore Mavis, who is all I have to live for, finds that my presence is poisonous to her. So she has left me, and I am dreadfully alone.
    It is impossible for her to live with me. But it is impossible for me to live without her.
    I see no occasion further to prolong my existence.
    With this, I end the narrative of my confession: God is just.

The Crewel Needle
    C ERTAIN others I know, in my position, sir, have gone out of their minds – took to parading the streets with banners, and what not, shouting UNFAIR !Well, thank God, I was always steady-minded. I could always see the other side of things. So, although I really was unjustly dismissed the Force, I could still keep my balance. I could see the reason for the injustice behind my dismissal , and could get around to blaming myself for not keeping my silly mouth shut.
    Actually, you know, I wasn’t really sacked. I was told that if I wanted to keep what there was of my pension, I had better resign on grounds of ill-health. So I did, and serve me right. I should never have made my statement without first having my evidence corroborated. However , no bitterness – that ends badly, mark my words. Justifiable or unjustifiable, bitterness leads to prejudice, which, carried far enough, is the same thing as madness. … I started life in the Army, d’you see, where you learn to digest a bit of injustice here and there; because, if you do not, it gets you down and you go doolally.
    Many is the good man I’ve known who has ruined himself by expecting too much justice. Now I ask you, what sane man in this world really expects to get what he properly deserves? Right or wrong?
    If I had been thirty years wiser thirty years ago, I might have been retired now on an Inspector’s pension.Only, in the matter of an Open Verdict, I didn’t have the sense to say nothing. I was young and foolish, d’you see, and therefore over-eager. There was a girl I was very keen on, and I was anxious to better myself – she was used to something a cut above what I could offer