Wonderful Short Stories Read online

  ‘I don’t know about such matters,’ declared Helen frankly. ‘Both my parents died when I was six years old so I have no recollection of spirits remaining in the house where the people actually lived during their lives.’

  ‘What I’m saying is that if my husband’s spirit leaves shortly, the shirt will just be a shirt again.’

  ‘Unless the spirit remains permanently,’ countered Helen with consternation appearing on her face.

  ‘I can hardly believe what you’re saying,’ continued the woman. ‘My husband’s spirit in a shirt? It beggars belief.’

  ‘You ought to see the change in my husband. It’s quite phenomenal. We’ve been married almost twenty-five years. Normally, he’s silent and unambitious, without any passion. Suddenly, when he dons on that shirt, he’s assertive, intelligent and passionate. With due respect, your husband must have been some kind of man because Norman becomes endowed with all the virtues and vices possessed by him.’

  ‘Well he was brilliant in his field and very passionate even up to the last,’ admitted the woman willingly. ‘I miss him very much. Tell me, what are you going to do about the shirt?’

  Helen pulled a face as a series of thoughts passed through her mind. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll have to think about it. I truly will.’

  She left the house deeply troubled and made her way home. Should she tell her husband about the visit or not? Would he appreciate the fact that she had traced the origin of the garment? She doubted it strongly. He didn’t seem to realise the change in him when he wore the shirt. But how would he react to the assumption that the spirit of a dead man rested with the item? Surely, he would scoff at such an idea.

  When her husband came home, she told him that the shirt was too dirty for him to wear and that she had put it in the wash. He seemed a little put out but the matter soon faded from his mind. As usual, they spent the evening in silence watching television and then went to bed.

  Helen tossed and turned for most of the night trying to cope with the problem of making up her mind what to do about the situation. She awoke tiredly the next morning and went downstairs to make breakfast. Norman followed her and sat quietly reading the daily newspaper which had been delivered earlier. He remained absolutely silent not speaking a word to her. After eating his breakfast, he donned his overcoat, picked up his umbrella and executive briefcase which contained his sandwiches for lunch, gave his wife a slight peck on one cheek and then left the house. She watched him go with a definite idea in her mind. When she weighed up the facts, an intimate sexual relationship was something she wanted but it wasn’t the essential thing in life. On the other hand, she resented having to listen to Norman spout about major news topics in assertive tones. It was a matter of whether she wanted the old life or a new one which troubled her. Mrs. Brendan had suggested that the spirit of her dead husband would vanish very shortly. But what if it didn’t? What if it stayed with the red shirt indefinitely? Is that what she really wanted? There was the opportunity of a great external life, with her husband talking to her all the time, dining out often, and a series of passionate love, or a silent partner who created a very dull boring atmosphere wherever he went... especially at home! She dithered for a while and then went to her husband’s wardrobe to find the shirt. It seemed to stare at her insolently as she removed it from its hanger. She took it to the garage and searched for a can of paraffin. Dousing the item in the liquid until it became soaked, she took it to the edge of the garden and set fire to it with a lighted match watching it burn to a cinder. When the fire extinguished itself, there was nothing left. The cotton shirt had turned to ash, scattered across the lawn by the sharp breeze which blew from the east. Helen was satisfied with her actions. The new life appeared to be very tempting but, after twenty-five years of marriage, she knew exactly where she stood with the old one. The old Norman was dull and boring; the new one was unpredictable and she was unsure what might happen. ‘Better the devil you know,’ she told herself, ‘than the devil you don’t.’ Her husband would understand when she explained the reason for her actions. But even if he didn’t, he would still be the same old Norman!

  Gloria Hunsecker is Missing

  ‘Hi there! I’m Sylvie Smith. I work as a typist, stroke tea assistant, stroke Girl Friday for a small... well maybe not so small... organisation known as Customers Anonymous. You may not have heard of us, however we maintain an important function concerning the welfare of the general public. Most people have heard of Alcoholics Anonymous which helps those who drink too much, and they’ve heard of Weight Watchers which takes care of those who eat too much. Well we look after that section of the community that spends too much... compulsive spenders who can’t resist buying. You see, there are many unfortunate people unable to control their purchasing emotions when they’re let loose in stores and shops. For some unknown reason, they regard every item in the store as either a bargain or a necessity which they have to buy. Now in times of credit squeezes... and we’ve had a few in our time... it wasn’t such a problem because borrowing money on credit was severely restricted, therefore people ran out of money fairly quickly and had to stop buying. But these days... with credit cards, and banks and financial institutions competing fiercely with each other to lend money to all and sundry... and with the whole economic structure of the world focussed on consumer buying, we have what is known in the business as the IPS... the Impulse Purchasing Syndrome. That’s where Customers Anonymous comes in. As Mr. Conrad Brandenberg, our Chief Executive, told me last week... not me personally of course... I mean a man of his calibre doesn’t talk directly with the riff-raff of the typing pool in this organisation... his memo stated... well let me read you this bit. ‘The society of today has been infected with a disease which can be cured only by the containment of money in its various forms. As a result of the wide introduction of credit cards and the flexible system of easy borrowing, people within a consumer society contract a virus which causes them to buy obsessively. Customers Anonymous is an organisation formed to instruct the public, mainly by means of seminars and meetings, to recognise the pointlessness of purchasing material goods for immaterial reasons.’ And that just about puts it in a nutshell!

  On this particular morning, the day seemed to start like the beginning of any other working day but I soon learned differently. I got to the office just before nine o’clock and, as is the usual custom, filled the electric kettle and plugged it into the wall socket so that everyone in offices four and five could be well lubricated for the eight hour ordeal ahead of them. Nothing much else had changed. The staff were yelling for their schedules to be typed urgently and ready for meetings at ten, eleven and twelve o’clock, while my in-tray was filled to the brim. However, everything appeared to be normal for the first forty-five minutes. Then the buzzer went on the intercom. ‘You are speaking with Conrad Brandenberg, Miss Schmidt,’ he barked down the line with a distinct accent. ‘You are invited to come to mein office immediately. Do you understand? Immediately!’

  It was the shortest telephone conversation I’d ever had in my whole life because the person at the other end of the line simply threw his receiver back into its cradle. Thank you, I said to myself, for giving me the courtesy of allowing me to reply. I didn’t quite get your name, Mr. Branden something or other, with a clipped foreign accent, whoever you are. Well you can just buzz off! Then I paused for a moment, tensing with fear and shock. Conrad Brandenberg? Oh my God, it’s the Chief Executive of Customers Anonymous! The top man! The big white chief! How did he know my name? I sat bolt upright in my typist’s chair. What would he want with me, a mere typist? It wasn’t promotion... that was out of the question... so it had to be something bad. Now what had happened that was bad? Hm, I nearly messed up the South Coast seminar schedules last week although it was the result of a misunderstanding. But it couldn’t be that! Conrad Brandenberg wouldn’t bother himself with such trivialities. There was the incident in the men’s w
ashroom which could only be described as terribly unfortunate. It was late one evening and everyone else had gone home. The cleaner was working on the Ladies’ Room so I had to use the Gents. How was I to know that one of the executives liked to dress himself up in ladies underwear and stare at himself in the mirror from all angles after everyone had gone home? No, it wouldn’t be that! The General wouldn’t deal with anything sordid. He would leave it to Personnel to deal with. By the way, that’s his nickname ... the General. Don’t ask me why but rumour has it that he came from Prussia in Germany and once reached that rank in the army. Then the Second World War ended. Unfortunately for him, he was on the wrong side. But that’s another story.

  So what was this all about? Why did he want to see me so urgently? Well there was only one way to find out. Two minutes later, I was knocking on the door of the great man.

  ‘Komm! You may enter!’

  The words sounded like an echo of doom. It was a dreadful experience and it was all I could do to prevent my legs from shaking. The General was standing arrogantly by his desk holding a swagger-stick in his hand.

  ‘Zilvie Schmidt? You are Zylvie Schmidt?’

  ‘Actually it’s Sylvie Smith, Mr. Brandenberg.’ The room remained silent for a moment and I thought my end had come.

  ‘You do not call me by my name, you... you...

  underling!’ he snarled angrily. ‘You call me zir. Hm, look how far I have fallen ven I have to correct mere typists!’ The swagger-stick crashed down on the desk at the last word. ‘At my rank, I should not be seen talking to juniors!’

  ‘Seen?’ I echoed unwisely. ‘Is someone watching us?’

  ‘Silence!’ he boomed in fury. You vill not speak ven I am talking.’ Suddenly, his eyes stared into space tracing the past. ‘There was a time ven I had personal assistants of my own... an army to command... and much planning for the future... enough for a thousand years... a thousand years.’

  I could almost hear the sound of soldiers marching, singing a German song, and then he came back to reality.

  ‘Und now ve deal vith imbeciles! Stupid people who cannot control their spending emotions. Zey are like children! Zey hef to be treated like children!’

  ‘But Mr. Brand... sir. At the Press Conference last week, the television programme, and your memos, our Press agent, Mr. Prince, represented your views quite clearly. He said you’d always been so sincere about the problems of overspending.’

  ‘Silence!’ The swagger-stick struck the desk again. ‘You vill not challenge my words or my actions!’ He relaxed for a moment. ‘Zylvie Schmidt. SS. Ah, how those initials bring back nostalgia. Zit down, Schmidt!’

  I sat gingerly on the edge of the chair. Wow, the Chief Executive actually asked me to sit down in his office. It was rumoured that at all the meetings held there he refused to allow any of his executives to sit down. He operated that policy to keep the meetings extremely short. As soon as the executives began to tire, they chose to agree with him... on everything! I sat there staring at the General’s face. He had a tiny moustache set under his nose while the front of his hair was plastered at an angle across his forehead. He reminded me of someone I had seen somewhere before but I struggled to find a name. Now where had I seen that face before?

  ‘I’m going to let you hef it straight, Schmidt,’ he said in confidence, leaning over the desk towards me. ‘I vant you to find Gloria Hunsecker. Immediately!’

  ‘Who?’ My voice seemed to come from somewhere over a mountain in the far distance.

  ‘Gloria Hunsecker. She is missing. I vant you to track her down wherever she is. She is a voman participating in one of four zeminars in Zector Three and she has failed to continue attending. Zer is a rumour she is running amok in a departmental store ver she acquired considerable credit yesterday. I vill not hef it! You are permitted to talk to all of my senior executives in zis matter. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ I told him. ‘But why me? I’m only a typist working downstairs.’

  ‘Schtupid voman!’ he barked angrily. ‘It is far easier for a voman to find a voman. Now get out of my office! Search und report back to me as soon as you find her!’

  ‘Perhaps I ought to know a little bit more about Miss, Ms or Mrs. Hunsecker before I... ’

  ‘You do not need to know!’ he screamed at me in a fury, striking his desk with the swagger-stick again. ‘A junior in zis organisation does not ask qvestions. ‘Raus! Raus! Raus!’

  I left the office and went downstairs to the executive suite feeling like a complete idiot. What was I to ask any of them? I had no idea where to start. Surely they would scoff at me when I told them the problem! Well, I thought, I’ll have to start somewhere.

  The first office was that of Dieter Gruber. He was a slender middle-aged man with thinning hair who had a terrible habit. He continued to smirk all the time curling his lower lip which often ended in a vicious snarl.

  ‘And vot ken I do for you, yunk lady?’ he demanded as I entered the room. He had a distinct accent and sometimes it was difficult to understand what he was saying. His secretary, Helga, sat looking very serious across the room. She was the ugliest woman I had ever seen with straight black hair brushed back stiffly, a long face, a square chin, and she was always dressed in jet black clothes.

  ‘She vants to know about Gloria Hunsecker,’ claimed Helga in a similar accent to her boss as she looked at me down her long nose with a miserable expression on her face.

  ‘How did you know she was missing?’ I asked innocently.

  ‘Because ve hef an intelligence system which verks very vell,’ commented Gruber exultantly. ‘Hef you looked up the details in your typist files?’

  ‘I haven’t any files on the membership,’ I admitted.

  ‘Vell not to worry too much at zis point,’ he went on calmly. ‘Ve hef an investigator... a man by ze name of Harrington. He is hunting round ze stores for her.’

  ‘Couldn’t we telephone the department stores and ask them not to grant her any further credit? If they know she’s a compulsive spender they would be able to stop her.’

  ‘If only ve could,’ replied Gruber, smirking at me in his usual manner. ‘Zer are legal problems. Lots of legal problems. One cannot advise lenders that the credit of certain borrowers is not good. It is not possible.’

  ‘Why not?’ I blurted out. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Only if one can produce absolute proof. But ve cannot do so, ken ve? Ve hef to protect Customers Anonymous from all kinds of litigation. It is very expensive.’

  ‘So we can’t really protect our members from overspending at all, can we?’ I was becoming more and more frustrated at his determination to do absolutely nothing.

  ‘Vell certainly not by contacting ze stores.’

  ‘It is impossible to stop the run of credit,’ intruded Helga, ‘because the stores alvays vant to sell their goods.’

  ‘Vere is the file on zis Gloria Hunsecker?’ asked Gruber, his lower lip curling into a snarl.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I told him bluntly.

  ‘Very inconvenient,’ he went on. ‘Someone must hef it!’

  ‘On another issue,’ I ventured. ‘Mr. Brandenberg reminds me of someone... someone famous. I can’t put my finger on it.’

  ‘I hef an uncle who looks very much like him,’ returned Gruber willingly. He raised his eyebrows and turned to Helga. ‘Zat reminds me, I have to write to him. Take a letter, Helga,’ he began, starting to dictate as her pencil raced over the surface of the pad in her hands.

  I took the opportunity to leave the room and looked at my wristwatch. The time was fleeting by and work was piling up in my in-tray. I had to get a move on. The next office was that of Bruno Zeitner. I knocked on the door and opened it slowly.

  ‘Come in, yunk lady,’ he said, also with a distinct accent. ‘You are Zilv
ie Schmidt, aren’t you? I presume you’re here about the woman called Gloria Hunsecker.’

  I was stunned. Everyone seemed to know me by name. And they all seemed to know the reason for my visit. What was going on? ‘Oh, you’ve heard about her,’ I managed to say.

  ‘I should say,’ he went on. ‘Her name’s on everyone’s lips zis morning. You see, zose people running the zeminar she was attending also invited ze financial supporters of Customers Anonymous to show zem how advanced and fantastic our methods are proving. Gloria Hunsecker has really set ze cat amongt the pigeons! Even ze Press was invited. Just wait until ze afternoon editions of ze newspapers. Oh, boy, I can just see ze headlines. “CA lady goes on buying rampage!” Eef zat heppens, Customers Anonymous will remain anonymous, probably for ever!’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit harsh,’ I retorted. ‘We have some ten thousand members. It’s not realistic to expect us to succeed with every single one of them.’

  ‘A gallant argument but no one cares to hear about failures. If people who went to Weight Watchers kept getting fatter, there would soon be a high fall-out rate.

  ‘I find it pathetic really,’ I continued. ‘Everyone’s so worried about Customers Anonymous but no one seems too troubled about poor Gloria Hunsecker. I mean she’s like a drug addict out on the street looking for another fix... getting herself deeper and deeper into financial debt as the day goes on. Why aren’t we trying to help her?’

  ‘Don’t worry too much about her. Ze spree can only go on as long as ze credit is available. It will be quite limited.’

  ‘How can you say that? She’ll have to pay it all back.’

  ‘Pay it all back? Whatever gave you zat idea?’

  ‘Money given by credit always has to be paid back. That’s the rule, isn’t it?’