Consider Her Ways by John Wyndham Page A

hat and put it down on a chair beside him; then he put up his hand, still trembling, to touch first his beard, and then his handsome silver hair. After that, he sat quite still, staring.
    I was relieved when the drinks came. So, evidently, was he. He took just a little soda with his, and then drank the lot. Presently his hand grew steadier, a little colour came into his cheeks, but he continued to stare ahead. Then with a sudden air of resolution he got up.
    ‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said, politely.
    He crossed the room. For fully two minutes he stood studying himself at short range in the glass. Then he turned and came back. Though not assured, he had an air of more decision, and he signed to the waiter, pointing to our glasses. Looking at me curiously, he said as he sat down again:
    ‘I owe you an apology. You have been extremely kind.’
    ‘Not at all,’ I assured him. ‘I’m glad to be of any help. Obviously you must have had a nasty shock of some sort.’
    ‘Er – several shocks,’ he admitted, and added: ‘It is curious how real the figments of a dream can seem when one is taken unaware by them.’
    There did not seem to be any useful response to that, so I attempted none.
    ‘Quite
unnerving at first,’ he added, with a kind of forced brightness.
    ‘What happened?’ I asked, feeling still at sea.
    ‘My own fault, entirely my own fault – but I was in a hurry,’ he explained. ‘I started to cross the road behind a tram, then I saw the one coming in the opposite direction, almost on top of me. I can only think it must have hit me.’
    ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘er – oh, indeed. Er – where did this happen?’
    ‘Just outside here, in Thanet Street,’ he told me.
    ‘You – you don’t seem to be hurt,’ I remarked.
    ‘Not exactly,’ he agreed, doubtfully. ‘No, I don’t seem to be hurt.’
    He did not, nor even ruffled. His clothing was, as I have said, immaculate – besides, they tore up the tram rails in Thanet Street about twenty-five years ago. I wondered if I should tell him that, and decided to postpone it. The waiter brought our glasses. The old man felt in his waistcoat pocket, and then looked down in consternation.
    ‘My sovereign-case! My watch … !’ he exclaimed.
    I dealt with the waiter by handing him a one-pound note. The old man watched intently. When the waiter had given me my change and left:
    ‘If you will excuse me,’ I said, ‘I think this shock must have caused you a lapse of memory. You do – er – you do remember who you are?’
    With his finger still in his waistcoat pocket, and a trace of suspicion in his eyes, he looked at me hard.
    ‘Who I am? Of course I do. I am Andrew Vincell. I live quite close here, in Hart Street.’
    I hesitated, then I said:
    ‘There
was
a Hart Street near here. But they changed the name – in the thirties I think; before the war, anyway.’
    The superficial confidence which he had summoned up deserted him, and he sat quite still for some moments. Then he felt in the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a wallet. It was
made of fine leather, had gold corners, and was stamped with the initials A. V. He eyed it curiously as he laid it on the table. Then he opened it. From the left side he pulled a one-pound note, and frowned at it in a puzzled way; then a five-pound note, which seemed to puzzle him still more.
    Without comment he felt in the pocket again, and brought out a slender book clearly intended to pair with the wallet. It, too, bore the initials A. V. in the lower right-hand corner, and in the upper it was stamped simply: ‘Diary – 1958.’ He held it in his hand, looking at it for quite some time before he lifted his eyes to mine.
    ‘Nineteen-fifty-eight?’ he said, unsteadily.
    ‘Yes,’ I told him.
    There was a long pause, then:
    ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, almost like a child. ‘My life! What has happened to my life?’
    His face had a pathetic, crumpled look. I pushed the glass towards him, and he