The Changeover Read online

  This speech made Laura think she had forgotten something and a moment later Chris came in and said, "Is that your boyfriend waiting out there at the gate, Laura? Do you want to ask him in? What's his name again — Sorrow?"

  "Sorry!" Laura cried. "No! I'll just yell to him from the door."

  From the door she shouted, "I'll ring you later! OK?" and Sorry gave her a thumbs-up sign and rattled away down Kingsford Drive.

  "He's kind of spooky," Chris said to her when she came back. "I don't know why I think so, but I do."

  "Don't start her on that," Kate begged. "It's only Sorensen Carlisle, the dark secret of the Carlisle family recently brought out into the open."

  "He certainly suggests more middle-class affluence than we usually see around these parts," Chris said critically.

  "Oh, they're a well-to-do family... spread all over the city." Kate sounded careless. "Every now and then one of them is mentioned in the New Year Honours for services to industry or something. There are two women and that boy living not very far from here. Goodness knows why they stay. I'm sure it's not really their scene."

  "He doesn't look as if he's got much to put up with," Chris said disapprovingly. "I thought the other day that the cost of his haircut alone would keep a family of

  refugees in food for a week."

  Laura felt moved to defend Sorry.

  "At least he's not going bald," she said, and was forced to like Chris, rather against her will, because he laughed and passed her her coffee as if he were giving her a prize.

  "Chris has never forgiven himself for being a well- off middle-class boy instead of a refugee," Kate said almost cheerfully. "He feels obliged to be hard on others for his own good fortune."

  "Sorry wants to be a hill-and-beach doctor," Laura said, "and make sick forests better. Or help with rare birds."

  "So he's into conservation, is he?" Chris said. "Well, it's better than nothing, I suppose," and a few minutes later he went off in Kate's car, starting it perfectly because, while she was at the hospital, he had taken it to a weekend garage and had the battery recharged. "Though you really need a new one," he said. "I'll pick you up in three-quarters of an hour."

  Left alone, Kate and Laura looked at each other cautiously, like people just getting to know one another after a long and transforming separation.

  "Even if you just did it for consolation and all that," Laura said after a moment, "doesn't sex ... I mean it only works with enthusiasm too, doesn't it?"

  "I did feel enthusiastic," Kate said, getting up, "but I've dealt with enthusiasm before now. I can manage enthusiasm. It's sadness I find difficult. Laura — they think Jacko is going to die ... I know they think it. They haven't managed to do anything much to help him. He's just got worse and worse and worse. I've rung twice this morning and they say there's been no change except that he's got a bit weaker. I can't help knowing what that means. I didn't really want another baby, you know. I only had Jacko because I thought your father might leave — he was already having an affair with Julia then and I knew that this time it was serious, so I had Jacko! Still it's a rotten reason for having a baby, just to tie someone to you, isn't it?"

  "Jacko didn't care," Laura pointed out. "He has always behaved as if he thought life was lovely."

  "Yes, that's the wonderful thing," Kate said. "Given half a chance, babies are certain that the world wouldn't function without them. They know they're marvellous. Once I stopped caring about your father so much ... I really loved my days with you and Jacko and now it looks as if.., I really don't believe it's my fault— yet in a superstitious way I feel that it's a sort of punishment for past mistakes."

  "I don't believe that for a moment," Laura cried. "But I know more about Jacko's sickness than you do. It's just that you won't believe me. Can I come with you? Can I see Jacko?"

  "May I," corrected Kate. "Yes— you probably may, though really you'd do better to remember him as he was, bright and cheerful and always ready for some sort of mischief. Still, of course you can come with me. There's a sort of sitting room, a little waiting room with TV where Chris spent a lot of yesterday, and I'm allowed in Jacko's room at any time. They offered to make up a bed so that I could stay with him, and I'll probably do that tonight. Now let's get going. Bags I first bath."

  From the bathroom she called a moment later, "You know, Laura— you should be pleased that I can go out and get involved with someone like Chris. The day's going to come when you want to be free of me, and it'll be much easier for you if I've ... if you don't have to leave me always on my own."

  But Laura was staring into her mirror wondering just what sort of face Sorry had seen looking across the playground at her and just what she'd think of her own face if she hadn't grown up with it day after day.

  She decided that she would put on her best clothes in case she saw Sorry later, for she thought it would do no harm for him to see her wearing her one nice dress, even if it was only a sundress that had been too small for Sally. She brushed her hair hard until it actually shone a little, though its lambswool surface did not really give light a fair chance. She put on her best sandals and asked if she could also put on some makeup.

  "A little bit of lipstick to brighten yourself up, if you feel you must," said Kate, but Laura couldn't resist using eye-liner and mascara and thought she looked like the heroine of some foreign film.

  Later, at the hospital, staring at Jacko, all this seemed childish. He had become part of a hospital's machinery. Fluid dripped into his arm, a plastic tube was taped up his nose. Hospital sheets and blankets did not so much tuck him in as strap him down and he lay beneath them looking like a shrunken doll, but still unmistakably Jacko, still her brother. All the upside- down events of the last twenty-four hours, the intrusive new people like Chris Holly and the three Carlisle witches, grew faint, like memories from an earlier less important life. Laura longed to pick Jacko up and hold him, to remind him somehow, even in his coma, that he had a sister who loved him and would do anything to stop the shadows inching up over him. But all she could do was look at him and say his name to herself in a stubborn voice.

  "Lolly," said Kate. "Dearest girl!" She started to say something but could not finish it. "Cry if you want to," she said at last. "I do, on and off, all the time."

  Only a few hours earlier, Laura had hated Kate for spending a night looking for comfort with Chris Holly, but already her own reaction seemed like that of a child with limited understanding. Confronted by Jacko's great stillness, seeing a ghost of hope haunting the despair in Kate's pale face, all such judgements became insignificant. However, Laura did not cry. The feelings she longed to dissolve with tears were part of the power that might still save Jacko and must be hoarded and invested, not easily spent.

  While Kate and Laura stared at Jacko, as if they were looking at some mysterious and tragic work of art, a doctor came in and began to check up on him, and at this moment Laura smelled the unforgettable smells of stale peppermint and decay. She felt her chest and throat heave violently, Kate looked at her anxiously, and she said quickly, "It's all right. He's going to have one of those fits — that's all."

  As she spoke Jacko began to bend, but very weakly. She saw, as nobody else apparently did, Carmody Braque look out at her through Jacko's eyes, then grin and vanish.

  "Don't you see?" she asked Kate despairingly. "Don't you see ... can't you smell him?"

  "How did you know he was going to do that?" the doctor asked.

  "I could smell he was going to," she said. "He begins to smell of peppermint."

  "My daughter thinks he's possessed," Kate said lightly to the doctor.

  "It's not a possession — it's a consumption," Laura said, repeating the diagnosis of Sorry Carlisle. "He smells of peppermint cough-mixture and of going rotten."

  "That's strange," the doctor said to Kate. "I think he smells of peppermint at times myself. Sister says she can't smell it and Dr Roper says he doesn't notice anything either. Mrs Chant, I can't accept such a diag
nosis, but there's not one thing we've done that's made him better, I must admit. His heart is under a lot of strain from something — some pathological condition no doubt — which I cannot recognize or prescribe any treatment for. The glucose and protein solution probably added to his capacity to last out, but that is all we've been able to do for him. When you've guessed at everything but the one thing, then maybe that one thing is the only possibility you're left with."

  "Could I go and telephone?" Laura asked. "There's a telephone in that little waiting room, isn't there?"

  She knew by the crackling voice on the end of the 'phone when she finally got through, that she was speaking to old Winter Carlisle.

  "Winter ..." she said in a way that was familiar and yet somehow the only way she could claim any power over this old woman who had offered her a strange bargain. "It's Laura Chant. My brother is a lot worse."

  "Remember there is a possible solution," said Winter's voice.

  "I've got to ask you," Laura said, "and you'll tell me honestly — Sorry says you'll tell me honestly— is there no other way you can think of to save him except what you said last night?"

  "I promise by the cup, the sword, the coin and the wand," Winter Carlisle said, her crackling voice committing ancient symbols to modern wires which delivered them through Laura's listening ear into her reasoning mind. Like her brother she was, for a moment, part of a machine.

  "Is it hard?" she asked.

  "Very hard, but not too hard," Mrs Carlisle replied. "It changes you for ever, but you are changing for ever anyway."

  "Is it a bad change?" Laura asked.

  "It can be, if people use it badly — but the same can be said of all human changes," Mrs Carlisle replied.

  "There's some reason that's nothing to do with Jacko that you want me to do this," Laura said. "There is, isn't there?"

  "There is," Winter agreed, "but I wouldn't have suggested it if it hadn't run along with your own necessity."

  "Can we do it at once?" Laura asked her last question. "Now!"

  There was a silence and then the old voice said, "I think we can — tonight — but you are not to eat anything all day. Tell me, Laura Chant, are you a virgin?"

  "Yes," Laura said. "Does it matter?"

  "It makes some differences," Winter replied. "It makes it easier to change if you aren't too tied to your present state. There are three of us to help you over, but you are the one that must remake yourself. Don't eat. Food will hold you back."

  "I'm not hungry anyway," Laura said. "Is Sorry there?"

  "In his study doorway, watching me," Winter replied. "Do you want to speak to him?"

  "No. I'll wait and see him tonight," Laura said. "Just give him a wave from me."

  She hung up, and was pleased to find she was not shaking or apparently nervous in any way. She turned to meet Chris Holly's curious gaze. He was sitting in one of the waiting room chairs reading a book by Graham Greene and looking at her.

  "What are you up to?" he asked. "It sounds like a black mass or something."

  "It's nothing like that," Laura said, though she thought it might be a little like one. "It's a private arrangement."

  At that moment a shadow loomed in the doorway and a voice spoke.

  "Can this he my woolly baa-lamb?" it said. "Oh, Laura — you've grown up."

  Laura turned and found herself looking at a man she knew. Just for a fraction of a second he seemed totally familiar, but she could not remember his name or how she knew him, and then realized he was her dark, powerful father, rather heavier than he'd been when she saw him last, wearing clothes she had never seen him wear before, while his second wife, pretty Julia, quite noticeably pregnant, watched him lovingly from a tactful distance.

  9 The Changeover

  Before she went back to the Carlisles' that night Laura was allowed to visit Jacko once more.

  "Talk to him!" the doctor had said. "Talk to him as much as you like."

  So Laura bent over him and whispered, "Jacko — listen Jacko — it's me, Lolly! I'm going now, but I'll be back soon. Hold on a bit longer and I'll save you. Be a good boy, Jacko, and hold on."

  She stared at him as if she were going to print his face in her internal sight, so that even when she was far away she would still have him directly before her. She held her expression quite still, but Kate was not deceived.

  "Laura, don't suffer so much!" Kate exclaimed wretchedly.

  "You don't make sense," Laura replied, "suffering yourself and then telling me not to."

  "I'd bear it for you if I could," Kate cried. "In the end, I know I can put up with anything, but I want to protect you."

  "Is that why you didn't tell me that Dad was coming?" Laura asked. Kate was silent.

  "I wasn't sure he was coming," she said at last. "I didn't want you to be disappointed."

  "Disappointed!" exclaimed Laura dangerously. "What's he doing here at all? He scarcely knows Jacko. He didn't even remember his last birthday."

  "Lolly — shhh!" Kate said. "He'd have to be a hard-hearted man not to be affected, knowing his little son was so very ill. And Stephen was always affectionate, given half a chance. It was just his bad luck I wasn't content with affection."

  "Well, I don't mind about him," Laura said. "I'm not too crazy about Julia because she's going to have a baby and it seems creepy when Jacko's so sick. It's as if he was being replaced even before he's gone."

  "Is that why you won't stay with them!" Kate exclaimed.

  "It's part of it," Laura answered, for she could not tell Kate about the Carlisle witches and the changeover that loomed ahead of her, the thought of which lay like a black, impenetrable fog, blurring the whole evening.

  Her father insisted on driving her back to Garden- dale, and his car purred like an obedient beast through familiar streets made suddenly strange by being seen through the eyes of strangers.

  "What a monstrosity!" exclaimed Julia as they went past the Gardendale Shopping Complex. "God! It's a form of pollution. Do they play piped music in it?"

  "Only in the Mall," Laura said, thinking the piped music was not so very different from that playing over the car's stereo system. "It's not too bad."

  "Sounds awful," said Julia. "Is that where Kate works? Poor Kate." The car moved on, and a few moments later drew up outside the Carlisles' gate.

  "That's good timing," said Stephen, for Sorry, warned of her approach by some instinct of his own, was opening the gate.

  "I'll get out here," Laura said hurriedly. "Then you won't have to go all the way down the drive."

  She knew Julia and her father would be impressed by Janua Caeli, but she did not want them moving into the magic circle of its shadows and trees.

  "Who's the boy?" asked Julia slyly.

  "Sorensen Carlisle," Laura answered stiffly, and Julia and her father both burst out laughing, as if they now understood something that they had not understood before, and were not only amused but relieved by it.

  "He's not a boyfriend. He's a prefect," Laura mumbled.

  "I thought there must be some reason why you refused to stay with us," Stephen said. "I thought maybe it was me. Oh well, you're growing up, Baalamb."

  "Thank you for bringing me," Laura said to him.

  "Don't I get a kiss?" he asked so sadly that she surprised him, and herself too, with a kiss and a warm hug, and smelt his smell, wonderfully preserved in her memory, of tobacco and after-shave lotion.

  Julia waved amiably, Laura waved back uncertainly, and then the big car drove off, leaving Laura to watch Sorry close the gate and to walk down the long, dark drive with him, feeling first in him, then in the air, and particularly in the old house ahead of them, a preparatory tension, a wild winding-up for some test that could only be guessed at.

  "How's the little brother?" Sorry asked. "And how are things with your mother?"

  Laura told him everything she could remember, anxious at being alone with him in the darkness under the trees when he was in such a witchy mood, but he said ver
y little until they came on to the lighted terrace before the front door.

  "Let's get back inside — you'll feel safer out of the shadows," he said.

  "The worst shadows are in my head," Laura said, and certainly they followed her into the kitchen.

  "You're probably a bit faint with hunger," Sorry remarked. "But that's part of the idea. I can't offer you anything to eat, though actually I wouldn't mind a slice of cake myself. That's a pretty dress, Chant. Did I tell you?"

  "It's old now," Laura said, "but I still like it. I won't be able to wear it much longer. It's getting too small."

  "Not so!" said Sorry. "It's you that's changing, not the dress. You're getting too big for it."

  "I can't take credit," Laura said seriously. "It's just a thing that happens."

  "Chant— " he exclaimed suddenly. "Cut and run! Go while you still can. Forget your brother, sprint away down the drive, open the gate and get out into real life again. Find some nice boy with a real heart, fall in love, have kids, grow old and die like a real human being, not an imaginary one." But as they stared at each other across the table his mother appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  "Don't mind him, Laura," she said. "Sometimes I think all women are imaginary creatures, as Sorry chooses to put it. He doesn't mean that we're simply imagined, you know, but that our power flows out of the imagination, and that's the faculty that makes magicians of all of us. Witches just act upon it with such conviction that their dreams turn into reality. Come with me."

  Sorry sighed as Laura moved over to Miryam, who laid a pale hand on her bare arm, gently but compel- lingly.

  "Goodbye, Chant!" he said, as if she were going away for a long time. "Sometimes I've thought I might change over too, by going the other way. Sometimes I thought I might use you as a bridge so that I could get back to ..."

  "You're forgetting, Sorensen," said his mother. "You've tried that and it didn't work for you. You've no real choice."

  "Then I'm saying goodbye to the idea of it," Sorry replied.

  "I'll see you on the other side, Chant — or a bit before that, really. I've got a part to play, too. I'll go and psyche myself up for it."