The Changeover Page 5

  "He's so much worse than I thought he'd be," cried Kate apologetically. "I was looking at him just a moment ago and he looks — well, I think he looks dreadful. Have you collected the tickets and all that, or did you leave it to chance?"

  "For once in my life, I didn't leave it to chance." Chris smiled, rather as if he were sneering at himself for his own good organization. "You can take that as a sign of my enthusiasm. Never mind! If I hurry I'll be able to get them back to the desk before the concert begins and get my money back — or if I think for a moment or two I might come up with someone who'd be willing to drop everything at a moment's notice and come with me."

  "I'm so sorry," Kate said. "I'd offer to pay you for them, only I almost mortgaged the house to get my hair set. I'm really broke. Laura will bear me out — I've gone this way and that, ever since I realized how sick he was. I meant to come, right up to the last moment. See — I've got my best dress on."

  "And very charming it looks," Chris said, which was a flattering thing to say except that he said it rather grimly.

  "You are early . .." Kate began. "I can offer you doubtful compensation. Would you like some really terrible sherry?"

  "I don't think I have time," Chris replied, without looking at his watch. Then he shrugged and said with an unwilling smile, "Maybe just one really terrible sherry."

  "You could come back and have coffee later — that is if you can't think of anyone who might go with you," Kate suggested. "Let me do something to make up for it all."

  "Oh, I'm bound to think of someone," Chris answered. "I have a wide circle of acquaintances and they can't all be busy, even on a Friday night— or have sick relatives for that matter."

  "You go, Mum," Laura said, now changing sides herself. "I'll look after Jacko and there's Sally's mother next door — and you can leave the theatre number. You said you would. We'll be OK."

  "No!" said Kate obstinately. "I mustn't even think about it. Besides, by now I've probably spoilt it for Chris, anyway. He knows I'm half-hearted."

  "Well, you won't want me hanging around in a home stricken with sickness," Chris said, sounding bored in an embarrassed way. "I might catch up with you when the boy's over whatever it is that's wrong with him."

  Kate nodded. "I'll change my dress," she said. "If I keep it on I'm sure to spill terrible sherry on it and I think it might burn a hole in it or make it change colour or something," and she went into her room, leaving Laura and Chris Holly together, self-conscious and unwilling companions.

  "Keep out of it!" Laura told herself, watching Chris sit, holding his terrible sherry, and making their room look disgraceful — dark with sickness and broken promises. He put the glass down and stood up with the look of a man who must be on his way. He had good- bye and good luck! written all over him.

  Good riddance! Laura thought, and then said against all fierce intentions, "She can't help it, you know."

  "How's that?" said Chris turning towards her, startled as if he had forgotten she was sharing the room with him.

  "She's stuck with us," Laura pointed out. "She can't do anything about it. We're not books that you can put down, even in an exciting place, and then pick up again just when you want to. Jacko isn't being sick on purpose, you know." Chris didn't say anything. "Even I wouldn't do that," Laura added, "and I'm the one that feels spooky about Kate going out with a stray man."

  Having started, she meant to be rude to him, for she thought it could not harm Kate any more and, at that moment, hatred burned up brightly in her, for there was a feeling about his friendship with Kate, sudden and incoherent as it might be, that seemed to say, "The happy year of Kate and Laura and Jacko on their own together is over and will never come again."

  However, instead of growing angry at being called a stray man, Chris looked at her thoughtfully and sat down again.

  "Do I sound as if I was blaming you?" he asked. "Or blaming Kate?"

  "You do, actually. Well, you sound as if you're punishing her a bit for something that's not her fault," Laura mumbled.

  Where he might, justifiably have become aggrieved, Chris now began to look at her with increased interest, as if at last she had attracted his attention because she was herself, Laura, and not Kate's superfluous daughter.

  "That's pretty unsympathetic of me if it's true," he said at last, and Laura was forced to be gentler because he was being gentle with her.

  "It's true all right," she said, "and it's awful for Mum. First I make her feel bad because she's going out and then you make her feel worse because she isn't."

  Her anger was draining out of her, and her voice became apologetic in spite of her efforts to keep it cool and expressionless.

  "She really wanted to go. I thought she was a bit too pleased about it..." Laura stopped. Her aggressive beginnings were all exhausted.

  What had started out as reproof was starting to sound like a confession, and Laura thought that in another moment she would find herself apologizing to him.

  "Of course I don't blame her," Chris said at last. "The fact is, I was looking forward very much to going out with your mother — right? And suddenly — a sick kid— that could mean almost anything. It did cross my mind she might be standing me up, for example. I don't always feel so very confident of my own fascination. You'd be surprised— well I hope you'd be surprised— at the number of people who have found me perfectly resistible ..." He paused, and Laura did not say anything for she was working this out. "Kate was saying that your father left you all a few years ago and I was telling her that my wife did the same to me. Naturally, I think she did the wrong thing." He smiled rather mockingly at Laura, inviting her to be amused at his judgement. "But since then, all hesitations seem as if they could be simply that I don't measure up— right?" Laura felt uneasily that he had tricked her into an understanding she did not want to give. "Kate's quite correct about one thing," he added warmly, sounding as if he were continuing the conversation but trickily changing the subject, "this is terrible sherry!"

  "It was very cheap," Laura said. "We're great on bargains."

  "Sherry like this can never, ever be a bargain," said Chris.

  Laura felt obliged to explain further.

  "It's not that we're poor." She looked around her doubtfully. "Not really poor. We own this house, and a lot of people don't have houses of their own. But we're usually short. The bookshop doesn't pay Mum a lot, and my father often puts off paying maintenance. Mum's lawyer has to chase after him every so often. Jacko and I cost a lot to run. We can't afford a lot of civilization." Unwillingly she was treating Chris as though he were a member of the family.

  At this moment Kate came back into the room wearing an old skirt and blouse.

  "You're not only standing me up, you're trying to poison me," Chris Holly said to her, and something in his voice eased Kate's expression and she smiled with undefined relief. "How's the boy?"

  "Still asleep, thank goodness," Kate replied. "Don't drink that stuff if you don't want to. It wasn't one of my brightest moves. It's a symbol really. It stands for the good sherry we'll have someday when we're rich."

  "I'd better get these tickets back to the Town Hall,"

  Chris said, standing up again, but even then he waited a little looking from Kate to Laura as if he were turning something over in his mind.

  "Kate, I might take you up on that offer of coffee if it's still open," he said.

  "Oh it is!" cried Kate with such undisguised pleasure that Laura blushed for her. "But let me confess — it's only instant coffee. The sherry's symbolic and the coffee's instant."

  "Nothing I can't cope with. I did my degree in philosophy, remember," Chris said. "It's a more practical study than anyone gives it credit for. Symbolic sherry — that's nothing to a philosopher," and he left them.

  "You shouldn't seem so keen on him," Laura said, finding she disapproved of Kate all over again.

  "Why not? It's flattering to him, isn't it?" Kate replied, beginning to tidy away the soup bowls, mute testament to a
hurried and disorganized meal.

  "He'll think you're out to get him," said Laura darkly, and Kate laughed, looking back from the kitchen door.

  "He's a grown man — he can look after himself," she said. "In fact I thought back there he was going to." She was beginning to sound rather mischievous again.

  "He's all right if you don't mind a bit of baldness," Laura muttered, alarmed all over again at the ease with which Chris was insinuating himself into their lives, even though she had helped him to do so herself.

  "Well, I don't mind it," Kate said flatly. "I'm bored with thick hair." (Laura's father, Stephen, had particularly thick, dense hair like Laura's own.) "And I'm bored at the thought of playing games — pretending not to be interested, trying to make out I don't really care if he goes or stays ... If he's childish enough to need that, then I'd get bored with him too, sooner or later. I do like him and I want him to know."

  "What's this about philosophy?" asked Laura apprehensively. "He's not a philosopher, is he?" She couldn't help seeing that if Kate had to have a man friend there would be wonderful advantages in a rich one, and felt instinctively that philosophers needed philosophy because they didn't have money.

  "He's the next best thing to a philosopher ..." said Kate. "He's a librarian at the Central Library ... in charge of the New Zealand Room."

  "A Canadian in charge of the New Zealand Room!" Laura exclaimed. "What's wrong with a good, honest Kiwi joker?"

  "It may be International Swap Over Year in library circles," Kate suggested. "Or they may be promoting Commonwealth understanding."

  "There's too much understanding in the world as it is," Laura declared. "I don't know why people think it's so great. A lot of the things you find yourself understanding are nasty."

  Chris came back an hour later saying the tickets had been successfully returned and, when Jacko was better, he and Kate might try to go to another concert together. He came with gifts ... a bottle of lemonade, and a bottle of non-symbolic sherry which he suggested they try out to take away the memory of the symbolic sherry drunk earlier. Laura had a little bit in a glass topped up with lemonade.

  "It makes it symbolic all over again, but in a different way," Chris said. "Kate tells me you need a clear head for your homework."

  In the room next door Jacko remained quiet.

  Laura tried to concentrate on her homework while Kate showed Chris her bookseller's course.

  "I freely admit it's not high-class entertainment," she said, "but I haven't got a piano at present, so I can't sing to you."

  They both laughed, though Laura did not think it was particularly funny. In Kate's bedroom Jacko suddenly gave a curious magpie cry.

  "I'll go," said Laura. "I need a bit of a stretch away from history." She pushed open the door of Kate's room and went in. She did not need to turn the light on, for a shaft of light, coming over her shoulder from the living room behind her, fell right across the pillows and she could see Jacko quite clearly.

  The whole room seemed to gasp with a dirty sweetness, and she breathed it in before she could stop herself. The scent of used peppermint came unmistakably along with it.

  Jacko slowly turned his head to look at her. His Ruggie lay on the pillow beside him, but he showed no interest in it. He was smiling dreadfully, his teeth unnaturally large, his face in retreat around the smile, but his eyes — at least his eyes were still his own, though brimming with a still flood of tears. A clammy hand pressed Laura down on to her knees beside Jacko's bed. It was the hand of terror, nothing less. A moment later her heart began to bang so hard it rang alarms through all her bones and made the world vibrate itself into rapid extinction, except for the feel of the bare floorboards under her knees. She concentrated on this feeling until, little by little, the world came back to her and she felt her own clothes sticking to her as if it were a hot day, felt too, the texture of Jacko's blanket which she had clutched between her thumb and forefinger as if she were taking a pinch of wool from it. Only a second or two had passed, but time, worked on by the excited energy of her fear, had altered yet again for her. There were probably small triangular formulas for it which she would have to do in fifth-form physics next year - time divided by fear multiplied by imagination and so on.

  Jacko still wept and smiled, but the smile was fading now.

  "All right, Lolly?" called Kate from the next room.

  "I don't think he's too good," Laura replied slowly. "But there's nothing new."

  It was nothing new, but it was still something known only by her and inaccessible to other people. She could not sing in tune but she could resonate with mystery, and some part of her brain could understand and interpret the resonance.

  "I don't like it," Jacko said in a tiny, thin voice. "Fox eat up gingerbread boy."

  "It was a bad dream," Laura said, pouring him a drink of water from the jug Kate had put on his table. He was quite recognizable again.

  "Laura will get that bad fox, Jacko," she promised him. "It just might take a little time, but Laura will get him." A moment later he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

  Laura returned to the sitting room. Kate glanced up anxiously, but Laura smiled and nodded reassuringly. She thought once more that Kate and Chris talked together like people who had known each other for years, instead of having met only the day before, but as she thought this Laura also realized that 'the day before' had stopped making a lot of sense to her. Time had indeed gone strange and the day before felt as if it stretched back as far as the limits of her memory. Mr Braque had stamped Jacko the day before ... Sorry Carlisle had arrived at school the day before ... her father had left them for Julia the day before. Jacko had been born the day before and so had she... There had only been one day in the entire history of the world, and that was the day before, so maybe Kate and Chris

  had known each other for ever.

  "Mum, I've finished my homework," Laura said, lying slightly. "Can I go and see Sally for a few minutes — watch some telly, perhaps? You don't look as if you'd miss me." She couldn't entirely banish sarcasm from her voice, so smiled to show she meant no harm by it.

  "That's fine," Kate replied, noting Laura's tone and smile and giving her a dry look. "Don't be long though, will you?"

  "No," said Laura. "I haven't seen Sally since Monday night, that's all. If I meet any molesters in the street I'll shout and Chris can come running and save me." She was teasing him in an experimental way because he was a librarian and not some 'macho' gang member like those in the Gardendale Video Centre.

  "Gladly!" said Chris. "I'll have you know that I'm a black belt."

  "At Judo?" Laura asked sceptically.

  "At philosophy," said Chris. "I am a great fan of Bishop Berkley. I'll confront any molesters with the theory that they are ideas in the mind of God and, as molesters are probably all atheists, they'll stop believing in themselves and cease to exist."

  "If you make it a really good argument I might cease to exist too," Laura said.

  "Oh, I don't expect you would allow me to convince you," Chris replied, and Laura laughed a little reluctantly as she left the house.

  It was a warm night, and she did not take her coat, although she was not going to Sally's at all. She had lied about her homework and lied about visiting Sally. She was going several blocks through the dangerous night to the very heart of the Gardendale subdivision and was, of course, intending to talk to Sorry Carlisle, seventh form prefect and secret witch.

  5 Janua Caeli

  Once upon a time the Carlisle family had lived on a farm on the edge of the city and had owned the whole Gardendale Valley, though they called it by another name. But the city crept out and out, an industrious amoeba, extending itself, engulfing all it encountered. The value of the land changed, it was re-zoned and, when the old farmer died, his brothers, city men themselves, subdivided and sold the fields where horses and sheep had grazed, turned away the cows and the bull, and sent in the bulldozer. For a little while the terrain became spectral as roads an
d street lighting went in ahead of any houses.

  It shone at night, threaded with streets where nobody lived and pavements where nobody walked. However, in due course the sections were sold and the hectic homes of the Gardendale subdivision spread everywhere, each on its own little patch, a bright rash over the subdued land. A trim desolation had succeeded the farm. Now an instant coziness succeeded the desolation.

  However, at the heart of the subdivision, set among the new houses with their small gardens, their bareness, and the constant autumnal fluttering of red nursery labels on young trees, there stood a wood of silver birches and poplars showing above a tall hedge that had marked, in previous days, the division between the Carlisle farmhouse lawn and the orchard and vegetable garden. Behind this hedge, among these trees, lived Sorensen Carlisle, the latter-day, stammering son of the old family, with his mother and grandmother. Every day, in order to go to school, he emerged from behind this woody hedge, flowering with a fairytale tapestry of Tom Thumb roses in the early summer, and travelled the two miles to school on a small motorbike.

  The house had a name and a gate, both of which belonged to the vanished farm. It was called Janua Caeli and the letters were cut deep into the stones of one of the big gateposts. Locally, however, it was mostly known as 'the old Carlisle house'.

  A scudding nor'wester beat clouds over the face of the moon, not yet full, but when it could it shone on the new gardens with an intermittent and threatening light, making them look stunted and strange by night, while, around the edges of curtains and blinds, light trembled with the constant pulse of television sets. Sometimes the curtains were still apart, and Laura could look into people's lives, see their lips move without words, watch them laugh at jokes she could not hear. It was like looking into a series of family peep shows, but Laura knew she was a stranger in the dark, spying on private moments, and hurried on.

  Someone came walking down the street towards her, and Laura, hearing the ring of steps, turned in at a gateway and hid behind a family car until the shadowy man had gone by. The subdivision was filled with young families, but for all that it was dangerous at night. Two months previously an elderly woman had been robbed and murdered, tied up with wire in front of her own television set, and only ten days later a plain, lumpy girl from the seventh form, Jacynth Close, had been beaten and raped in the trees that bordered the Gardendale Reserve. People at school made uneasy jokes about how desperate the rapist must have been, but Laura was horrified at the injustice of the world, for it seemed as if the one advantage of Jacynth's plainess should have been to save her from this brutality. It made Laura realize that she herself could be chosen. All that was necessary was that her path should intersect with that of an appropriate savage at an appropriate time, and darkness was the most appropriate time of all. She was not altogether easy with the new, and in some ways blatantly female, body that had recently opened out of her earlier childish one, but was obliged to accept its advantages and drawbacks, as well as all the obligations of caution that came with it. So she went very carefully, skirting the overlapping circles of light, not sure whether to let herself be clearly seen and to see others or to stick to the shadows and run the risk that the savage might be lying concealed there, waiting for her.