Players at the Game of People (23 page)

"You're around seventy, maybe seventy-five. I think seventy-five. You were
too young for the First World War, you spent your childhood dreaming of
what it would have been like if you'd been a hero of the trenches, you
found out when the second one started that you didn't have the makings
of a hero because you weren't allowed to. You were too precious, like a
pampered Pekingese! You never did a brave thing in your life until today,
when you started telling the truth to a stranger.
Well?
"
Glaring, she advanced on him with one finger accusbigly upraised. He
could only stand agape with disbelief.
"How --
how
?" he forced out at long last.
"Christ, when were Deauville and Le Touquet 'the best places'? I paid
attention, which is what makes me a better writer than I can show in
those damned romances I have to churn out! I told you I never put my
name on any of them, didn't I? But I bet you never read anything I did
put my name to!" She was panting with the intensity of her feeling. "It
didn't make sense for you to be the age you look. How old, then -- as
old as Flight Lieutenant Ransome would have to be now?" She clawed the
press cutting from her pocket and brandished it before him. "Oh, no --
older than that, for sure! Not flying-bomb time, but Battle of Britain
time, which adds four years. And then older still! I take it I got you
pretty damn square in the belly,
right
?"
"Yes, but . . ." He had to swallow, painfully. "Yes, but would you deprive
Gorse of the chance to look -- not just thirty-two, but nineteen, eighteen,
seventeen, whatever she wants, when she's seventy? Would you deprive her of
the care and skill people like Irma and Luke and Hermann can provide?
You don't know these people! You don't know how marvelous they are when
they have the chance -- "
"What chance?" she cut in.
"Well, I mean, obviously they can't -- " He was tripping over his tongue.
"They can't do what they do for everybody, just for a small group, but
Gorse is in the group now and -- "
"And in hell."
"What do you mean?" he rasped, taking a pace toward her, clenching
his fists.
"Why, this is hell, nor are -- you -- -- out of it!" she said, but
warily prepared to dodge if he should strike her.
"If that's a bloody quotation you can stuff it!" he roared.
"Why? Because it isn't true?" she countered defiantly. "I think it is!
What was it like having to be thirty-two when the war was on, Godwin?"
It was the first time she had addressed him by name. "And having to
invent excuse after excuse for not being the hero you dreamed of when
you were a child? Having to use this trick you call a flex on all the
rozzers who asked for your identity card, all the redcaps who suspected
you of being a deserter? And what's it been like since, always running to
stay in the same place -- staying trendy, keeping up with the Bill Haley
concerts and the Beatles and the Stones and Siouxsie and the Banshees,
the discos and the casinos and the latest restaurants and the faddiest
clothes and the smartest resorts?"
"But I didn't!" he exploded. "You don't understand how it is!"
"You mean it's all done for you, automatically?"
"Yes, yes! Open those wardrobes, I find the right clothes! Every time
I lend myself I wake up with directions what to do!"
"You poor devil," she said softly. "You're even worse off than I thought.
You don't even get to enjoy what little there is that's fun in this sick
world. Do you care about what's happening to other people? Do you care
about the beggars and the street sleepers, the kids who've never had a
job and never will, the lost and the lonely and the mad?"
"I was one! And I was fucking glad to be shut of it!"
"Yes, that figures," she said musingly. "That must be how they do it.
They have to appeal to people who think their lives are such a mess
they'd be better off under someone else's control. No wonder there aren't
any successful politicians or businessmen in your circle of chums --
no writers either, or artists, I'll bet!"
"Wilf Burgess -- " Godwin began.
"A musician who prefers to live in the past. Not one who wants to create
a future. Second-hand, second-rate, the lot of them. It
is
hell, the
sort of life you lead. It must be. With no one better than that bunch
to be friends with!"
She realized abruptly that she was still waving the press cutting in the
air. Now she checked, and with a grave sense of ritual withdrew it from
its protective plastic envelope.
"Now I know for certain," she said, "that whether or not you help me,
I must stop at nothing to save my daughter."
"Wait!" he cried as he realized belatedly what she meant to do. It was
like having part of his inmost being flayed. But she darted away from
him, and theatrically tore the paper across, across again, across again,
until it was too small to tear any more. Then she let the fragments
flutter to the floor, and stamped on them.
"That's exorcism," she said. "I've rid myself of a demon who has haunted
me since I was ten. Now I want to do the same for Dora. Save her from
becoming a toy for these superbeings of yours who now and then like to
play at being people."
Reflex made him go down on his knees, seizing the scraps of paper
and trying to gather them back into a whole. But as he looked at the
crumpled bits he abruptly realized he could not see them, for his eyes
were overflowing with tears. He was sobbing, with great painful gasps
as though he had been expertly punched in the solar plexus.
He let them fall and rose slowly to his feet again.
"Very well," he said. "I'll do as you ask. But I warn you: don't judge
by first impressions. The place where Gorse is living isn't like this"
-- waving around the apartment -- "when she's not there. It's more
like this."
With reckless defiance he deactivated the room.
Torn curtains; the bed with its broken springs; the sink layered with
old dirt and grease; the cobwebs dense in every corner; holes in the
carpet; the paper hanging down in ragged tongues, the ceiling stained,
the paintwork chipped, everything dusty, moldy, foul .
She surveyed it calmly, instead of being shocked, and said after a while,
"I do feel sorry for you, God. Fifty years in this kind of squalor.
It never got this bad for me, even when Dora was a baby."
"But you've still got it wrong!" he raged. "This isn't real -- this is
cover! This is camouflage! This is in case someone walks in when I'm
not here!"
She looked him straight in the face and shook her head.
"No, this is real. It's the rest which isn't."
She walked to the door and it opened for her. From below came the inevitable
sound of the landlady's TV. There were the stairs down to the hall. There
was the front door. Beyond was the dingy, rain-swept street.
Confused, he could do nothing but follow her.
It was with a kind of savage pleasure that he seated her in the Urraco at
the garage where it awaited him. Something like this -- solid, tactile
-- could not be denied. The thrum of its engine was comforting to his
ears. He turned on a loud rock broadcast so as not to hear what his
companion had to say, and accelerated fiercely along the empty streets
which led toward Bill's house.
The rain had more or less blown over; the beggars and the scrawny children
were back, as usual, hurling pleas and curses in equal measure. He ignored
them; if they ran into his path he did not slow down, but made them jump
to safety.
What bloody business was it of
hers
how he chose to lead his life?
He wasn't her son! She was treating him as though -- No, more as though
he were her husband, or lover, with a share of responsibility for Gorse!
It was her choice to be what she was -- she was old enough to make up
her own mind!
Did I give the kid acid? Did! create the world where it was thought
to be smart to fool with the stuff?
So why had he been so open with Barbara? Why in heaven's name had he
jeopardized his future for the chance of talking to her openly?
He gave her a sidelong glance, and a shiver ran down his spine.
She was sitting utterly composed, so that almost all the lines had faded
from her face. She had zipped her jacket as they left the house, and now
its collar was turned up and hid her neck with its betraying traces of
age. She had abandoned the plastic snood she had worn when she arrived,
and her fair hair hung loose and untidy around her head.
She looked incredibly like the child version of herself whom he remembered.
And it dawned on him.
Oh, my God. I'm in love with this bloody woman. I always have been.
I never knew it. But there it was waiting for me. Like a trap. I was
in love with her even before I knew she existed.
And I don't even like the bitch!
Where had the day gone? It was dark. It was very dark -- unseasonably so,
as though another storm were brewing. Most of the streetlights were out,
but that was usual; a few, chiefly at intersections, still glimmered
and gave landmarks for navigation. He was too distracted by his inner
thoughts to care particularly. Just so long as the car's headlamps cast
their long lances far enough ahead.
A medley of confused resolutions burgeoned in his mind.
Maybe she's right. Maybe I have been living in a dream world. Well,
shit -- I know I have, so far as most people are concerned. But it
was still better than dying in the gutter with a bottle of meths in
my hand! Fleas and lice in my clothes, crusting scabs on my body,
vomit staining my shirt, and piss and shit drying on my pants!
His nausea grew physical; he had to steer his thoughts away to another
subject. Or he tried to. Somehow he kept reverting to the same track,
against his will.
Sold my soul? I don't believe in bloody souls! But . . . Oh, maybe
she's half right, at that. I have let it all be done for me. I wonder
if it's too late to try and be real again.
Images tumbled up from his subconscious, random as a spouting geyser.
Suppose I had been the guy who saved her life. Suppose i'd tracked
her down, married her as soon as it was legal -- about the age Gorse
is now, not quite a child bride. Would that have done anything?
No answer.
Suppose I hadn't come from my kind of background. Suppose at twenty
I hadn't already been a drunkard and --
But the ways he had found to get himself the liquor were still too
hideous in retrospect. He had to shy away again.
Suppose I'd stuck with Eunice, who recruited me . . . Why is it so
long since I thought about her? Is she still around? No reason why
she shouldn't be! We go on and on, after all. But I suppose it must
be a question of not getting too attached. People like her, like me,
are obliged to lead solitary lives. If we had entanglements in the
everyday world, we might not answer promptly when we're called.
He realized the other thing he might have said to Barbara about his
friends. Not only was no one among them a person of real influence;
not a single one had children, either.
A thought so bitter it was funny crossed his mind. He had to stifle a
laugh as he swung the car into a long fast curve.
At least we aren't being bred by our owners. They take what mongrels
chance throws up.
For what purpose? His answer to Barbara, when she put a similar question,
had been half right. He did think of the owners as being from some more
refined sphere of existence, where the keen joys of being human were no
longer available. From outer space? From some far-distant planet? From the
future? There was no point in asking. Ambrose would have said one thing,
Luke another, Irma would have spouted garbage about an astral plane . . .
In any case it didn't matter. If they were called, in this age, alien
beings, that meant no more than the name given them when they were
automatically assumed to be devils.
Called . . .
He wondered briefly whether the image he had of that process matched the
way someone like Bill or Wilf thought about it. He had always visualized
himself as like a dog: romping on a green hillside, delighted by the
smells and the rabbit droppings and the cowpats and the dew, suddenly
reminded of duty by a distant whistle.
Called.
He was yawning so hard his eyes were squeezing shut.
Exactly at the moment when the horror seized him Barbara reached across
to shut off the radio and said, "You didn't tell me Dora had moved out
of London!"
What?
Against another and even huger yawn he struggled to make sense of the
world. Ahead, curving in the headlamps' beam: not the familiar road to
Bill's place, not even a road in that approximate direction, but the
wide gray concrete sweep of the Westway, high as a church tower above
the ground, almost empty of traffic -- as nowadays it always was --
and with the inner lane barricaded to await repairs -- as it had been
for the past two years.
He tried to cry out, but the most he could manage was a whimper. Control
of his body had been suddenly stolen from him, not coaxingly and in sleep
as always before, but with a direct brusqueness that appalled him. Without
warning, bar that need to yawn, he found himself coexistent inside his
own head with --
A being?
A personage?
A creature?
The concepts that sprang to mind were
gray, translucent, vast, cool
-- as though he had been usurped from the throne of his awareness by
something partway between a gigantic slug and a wisp of smoke.
Also there was another overtone:
long
. But at first it made no sense.
He registered that the car was racing faster and faster through the
dark. Dimly he heard screams from beside him, from the corner of his
eye saw white movements: Barbara's hands as she clawed at his arm, then,
finding it more rigid than stone, at the handle of the door. It would not
open; this car had safety interlocks preventing doors being opened until
the speedometer showed zero miles per hour. All part of human progress.
Half a mile ahead a cluster of rare lights loomed: the next junction,
where traffic for the southwest should turn left. There were flashing
red lamps and a spotlight played on a Union Jack hanging limp from an
improvised pole. It was a fascist checkpoint of the kind he had seen in
the East End -- how long ago? They would be stopping cars to make sure
no coloreds were aboard; if they found any, they would drag them out
and beat them up.