The Changeover (16 page)

"Come on, Jacko," she lured him back to the world. "Everything's waiting. No show without Punch, you know."

A voice spoke and it took her a moment to realize it was speaking in the outside room.

"Laura — wake up!" Kate was saying. "Oh Laura, something's happening."

Laura's heart was wrung by Kate's voice filled with dread rather than hope. She was panting a little as if she had run a long way. Laura could give her no convincing reassurance. Yet something was indeed happening. Jacko's eyes had opened and he was staring into the air with the newly-born look, grave and unfocused, that Kate remembered noticing in his first hours.

"It's all right!" Laura declared. "Mum, I promise it's all right. He's getting better, that's all."

"Go and get Dr Hayden," Kate commanded. "I don't know where he is, but someone will tell you. He's the nicest doctor. Or get the nurse. I don't want to leave Jacko."

Jacko's eyes moved at the sound of her voice and found Kate, at last. At first it was hard to tell if he saw her. Then his mouth moved. He was trying to smile.

"Jacko! Jacko darling!" Kate murmured, in a voice beginning to quaver.

Laura left them and went looking for the doctor. "What about me?" wailed Carmody Braque, fluttering with dreary persistence on the edge of her attention. Laura stood still, smiling. Her curving lips were closed, her eyes narrow. "Too bad about you!" she replied, speaking aloud to the empty corridor, and her voice slid ahead of her along the immaculate white walls, slipping like a serpent across the glossy floor. "Your turn now! Your turn Mr Carmody Bloody Braque."

Around the corner came a tall, white figure, the very nurse she was looking for, actually on her way to check up on Jacko and his failing condition.

The nurse and Laura came back into the room to find Jacko still awake staring at Kate and holding his Ruggie which she had taken from his hospital locker.

"He said he wanted it." Kate sounded completely distracted by now. "He's trying to suck his thumb but I didn't like to let him with that tube in his arm."

Shortly after, Jacko's eyes closed, but he had simply gone to sleep. The waxy stillness had quite gone from his face. He looked pale and worn but very much alive.

"Oh Lolly!" Kate said a little later. "If only Jacko recovers!"

"Of course he'll recover," Laura said. "He was looking at you and smiling. It's a long time since he was able to do that."

"Last Friday," Kate remembered. "Imagine, no smile from Jacko since Friday. It feels like years of real time. And as for you — you've changed, too. What have you done to yourself? I noticed, but I'm only just feeling reasonable enough to wonder about it. Is it that boy? What a time to start taking an interest in boys!"

Laura opened her mouth to reply, but Kate was too quick for her. "Don't tell me. You didn't choose the time, the time chose you. But Sorry Carlisle's a bit ambitious isn't he, and how did he happen along in the first place?"

"I'll tell you later," Laura said. "It's too long to tell now," and Kate was still too distracted by Jacko to insist on being told.

Later, the doctor talked to Stephen and Kate. "It's too soon to say just how much of an improvement there is," he said. "But I must say there has been quite a dramatic alteration, and the really perplexing thing is I still can't tell you why. I'd love to be certain that it was something we did, but I can't, and even if it was, I can't be sure just what it was. His heart is a lot stronger — that's the main thing. There's still a bit of dehydration in spite of all we did to prevent it, but it's not critical. We'll just have to wait and see. At the moment all the signs are good."

Laura found she was so tired the world went dim and quavering around her. She thought she might go to sleep standing.

"Laura," Kate said, "you look worn out. Worse than I do. Go back to the motel with Stephen. Have a good meal and a good night's sleep. Don't worry about me! I'll ring Chris as soon as I can and he'll come round and sit with me."

Although she was arranging Laura's life so coolly, Kate looked very wild herself once again. Laura recognized in her pins and needles of frantic hope, as necessary but as agonizing as blood running into a numbed leg once more. She put her arms around Kate as if she were the protecting one, and then let her father lead her out to the car. There was no mistaking his pleasure — his passionate gratitude over Jacko's improvement — and Laura found herself forgiving him for that day of warnings long ago in the past, when she had come home to find all his favourite things gone and the house empty of his presence as if he had cut himself entirely out of her life and taken part of her with him. It no longer seemed to matter that he had loved someone else more than he had loved her or loved Kate, and in a way she felt, that, like Jacko, she had begun to recover from a secret illness no one had ever completely recognized or been able to cure.

Kate stayed at the hospital. Laura went to the motel with her father and Julia where, rather to her surprise, she enjoyed herself very much. She even enjoyed Julia's company for she could feel very distinctly how anxious Julia was to get on with her and how delighted she was at Jacko's recovery, partly because she was naturally glad to hear that a sick child was likely to become well again, and partly because it would set Stephen free from his previous family to belong entirely to her once again. Deep down Laura knew, perhaps better than Julia herself, that Julia had had a small fantasy in which Jacko died and that her own new baby was a boy, making her more important than ever to Stephen because she was the mother of his son. But she abandoned this secret dream without regret, hardly even knowing she had had it. Laura, astonished at the skill with which she detected it, was also astonished that she did not resent it more. Perhaps it was so remarkable to find Julia frightened that Stephen did not love her enough that there was no energy to waste on resentment. Laura thought she would never feel angry with any person again except one, and against that one she planned to turn the full force of all the fury she had ever felt.

In the morning there was a
phone call from Kate to say that Jacko was still showing great improvement. Laura set off for school enjoying the magnificence of her father's car and a feeling of elation that seemed to run with her blood, pumping through her heart and out along the branching paths of her body.

"There's something going on," Stephen said, looking ahead to a small crowd round the school gates. "I can't think why Kate lets you go to a school like this one. I'm sure they'd take a bright girl like you in a better area."

Laura could not be bothered reminding her father about such things as money and the difficulties of transport. She saw that the prefect at the gate arguing with some recalcitrant pupil was Sorry himself and felt the same odd lurch inside her that she had felt for the first time by the estuary on Sunday morning, and again the night before last when they had kissed in the presence of Winter and Miryam. Filled with a wonderful apprehension and excitement, she watched him for a full second before she realized that he was not arguing with a pupil but with Carmody Braque.

"I'll get out here," she said to Stephen. "Don't drive into that crowd. Sometimes boys try to bang on the cars as they go by."

Stephen certainly did not want his car banged on. He drew into the side of the road. "Have a nice day," he said. "And Baa-lamb, just while we're on our own for a moment — when all this is over, and supposing Jacko is safe and well again, how about coming north for Christmas? We'd love to have you."

"Wouldn't it be better if I waited until after the baby's born?" Laura said. "It will be a half-sister or brother and I ought to meet it." She had started off trying to be generous to her father, but by the end of her sentence she found herself speaking a new truth. With her long anger against her father dissolving, and Jacko restored and recovering, she was prepared to be interested in a new brother or sister... one that would come after Jacko, not one replacing him. She even felt a little sorry for it in a kindly way, because, though it would have many advantages, like a family car that went without pushing, it would not have the adventurous life that she had in Gardendale.

Stephen let her out of the car and she waved goodbye, feeling like a good witch, but in the very act of turning to face the school gate her expression changed and with it her immediate vision of herself and her purpose.

"I shall complain to the principal," Carmody Braque was shouting. "I shall let him know just how uncooperative you have been."

"His office is in the big block there," Sorry answered, pointing. "If you hurry you'll have time before assembly. Go on, you kids, beat it!" he added to a group of third formers standing by their bikes, watching the scene with interest. "It's just some poor old nutter raving on."

Some of the children moved reluctantly into school. Others proved unwilling to leave such lively entertainment.

"I know about you," Carmody Braque shouted at Sorry. "You and that girl! I shall let the authorities know, too, make no mistake about that."

Laura was quite close to them by now. Sorry glanced over at the lingering group of children watching from a little distance.

"Don't you shake your finger at me," he said in a low voice to Mr Braque. "You're starting to look as if it might drop off." As he spoke he was suddenly aware of Laura and turned his head. Carmody Braque turned, too, then spun around to face her, automatically holding his hand out, palm upward, in the attitude of someone asking for money. His hand was black as if the entire palm had begun to decay. Other discoloured blotches showed clearly on his skin, crawling over him like mould. His face had fallen back around his teeth once more and he grinned with the most dreadful anxiety.

"My dear," he began, "let's be reasonable ..." and his voice sounded thick and muffled, choked with darkness and old time. His downfall was faster than Jacko's, and the knowledge of this, and of the heavy centuries waiting to fall on him, was the source of his panic. Over the years, thought Laura, he had gone from one quiet but horrible victory to another without opposition and had built up no ability to cope with any reversal, and here he was now, almost on his knees again before her, looking, for the first time, less than immaculate in yesterday's clothes.

Laura was glad to see him so desperate and reduced. She felt enormously strong as she suddenly became aware of the full extent of her power over him. She could make him fall down fainting at her feet, could make him last for days, weeks, even months. No one would suspect her of anything, for everyone at school knew just how ordinary she was, and from behind this ordinariness she was free to be infinitely revenged on someone who had invited her vengeance. On other occasions people she loved had hurt her savagely, but she knew they had to be forgiven because she herself hoped to be forgiven, too. It was part of a human agreement. But Carmody Braque was not human and could be punished for his wickedness. With her commands exploding in his mind he would howl like a dog, fling himself in front of the earth-moving machinery, bite pieces out of his own arm or tear off his clothes and dance naked outside the school gate, and all people would think was that he had gone mad. But even taken to a hospital and cared for by doctors, he would never, never escape her revenge. Laura was offered a unique chance to discharge her own burden of human anguish and to strike at the powers of darkness, and no one would know. So now she sent a crisp command to him, and, like a man who finds a rope tightening under his very feet, Carmody Braque sprawled before her. The first bell rang out over the playground like a huge alarm clock going off.

"What's going on?" she asked aloud, staring down at the fallen enemy and then up into the face of Sorry Carlisle, watching her from the school gate.

"Some old joker's gone round the twist," a boy shouted.

"Yeah, he's been at Carlisle to tell him where you live," said another. Sorry said nothing, merely looking at her with an arrested curiosity, half smiling, half wary.

"Me?" Laura cried, stepping over Carmody Braque. "Why me?" She turned to watch as he picked himself up and retreated towards his car, wheezing and snuffling as he went.

"Everyone in! Didn't you hear first b-bell?" said Sorry with a trace of his stammer coming into his voice. He walked beside her up the concrete path that skirted the rugby field.

"Very heavy, Chant!" his light voice said, a little above her ear. "Are you playing with your mouse a bit?"

"I want him to suffer," Laura said. "Jacko did. Kate did. I did. He's coming to bits anyway, isn't he?"

"You're enjoying it, aren't you?" Sorry said, without either criticism or rancour. "I suppose that's the balance of having a heart. Perhaps I had guessed that when I decided to give mine up." They moved across the concreted area in front of the school towards the main doors.

"I don't think it's possible to be cruel to something like him," Laura said defensively, surprised to find herself made uneasy by the school uniform walking beside her with its seventh form blazer and prefect's badge. Somewhere behind it was the body against which she had pressed her own yesterday and which she had felt answer her embrace immediately and more generously than its owner might have wished. For a moment his face looked as if his true name was the one Chris Holly had accidentally given him — the name of Sorrow.

"I don't know what I think about power," Sorry said at last. "Mostly I want to go unseen. Of course, at home in my own room— that's different. Outside, well — I'd rather knit the world up than tear it apart. Knowing you is making me very jumpy, Chant, because you're making me confess to myself that I'm more set about with ideals than I ever wanted to be."

"He's not a real person, Mr Braque isn't," Laura said as they prepared to go their separate ways. "He's an awful idea that's got itself a body it shouldn't have."

"But you're real," Sorry answered. "It's not him I'm thinking about. It's you. It's easy for me to recognize what you're up to because I've thought of it myself sometimes — being merciless, being cruel, really. But ..." His voice trailed away. "I've got to go."

"But what?" asked Laura.

"You know!" Sorry said, walking backwards for a few steps, as he moved away from her. "There are always two people involved in cruelty, aren't there? One to be vicious and someone to suffer! And what's the use of getting rid of— of wickedness, say— in the outside world if you let it creep back into things from inside you?"

"It's justice, not cruelty," Laura cried. "Justice! I don't want to talk about it any more. Go away!"

"How's Jacko?" Sorry said, turning and then speaking over his shoulder.

"Getting better," Laura shouted across the widening space between them.

"Hey — you didn't tell me you liked him" said Nicky, materializing at her elbow.

"I don't," Laura answered shortly.

"Oh sure!" Nicky said. "Who do you think you're trying to fool?"

Laura sat in class and thought about Mr Braque and the various things Sorry had said, wondering if it was true that cruelty was the balance of a loving heart. She thought of Kate's tears, her own grief and Jacko shrivelling in his own bed. She thought of Sorry saying that cruelty took someone to suffer and someone to be vicious as if the act was the result of a collusion. A friend of Kate's had recently had a new baby and had given her older child a big, floppy doll with instructions that, if ever he felt jealous of the new baby, he was to punish the doll which could not feel. On a recent visit Laura had watched with consternation as the child punished the doll. "I'm allowed to do this," he said, hitting it, less, Laura felt, out of jealousy for the new baby, than because he had been given a chance to be infinitely cruel to something infinitely yielding. To Laura, the doll with its button eyes had been a feeling thing— the face had given it, at least, the appearance of feeling. She wondered if Sorry saw her in the same way as she had seen that child. Given the chance to be cruel did you get cruelty out of your system by acting on the chance, or did you invite it in?

People knew she was special today because her brother was so very ill. She was allowed to use the office 'phone to ring the hospital and check on Jacko's progress. He was continuing to improve.

"Medical science is baffled," she reported to Nicky.

"Serve it right," said Nicky. "My mother says doctors don't really have a clue."

"Ours has been nice," Laura said, watching Sorry across the playground talking to Carol Bright again. All the disadvantages of being married without the advantages, she thought. She was free to be jealous, but somehow not free, at school, to go and sit with him in the way Carol was doing. But she had power over him. She watched him, and after a moment he turned his silver eyes restlessly to look at her while he continued to talk to Carol. He looked reduced and flatter, less significant than he had at home, more ordinary than he had looked to her at school last week. She looked through Nicky's notes of yesterday which she needed to copy. Out by the gate she could see Carmody Braque's black car parked and waiting for her to show herself. After the first bell, to mark the end of the lunch hour, she ran to the prefect's room and asked to speak to Sorry. This brought a certain amount of derisive and even ribald comment from within.

"What's the matter, Chant?" he asked.

"Do you really think I'm being cruel?" she asked abruptly. "And don't you think he deserves it?"

"I don't think that's the point," Sorry said, looking around rather furtively, but they were alone in the school passage surrounded by the faint smell of disinfectant and floor polish from the cleaner's cupboard. "I suppose he was a real man once but he got stuck, and maybe what caught him was the same sort of choice that you've got. I don't know, but the thought of it scares me because after all, trying not to feel anything ever again is a way of sticking, too."

"Could you take a message to him?" she asked. "He's still out there. Tell him I'll meet him at the main gate of the Reserve. I'd go myself but I don't even want to talk to him."

"All right," Sorry said after a moment. "Can I lend other support? Moral or otherwise?"

"I'll do this bit alone," Laura said. "Thank you very much," she added stiffly.

"You're entirely welcome," he replied. "Let me know how you get on."

"What shall I do?" Laura asked.