The Changeover (5 page)

just as he was thinking seriously about dinner.

However, he became increasingly thoughtful as he examined Jacko, first frowning and then saying in a very puzzled voice, "Well, there's certainly something wrong with him but it's not anything I can put a name to. Has he had any bad falls? Has he been shocked or depressed lately?"

"He's been fine," Kate said, "but yesterday someone played a trick on him that upset him. He had a bad night— a lot of bad dreams. Is it anything urgent? I might have to leave him for a little tonight — but his sister will be with him."

"I don't think it's anything to be seriously worried about," the doctor said. "A good night's sleep might make a big difference. His reactions are very slow — you haven't given him any medication, have you?"

"None!" said Kate. "I didn't think he needed anything this morning."

The doctor looked thoughtful but not worried.

"If he isn't any better by tomorrow, bring him in again. Who's your regular doctor? I won't prescribe anything for him just now and we'll see how he gets on. I'll leave a note for Doctor Bligh attached to Jonathan's card."

Laura forgot for long stretches at a time that Jacko's real name was Jonathan and only remembered it when places like the Health Centre remembered it for her, being too serious for playful names.

"Do you have to go out with this American?" asked Laura as they sat over a rushed and awkward supper of canned soup and toast.

"He's Canadian," Kate said defensively as if being American was somehow a little disreputable.

"Well, it amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?" Laura replied. "Canadians are Americans with no Disneyland."

"It's not at all the same thing," Kate replied calmly, "and anyway I'm interested in Chris as a person, not as a nationality. He's not on the 'phone either, so I can't ring him."

"You actually want to go out with him!" Laura said accusingly.

"Actually I do," Kate said, and succeeded in smiling, though Laura's voice was not friendly. "Oh, Lolly, don't be cross with me. It's over a year since I went out with anyone even vaguely romantic and I enjoyed having my hair done at 'Hair Today'. Peggy came and watched the shop for me, and it only took a few minutes with the heated rollers."

"Suppose Mr Bradley had come in?" Laura said sternly.

"Well, he didn't," said Kate.

"You wouldn't do that for Jacko and me," Laura said in a cruel voice. "All right! Go then! I expect you'll have such a good time you'll find it easy to forget about Jacko."

Kate looked over the family table with a clear, cold expression.

"Laura, you're not to speak to me like that," she said. "You've got too much good sense to imagine I'd have arranged to go out if I had known that Jacko was going to be sick, but the doctor did say it wasn't anything to be seriously worried about, and you're going to be home, and Sally's mother is right next door. I'll leave you the number of the Town Hall— it's in the phone book anyway, but it's a council number— and, if Chris has booked the seats, I'll leave the seat numbers, too. If there's an emergency I can be back here in twenty minutes. You're not to worry— and you're not to be mad at me for taking one evening off."

She sounded firm and, on the whole, Laura had to admit, reasonable. She felt confused at her own resent- merit and somehow mean-spirited, so she half apologized with a look, and later, when Kate was dressed in her best dress, and stockings without mends, told her as warmly as she could how nice she looked. In spite of good intentions she was astonished to hear how grudging her voice sounded, as if it were acting on hidden ideas of its own.

Nevertheless, Laura was even more astonished a little later to hear Kate say to Chris, when he came rather earlier than he needed to, that she could not go out after all because Jacko was ill and she would only worry about him and not enjoy herself properly. It would be a waste of a ticket, she said, because she would probably spoil things for Chris too. Kate had been thinking about Laura's protest and had changed her mind yet again. Chris, who had come in smiling and ebullient, was now uncertain whether to be sporting and hide his disappointment or honest and revengeful and display it openly.

"That's quite a blow!" he said in a gentle voice, but what he did not say was, "That's quite all right, Kate. I know Jacko has to come first."

"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."