Fabulous Creature (4 page)

“Oh well, it’s not just the four of them out there, is it? It’s the other one I could do without. The little one. Baby-sitting they call it. Well, let me tell you, there’s not much sitting to be done. Dodging would be more like it.”

Suddenly he knew what she was talking about. “Oh, you mean Jacky?” he asked.

“That’s the one. Good name for him, too. Another Jack the Ripper, someday, I wouldn’t be surprised.” Fiona was wiping up spilled sugar so fiercely that the table jittered.

Deftly rescuing his Dr. Pepper, James asked, “You mean you baby-sit at the Jarretts’?”

She sighed. “Regularly,” she said. “Every Saturday night.”

“You’d think one of them could do it sometimes,” James said sympathetically. “One of the other kids, I mean. They look old enough.”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you. But, oh no, not a bit of it. All four of them have to go out every Saturday night. The cook won’t do it, either. Got it written right into her contract when she went to work for them, good job for her. No baby-sitting.” Fiona was sounding bitterer by the moment.

“Well, why do you do it if you hate it so much?” James asked. “They couldn’t make you do it.”

She sighed. “It’s the money,” she said. “I’m helping my mum buy a new flat in Camden Town, and the Jarretts do pay bloody well, I’ll say that for them.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I make more money dodging Jacky for three hours than that old skinflint Mitchell pays me for a whole day.” Still sighing, Fiona retired behind the counter.

When James noticed that the Jarretts were preparing to leave, he stood up abruptly, put his glasses in his pocket, reconsidered, sat down again and put his glasses back on in order to watch them jog away. When they were out of sight, he asked Fiona where they lived. “I know it’s on Gettysburg,” he said. “Is it number sixteen?”

“Sixteen? No, that’s the other Jarretts. The Duncan Jarretts. The Dunkin’ Jarretts, I call them. Always in the water. This lot’s the hunting Jarretts.”

“Hunting? What do they hunt for?”

“What don’t they? You should see the poor things hanging around the walls in that cabin of theirs. Cabin!” She rolled her eyes upward. “More like a bloody castle. They have this room they call the trophy room that’s bigger than most people’s houses. That’s where they keep most of the dead animals.” Suddenly Fiona’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You have some particular interest in…” She paused, grinning. “Oh, so that’s it, is it? Diane strikes your fancy?”

James started to say something about a casual meeting on the beach, but Fiona interrupted. “You’d better watch your step with that one, laddie. Wind up hanging over the mantle with the zebras, you will.”

He left the snack bar soon afterward, discovered he’d left his groceries under the table, went back for them and left even more quickly with Fiona’s bitter chuckle following him out the door. At the crossroads he bravely took Gettysburg Avenue, but although he walked very slowly past number seventeen, a palatial cabin completely surrounded by multilevel decks, no one was in sight. Defeated, at least temporarily, he took the footpath to Anzio and headed toward the west gate.

He was almost through the grove of old trees when he heard the sound of a high-pitched voice. He stopped and stood still, listening. The voice came again. “Grif. Griffin. Where are you?” A moment later a little girl, perhaps six or seven years old, bounded into view, saw James and stopped with a startled gasp.

She was small and dark, and her hair hung in jagged wisps around her narrow face. There was something about the aristocratic sweep of her long delicate nose that reminded James of a beautiful Afghan hound he had once been acquainted with. Like the Afghan, the little girl seemed to be suspicious of strangers. Backing away among the trees, she was staring at James with large, startled eyes.

“Hello,” he said, smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “Did you lose—something?” “Grif” sounded like a pet, probably a dog.

Still backing, the girl continued to regard him warily. A moment more and she would probably have disappeared, but just at that moment the paper bag tore. A milk carton bounced off his foot, and as he grabbed for it, a loaf of bread shot out the top of the bag. While he was busy juggling groceries, he thought he heard a giggle, and when he was finished, with everything arranged more or less at random on the ground in front of him, except for one long strip of bag paper, which he still clutched in his left hand, he found that she had returned. Apparently the impromptu clown act had convinced her that he wasn’t dangerous after all. Squatting in front of him, she gathered up fallen groceries and asked questions.

“Who are you? Do you live here, in The Camp? Have you seen a girl—a big girl in a shiny dress?”

James grinned. “My name is James. No, I don’t live here, I just come here to shop at the Commissary. No, I haven’t seen anyone around here. Except you, that is. What’s your name?”

“Laurel. I’m Laurel Jarrett.”

“Jarrett?” James’ interest multiplied geometrically. “Is the girl you’re looking for Diane?”

In the midst of helping James stack his arms with loose groceries, Laurel Jarrett paused. Looking up she puckered her small mobile mouth as if she’d tasted something sour. “No. Not Diane. Diane is my cousin. Grif is—Griffin Donahue.”

On the little girl’s thin dark face vivid dramatic expressions came and went like colors in a kaleidoscope, and there was something about the way she said Griffin Donahue that was almost reverent. “Don’t you know Griffin?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Shhh!” she said suddenly, her finger to her lips. For a few seconds she parodied listening and then disappointment. Concern, anxiety and deep, dark foreboding followed each other across her face in a way that would have done justice to a heroine in a silent movie. “I’ve got to find her,” she said, making it sound as if it were at least a matter of life or death. “She said she’d be here.”

Running on tiptoe she disappeared among the trees, and James, still clutching precariously stacked loaves and cartons, headed for home. A few seconds later he heard, faint but clear, a faraway echo. “Griffin! Griffin! Where are you?” There was something about it that was almost eerie.

H
E WAS HURRYING
, dodging around people on a crowded sidewalk. It was terribly important that he get there in time, and there wasn’t a moment to lose. A large woman stepped in front of him, and he sidestepped, but not quickly enough to avoid brushing against her shoulder. Turning toward him, her face registered displeasure—and then shocked horror. He looked down at himself and saw with dismay that he was stark naked. You can’t fool me, he told himself, this is just another one of those dreams. It was getting to be almost monotonous. But still, just to be on the safe side, he looked around for cover and shot into a handy doorway. He found himself in a large empty hall. Backing away from the glass doors of the entry, he bumped into a table and sat down on it. “May I help you?” a voice said, and he turned to find Diane Jarrett sitting behind the table. She was wearing the pink bikini. He’d been right about the dream. Here we go again, he thought.

As soon as he was fully awake, he got quickly out of bed. It was getting to be a bit embarrassing, even though Charlotte, who had always been very frank and matter-of-fact about such things, assured him it was a perfectly normal part of puberty. Which was all very well, except he still wondered if he wasn’t overdoing normalcy a bit lately. It did seem that a person with universal goals ought to guard against getting into a rut. He grinned, thinking what Max would do with that one. Fielding, the natural-born straight man.

During breakfast that morning, he decided to take up tennis again. He’d attended a tennis class as a kid, at Charlotte’s urging, and stuck with it for several years, progressing from terrible to mediocre. Though he hadn’t played much recently, it suddenly occurred to him that this would be a good time to get back on the courts. It would, that is, if he could get permission from T.J. to play at The Camp. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. Diane played tennis, for one thing, and for another he obviously needed the exercise. The question now was, had he remembered to bring his racket. He vaguely recalled packing it, but he hadn’t seen it since they’d been in the cabin.

His mother and father had been engaged for some time in a very animated conversation regarding Disraeli and Queen Victoria, so he waited until there seemed to be a lull before he asked if anyone had seen his tennis racket. William stared at him blankly for a moment and then frowned. He’d lost track of the point he’d been about to make, he said, and was the whereabouts of a tennis racket a matter of such great urgency that it justified the interruption of a conversation?

James said he was sorry, but his father went on frowning. In the Fielding catechism, interruptions had always been one of the seven deadly sins. There wasn’t any use trying to explain. Although it just might be argued that what could happen to him in the next day or two, if he could find his tennis racket, was somewhat more urgent than something that happened to Disraeli over a hundred years ago.

After his father remembered the point he’d been about to make, he made it at some length, and when he had finished Charlotte said she was glad that was settled, and if James would look on the top shelf of his closet it might settle another matter, too. A few minutes later he was on his way to The Camp completely equipped for a game of tennis.

When he entered T.J.’s outer office, Lieutenant Carnaby was feeding the fish in a whole row of small aquariums built into recesses all along one wall. She was in uniform, the belted khaki tunic over longish shorts that were regulation dress in T.J.’s army. It was probably supposed to look dashing and romantic—Her Majesty’s officers on far-flung frontiers, or characters from a Hemingway novel—but the Lieutenant was short, frizzy-haired and shaped something like an old-fashioned milkbottle. The overall effect was pretty incongruous.

“Hello,” she said, backing out of a tank recess and tugging at the skirt of her tunic. “Fielding, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sss…” Uncertain about sir-ing a female officer, James let his salutation sizzle into silence.

“Did you want to see the major?”

“Not particularly. What I mean is, maybe you can tell me what I want to know. I just want to know if our Willowby pass gives us other privileges besides the use of the Commissary and the snack bar. Like the tennis courts, for instance? I mean, would it be all right if I came over now and then to play some tennis?”

The lieutenant frowned. “Well, I don’t believe that situation has come up before, so I just don’t know what the major would say. I think perhaps you’d better talk to him.”

James had been afraid of that. The major, it seemed, was in. In a few minutes James was standing at attention in front of the major’s enormous desk. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. In fact, everything in the room seemed to be standing at attention, including all the objects on the major’s desk and the hair on his closely cropped head. His khakis were immaculately pressed and his lean, freshly shaved face had an almost metallic gleam. “Good morning, Fielding,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

When James had explained what he wanted, the major got up and took some papers from an elaborate filing system and studied them carefully before he answered. “You realize, of course, Fielding, that in making a decision such as this, I must give first consideration to the needs of Camp residents.” He paused and looked at James sternly. James nodded, wondering if that meant “Forget it.”

“However,” the major went on, “I see by our Facilities Use Records that the courts have not been fully utilized lately, so perhaps some of our tennis regulars would enjoy having a new adversary. Some fresh blood, as it were.”

James considered saying he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Instead he diplomatically admired the view from the office window and an assortment of rifles in an enormous gun case behind the major’s desk, while the files were being returned carefully to their proper place and a notation made on the back of James’ pass, to the effect that it had been extended to cover use of athletic facilities. It was a very successful stratagem—the major handed back his pass with what came fairly close to being a smile, and then personally escorted James back out through the outer office, pointing out other items for him to admire. Carried away by the success of his diplomacy, James fervently admired a bright green plastic tree, an enormous photograph of The Camp’s main entrance, and each one of the fish individually. They all looked pretty much the same. They were, the major said, belligerent little devils called Siamese fighting fish, which had to be kept in separate tanks to keep them from tearing each other into bloody scraps. By the time James left, he had been called upon to admire nearly everything in the office except Lieutenant Carnaby.

On his way to the tennis courts he stopped off at the snack shop to retrieve his racket and balls, which he had left with Fiona while he presented his case, not wanting to give the impression of overconfidence. He chatted for a while with Fiona, who was being bitter about the beautiful weather. It couldn’t be like this on her day off, could it? Oh no
.
Let her take the day off and the thermometer automatically dropped twenty degrees. But just let her be stuck behind this counter and look at it. Paradise.

James sympathized and, rather guiltily, headed for the tennis courts, detouring once more at the pavilion’s public restrooms; where it occurred to him to wonder if his use of the men’s room would be officially entered in the major’s Facilities Use Records.

On the courts, the only other person waiting for a partner was a ten-year-old boy, which wasn’t too unfortunate, since James was so rusty. He even managed to win the second game. Then the little kid and a couple of other players went home to lunch. The one remaining player on the courts strolled towards James, bouncing a ball on his racket. He was tall, good-looking, blond and probably a year or two older than James—and suddenly James knew where he’d seen him before. He hadn’t really observed him too carefully at the time—his mind, and eyes, having been on other things—but he was fairly sure that the guy was one of the jogging Jarretts. The one who was probably Diane’s brother.