Transmigration (21 page)

 

 

The phone rang. The friendly detective said politely: "May I?" and even
waited until Gerry nodded before picking it up.

 

 

It was the type of one-sided phone conversation that made the whole
conversation plain to the listener. Mr. Gordon was at the shop. Nothing
was missing. Yes, he was quite certain. He couldn't be sure about the
stock, but no money was missing. No attempt had been made to tamper
with it.

 

 

The friendly detective, curiously, was less friendly when he put down the
phone. His friendliness was the smile on the face of the tiger. While he
thought Gerry had broken into a shop and stolen Ł300, he was "son." When
he thought Gerry had not, he became "you."

 

 

"There's nothing to keep us," he said shortly. "You -- try to keep your
girl friend in hand, will you? In fact, you'd be better away from that
one. We know about you and we know about her."

 

 

Gerry said nothing.

 

 

"Somebody's going to murder that girl," said the detective. "She's going
to be found in a field somewhere with nineteen stab wounds, probably
some time in the next six months. When that happens, we'll come looking
for you. Be sure you're in the clear then."

 

 

When they had gone, Gerry was too tired to do anything but stumble back
to bed. Baudaker had heard nothing, apparently.

 

 

It was a warm night, and Gerry didn't even manage to get under the
sheets. He flopped on the bed and slept.

 

 

 

 

Fletcher found it quite an interesting and enjoyable experience to be
a junior salesman in a shoe shop. He had never in any of his lives had
to deal with the general public. Unexpectedly, Gerry had a friendly,
easy manner, and all regular customers tried to be served by him rather
than any of the others.

 

 

Mr. Gordon, a small, thin man with white hair, sought him out and was as
apologetic about the incident the night before as if it had been entirely
his fault. Gerry, uncomfortable on his own behalf, with no interference
by Fletcher, made it very clear that all he wanted was to forget the
whole thing. But Mr. Gordon insisted he should take the afternoon off,
in compensation for being needlessly disturbed in the middle of the night.

 

 

Then Mr. Gordon, too, said something that people were always saying to
Gerry. Everyone who knew him at all knew about it.

 

 

"That girl, Gerry . . . she means nothing but trouble for you, you know."

 

 

"I know," said Gerry. "But she's my girl, Mr. Gordon."

 

 

Mr. Gordon sighed and left it at that.

 

 

Already Fletcher was finding to his surprise that Gerry's problems were
simple; possibly insoluble, but simple.

 

 

He had been rootless, at the mercy of the gentlest breeze. His mother
had failed him not just by dying (anyone could die) but by leaving him
and Sheila for six months, as Gerry now knew, and then returning only to
stick her head in the gas oven. Baudaker, too, had failed him. Fletcher
was interested to find confirmation that Gerry had respected the tougher,
but fair, Baudaker he had encountered recently. Gerry was indeed the type
who responded well to firm authority, and didn't know how to handle full
freedom of action.

 

 

He clung to Sheila because there was no one and nothing else to cling to.

 

 

Ironically, Fletcher brought him stability. Gerry saw for the first
time the futility of running without purpose and without destination,
saw it with undeniable clarity. He saw himself, and bad as that was,
it was not nearly as bad as he had thought in his heart.

 

 

With the first touch of Fletcher he became an ordinary kid of seventeen,
still uncertain but now possessing a framework of experience, a map of
life to help prevent his ever being wholly lost again.

 

 

Baudaker could help him again. Gerry now could do something he had not
done for many years, trust certain people. He could trust Baudaker,
he could trust Mr. Gordon, he could trust Fletcher most of all because
he knew him most deeply. He could not trust Sheila.

 

 

Of course it was Sheila that was the real problem.

 

 

At lunch time Gerry did not go home, and there was no chance of seeing
Sheila, who lunched in the canteen of a textile factory which was not
open to visitors. He was ravenously hungry, and he had next to no
money, having spent all he had with Sheila in the expectation of
stolen riches. There was not enough for an ordinary meal in an ordinary
restaurant, but here Fletcher, with his small experience of the world,
was able to help. He directed Gerry to a small Italian café where,
with the help of a few words of Italian, Gerry sat down to an enormous
pile of spaghetti and cheese and tomato sauce, meatless but sustaining,
for less than the price of a snack elsewhere.

 

 

--I can't leave Sheila, said Gerry as he ate.

 

 

It was a plain statement, definite but neither challenging nor rebellious,
and Fletcher accepted it as such.

 

 

--I know.

 

 

--What was that? You were thinking something, and tried to hide it
from me.

 

 

--It's my affair, not yours.

 

 

--No, it was about Sheila.

 

 

The significance of this was not lost on Fletcher. He had replied:
"It's my affair, not yours," and Gerry, knowing the evasion concerned
Sheila, immediately took it to himself.

 

 

--Sheila is sick.

 

 

--You think everybody is sick.

 

 

--Aren't they? Knowing. what I know, don't you agree?

 

 

--I don't know about things like that.

 

 

--Whether Sheila can be helped or not I don't know. But I'm sure of this:
if it's possible, I can do nothing except by being Sheila.

 

 

--Well, then? Why not?

 

 

--It's not that easy. You know that. You know about me.

 

 

Gerry ate silently for some time. He had never eaten long spaghetti,
and found it difficult. He tried twirling his fork and he tried cutting
the ribbons; in the end, like an elderly and very prosperous-looking
Italian two tables away, he sucked the strands up somewhat messily.

 

 

Judy had had to use Fletcher's terror of heights to dislodge him. Ross
had drowned him in whisky. In Baudaker's case, chance took a hand.

 

 

His own thoughts paralleling Fletcher's, Gerry suggested:

 

 

--Suppose I started to strangle Sheila?

 

 

--It wouldn't work. It wouldn't even begin to work. I wouldn't let you.

 

 

--Then suppose Sheila tried to kill me?

 

 

The idea had not occurred to Fletcher. Yet at once, intuitively, he knew
it was a red herring. Sheila would never kill anyone. She was passive,
submissive; she would scream to Gerry to kill Baudaker, but she would
never deliver the coup de grace herself.

 

 

Without prompting, Gerry chose to wander along the estuary that afternoon.
It was warm and sunny, and there were many people on the sand, but not
many children, since the school summer holidays had not stared yet. Full
of spaghetti and well-being, Gerry threw himself down on the sand very
near where he had once tormented Sheila, where later Fletcher had filled
himself with beer.

 

 

Gerry was quite happy. Fletcher's presence made him content with himself:
he was glad to be on good terms again with his father; and he no longer
needed to drink whisky for the courage and oblivion it brought. Only the
problem of Sheila remained, and Fletcher was half amused, half appalled,
to find that Gerry was cheerfully shuffling it off onto his shoulders.

 

 

Gerry could not rid himself of the idea that Fletcher was some sort
of angel. Not highly imaginative, he liked to find a simple answer or
explanation for anything puzzling, and then believe in it implicitly. The
simplest explanation for the miracle that was happening was that Fletcher
was a good spirit of some kind.

 

 

Two girls of about Gerry's age passed in front of him, looked at him,
whispered, giggled, and sat down on the sand a little farther along.
Towels came out of their shopping bags and they took off their shoes.
They made a great performance of removing their nylons, looking back
over their shoulders at Gerry, giggling again, wriggling and drawing
out the suspense, pretending they'd be horrified if he looked at them
but making sure he did.

 

 

Fletcher felt Gerry's quickening of interest, and though he remained
merely a spectator, he was somewhat startled by the youth's shamelessly
polygamous instincts. Sheila was his girl, as he had not long ago finished
making clear. Any plans for the future had to include Sheila. Yet when
a couple of girls he had never seen before showed that they were not
disinterested in him, he immediately began to wonder, in his own phrase,
if there was "anything doing."

 

 

Fletcher the Puritan argued with himself, pointing out that his own
record with women had shown all too plainly that puritanism was not what
any woman wanted, nor what society really expected.

 

 

Meanwhile Gerry looked away from the girls, a picture of disinterest,
and took his shirt off.

 

 

Not to be outdone, the girls wriggled into bikinis, at first coyly and
then, when Gerry refused to let them see him looking at them, with smooth
skill which showed they were practiced beach changers. The thin one,
the blonde, turned out to be too thin, her ribs standing out starkly
like xylophone keys and her halter halting nothing very much. But the
redhead was generously curved, saved from over plumpness by a tight waist
and slim thighs which, to accord with the rest of her, should have been
heavy. She was not beautiful but she was devastatlngly attractive.

 

 

It was the redhead who stood up, stretching on tiptoe in the sun. Seeming
to catch Gerry's eye purely by chance, she winked and then laughed.

 

 

The next moment he was with them. They were Vera (the blonde) and Daphne
(the redhead). Within two minutes Vera was sulky and bored; frozen out,
particularly by her friend. She was on the point of taking offense,
throwing on her clothes and going away. Daphne shot Gerry a few secret
glances to let him know he was on to a good thing.

 

 

Then Fletcher interrupted urgently.

 

 

--If you care about Sheila, come away now.

 

 

--Sheila? She's working.

 

 

--Where Sheila is, nobody's working just now. I don't know the details.
All I know is, it's a crisis. Probably because of last night.

 

 

--I know what she's like when she's depressed . . .

 

 

At the thought, Gerry jumped up. "I have to go," he said.

 

 

Vera jeered with derision at Gerry and particularly at her friend Daphne.
Gerry didn't see Daphne's reaction. He threw on his shirt as he climbed
the sand slope.

 

 

--If you know Sheila's in trouble, you must have some idea what kind
of trouble.

 

 

--No. She's the center of attention, I know that. She's somewhere where
no one can get at her.

 

 

Gerry groaned.

 

 

--When Sheila gets high . . .

 

 

--Drunk?

 

 

--No, when she . . . I mean, when she can't take it any more, she tries
to kill herself.

 

 

--Of course. I should have known that.

 

 

 

 

There was no sign of anything unusual at the factory where Sheila
worked. Guided by Fletcher, Gerry ran up the stairs, into the office on
the top floor. There all was chaos. Nobody was at any of the desks. A
green filing cabinet lay on its face, having smashed a fragile desk as
it fell. Debris was wildly scattered about.

 

 

Scores of girls and men were crowded at a big window right at the end
of the office. They were silent for the most part, whispering but not
speaking aloud.

 

 

Gerry came up behind 'them. "What's happening?" he demanded.

 

 

In the way of crowds, they knew at once who he was: Sheila's boy
friend. An excited chatter told him:

 

 

"She's out there."

 

 

"On the ledge."

 

 

"She's got a broken arm."

 

 

"She tried to kill Mr. Sheringham."

 

 

"Pulled the cabinet on top of him . . . I wouldn't have thought she had
the strength . . . "

 

 

"I only said she looked pale," said a thin bony man who presumably was
Sheringham. "I dodged, but the cabinet caught her arm."

 

 

"She always was crazy."

 

 

"You must be Gerry Baudaker."

 

 

"I spoke to her earlier,-and she never even looked at me."

 

 

"She didn't have any lunch.".

 

 

"A policeman came to see her. He said it was nothing important, but when
he left she looked . . . "

 

 

"I did say something about the company she kept," Sheringham admitted
reluctantly. "All I meant was . . . "

 

 

Gerry pushed past them. It wasn't difficult; they all drew away from
him, because he was Sheila's steady. He was part of this unexpected,
frightening yet exciting drama. What was he going to do? Was the episode
going to fizzle out, or was something yet more exciting going to happen?