Transmigration (23 page)

 

 

Again Fletcher had to fight with himself. And I kissed her little sister
and forgot my Clementine . . . No, Gerry would never forget Sheila. In
his way he had truly loved the girl, just as in her even more peculiar
way she had loved him.

 

 

Gerry was emerging from the shadows into the sunlight. He was a simple
character. He no longer needed Fletcher, and he knew it. A little like
his father, however, he was reluctant to be rid of him.

 

 

And there was no sign of any crisis, now that Sheila was dead, which
might eject Fletcher.

 

 

They walked home in the moonlight. This time Daphne led him round the
back of the old house where her parents lived.

 

 

"Where are we going?" Gerry asked.

 

 

"There's a shed at the back of the greenhouse. But don't get ideas. I'm
a sfanf girl."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"So far and no farther."

 

 

"I've met girls like that."

 

 

"I bet you have. And the other kind?"

 

 

"One or two."

 

 

"I thought there was only one girl in your life?"

 

 

"Only one in it, but there were a few round the edges."

 

 

They could talk quite easily about Sheila now, though her name was
rarely mentioned.

 

 

Gerry was an easy talker with girls and with customers. It was only with
Authority that he had been sullen, his feeling of inadequacy expressing
itself in resentful obstinacy. He would in time be an extremely good
salesman, and there were indications that Mr. Gordon was well aware
of this.

 

 

The shed was tiny, dusty, warm and dark. The furniture consisted of one
small stool on which Gerry sat, pulling Daphne down on his knee. Her
lips met his willingly.

 

 

A little later she said "Naughty!" and slapped his hand, following up
with a playful dig in the ribs. Automatically he swung back at her.

 

 

Instantly she was on her feet in the gloom. "Never do that again,"
she said fiercely. "Now get out."

 

 

"Sorry, Daphne," he said, trying to pull her back on his knee. He had
reacted without thinking, swinging at her middle, but it was a light punch
that could have hurt her no more than she had hurt him. For a moment he
felt the old vicious resentment (what did I do wrong?), and then admitted
to himself that she had been playful and there had been just the hint
of malice in his response that made a world of difference. Although she
was not trying to pull away from him, she was resisting his efforts to
draw her back to him.

 

 

He caught her ankle, jerked it and caught her as she fell. But that was
all right; there was no malice this time and she laughed breathlessly.

 

 

"I'll have to go in soon," she murmured. She had no intention of going
in soon, and he knew it.

 

 

It was quickly and clearly established where the limits lay, to the
satisfaction of both. Gerry was the kind of youth who would despise
any girl who gave in to him too easily, and while on the face of it he
was not getting what he wanted, he didn't really want Daphne to be too
easy. And she, no doubt, was as well aware of this as he.

 

 

However, as Gerry finally made his way home, very late, he suddenly
observed:

 

 

--It's true. Three's a crowd.

 

 

--I'd be the last to deny it.

 

 

--If I didn't have a girl, I wouldn't mind so much.

 

 

--0h, I see your problem all right.

 

 

--Well, what are you going to do about it?

 

 

--You know the difficulties.

 

 

Gerry began to laugh.

 

 

--It's the kind of thing you kill yourself laughing about later. Some
day I'll tell Daphne, though she'll never believe me.

 

 

--No. I've found that. There's no point in not believing it when you know
it's true, but it's something that has to happen to you. I think if this
thing really has happened before, the sketchy and generally discounted
evidence that is left is about all one could seriously expect.

 

 

Gerry wasn't interested in the general problem, only in his particular one.

 

 

--I wouldn't mind walking along that skyscraper parapet.

 

 

--I don't think it would work again.

 

 

--I never really liked whisky. But if it would work . . .

 

 

--Gerry, I think I have to be surprised. I never picked the way. In your
case it might be very difficult.

 

 

--I know what you're thinking. You think I'm not very bright. You don't
believe I'll ever be able to think of a way.

 

 

It was true. Baudaker, too, lacked the imagination of Judy and Ross,
both of whom, when they made up their minds to be rid of Fletcher,
had gone all out for the consummation devoutly wished, and achieved it.

 

 

Possibly, Fletcher mused, the means was far less important than they
all believed. Neither he nor his host, nor both in collaboration, could
snap their fingers and achieve the miracle. Yet once the host had really
made up his mind, the thing couldn't be as difficult as Gerry believed,
or Fletcher would not have been ejected three times almost on cue.

 

 

On cue -- that might be deeply significant. Judy, in a very short time,
got what she wanted from him and then sent him on. Ross, after a longer
period, did the same. Baudaker, although he had done nothing to eject
Fletcher, did not lose him until he had nothing more to gain from his
presence. Gerry, if he had ever stood to gain, no longer did so.

 

 

--I'll never be able to think of a way, said Gerry rather desperately.

 

 

He needn't have worried. Nobody had to think of a way. That same night,
while Gerry was sleeping peacefully, Fletcher for the first time made
a transfer when there was no crisis, at any rate no crisis at his end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 6: SEARLE

 

 

He was an old man and he was dying.

 

 

Fletcher, who had several times believed himself prepared to welcome death
-- total, final death -- discovered that he had never yet experienced
genuine resignation. This old man, who was of course Sir Charles Searle,
was in his last hours. He knew it and was glad of it.

 

 

Although there could be nothing more pitiful than a crazy old man dying
in a madhouse, Fletcher's hate for him, the only hate he had ever
experienced for anybody, did not diminish. On the contrary, it was
focused to a burning spot of pure hatred that temporarily warmed the
old man and brought him, reluctantly, a little way back to life.

 

 

He was in a. hospital bed in an ancient ward, cheerless and solitary. Not
quite solitary, for in another of the five iron beds was another dying
creature who appeared to be a woman. Old, dying people did not rate the
privacy of sex accorded in hospitals elsewhere, apparently.

 

 

No nurse was present. A dim light burned.

 

 

Fletcher could not heal Searle. He could do nothing for him, and would not
have done anything if he could for the man who had tortured, perverted and
ruined him.

 

 

Yet he could not help bringing him a last glimpse of sanity. The old man
who had not been rational for more than thirty-five years suddenly said:

 

 

--Why, hullo, I've often wondered about you. Did you change the world?

 

 

--No, Fletcher replied grimly.
--You left me so maimed and crippled that the world never had a place
for me.

 

 

There was nothing of shame or regret in the old man's sadness.

 

 

--Then I failed? Ah, well, perhaps I was attempting the impossible.

 

 

Searle had done what he felt he had to do. A surgeon who operated in
good faith could not allow himself to feel guilt when his patient died,
even if it turned out that the patient, uncut, might have lived for forty
years. There was no need for guilt as long as the surgeon's own work was
flawless. Searle believed, still believed, after the long blank years
when he was incapable of consecutive thought -- that what he had done
to John Fletcher was right, even if the enterprise failed.

 

 

--Don't you see, you might have been justified in developing my talent,
but you could never be justified in trying to make me fear and shun women,
in trying to make me a religious bigot, in shaping me into a solitary,
unhappy man?

 

 

--I did what I thought was right, Searle replied tranquilly.

 

 

Becoming curious about the old man's fanaticism, Fletcher found his
bitterness easing a little. For the first time, Fletcher's contact with
a diseased mind proved incapable of changing it. True, the dying old man
was now for the first time in many years as sane as he had ever been,
but no more sane than that. Perhaps a mind that old could not encompass
new thoughts. Searle went on:

 

 

--Besides, you must remember you were torn from me. I was not allowed
to complete your training. I'm no more responsible for what you became
than an engineer taken off a job half completed. If you had been left
to me . . . What a stupid mistake I made, the one that brought it all
to light. Why did I ever take you to the Scott Monument?

 

 

--Yes, just how did that happen? Why, after hiding me from the world
for four years were you so foolish as to get yourself arrested like the
villain in a Victorian melodrama?

 

 

--It was becoming terribly difficult to make you exert yourself. You were
too good for me. Everything was in my favor except your extraordinary
abilities. In a way it was a struggle between us, a middle-aged man and
a child, and you won almost every round.

 

 

Fletcher said drily:

 

 

--Then I used up all the capacity for success that was to last me the
rest of my life. Since then, my record has been nothing but failure.

 

 

--Failure? Impossible. Not you. The child I knew was not born for
failure. I may have failed. Not you. What you have achieved is what
you wanted.

 

 

About to protest, Fletcher remembered something.

 

 

He had always achieved what he expected.

 

 

What happened, in the big things at least, was usually what he had
resigned himself to. Failure in a job, with a girl, in Baudaker's tests,
all came about much as he expected.

 

 

Suppose he were to start expecting success?

 

 

He had told Baudaker about "minor miracles, hardly worth mentioning." Even
minor miracles weren't failures. When he wanted to talk to Anita privately,
it was the simplest thing on earth to go to an empty locker room. Of
course, that was a triviality, something that scarcely mattered, so it
didn't count. Or did it?

 

 

His mind reeling at the possibilities, he remembered his reluctance,
his fear, his dread of being proved a freak.

 

 

Perhaps what he really feared was the extent of the power he might turn
out to possess?

 

 

Cringing away from his own thoughts, he directed the old, dying man back
to the irrelevance which had led to them:

 

 

--But why the Scott Monument?

 

 

--I was never really practical, I suppose. I saw no particular snags. It
seemed simple. You were supposed to force me to draw you back to
safety. I wanted you to compel me to do your will, as you did when you
were a starving infant. But three young men of whom I had heard and seen
nothing, were running up the stairs. They heard you scream, burst out,
pulled me back, and took you from me. Of course, I never thought of it
until now -- you summoned them. To control me would not have changed
your situation. You had done that often enough already. You wanted to
change your situation, and you did.

 

 

Resolutely Fletcher stuck to minor issues.

 

 

--Did you' hypnotize me into fear of heights?

 

 

--No, why should I? I had to direct you away from evil, away from pride,
power madness, lust. That was my clear duty. But I loved you. You
were not only a living miracle, your incredible potential waiting to
be developed, you were also the son I never had. I see reflections of
different attitudes in your mind . . . times have changed. When I was
eighteen months old, my father, a minister of the church, deliberately
held my left hand against the bars of the kitchen grate. You can see the
scars. Apparently I would not stay away from the fire when I was a baby,
and this was done so that I would acquire a healthy fear of fire rather
than be burned to death. Such Spartan thinking was common in those days
in Scotland. I was not as harsh. What I did, I did to make you spread
your wings.

 

 

--Thanks very much. You should have left me to die.

 

 

The old man remained serene:

 

 

--How can you say that? I see in your mind the good you have done,
the souls you have saved. And you have scarcely begun.

 

 

--I hope, I most sincerely hope, that I am coming to the end.

 

 

--Nonsense.

 

 

--I want to die. I am ashamed of being a cuckoo in the minds of strangers.