by Sylvia Waugh
They found her waiting on the doorstep, looking out into the darkness.
“Come in,” she said to Mrs. Dalrymple. “Do come in. I've just got the kettle on. I heard the train was late. A stolen car left on the line just outside Chamfort, they said. Lucky there wasn't an accident. I don't know what the world's coming to.”
“I hope you haven't been worrying too much,” said Mrs. Dalrymple guiltily. It was clear to her that Mickey's mother had been very worried.
“No,” said Mrs. Trent with an effort. “I knew he'd be safe with you. Still, it's nice that you're both home again. I never did like Casselton. It's a den of thieves and pickpockets. I've read about people there being mugged in broad daylight! You can't open the papers without learning about some crime or other.”
She led the way into the sitting room. Then they all sat by the fire drinking tea while Mrs. Dalrymple told the story of the visit to the hospital, tactfully omitting Mickey's dash to his friend's bedside.
“It was very strange,” she said. “He wouldn't speak, but I know he was shamming. I'm surprised the nurses and doctors don't know. It was quite obvious to me.”
“But,” said Mrs. Trent hesitantly, “what would he want to do a thing like that for?”
“I don't know,” said Mrs. Dalrymple. “I'm guessing it's something to do with the shock, but it's certainly not straightforward loss of memory.”
Mickey said nothing, but he listened carefully to every word. He was relieved that no mention was made of his own escapade. The meeting was still painfully fresh in his mind, the whispered words, especially that strange sound that could scarcely be identified as a word at all.
Ormingat.
What did it mean?
What did any of it mean?
Mickey watched Mrs. Dalrymple as she spoke, and saw, young though he was, the same look of determination Dr. Ramsay had seen. She was certainly not like his mother. She would get things done!
And if she fixed it so Thomas would be in Belthorp for Christmas, was that really the right thing to do? If Thomas didn't want to come, surely he shouldn't be made to?
The word Ormingat shot into his mind again. He shivered. And his shivers, as usual, led to a sneeze. For once his mother looked almost pleased to hear it.
“Well, there's one thing for sure,” she said. “Our Mickey won't be able to go with you tomorrow. If I'm not mistaken, that's the start of a cold again. He's never rid of them this weather.”
“I wouldn't have asked him,” said Mrs. Dalrymple warmly. “Two days trashing back and forth would be too much. I'm not relishing the thought of it myself. I'll have to get home now and do some phoning around. Though goodness knows who I'll find at this time. Still, there's tomorrow morning and I do have some very helpful friends.”
As the two women went on talking, Mickey went to his desk, took out a Christmas card from the box he had there, and began painstakingly to write.
“Can you give this to Thomas if you see him?” he said, handing the sealed envelope to Mrs. Dalrymple. “It's a Christmas card.”
Stella smiled at Mickey. “You can give it to him yourself. Thomas will be back here for Christmas, or my name's not Stella Dalrymple.”
“He might not want to come,” said Mickey. “He might want to wait there for his dad. You can't make him come.”
Mrs. Trent looked vexed with her son for being so forward.
Stella wondered what to say. It was clear to her that Mickey had some childish belief that Patrick would just appear from nowhere, safe and unharmed. She herself had the most dreadful feeling that that would never happen.
“His father can come here for him,” she said. “It is the thing he would most probably do.”
“But will you give Thomas the card?” Mickey persisted.
Stella took it and smiled across at Mrs. Trent.
“Anything to oblige,” she said, slipping it into her handbag.
“He's tired,” said his mother apologetically. “I'll be packing him off to bed with some hot lemon shortly. The hot water bottle's in already.”
Mickey's mam tucked the sheets around him and left him with a mug of lemon juice. “I'll be up in ten minutes to put your light out,” she said. “Don't forget to say your prayers.”
That was what she always said. From his earliest years Mickey had said his prayers all tucked up in bed. Kneeling on the floor to pray was much too dangerous in a drafty house! That would just be asking for trouble, now wouldn't it?
At the end of his petitions, in which he had been taught to ask a blessing on aunts and uncles and distant cousins, he added, “And please, God, bless Thomas and find his dad for him.”
It never occurred to him to ask for his own dad to return. But then, he had his mam, didn't he? Thomas didn't. You couldn't count Mrs. Dalrymple. That wasn't the same at all.
Dr. Ramsay was not happy about the arrangement but all morning he had been bombarded with telephone calls and even a visit, a long visit, from two insistent social workers. It was just as the doctor had suspected: Mrs. Dalrymple was the sort who would not take no for an answer.
“I promise you that Thomas will be very well cared for,” she said on her third call, when it was clear that the battle had been won. “I know you have his welfare at heart, but I do assure you there is nothing to worry about. Thomas will be back in the hospital on Monday, safe and sound. By then he may even have regained his memory.”
Dr. Ramsay knew, and Stella herself suspected, that it was not a simple case of amnesia, but he did not contradict her.
“There are conditions,” he said. “You do realize that.”
* * *
“Well, Thomas,” said Stella that afternoon, “I have come to take you home for Christmas. We'll have to be back here again next Monday, but you'll have Christmas day and the whole weekend in Belthorp with me and Mickey and all of your friends.”
Dr. Ramsay had followed her down the ward, anxious to see the boy's reaction to this suggestion. It was, he knew, impossible to predict what it would be.
Thomas looked at Stella wildly. He had been taken too much by surprise to attempt his former impassive stare. But his choice was already made: Vateelin, not Stella; Ormingat, not Earth; Tonitheen, not Thomas. Now he felt trapped.
Stella bent forward and touched his shoulder.
“Get up and get ready to go,” she said. He was already dressed in his day clothes. It would be simple enough to slip off the bed, retrieve his jacket from the locker, and leave that ward hand in hand with Stella. It was difficult to know what to say or do.
“Come on, Thomas,” said Stella urgently, willing him to make a move.
Dr. Ramsay hovered behind her, ready to remind her that the condition of Thomas's leaving was that he should go voluntarily, acknowledging Mrs. Dalrymple as someone he knew or at the very least someone to whose tutelage he would have no objection. Any sign of reluctance would be enough to cancel the whole enterprise.
“Thomas, Thomas,” said Stella in a low and anxious voice.
“I think he is not ready to leave yet,” said Dr. Ramsay, quite smoothly but with an undeniable firmness in his tone.
“Give us time,” said Stella, looking round at him impatiently. “Just leave us for a while.”
Dr. Ramsay was irritated but he withdrew a little.
Stella was wishing at that moment that she had been able to bring Mickey along after all.
“This is your last chance, Thomas,” said Stella quietly, grasping his hand. “If you don't come with me now, you'll be stuck here for Christmas day. I won't even be able to come and see you. There's no transport. I know you have problems and I promise you I won't ask any questions. We'll just have a nice Christmas together and that'll give time for other things to happen.”
She was deliberately vague, but Thomas knew what she meant. He felt like saying what he instinctively knew: Nothing will happen if I go to Belthorp. The spaceship leaves Earth at midnight on the twenty-sixth. If contact is made before then it will be with th
is hospital here. It is from here that my voice was broadcast. Two more days, three more nights. Till time runs out, I must stay here and wait.
That was the best logic he could manage if he was not to give up hope altogether.
I wish, oh, I wish I could tell you, he said to Stella in thought, words he dared not utter out loud. I love you, almost as my mother I love you, but you must go away and leave me here. It is my father I need. And my father needs me.
“Thomas,” said Stella anxiously. “Are you listening to me?”
The tug of her voice was unendurable. It would have been such a relief to sob and be comforted, but that would be too perilous by far. I can't, I mustn't … I mustn't, I mustn't, I can't, can't, can't.
He clenched his fists and his whole body went rigid as if in a fit.
“Vateelin! Vateelin! Vateelin!” he shrieked, looking in vain for rescue from a situation he simply did not know how to cope with.
Dr. Ramsay rushed forward and took Mrs. Dalrymple by the shoulders.
“You will have to leave now, madam,” he said. “Even you must see that.”
Stella turned sharply and shrugged the doctor's hands away. She was shocked at the voice she had just heard.
“When did you say the psychiatrist would see him?” she said.
“Next Tuesday,” said Dr. Ramsay.
“Do you not think it is more urgent than that?” Stella perceived that they had already heard this voice, that they already knew that Thomas was much, much more ill than she had been told.
“I will be back here on Monday,” she said. “And in the meantime, I shall phone every day. I expect truthful answers.”
An hour later Dr. Ramsay was outraged to see Mrs. Dalrymple walking along the corridor yet again.
“I thought we had agreed!” he said, standing in front of her as if to bar her way.
Stella thrust a Christmas bag toward him with two parcels in it, one flat, one bulky, both too tall for the bag.
“They're for Thomas,” she said coldly. “It was the best I could do at such short notice. I would like him to have them tomorrow morning.”
Then, with a sudden afterthought, she reached in her bag, drew out Mickey's card, and dropped it in between the two packages.
Only five children were left in the ward for Christmas, two in the cots in the corner, the other three parted from one another by empty beds and stretches of floor space.
Thomas was one of them. He had slept for no more than an hour. Now he was wakeful. His eyes rested on the silent scene. At the desk, a nurse he had not seen before was busy writing. A lamp shone down on her papers.
Cornelia was the nurse's aide on duty that night. She smiled at each child as she passed by, the smile of someone who knows a nice secret.
Thomas lay back, guiltily thinking of how much he had hurt his beloved Stella. It had been a dreadful thing to do, however necessary. The thought of it gave him a weight of sorrow that sat on his chest like a physical burden.
When, oh, when would Vateelin come and make it right?
Suddenly all of the lights on the ward dipped low. The light on the desk was extinguished.
Thomas clenched his fists and waited anxiously for what would happen next, as if his father could appear like the genie in a pantomime. He knew, of course, that pantomimes weren't for real, but they had to get their inspiration somewhere. In a world where everything had become uncertain, anything was possible.
Then, in the darkness, came the sound of music. A group of young people trooped into the ward carrying old-fashioned lanterns and wearing old-fashioned clothes. Their lamps swayed and glowed. They walked round ceremoniously, then stood still in the middle of the floor and went on singing.
“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, The silent stars go by….”
This was followed by shepherds watching their sheep by night and finally the rocking carol. All five children enjoyed it; even the youngest stood up in their cots. Thomas too loved the tableau; in some strange way it released his sorrow, and tears flowed down his cheeks. He shrank back in his dark corner and was sorry when the music stopped.
“Sleepytime now,” said Cornelia after the choir left to go to another ward and the lighting was restored to normal. She settled the younger children first. Coming to Thomas last, she found him fast asleep, his face tearstained. Carefully she removed his extra pillows and eased him down under the sheet.
“Good night, Thomas,” she whispered. “Tomorrow is another day.”
The screen glowed green and swirled and quivered after hours of inertia.
Vateelin had sat with his head in his hands, not knowing what to do next. The machine had closed down on him, not answering his latest call for help. By now he was back into the logic of it. It might talk like a sentient being, but it was only a machine, and if it had nothing to say, it would say nothing.
Now there was clearly something to say, something of some importance, to judge by the strength of the transmission.
The green screen cleared and brightened, then became an image, a real picture. There was Thomas, Tonitheen, sitting in a child's chair shouting out his name, the name of his father, and the name of the planet Ormingat.
Then the screen abruptly returned to its former green glow.
“You've found him,” said Vateelin joyfully. “Now all we have to do is go and fetch him. With the power of Ormingat, that should not be difficult. Just tell me what to do and I will do it.”
“Permission has not yet been received,” said the machine, and then the screen blacked out again.
Vateelin, in anger and frustration, pulled the switch back and forward, in and out of the loop. He too had acquired human traits and could abandon the cool of Ormingat.
“Answer me,” he shouted at the screen. “You have no right to stay silent.”
The screen glowed again with a dangerous-looking purple spot right in its center.
“You are requested not to violate the mechanism,” said the voice.
“Help,” said Vateelin, not in desperation but in anger. “Help, help, help !”
“You are requested not to violate the mechanism,” said the voice. “Such violations impede action.”
The screen blacked out again.
Vateelin sat back and did no more. Had the machine threatened punishment, it would have had no effect on him. He knew in any case that punishment was not the way of Ormingat. But “impede action” could be important. The action should be to find a way to save his son. That was an action nothing should impede.
The silence in the ship continued for two long days and nights. His watch told him when it was Tuesday, then Wednesday. From time to time he carefully moved the switch to Off and then back to On again, thinking this might arouse the machine and persuade it to speak. A foolish thought, perhaps, but despair is a breeding ground for superstition.
“Help,” he said each time he moved the switch.
But nothing happened.
On the floor beneath, the stellar clock still ticked away, telling not time but time remaining. The globule for Thursday was almost in line. Friday's globule trailed just a little behind it. Only the fateful Saturday's globule, which would complete the trigger, wavered out of sync. At one point Vateelin had a mind to stoop and break the glass and capture it. But common sense told him that this powerful mechanism would not be so easily foiled.
So what was he to do?
Wait.
Pray a little, perhaps.
Despair a little.
And wait.
Then, just as Vateelin had drifted into an uneasy sleep and was dreaming of Belthorp and Jackson's barn going up in flames with children playing snowballs all around it, a voice cried out, “Vateelin! Vateelin! Vateelin!”
Vateelin gazed eagerly at the screen, which now glowed brightly. No picture there, no second sighting of his son. But it was clearly Tonitheen's voice that had come through.
&nb
sp; “He's waiting,” said Vateelin, “and he's frightened. You can hear it in his voice. Take me to him now or let me leave this ship.”
“Permission has not yet been received. Directions are needed.”
The stellar clock lacked only three globules, and of these one was very nearly in line.
“Stop the clock,” cried Vateelin. “Abort the countdown.”
The machine did not answer him. It was not geared to explain a second time the impossibility of override.
A few hours later Vateelin saw another globule join the line. Only two left; so little time to go.
In the world outside it was Christmas day. Soon children all over England would be waking up and looking to see what Santa had brought them. And Thomas, in Casselton General, would be one of them.
If he were left alone on Earth, thought Vateelin, would it be so very terrible? Surely he will go to Stella, and Stella will care for him. Small comfort for his father, but better than none. My son will be left here on Earth but he will not be all alone.
Then he thought of Walgate Hill and poor Canty. He contemplated the spread of evil, disease, and poverty over Earth. This was not a world he wished his son to grow up in. Ormingat was, in every meaning of the word, a much, much fairer place. To leave Tonitheen here forever was cause to weep.
In the gloom of the ship, there was no distinction between night and day. Vateelin ate food from the ship's larder, a healthy if somewhat Spartan Christmas dinner. He caught up on neglected duties, filing all of the information from his document case into a cabinet contained behind a panel in the wall.
That all the while his heart was breaking made the effort the more valorous. If only the ship would release him, he too would choose to stay on Earth no matter what complications might arise. Nothing could be worse than losing his son. His son and Keldu's.
At one stage he thought, I am a prisoner here.
“You have deprived me of my will,” he said to the screen, expecting no response. “That is not the way of Ormingat.”
