The Changeover

by Margaret Mahy

  "Aren't they still sorry?" Laura asked.

  "Well, they think I've improved," he said. "I suppose they think there's hope for me, and that makes them happier. I saw Miryam looking at me this morning and she was almost complacent, instead of looking as if she had a dangerous pet on the end of a piece of rotten string." He smiled to himself. "I suppose I have kept them anxious on purpose, getting my own back, but suddenly I can't be bothered. It's like a dream of childhood. Yet only a few weeks ago I was quite certain I didn't want to feel fond of anyone ever again."

  "I didn't want to have anything to do with my father," Laura told him, "but I don't mind now."

  "Remember, I told you about the psychotherapist in Sydney?" Sorry asked. "She told them I was severely alienated. I looked it up in a dictionary and it said 'estranged' and 'diverted to a different purpose'. Well, we're both alienated now, Chant. I'm estranged and you're diverted to a different purpose. They thought of me as a sort of — say an uncontrolled charge of electricity, and you as a way of earthing the charge — bringing it back into line."

  "What are you telling me all this for?" Laura said at last. "I know it already."

  "I'm going away," Sorry said. "Not immediately, but soon — early in January. I've been chosen as a trainee for the Wildlife Division. They only take on five people every two years so I'm really lucky. I went along with my bird photographs and, well, I know a lot about birds, and I've done a bit of tramping, and the long and short of it is I'm in."

  Laura stared at him blankly. "You're leaving me on my own?" she cried incredulously.

  "On your own!" exclaimed Sorry. "Yes, quite on your own, except for your mother, your mother's friend, your brother, my mother, my grandmother, your friend Sally, your friend Nicky, not to mention bloody Barry Hamilton and Lord knows who else."

  "You know what I mean," Laura said. Sorry, who had been watching Jacko bent over his pink crocodiles, looked up smiling.

  "I think it's just as well though, don't you?" he said. "I keep wanting to go to bed with you. At first it seemed simple. I knew I could make you want to. But it's not simple at all." Jacko was getting a little bored.

  "My Rosebud likes those little crocodiles," he said. "Are there any tigers on this farm?"

  "Tigers would eat the pigs," Sorry said.

  "One tiger," said Jacko holding up his forefinger. "He can eat cabbage."

  "Get your tiger book, Jacko," Laura said, for she knew it would take him a little while to find it. "We could have the tiger story." Jacko went off into his own room cheerfully enough.

  "How could you be sure you could make me want to?" Laura asked, half curious, half scornful.

  "How did you know I was a witch?" Sorry said with a shrug. "That was such an intimate thing to know about me, it made me feel we'd been lovers already. I felt you'd seen me naked. Winter and Miryam were delighted when I told them I'd been recognized by a girl, but they told me to wait until you were older, and I would have done, but you came walking in. Chant, I promise that when I looked up and saw you standing in the doorway I nearly melted away with astonishment. She's come to get me, I thought. My hour has come."

  "It had, too," Laura agreed.

  "Well, I don't think so — not quite!" Sorry said discontentedly. "You really are too young. It's not even legal, not that that matters so much, but you and Kate get on well together and I don't want to cause any more family rows. And besides, all the time I saw you at school, I thought you looked older than fourteen, but when you went to sleep on the sofa in my study you looked a lot younger. I wanted to protect you, and by then you only needed protecting from me."

  "So you gave up all your other ideas!" Laura exclaimed scornfully.

  "I haven't given them up," Sorry said. "They've just got mixed up with a lot of other things. You've got at least three years of school ahead of you, and I've got four years of training. Round about then we might, oh ..." he suddenly sounded irritated, "get married, I suppose. Live together somehow."

  "You'll meet some other, older girl," Laura said resentfully.

  "Give over, Chant!" Sorry commanded "We're both on the same side, you and me, remember? And anyhow you're as likely to meet someone el e as I am."

  "Serve you right if I did!" Laura cried,.

  "It would, wouldn't it?" Sorry agreed unexpectedly, thumping his knee with his fist. "Half the time I think I'm stupid. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't want to be like this."

  "Lolly, I can't find it," Jacko called.

  Laura began to get up to go and help him, but Sorry took her arm and said, "Hang on a moment, Chant," and kissed her again. "I'm sickening for something dreadful," he complained. "Maturity or some other social disease!"

  Laura felt his left hand, his sinister hand, between her dress and her skin. "You probably won't get a very bad attack," she said, nervous but enchanted. "Not a fatal one."

  "Let's go through to your room now," Sorry suggested. "Come on, Chant! Invite me. If you think I'm doing the wrong thing, tell me what you want and I'll do what you say."

  "There's Jacko," Laura said, "and Kate will be home in a minute." She could not see Sorry's face for he had hidden it in her neck and shoulder but she felt him smile.

  "You're more anxious than you let on," he told her in a muffled voice. "You're more interested in romance than sex, and why not?"

  "Lolly!" called Jacko plaintively, but Sorry still would not let her go. "The difficulty is I'm unreliable," he said.

  "Do you love me?" Laura asked him. It was something she had wondered about a lot in recent days.

  "How do I know a thing like that?" he answered restlessly. "It might be wicked lust. I might be a villain, not a hero."

  "Well, I think I love you," said Laura. "So maybe that's what makes the difference."

  "Lolly!" said Jacko again and sounded as if he were coming to look for her, so she struggled away from Sorry and found the tiger book almost at once, because she knew it was not with Jacko's other books, but hidden under his pillow.

  When she and Jacko came back, Sorry was in the kitchen hurriedly scraping and scrubbing potatoes, a job Laura was supposed to do, and singing to himself under his breath.

  "I go to Wellington first," he called out to her, "and then— I don't know where— fisheries in the Southern Lakes Acclimatization District, or somewhere around Rotorua-Taupo. I get to Mount Bruce Reserve somewhere along the line. I'll enjoy that. I love birds. I'm not so sure how I'll feel about fish, but no doubt I'll love them too when I get to know them well. I do get holidays, of course ... work a lot of weekends but get other days off instead. I'm really looking forward to it."

  Laura, too, felt the beginning of an unexpected relief. Life would settle down again and she would have a little longer to be Kate's daughter and Jacko's sister. Something Sorry had said reminded her of a past puzzle that still remained to be asked about.

  "Sorry!" she called.

  "Right here!" he answered.

  "I want to ask you something."

  "Ask away!"

  "I want to see you when I ask you."

  There was silence, then Sorry appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.

  "Do your damndest!" he said. "My strength is as the strength of ten because, unfortunately, my heart is pure."

  "Fancy you accusing me of romance!" Laura told him severely. "You read romances yourself."

  "And you want to know why?" he guessed.

  "Why?" Laura asked.

  Sorry gave a deep sigh. "It's a treacherous question," he remarked. "Well! All right! My mother used to read them. One or two a week. Supermarket love stories bought along with the soap powder."

  "Miryam?" Laura cried disbelievingly, almost laughing. Sorry had a scrubbed potato in his hand. He tossed it up in the air and caught it again. Then he shook his head.

  "My other mother," he said. "I missed her for ages. I still miss her. Many times I've wished I could see her again, but there you are— she loved babies, not grownup, shaving men, and besides it all go
t so terrible. There's no way she can ever think of me except as something that didn't work out and filled her life with trouble. So I used to read romances just to— to keep in touch with her, I suppose. And they're quite interesting in their way. I know they're awful, but they're so very popular there must be something in them that women find irresistible. Something like catnip. If I could work out exactly what it was, and isolate it, I'd be irresistible too."

  "You might have to give up books like those," Laura remarked darkly.

  "That's right! You've taken my poster and you're threatening my romances," Sorry said after a pause. "You'd better have something pretty good to offer me in their place, Chant."

  He went back to the kitchen, and Laura read Jacko a few pages of his tiger book. The little farm on the floor faded away. There was the sound of footsteps outside and the sound of a car door slamming. Jacko forgot the story and leaped to his feet.

  "It's my mummy," he said. "Mummy's home."

  "Give me one hug," said Laura. She felt so much affection towards the world she had to use it up somehow.

  "Chant!" hissed Sorry, appearing at the kitchen door. "Chant, your dress is done up crookedly. No one wears a school uniform like that." He began unbuttoning and then buttoning her dress. "This is one of my last duties as a school prefect." Jacko bounced by the door, and as the handle turned,- Laura put her arms around Sorry.

  "You'll get me shot, Ghant," he hissed.

  "They can get used to it," Laura said as the door opened and Kate came in, Chris Holly behind her, gathering Jacko into her arms and squeezing him until he squeaked with protest and laughter. Kate saw Laura and Sorry over Jacko's head and her smile certainly wavered.

  "I hope you've scrubbed the potatoes," she said. "Are you staying for dinner, Sorry?"

  "No, I've got to be going," Sorry said. "My mother's expecting me to turn up with her car. Besides we're having my favourite pudding for dinner tonight — gooseberry fool."

  "Come for fish and chips tomorrow," Laura suggested. "Come to tea with fish and chips." Sorry, looking at Kate cautiously, said that he might, if it was all right.

  "Of course it is," said Laura, and Kate agreed, amiable but without true enthusiasm, and then, perhaps feeling her own coolness, added almost at once, "You seem to be seeing more of Laura these days than I am.

  Sorry looked sideways at Laura, and she could feel, almost as if she were thinking them herself, various answers cross his mind.

  "Yes, well, don't look on it as losing a fourth former, Mrs Chant," he said at last. "Look on it as gaining a prefect!"

  "Or a Wild Life officer," suggested Laura, opening the door to let him out.

  "So long for now, Chant," he said, vanishing down the path. "Look after yourself." A moment later she heard his mother's car start and drive away. She could tell its motor from all others.

  "That was a bit cheeky," Kate said, frowning after him. "Lolly, why on earth did you ask him to come tomorrow? Thursday's our special, family night."

  "Chris comes," Laura pointed out, at the exact moment Chris said, "Wake up, Kate. Why do you think she asked him?" and putting his hand on her shoulder, shook her gently. Kate gave Jacko a little extra hug and put him down again.

  "He was having his tiger story," Laura said, "but he stopped listening when he heard you coming. Chris can read it. I've read it thousands of times before."

  "I'm cooking dinner," Chris said. "Jacko can come and give me a hand if he wants to. Or he can read his tiger book to me in the kitchen."

  "You can't compare Sorensen Carlisle with Chris," Kate said half indignantly, still thinking of Sorry and fish and chips and Thursday night.

  "Kate!" said Chris. "You and Laura don't look much alike, but I couldn't help noticing you looked at young Carlisle in just the way Laura looked at me the first time I came in here, also on a Thursday night I seem to recall."

  Laura heard the voices talking on as she went to her room to change her clothes. She put on jeans and a T shirt, looked in the mirror to do her hair and— there it was — the very face she had been promised weeks earlier on the day of the warnings. Was it possible to be in love with someone who was trying not to have a true heart? And was it wise of him to think of coming back to the world of feeling when feeling could tear people to bits? Maybe he had chosen estrangement wisely and should stay estranged, even though he could see in her the possibility of consolation and escape.

  "Laura!" shouted Kate. "Laura, I'm sorry to have nagged as soon as I got home. Come out and talk to me." Laura took another moment to make herself sociable again and then went out. Kate sat on the edge of the table counting money.

  "Forty-two cents!" she said. "That's all the real money I've got left in the world. I'll have to go to the bank tomorrow. I've actually got a cheque to pay in. Stephen paid for the hospital, and sent a little extra to go with it."

  "Big deal!" said Laura, but smiling as she spoke. "It mightn't last."

  "I don't expect it will," Kate said. "But it's nice while it does. I can understand him being slow to pay. You see, in a way the man who married me doesn't exist any more. I must just seem like a long-ago fairy tale to him, whereas money in hand is always real. After a while it must seem as if he's paying off ghosts."

  "You weren't very old when you got married, were you?" Laura enquired casually. Kate's eyes shifted sideways to look at her.

  "I was eighteen, as you very well know," she said. "Don't you get any ideas. I'll never let you make that sort of mistake."

  "I'll have to make my own then, won't I?" Laura answered.

  "Very slick!" Kate exclaimed. "Very smart! I wonder where you're getting that from?"

  "I've always been smart in my own way," Laura said. "Mum, being married at eighteen wasn't a total disaster. You got Jacko and me."

  "I know," Kate said. "I think of that over and over again. My worst mistake and my two best people! How can you make judgements when things are so mixed. But you've got to make them, all the same." It seemed to Laura that Kate was saying the same thing that Sorry had said a little earlier.

  "I'll admit," said Kate thoughtfully, "that this thing you've got going with Sorensen Carlisle does worry me. He's too knowing, too — too serious. He should have a girlfriend of his own age— and someone else's daughter," she added, grinning rather shamefacedly. "I'd be really tolerant over that. 'Oh well, girls will be girls,' I'd say. But Lolly— for the life of me, I can't be easygoing over you. And you're just too young."

  "That's what Sorry says," Laura agreed, but did not add that he also confessed to being unreliable.

  "Does he say that?" Kate asked, swinging her legs as if she were fourteen herself, jingling her family fortune between her hands. "Watch out for him, Lolly, that's all! It sounds like a line to me. Watch out for him! But since we're on the subject— would you mind, Laura — would it be very awful for you, of course I don't see how it could be, but would you mind, if somewhere along the line, Chris and I thought about getting married?"

  "I don't mind you thinking about it," Laura said as cunningly as Sorry himself. "Are you going to?"

  "We've hinted at it once or twice," Kate said. "I nearly asked him last week but then I thought it wasn't fair, three of us to one of him. However, he came across with a direct suggestion about ten minutes ago. He said we were going to need a good, clear head somewhere in the family. He said we'd grown too exclusive to each other — you and me that is — and he just might be right." Kate laughed as she spoke, and threw up her arms sending her forty-two cents flying around the room.

  Laura was thrilled. "Don't pick it up!" she cried. "Leave it! Our family fortune thrown to the winds!"

  Chris came in, wearing an apron that Kate never bothered to wear, holding the tiger book like a tray with four glasses on it, with a carton of apple-juice beside them. Jacko followed proudly, holding a green bottle with a gold top.

  "Champagne — or as good as!" Chris declared.

  "Let me see!" demanded Kate taking it, and reading the label. "O
h yes, a very good, fizzy year! On an occasion like this, it's bubbles we need more than actual wine."

  "And music!" agreed Chris. "Where's our string quartet?" He wrestled with the cork, and it came out at last, with a pop, releasing a pale, hissing fountain of wine which leaped up joyously, splashing all four of them. Jacko shouted with excitement, bending his knees as though he were going to jump very high in the air, but when he did jump he rose only about an inch off the ground. "May we all go like that when our time comes!" said Chris, pouring what wine was left into the long glasses which had once held peanut-butter.

  "Oh dear," said Kate to Laura, "suddenly I feel so happy I can't bear it. Yet it doesn't feel unnatural. It feels like a true human condition." Chris turned the radio on and began searching for acceptable music.

  "On with the dance," he said, "let joy be uncon- fined." Music flooded the room. He turned to Laura. "Will you dance with me, oh beauteous one?"

  "I will in a minute," Laura said. "I'll dance with Jacko first. You dance with Kate." Chris did not object. He and Kate began to dance, Kate holding her glass of wine, Chris still wearing the kitchen apron.

  Quite suddenly Laura knew that what Sorry had once said was true. Like a holograph, every piece of the world contained the whole of the world if you stood at the right angle to it. Quite clearly, in the room, she saw herself and Sorry walking around the estuary, the grey herons flying, the kingfisher clicking its beak, the crabs scuttling and semaphoring messages of invitation and threat to one another. She looked up and saw the ceiling complete with cobwebs, but she also saw a troubled moon buffeted by nor'west clouds, and when she looked back into the room she could see the wall, and somehow, through the wall, a city street and a hurrying figure which she knew to be her own, set in past time to move eternally to Janua Caeli, a name which, Sorry had told her, meant 'the door of heaven'.

  To her surprise Sorry's voice spoke to her, as clearly as if he were standing beside her.