Transmigration

by J. T. McIntosh

  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?

  When Gerry looked out of the window, sixty feet up, he and Fletcher split into their respective units. But Fletcher could not escape. The strain was not yet great enough.

  It was not a remarkable coincidence that he was again having to face a situation in which height played a major part. When he was Fletcher, with a mild phobia, it had been easy to avoid such situations. Now that he was caught up with others, it was not.

  Sheila was ten feet away, sitting on the sill of a false window. The architect who designed the building had fancifullly alternated real windows and embrasures in the stonework. Sheila was, in certain senses of the word, safe. She was sitting on a substantial sill with enough space behind her to give her a reasonable purchase, though her legs dangled in space.

  The height was negligible compared with the skyscraper parapet. The offices, at the back of the factory, overlooked an untidy jumble of tenements and back greens, and even not very tall buildings cut off sight of any street. From Sheila on her perch, straight down to the warehouse lanes beneath her, the drop could not be more than sixty feet.

  Gerry turned away and said urgently: "Have you called the police or the fire service? She could be caught in a blanket."

  A chorus of voices assured him the firemen were on their way.

  He looked out again. This time Sheila saw him, and waved ironically. He choked as he saw she was waving with her misshapen, broken arm. Blood dripped from it, and as his gaze followed it down, Fletcher felt all the horror that had driven him out of Judy.

  It was incredible that she should have reached her perch without plunging down to the lane below. There was a ledge not quite three inches wide, and he gathered from what he had heard, that she had darted out of the window recklessly and almost run to where she was now. There was the paradox of suicide: nobody without suicidal impulses would ever have gone out through that window, yet instead of plunging straight to her death, she had gone along a three inch ledge to a place of temporary safety . . . why?

  "I'm going out after her," said Gerry.

  The five words paralyzed Fletcher. He didn't know they were coming until he heard them. Then immediately he hoped that the men and girls all round him would say at once: "No, you can't, we won't let you," but although they chattered like monkeys, nobody took any action to stop Gerry.

  Fletcher remained paralyzed. He could not take over and control Gerry, as he had controlled them all, including Gerry himself, when it was necessary. Possibly the paralysis came from indecision; there were so many things he might try to do, so many things he could and could not do.

  If he were able to become Sheila he might succeed in straightening her out. But while she was in her present situation, nothing could.make him transfer to Sheila, and if he did, terror would make him/her fall. Then, though he would no doubt move voluntarily or involuntarily to another haven, Sheila would be dead.

  If he were able to take control of Gerry, a simple matter if he could calm himself sufficiently, he might be of help in talking Sheila back into the office, or in keeping her there until the firemen arrived with their ladders.

  If he could not stop Gerry going out, it might well be the end of both Gerry and Sheila. He, of course, would survive. Either when Gerry fell or when Gerry looked like falling, he'd jump to . . . Baudaker? Ross? Someone entirely unexpected, as most of them had been?

  Gerry's knee was on the sill of the open window. And Fletcher was still indecisive. If only it hadn't been a matter of heights, he told himself as an excuse. It was the unreasoning terror of falling sixty feet, unreasoning became he was fairly certain he would escape before this happened, that made him helpless when the two people who were currently his concern, Gerry and Sheila, faced their crisis.

  Then Sheila said calmly: "If you come out, I'll jump."

  Gerry remained two entirely separate people. At that moment there was only enough contact between him and Fletcher for each to know what the other was thinking.

  Gerry thought: If I was quick enough I could reach her and catch hold of her all right, because she'd hesitate. But what could I hold on to once I'd caught her?