“You’d trust her absolutely? As you’d trust yourself to look after the baby?”
He realized directly he’d said it that the question was unfortunately put. She flushed, put her poor trembling hands to her face and tears began to run down her cheeks again, as she said, “It wasn’t Nora who wasn’t to be trusted with Caroline Ann. It was me.” Price could only hope that the violent storm of sobbing that followed would exhaust her so much that in spite of herself she might fall asleep when she’d gone upstairs to lie down. He had no more questions at present to ask her.
Ten
That afternoon, Stephen went to the library. He’d got two books overdue for return, and wanted another. He also surreptitiously looked through the catalogue to see if he could find anything that might enlighten him about the extraordinary thing that was happening to him. But the catalogue was unhelpful. He looked under “Occult” and found books about witches—he hadn’t realized that there were still people who believed in witches—and about magic, about rites and religions of primitive tribes in remote islands, and several books on conjuring. In despair, he asked the librarian whether there were any books about seeing future events before they happened. The librarian looked at him sharply and said, “What’s this? A joke?”
“No, I just want to read about it.”
“This isn’t the time or the place for fooling about,” the librarian said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Didn’t you know that you’re the second person to ask for the same thing all in ten minutes?”
“I tell you, no. Is there a book then?”
The librarian said something that sounded like “Extra sensitive-preception” and pointed to a table in one of the distant bays. “There. Girl’s reading it. You’ll have to wait.”
It did not need any uncanny flash of knowledge to tell Stephen who the girl would be. Vicky looked up from the book as he sat down opposite her, and almost broke the strict library rule of silence. Her surprise came out in a suppressed squeak.
Since they couldn’t talk, they had to communicate in dumb show. Stephen pointed to the book and raised inquiring eyebrows. Vicky shook her head, hunched her shoulders. Stephen took the book from her and read a sentence or two. It seemed to be about people who could tell in one room which playing card was being held in front of a screen in another. Or couldn’t tell. There were tables of figures and statistics. It was very boring. He pushed the book back across the table, and Vicky shut it and stood up. They went together to the counter, where Vicky formally borrowed the book. Then they went out.
“Are you really going to read it?” Stephen asked when they were free to talk out loud.
“I might. I could try anyway. There must be some bits I could understand.”
“Does it say anything about what makes people able to see those cards?”
“Dunno. I’d hardly read any of it when you came in.”
“I mean, like you said about hearing dog whistles.”
“I said, I’ve only read about a page.”
“Can I have a look for a minute?”
She handed him the book, and he looked at it as they walked along the pavement. Once he tripped, by stepping off the curb, once an annoyed woman found him wrapped in the lead connecting her with a small, furiously yapping dog. Vicky wished she’d got Chris’s confidence. Chris would have firmly held him by the elbow and guided him in safety while he read. Vicky thought of it, decided it would be too familiar, decided that she really could and ought to, decided that after all this thinking about it she couldn’t do it easily, it would somehow come out wrong. She left him to make his blundering way. She was relieved when he handed the book back.
“Did you find anything?” she asked.
“Not really. I just wanted to see what sort of a book it was.”
“What d’you mean, what sort of book?”
“Whether it’s serious. I mean, scientific. Or whether it’s written by cranks. You know, the sort of people who see little green men coming off flying saucers and saving the world.”
“Do they really?”
“I’ve never seen any.”
“I didn’t mean the little men. I meant, do people really believe in them?”
“Yes. And write books about them. But it’s all right. This is serious. It’s scientists that did the experiments. With the cards and that.”
“I don’t see how it matters,” Vicky said.
“Because I don’t want to be mixed up with something stupid. It’s bad enough it happening. It isn’t quite so bad if there’s a proper scientific explanation. Don’t you see that?” Stephen asked, annoyed.
Vicky said, “Yes, I suppose I do,” rather doubtfully. Then she said, “I suppose it’s because your father’s that—what you said—a psychologist, makes you feel it’s got to be scientific.”
“No it isn’t. It’s nothing to do with my father.”
“All right. You needn’t jump down my throat.”
Stephen said, “Sorry,” and they walked on in silence.
“Where’s your sister?” Stephen asked, after a pause.
“Gone shopping.”
“Would you like some coffee?” Stephen asked to show that he’d got over being angry and that he wasn’t only interested in Chris.
“I can’t! Mum’s out this afternoon and I’ve got the door key and I said I’d be back by four o’clock to let Chris in.”
“That’s a pity.”
Without giving herself time to think about it too much and get self-conscious, Vicky said, “If you’d like to come back I could make tea.”
“Thanks. I’d like that.”
Vicky felt better. Then she remembered that her Dad was on a late shift and would be getting up from a day-time sleep to go out to work in the early evening. He was never at his best directly he was woken up, and she hoped Stephen would be gone before he came down. Otherwise she could foresee trouble.
He wasn’t around when she and Stephen went into the kitchen, which was a relief. She made tea, opened a packet of biscuits, and then, greatly daring, brought out a tin that had the remains of one of last Christmas’s cakes. Mrs. Stanford always made two or three big cakes of incredible richness each Christmas, and they were brought out for special occasions during the following year. Vicky wasn’t sure if this counted as special enough, but she wanted to impress Stephen and show off her Mum’s cooking.
“Gosh. It’s fabulous! You don’t have this every day?” Stephen said, his mouth full of delicious sticky fruit and only just enough spicy dough to keep it from falling apart.
“Mum makes them every year. But we don’t eat them every day. Just when we have visitors.”
“Your mother must be a marvellous cook.”
“She makes good cakes. Mostly for dinner she does ordinary things. Sausages. Fish fingers. Baked beans. Bubble and squeak. You know,” Vicky said.
Stephen was just beginning to say, “I wish my mother did ordinary things,” when the flash hit him. It wasn’t as bright, as dark round the edges and as bright in the middle, as the former two, and it was very quick. He saw Chris in her white skirt and pink top, coming towards him. Just behind her was a boy. A boy he’d never seen before. He had time to get the impression of dark hair, an expression on the face which he knew he ought to recognize but didn’t, and of there being something unusual about the boy’s way of holding himself. He heard, quite distinctly, Chris’s voice say, “Paul’s got a place at York!” and then it was over. He was in the kitchen with Vicky, looking stupidly towards the door as if the real Chris had come in that moment.
He wanted to cover up. He looked at Vicky and saw her looking intently and frightened at him.
“Did you have it too?” she asked.
He said. “Who’s Paul?”
“Oh! You did. He’s. . .” the door bell rang. She went out and Stephen heard her open the door and other voices in the hall. The next moment Chris appeared in the doorway. She wore the white skirt and pink top. S
he was speaking to Vicky over her shoulder and over the shoulder of the boy immediately behind her. She said, “Paul’s got a place at York! Isn’t it astronomic? Hullo, Stephen! This is Paul.”
Paul was dark. He had a clever face, with lines of humour round his eyes and mouth. The expression, Stephen saw now, was one he’d often noticed on the faces of people whose childhood had been affected by illness; people with deformed hips, people partly paralysed, people who have been kept much in bed; a look of being older than their contemporaries, of having learned to live with pain. Paul’s shoulders were not quite straight, and he walked into the kitchen with a slight but definite limp.
Vicky and Stephen did not look at each other. Chris, finding chairs for herself and Paul, and talking, made it unnecessary for them to do anything but sit.
“Isn’t it super? I knew he would. I always said they’d take him once they’d seen him. It’s his first choice too, that’s what’s so fabulous. None of the other boys got their first choice straight off like that.”
“It isn’t all that certain. Depends on my ‘A’ levels,” Paul said. He had an attractive, quiet voice and very bright dark eyes.
“We all know you’re going to get nothing but A’s.”
“For goodness’ sake, touch wood when you say things like that,” Paul urged.
Chris touched the kitchen table. “But I don’t need to. I just know. You’re not the only ones to know what’s going to happen,” she said teasing, to Vicky. It was an unfortunate remark. She saw Vicky’s face change, and Stephen was looking cross, which meant embarrassed. She said quickly, “Any tea in the pot, Vicky? I’ll get the cups if there is.”
Vicky said, gratefully, “I’ll fill it up,” and went back to the kettle.
“Only it ought to be champagne,” Chris said, clattering the china and the spoons more than usual to mask the awkwardness. She put plates in front of Paul and herself and said, “Mum’s Christmas cake! You are showing off!”
“She won’t mind. We often have it when people come in,” Vicky said.
“If you hadn’t got it out for Steve, I’d have for Paul,” Chris said comfortably, cutting generously.
“If that’s for me I’ll only have half,” Paul said.
“Mm. It’s come out bigger than I meant. Never mind. Let’s share it,” Chris said, giving him rather more than half.
“It’s the best cake I’ve ever had,” Stephen said.
“Paul knows. He’s had it before,” Chris said.
Stephen, feeling suddenly out of place, a stranger among people who knew each other better than he knew any of them, coming from a different background, without the signals which they could pick up from each other to tell them what was going on, said to Paul, in what he heard miserably was what Chris would call his “posh” voice, “Sorry, I haven’t congratulated you yet.”
Paul looked at him without answering for a moment and then said, “Thanks. But I’m not there yet. I’ll wait for the champagne till I’ve finished with my ‘A’s’.” He didn’t sound unfriendly, but Stephen thought he remained on his guard.
“Isn’t it a good sign they’ve offered you a place even if it’s provisional?”
“Better than if they’d said they wouldn’t have me at any price,” Paul agreed.
“What subjects are you taking?” Stephen asked. He didn’t want Vicky to start talking about what had just happened. At the same moment Chris said to Vicky, “Where did you get to this afternoon? You went off without saying.”
“Library. I had to take a book back.” She didn’t add that she’d wanted to take one out as well, Stephen noticed with relief, only half attending to Paul’s answer to his own question. “Two lots of maths and French.”
Stephen was just saying in astonishment, “What a fantastic combination!” when Chris said quickly, “There’s Dad! Isn’t it, Vicky? He hasn’t gone out yet?”
“Not yet.” Gosh, she thought miserably, it only needed this on top of everything else, to have Dad coming down and asking questions. She just hoped he’d be in a hurry and go almost straight off. But she was unlucky and it was worse than she’d expected. Mr. Stanford came heavily down the stairs, still not more than half awake after an afternoon sleep which never really quite made up for being up most of the night. He came into the kitchen and was not best pleased to find his daughters entertaining. He was even less pleased when he saw that one of the visitors was Stephen.
“Hullo, Paul. Got any tea for me, Chris? Hullo!” He said this last hullo in Stephen’s direction but not actually to him. He sat down on the opposite side of the table and looked at Stephen suspiciously.
“Paul’s got a place at York. AH right, a provisional place, then. Isn’t it super?” Chris said into the silence.
“Don’t know what good you think college is going to do him,” her father said, stirring his tea.
“Well, if he wants to do maths. . .?”
“What’ll he do with it then?”
Paul said, “I’d be interested working with computers. Programming them and that. Or I might teach.”
“You want a white collar job?” Mr. Stanford said, making it quite clear from his voice what he thought of white collar jobs.
“Now, Dad! You can’t say anything against computer programming. I’m sure they have Trades Unions too, don’t they, Paul?” Chris said.
“It’s not just a question of Unions, girl. It’s this trying to live a bourgeois way of life, that’s what I’m against. Always looking for a safe middle-class job so you can buy a car and a dish-washer and colour telly, and no real sense of direction. No responsibility to society. That’s what I can’t take.”
“But there’s got to be teachers. S’pose he gets to be a teacher?” Chris said.
“If he’s a good teacher and stays in State schools. . .” Mr. Stanford allowed. He fixed Stephen with a challenging stare and asked him, “What about you? What sort of job are you going for?”
“I don’t know,” Stephen said inadequately.
“Don’t need to, I suppose. Your Dad’s got enough money so you can afford to wait and see?” He made it sound like an accusation rather than a question.
“He’s not all that well off,” Stephen said.
“He’s a psychologist, isn’t he?”
“Sort of.”
“Sees someone every day for five years and tells them what they were thinking about before they were born? Or what their dreams are about? Takes money for it?”
“Something like that.”
“What’s he want to do that for when there are plenty of people with proper illnesses and not enough doctors to look after them? Rich people, I suppose his patients are?”
“Some of them. He works in hospital too,” Stephen said, surprised that he should be the one to be defending his father.
“I reckon he sees it as charity, his hospital work. Thinks his patients there ought to be grateful for him seeing them.”
“Some of them get better,” Stephen said uncomfortably.
“They’re paying for it, aren’t they? Every week they’re paying out for their stamps. They’re entitled to the best doctors going. That’s what the Health Service is all about, isn’t it? Does your father ever think of that?”
Stephen looked ostentatiously at his watch and said, “I’m terribly sorry, I’ll have to rush. I said I’d be home by half-past five.” It was quite untrue, but the only way he could think of to stop this horrible conversation. He said good-bye hurriedly round the table and made for the door. Paul gave him a polite smile, Chris hardly looked at him. Vicky came out into the passage with him and half whispered, “Sorry about that,” overcome with shame. He felt for her, as much as he could feel for anyone but himself at that moment. He knew what it was to have to blush for a father. He said, “Bye. See you,” and left.
Back in the kitchen Mr. Stanford was orating. Vicky recognized a familiar piece about the aristocracy and the complacent middle class, the wrongs of the consumer society, the fight that was still n
ecessary before the workers could claim their rights. Paul seemed to be listening, Chris was busy washing up the tea things at the sink. Vicky went over to dry and would have let her Dad run himself down as she usually did, if she hadn’t heard, “. . . take this boy that’s just gone out. What use is he going to be to society? Brought up with all his father’s money behind him, doesn’t even know what he’s going to do and doesn’t care so long as he’s doing nicely, thank you. Going to be another like his Dad, I’ll be bound, getting money out of a lot of rich women who want to talk about themselves and are willing to pay for it. . . .”
To her own surprise, Vicky interrupted. “He’s not like that!” She came back to the table and saw her father’s astonished face. She said passionately, “You’re not being fair! You don’t know anything about him! How do you know what he’s going to do?”
Mr. Stanford was taken aback, as he often was when someone he knew and was fond of got between him and his ideas. He said, “Look here, whose friend is he, this boy?”
Chris, you could always rely on her, said, “He’s both of ours friend.” It wasn’t grammar but it carried weight.
“He’s all right,” Vicky said.
“He’s middle-class bourgeois,” Mr. Stanford said with distaste.
“If he is it isn’t his fault,” Vicky said at the same moment that Chris said, “Dad, don’t be silly. If Steve’s bourgeois and all that he can’t help it. He’s ever so funny about his father, too. He doesn’t hold with what he does any more than you do.”
Mr. Stanford looked from his pretty Chris to his angry foster-daughter Vicky, and said, “Here, what’s going on? Whose boyfriend is he, anyway?”
No one answered.
“You went out with him yesterday,” he accused Chris.
“Dad! I went out for ten minutes. Then we came back home. You’re talking as if I’d been going out with him for years.”
“All I want to know is, are you or aren’t you?”
“He’s just a friend. Vicky and I met him one day. We’re neither of us stuck on him. He’s just a boy we got to know.”
“What’s all the fuss about, then?”
The Chinese Egg Page 6
