The If Game (11 page)

He did not have to. And even if he wanted to, he was not sure how to set about it. He would have, he supposed, to go through a door. But which door? He supposed that when he saw it, he would know. He had had the same extraordinary feelings about all three doors he'd been through before. But then he hadn't been unwilling to go through them, he had, in fact, wanted to. Now he didn't. He almost dreaded finding another door.

For a long time he didn't find it. The autumn term had begun, the pavements were covered with wet brown leaves, and the weather was getting colder. He was in a new class at school with a new teacher, whom he didn't
like as much as Mr Selsdon who had taught him before. Most of his friends had moved up with him, and life seemed to be much the same as it had always been. He began to forget. Or rather, he never completely forgot, but he was able to think about other things for quite long periods at a time. Except that when he was outside the house and the school, his eyes were constantly alert for the door which he would know he had to go through. It was half annoying, half exciting. He told himself often that it was all stupid. Alex's explanation of what had happened in the summer couldn't be true. Anyone could play the ‘If game, but it was only a game. It wasn't scientifically possible to find yourself in a quite different place, living another life by just walking through a door. He didn't believe it. And yet he was jumpy. And in a quite contradictory way, he was carrying the long dark key from the garden with him whenever he left the house.

When he did see the door, he didn't at first recognize it. It was the October half term holiday, a whole week with nothing particular to do. Dad was working, of course. Stephen decided that he would make a map of his part of the town, a proper map, drawn to scale, and with all the small alleyways and passages that ordinary maps left out. Because the terrain was hilly, and the town had grown out of a village, there were a lot of foot passages and secret byways which Stephen would have liked to believe were known to very few people besides himself. He went out, one cool, sunny morning, armed with pencil and paper, a spring measure, and a ball of string which he thought might help with the measuring.

It was frustrating work. Adding up the measurements, which he was having to do all the time, was difficult, and he had a disagreeable idea that his addition was often wrong. He wished he had someone to help. But both Dan and Mick had been scornful of the whole idea. He didn't
want to ask either of them. Alex would have done as he asked, but he didn't think she was staying with Mr Jenkins this week. However, he didn't mean to give up until he had plotted at least one small area. Several people stopped to ask what he was doing. Some of them gave him advice, most of which was impossible to follow, since he hadn't got the right equipment. But in spite of finding it difficult and tiring, he was quite enjoying exploring the bits of the town that he'd never seen before. He was standing in one of the small side roads, bordered with little mean houses, their front windows right on the street, when he suddenly shivered. His spine felt chilled and his heart had given a sort of hop and then beat much faster than usual. For a moment he was giddy. He put out a hand to steady himself, and found that he was leaning against a door.

It wasn't quite like any of the other doors in the street. They were all front doors, up a couple of steps, to the little houses. This was a door that must lead into a covered passage between two houses, since it had no steps, and there was no muslin-curtained window next to it. Stephen looked at it for a long time. He knew that this was the door he had meant to be looking for, but now that he had found it, he did not want to go inside. But he had to know what had happened to his mum. And this might be a way of finding out. So, after a minute or two, during which he stood uncertainly in the street, he pulled the long dark key from his pocket and tried it in the keyhole of the door.

He half hoped it wouldn't turn. But it did, smoothly. He pushed the door open and stepped, to his astonishment, not into a narrow covered passage, but into the glare of hot sun. There was concrete under his feet and he was looking at a park, leafy with luxuriant trees and shrubs. Directly in front of him were two tennis courts. On the nearest were four women playing a doubles match.

He stood and watched them. Not one of them was very good. Their serves were half-hearted and seldom went into the right part of the court. But they seemed cheerful, calling out encouragement to their partners and the score in loud voices, in what he was sure were Australian accents. Quite soon the game came to an end, and they all left the court, mopping red, perspiring faces and gathering together at a bench at the side of the court where they had left a pile of garments. One of them saw Stephen and called out to him. ‘Hi! Deedie! Come for a game?'

Stephen had never played tennis. It was not one of the sports on offer at his school. He shook his head.

‘Wally'll be here soon. He'd take you on,' one of the women said.

Stephen said, ‘No, thanks. It's too hot.' And who was Wally?

‘You're right, there. I didn't mean to play, but Rose persuaded me,' the eldest and hottest of the four said. She nodded her head at the woman opposite to her. Stephen presumed that this was Rose. He looked at her with interest.

‘If it's like this this early in the summer, what I say is, what's it going to be at Christmas?' Rose said.

Summer? Then he was on the other side of the world. October was the beginning of the Australian summer, Stephen knew. He had got himself to the right place, but he couldn't see how he was going to get the information he wanted. You can't suddenly address four overheated ladies, who think you have come out for a game of tennis, to ask them questions about someone who may or may not belong to their family and who may or may not have been your mother.

He decided that Rose would be the easiest one to question. She was the youngest, and because he'd heard her name before, at least he'd know how to address her.
He waited until all four had collected their various clothes and belongings, and begun to stroll along flower-bordered paths towards a low brick building, which was presumably the club house. Stephen was wondering how on earth he could detach Rose from the others, but luck was on his side. When they reached the building, and the oldest woman said, ‘What about tea?' Two of the others agreed that tea would be just what they needed, but Rose said, ‘I won't, thanks all the same. If
I'm
not home when Chris gets back, he'll never get down to his homework.'

She turned to leave the others, sitting at a table on the veranda, and Stephen found it natural to fall into step beside her, having also refused tea on the grounds that he wasn't thirsty.

‘You coming with me? That's nice,' she said.

‘I'll see you home,' Stephen said, hoping that her home wasn't too far away.

‘I've got the car here,' she said, and Stephen saw that they were entering the car park. She opened the door of a small red car and motioned to him to get into the passenger seat.

‘Sure it's all right, my coming with you?' Stephen asked.

‘Chris'll be pleased. He thinks you're the tiger's whiskers,' she said. Stephen was sure that she was Chris's mum. So where did his own mum fit into this family? He had no idea who the other three tennis players might be.

She drove competently through heavy traffic. Stephen waited until they had turned into a complex of smaller roads. Then he said, ‘Rose!'

He saw that she did not like this. She said, ‘You cheeky digger! It's Aunt Rose to you, and don't you forget it.'

He said, ‘How come you're my aunt?'

‘What do you mean, “How come?” I've always been your aunt, haven't I?'

‘Because you're my mum's sister?' It was a guess, and he felt brave.

Again he could see that she was disturbed. She said, ‘Let's just say I'm your proper aunt and leave it at that.'

‘But were you my mum's sister?'

‘What about it, if I was?'

‘I wanted to ask you. About my mum.'

She looked at him quickly. Then she said, in a very quiet voice, ‘We don't talk about her.'

‘Why not?'

She said, ‘Wait till we get indoors, will you? I can't park the car while I'm thinking what to tell you.'

She drove into the parking space in front of a small house. They both got out of the car. Rose locked it, then she opened the front door and called, ‘Chris! Chris! I'm back!' A voice from somewhere inside called, ‘All right! In the kitchen.'

It was a large, well fitted kitchen. It seemed to have all the kitchen machinery Stephen had ever heard of. Chris, the boy he had last seen in the Martello tower—or should he say in Mrs Robinson's cellar?—was sitting at the table, eating. His mother said, ‘Look who I've brought home with me!' and the boy said, ‘Good-o,' and went on eating.

‘Sit down. I'll get you some Coke,' Rose said. From an enormous refrigerator, she took two cans of Coke, pushed one across to Stephen and opened the other for herself. She looked at Stephen, and then at Chris. It was clear that she was telling him that she wouldn't talk in front of the boy.

‘What sort of a day at school?' she asked and Chris said, ‘Lousy. I couldn't do the maths and Peter made me stay in and go over them again with him when the others were outside.'

‘Bad luck,' Rose said. Her voice was absent. She wasn't really thinking about Chris and his maths.

‘Are you any good at maths?' Chris asked Stephen and Stephen said, ‘No. Not very. I'm always being kept in to do things again.'

‘You see? It's in the genes!' Chris said to his mother.

‘Don't you start talking about genes. You don't pay attention in class, that's why you can't do your sums,' his mother said.

Stephen felt that this could go on for longer than he could bear. He said to Rose, ‘Aunt Rose, I wanted to ask you a question.'

She said quickly, ‘Not now.' Then, to Chris, ‘Chris, be a love and go into the living room, and get started on your homework, will you? Deedie and I have got to have a talk.'

‘What about?' Chris asked, but he stood up and pushed back his chair.

‘Never you mind what about. Nothing for you to worry about. You could get in a quarter of an hour's work before tea.'

His look at her said plainly, ‘I know when I'm not wanted.' But he left the room. As soon as the door was shut, Stephen said, ‘I want to know about my mum.'

‘We don't talk about her,' Rose said, uncomfortably.

‘Why not?'

‘Because of the disgrace.'

‘What disgrace? What did she do?'

‘You shouldn't be asking me. I'm not going to say. I don't know why you've suddenly started asking questions now, after all this time,' Rose said.

‘After all what time? I've always wanted to know what happened to her.'

‘I'm not going to talk,' Rose said, and she shut her mouth in a firm thin line.

‘You could tell me about her when she was little,' Stephen said.

‘Why do you want to know about her when she was little?'

He didn't know how to answer this. He said, ‘I don't know. I just wondered what she was like when she was a little girl.'

In spite of herself, Rose was smiling. ‘She was naughty,' she said.

‘Did you get on with her? Or did you and she fight?'

‘Fought like devils. About everything.'

‘What did she do that was naughty?'

‘What didn't she do? Never did as she was told. Ran away more than once.'

‘Did you run with her?'

‘Me? No. I was the good one, see? It was all I had. Being good, I mean. And pretty. I was prettier than her, and she was jealous.'

Stephen looked at Rose and wondered how she'd managed to be pretty, with that lank pale hair and soft pale face. The face was flabby now, with puffy cheeks and not enough chin, but perhaps when she'd been young she hadn't been pale and puffy.

‘Why did she run away?'

Rose was confused. She said, ‘She was always difficult to please.'

‘What sort of things did you fight about?'

‘I said, everything. Clothes. Our mum liked to have us dressed alike, and Margaret wouldn't. If we had things that matched, she'd change them. I remember once she cut a great hole in her new frock and put on a patch out of some red material she'd got from somewhere. I can tell you, our mum was furious. She beat her.'

‘Beat her! You mean, with a stick?' Stephen was horrified. He was not surprised his mum had run away.

‘With a belt. She was bruised for a week after that.'

‘What else did she do?'

‘Once she painted her face green. And her arms and her neck. Then she went in next door to old Mrs Armitage and told her she was an alien from the stars come to get her.'

‘Why did she do that?'

‘Mrs Armitage had told on her for climbing over the fence to fetch a ball that had gone in her garden.'

Stephen felt that his mum had certainly not been lacking in spirit. Or in invention. And he had gained something he hadn't known before. His mum had been called Margaret. How ridiculous that her own son hadn't till now known her name!

‘Go on.'

‘That's all.'

‘There must have been a lot more. Who was older, you or her?'

‘She was older than me. There was your Aunt Dorothy was the oldest of us girls.'

‘Was she naughty too?'

‘No. She was the clever one. Got a scholarship to the big school and went into the Civil Service.'

‘Is she out here too?' Stephen asked.

‘Didn't you see her playing tennis not half an hour ago? Of course she's out here. We all came together. With you.'

‘Why did you go to Australia?' He should have asked, ‘Why did you come?' but Rose did not notice the mistake.