The If Game (14 page)

‘Couldn't you?' Alex was saying.

‘I don't know.'

‘What's the matter?'

‘Nothing,' he said, angry.

‘There is, though. Has something happened? Did you have another adventure and it was really bad?'

‘No.'

‘Something's happened. You're different.'

‘I'm not.'

‘You are. You're sort of ... sad. No, that's not right. I feel as if you'd gone a long way away and you don't want to get back.'

He didn't answer this.

‘If it wasn't something to do with your keys, it's something that's happened now. Real.'

Yes, it was real enough.

‘I wish you'd tell me. I wouldn't be able to do anything, but if you told me you'd feel better. That's what my mum says. And it's true.'

‘Just telling someone?'

‘Someone you like, of course.'

‘Oh! Like!'

‘I'd understand if you don't like me enough. I know you didn't after you'd gone through that door in the street.'

‘I do like you. Quite,' he said.

‘Well, then?'

But he wasn't going to. Whatever her mum said, he didn't believe that telling her would make him feel better. It couldn't alter the facts. She must have seen from his closed look that he wasn't going to talk. She got up and said, ‘I'll be off, then.'

He saw her to the door. She said, ‘Thanks for the tea.'

‘That's all right.'

‘You could tell me. I wouldn't ever tell anyone else.'

He was pleased when she was gone.

After this Stephen sat on his bed, with his bedroom door locked. He wanted to be able to think without being disturbed.

Alex had been right. When he went through one of those doors, he found himself with his mum's family. As if he'd been taken with them when they'd left England. That wouldn't be an extraordinary ‘If'. He decided that this was something he could ask Dad right away. He'd be back to supper, though late, because it was a Saturday. He knew that if he left it too long, he'd never have the courage to start speaking of his mum again.

He waited till nearly the end of the meal, and then he began. ‘Dad! Are they in Australia? My mum's family?'

Dad looked startled. He said, ‘Why?'

‘Because you said something about them being the other side of the world. So I thought perhaps it was Australia.'

His dad said, ‘Yes, they're in Australia.'

‘When did they go there?' Stephen asked.

‘After the trial. Wanted to get right away. There was an uncle there already. And your mum's brother.'

‘So I could have gone there too?'

‘What made you think of that?' Dad asked. Now it was happening. Dad looked as if he might be going to get angry.

‘Just wondered,' Stephen said. He thought this sounded feeble, so he added, ‘I wondered what it would be like.'

‘Can't tell you. I've never been,' Dad said.

‘Did you think of going?'

‘No, I didn't. Why should I? I didn't ever get on that well with your mum's family. I wouldn't have wanted to be with them wherever they were.'

So this hadn't been one of those ‘If situations, Stephen thought. Alex was wrong. But his dad suddenly said, ‘They wanted to take you, though.'

‘Why didn't they, then?'

‘I didn't let them, did I?'

‘You mean, you wanted to keep me here? With you?'

‘They tried hard. God knows why. They hadn't treated your mum that well when she was with them. Felt guilty about her, I daresay.'

‘How did they try hard?' Stephen asked.

‘Said I'd never be able to manage with a kid on my own. There was a lot of sob stuff about how kids ought to be with their mum's family. Bullshit, it was. I knew I could manage quite as well as them. Better. They tried to get at you to say you'd rather go off with them, too.'

‘I don't remember,' Stephen said.

‘You weren't much more than a baby. But I knew what was best for you. They're a poor lot. Your mum was the only one of them who had any brains. Or any spirit.'

Stephen considered this. If the people he'd met behind those doors were really his mum's family, he couldn't contradict his dad's view of them. He hadn't particularly liked them. In fact he'd found the way they'd treated him somehow cloying. They were too affectionate, it didn't quite ring true. But what struck him more than this was the fact that his dad hadn't wanted to let him go. In spite of the fact that it must have been tough for him having a kid to look after when that kid was really small. It struck him, for almost the first time, that perhaps his dad had actually been fond of him. Didn't just regard him as something to be put up with and corrected, but had wanted
to have him around. It was such an amazing idea that he didn't feel he could say any more just then. That suited his dad all right. Never one to say more on any subject than was absolutely necessary, Dad had now picked up the evening paper and was glancing at it in the way he had of not quite reading it seriously, but indicating that he was preparing to get lost in it if there were no more questions.

Stephen would have liked to make sure that he'd guessed right, by asking, ‘Did you really want to have me living here?' But he couldn't. And he knew that if he did, Dad's answer was likely to be something offhand, like ‘Didn't know what you'd turn out like, did I?' Something unsatisfactory. Dad was never going to come out with a straight declaration of—what did Stephen want? Approval? Affection? Why not say, straight out, love?

It was December and the end of term was within sight. There was the usual carol concert, and a play done by the seniors, which Stephen enjoyed more than he'd expected. He hadn't thought that
The Winter's Tale
by that well-known writer, William Shakespeare, could possibly tell him anything he wanted to know, or find interesting. He was not really involved in the story until it had reached Bohemia and the finding of Perdita, and when, at the end, Hermione was proved not to have died, though he couldn't believe that she'd been kept hidden for so long, he was intrigued. A mother, come back from the dead. It was a stupid story, full of unlikely events, but that part of it could be true for him.

During the short Christmas holiday he was going to have the usual problem. He had to find a present for his dad, always a nightmare. If asked, Dad always said he didn't want anything, ‘So don't go wasting your money.' But this year, especially, Stephen wanted to give Dad something he'd really like. He wanted it to be expensive, too, and that raised another problem. He hadn't much cash. He tried to get a job. There were boys not much bigger than him who were temporary postmen, but when he asked at the Post Office, he was told that sixteen was the minimum age. He had to find out if anyone wanted a short term paper-boy. At first, he despaired. At each place he asked, he was told they'd got all the regular boys they needed and that anyway he'd have to be thirteen, or they couldn't legally employ him. But at the fifth shop, he was
lucky. One of their delivery boys had just gone off sick. ‘Influenza. So he won't be back much before Christmas,' the shop woman said, gloomily. She looked Stephen over with suspicion and not only asked how old he was, but also said that he must bring a reference. Stephen added a couple of months to his real age, and suggested the name of his form master, hoping that Mr Bates would not remember that he wasn't yet quite thirteen. He was relieved when he was told, a day later, that he'd got the job. The wages were not magnificent, but would bring in enough to make him feel that this time he'd be able to find something really good, something Dad would know must have taken time and trouble to find. It was convenient that the paper-round started so early that he could combine it with being at school. He did it for three weeks and was grateful that he wouldn't always have to get out of bed at that cold dark hour of the morning.

He took the train to London. Surely there he'd find something his dad would like. He was tired by the time he'd trudged through what felt like hundreds of shops, looking. He'd seen shirts he'd have liked for himself, but which Dad probably wouldn't be seen dead in. He'd looked at shelves and shelves of books, but couldn't find anything he was sure that Dad would read. He had pored over the windows of jewellers' shops, wondering whether Dad would wear those comic cufflinks—but he didn't wear the sort of cuffs that required links. He had wandered through the menswear departments and seen innumerable ties, scarves, pullovers, pyjamas. It was while he was in one of these, that he suddenly remembered his dad saying, not long ago, I'll have to get rid of this old cardigan. It's got holes all over, and the buttons aren't anything to write home about.' It was a shapeless brown garment that Dad had worn at home after it had served its purpose at work. So a new cardigan
was something he really needed. Stephen started with renewed vigour on his quest.

It couldn't be anything with a pattern. And at first all the cardigans Stephen looked at had patterns of one kind or another, or their colours were too bright. He wandered from shop to shop, and began to feel depressed as well as exhausted, when he saw exactly what he wanted in the window of a small shop that sold nothing but knitwear. It was light brown and absolutely plain. It had dark brown buttons, nothing fancy. As Stephen looked at it through the window, he could imagine his dad wearing it. It was absolutely right for him. Feeling pleased that at last he'd found what he wanted, he went into the shop.

The first thing that went wrong was the assistant who came forward to serve him. When Stephen asked about the cardigan in the window, the man said, ‘Nothing like that in your size, sonny.'

Stephen hated being called ‘sonny'. He said, coldly, ‘It's not for me. It's for my dad.'

The man said, ‘What size did you want then?' sounding more interested. Fortunately Stephen knew the answer to this. The man pulled open a drawer and took out a pile of cardigans, looking through them for the right size. When he had found it, he laid it reverently on the counter, and said, ‘A very superior article. You won't find anything to equal this however far you look.'

Stephen had to agree. It was perfect, absolutely right as a very special present. What was not absolutely right was the price. When Stephen heard it, he was shocked. He had never dreamed that a perfectly plain cardigan could cost so much. ‘It's pure cashmere,' the shop assistant was saying, and he stroked the garment fondly, to show how valuable and soft it was.

Stephen did a quick, desperate calculation. The sum was more than he had, but it wasn't that much more than
he could earn by the end of the week if he stuck to the newsround. He hadn't meant to. He had meant to leave and have some time with Mick, who had a new computer game which he'd invited Stephen to try. And there must surely be other cardigans which would look very much like this one but which wouldn't be pure cashmere and not cost so much. He asked. Yes, there were other plain cardigans, and the man got one out to show. Stephen was tempted. It was a perfectly all right garment, the sort Dad always bought for himself. But it was nothing out of the ordinary and Stephen wanted this present to be special. He said, ‘I haven't got enough money on me now, but I could have most of it by next Monday. Would you keep it for me till then, and I'll come back?'

The assistant looked doubtful. He said, ‘What d'you mean, you'll have most of it?'

‘I'll have earned almost as much as that. I'll get the rest somehow.' He didn't know how he would do this. He might just possibly be able to borrow from Mick.

The assistant said, ‘Pity you have to purchase the article now. After Christmas we'll be reducing the prices of most of our stock. Why don't you come back next month?'

Stephen said, ‘I can't do that. It's for a Christmas present.'

‘For your dad?' the man asked.

‘Yes. And I've got to be able to give it to him on the day.'

The assistant said, ‘Wait here a moment,' and disappeared into a back room, taking the pile of cardigans with him. Did he think that Stephen was going to walk off with them? He reappeared almost at once and said, ‘Mr Borrodale says it will be all right to let you have the cardigan next week at its sale price. Only you mustn't tell your friends, or we shall have them all coming and asking for the discount.'

‘I won't tell anyone,' Stephen said, immensely relieved. He thought he could forgive the man for that ‘sonny'. The sale price, when he was told it, was only a pound or two more than he would have by the following week, if he added his savings to what he would have earned.

He went home, feeling pleased and sorry. Pleased that he'd found exactly the right present for Dad and sorry that it meant he wouldn't have more than about fifty pence to last him till he got his pocket money at the end of next week.

He finished the week at the newsagent's, was paid, and confirmed at home that with what he'd been able to save earlier, he had just enough to pay for the cashmere cardigan. On Monday, he went back to London and bought it. It had been beautifully packed in a slim box and sheets and sheets of tissue paper. Stephen realized that it had been a very expensive shop, not the kind he or his dad ever went into. He hugged himself with anticipation of what his dad would feel when he saw this magnificent garment. Then he reminded himself that Dad was never one to show what he was feeling. It was unlikely that he'd say more than ‘Thanks. It's great.' But he would know and Stephen would know that the cardigan represented something new in their relationship.

A few days before Christmas, Alex knocked again at the door. Stephen let her in, and took her into the kitchen. It hadn't occurred to him to get anything to give her, and he was already feeling embarrassed that he hadn't so much as a card for her, when she said, ‘I just came to say Happy Christmas!'