Transmigration (12 page)

 

--You know mine.

 

 

--You're young. You can change. I was beyond the point of no return.

 

 

--So you returned, Ross sneered.

 

 

--You can change.

 

 

--I don't want to change.

 

 

There it was. Ross didn't want to change, and he had every right not
to change.

 

 

Fletcher, who had briefly experienced hope, confidence and purpose,
lost them again. Knowing Ross, he was no longer able to feel he had any
right to be in Ross's mind.

 

 

He was a man taking up space in a lifeboat while others drowned. He had
no right to be in the lifeboat. His own drowning was receding into the
past, yet he clung to a place in life, a place of refuge, that belonged
to someone else.

 

 

He shielded these thoughts from Ross, and Ross thought he was shielding
something else.

 

 

--You won't talk to Anita for me?

 

 

--Understand: it's pointless.

 

 

With characteristic, childish pique, Ross retorted
--Then I'm damned if I'll talk to you.

 

 

After that Ross sulked in a corner of his mind, leaving Fletcher to cope
as best he could with "A Day in the Life of Ian Ross." Fletcher had no
choice; Ross refused to answer. On the whole Fletcher coped better than
either of them expected, largely because he had nothing to lose.

 

 

When he encountered Eric Stirling, Eric said at once: "Well, what
happened?"

 

 

"Whatever happened or didn't happen, I wouldn't tell you."

 

 

The reply was rude enough to be by Ross, but it wasn't in Ross's image.
Eric was visibly startled.

 

 

The girl who was pregnant by Ross, Sandra, waylaid him and started on
a shrill complaint.

 

 

"Now wait a minute," said Fletcher. "It's not my fault that when a man
and a girl take a roll in the hay nothing can happen to the man and the
girl may have a baby. All I know is that the roll in the hay was as much
your idea as mine. If anything, more yours. So don't try to present me
with the bill."

 

 

"I might have known that's how you'd take it!"

 

 

"Yes," he agreed cordially. "You might have known. Are you trying to
tell me you didn't?"

 

 

She was silenced. It bothered him a little to be so brutal, but he honestly
believed it was a case of being cruel to be kind. The possibility that
Ross would marry Sandra did not exist. The possibility that he would take
any responsibility for her, after Fletcher ceased to be part of him,
was almost equally theoretical. The sooner the girl realized this, the
sooner she would begin to equip herself for her not uncommon situation.

 

 

When he met Anita he said simply: "I'm sorry."

 

 

"I'm not very interested." She tried to brush past him.

 

 

"I'm not Ian Ross. I'm John Fletcher."

 

 

The announcement, which he made briefly and bluntly in the hope of
catching her interest, fell exceedingly flat. "Good. Any change must be
for the better."

 

 

"I have to talk to you."

 

 

"But I don't have to talk to you."

 

 

"Please, Anita -- "

 

 

Although she had shown no surprise when he said he was Fletcher, this
seemed to surprise her. Probably it was the first time Ross had been
known to say "please."

 

 

"I have to go to this lecture," she said, less coldly.

 

 

"Afterward, then?"

 

 

"Maybe . . . "

 

 

That was enough. Fletcher stepped back, and that surprised her too.

 

 

Fletcher was confused. He was in control. Ross was not speaking to him.
Fletcher, too, was shielding his thoughts, his personal thoughts,
from Ross.

 

 

Yet he was not speaking or acting like either Ross or himself.

 

 

Having no lecture, he called on his French tutor. He should have done
so the day before, as Mr. Steen lost no time in pointing out.

 

 

"Sit down, Ross," said Steen. His manner made Anita's seem friendly. "I've
read your essay. I've read it several times. The French is good. The
content is execrable."

 

 

He stared grimly down at Ross, who was sprawled comfortably in an armchair
in Steen's study.

 

 

"Before you make your usual insolent reply," Steen went on, "let me warn
you that the moment you do your case goes before the Senatus. I want to
speak to you, Ross, and this time you'll listen."

 

 

"Of course I'll listen, sir."

 

 

Steen waved the essay in the air. "Your essay cleverly hints at a
perverted relationship between the Principal and the Chancellor, thinly
disguised as two Breton peasants. What you have done here is an evil
thing, a reckless thing, because it can please nobody, but must disgust
and antagonize anyone able to understand it -- as you knew very well,
Ross, I would. Yet to use this revolting document against you would
inevitably be most unpleasant for all concerned, while you would be
free to insist innocently that there was no double meaning, far less a
triple meaning."

 

 

He stood over Ross and fixed him with his eyes. "To use talent for such
ends is apparently your purpose in life, Ross, but it is not the reason
you are here. You are supported here at Government expense, and this
means you must ultimately bow to authority."

 

 

He sat down opposite Ross.

 

 

"Despite your relative caution, it would be very easy at this moment,
before you further express your unedifying personality, to kick you
out. You would then be in an unenviable position, Ross. You have no rich
father or mother or patron. Without a degree, your undoubted linguistic
talents would have very little market value. In other fields you are
totally untrained."

 

 

When he paused, Fletcher said: "I am aware of all that, sir. One thing
I should make clear; your opinion of me is flattering compared with my
own of myself."

 

 

What he said was true in many ways and at several levels, and there was
no doubting his sincerity.

 

 

Steen couldn't doubt it and was put off his stroke. "Well . . . well,
Ross. If that is the case, perhaps you . . . Mr. Ross, please tell me
one thing. Have you ever had psychiatric treatment?"

 

 

Fletcher smiled. "No, but I've studied psychology. I have some idea why
I act as I do."

 

 

"Well . . . well . . . " Steen was totally at a loss, having started by
going tooth and nail, in his academic way, for a student who needed a
swift kick in the pants, then suddenly got the idea that psychosis might
be involved and then . . . "I don't know," he said. "Good afternoon,
Mr. Ross."

 

 

Anyway, Fletcher thought, he had won a "Mister."

 

 

 

 

Catching Anita after her lecture, he said firmly: "This way."

 

 

She hung back. "Considering you broke into my bed- room last night and
hit me . . . "

 

 

"That was Ross, Anita."

 

 

She shrugged impatiently. "Oh, don't be ridiculous. This is just another
of your dirty schemes -- "

 

 

"I can prove I'm Fletcher, if you let me."

 

 

"I can see you're Ross."

 

 

"Ross too, of course. But he isn't here at the moment. He's sulking.
What I mean is, I can prove that part of me is Fletcher."

 

 

"How?"

 

 

"Remember the waiting room in the psychology department? You told me
you fancied yourself as Mata Hari."

 

 

That caught her. She paused, frowned.

 

 

"I said I liked your voice. You said 'Just my voice? I thought I had
rather nice legs.' You asked if I was a misogynist . . . "

 

 

"All right, I'll talk to you. Maybe I can help. I know several
psychiatrists."

 

 

That again. Fletcher was unmoved. "Insanity isn't involved. I don't
think I'm Napoleon Bonaparte, I know I'm John Fletcher. And so will you,
if you let me talk to you."

 

 

"Where do you want to go?"

 

 

"Somewhere quiet."

 

 

"In the Union? You must be joking."

 

 

"No, it's easy." He led her to a locker-room which proved to be
deserted. "Fletcher, poor sucker that he was, was always amazingly good
at unimportant things like this."

 

 

"You' mean, knowing a place was deserted before he went there?"

 

 

"Or, sometimes, going to exactly the wrong place. That was the trouble."

 

 

"You say you're Fletcher. Then you talk about him in the past tense.
If this is some kind of game, please don't keep changing the rules."

 

 

He told her more things which only she and Fletcher knew.

 

 

"When did Fletcher tell you this?" she demanded.

 

 

"Fletcher and Ross never met except at that session."

 

 

"I don't know." She tapped one foot thoughtfully. She wore a white blouse,
a red skirt, and high-heeled shoes. The blouse was demure and plain but
highly provocative. Fletcher was shocked at his thoughts, and could not
blame Ross for them.

 

 

"I wouldn't put it past you," she said, "knowing Fletcher and I had a
private session, to seek him out and pump him about what was said."

 

 

"And would I -- would Fletcher -- have told him?" he demanded.

 

 

That, too, had its effect. She frowned again.

 

 

"Listen," he said, and poured out the whole story.

 

 

Now she was totally incredulous. Rather disappointed in her, Fletcher
had to admit that after all it was very different for her than for Judy
and Ross. They knew . . . you don't argue with what you know, no matter
how incredible it may be. If you awake with two heads, your future life
has to be predicated on the plain fact that you now have two heads --
which, in a way, was what Judy and Ross had done.

 

 

"I don't like elaborate hoaxes," she said. "In general, I believe what
people say. That makes me gullible, I suppose. Last year you and I had
a bet on the Boat Race. You told me later the Cambridge boat had sunk. I
paid up. It was hours later I found this was supposed to be a joke."

 

 

"This is no joke, Anita."

 

 

"Now, that . . . " she said, again uncertain, "would be clever, if you
knew about it. Ross never called me Anita. Oh, I don't know."

 

 

"Go and see Judy."

 

 

"You want me to ask if Fletcher was ever in her . . . " Anita gave up
impatiently, incredulously. "And that fantastic story of walking along
the parapet of the skyscraper. Really, Ross."

 

 

"No," said Fletcher. "Not that. It's obvious nothing will convince you
but facts. Right, find out the facts about Judy. She's at a special
school. That girl you saw yesterday. Her IQ is on record somewhere, 60,
70, I don't know. You remember she told you she couldn't write."

 

 

"Yes," said Anita slowly, again momentarily impressed. "I couldn't figure
that out. She seemed a normal kid, brighter than average, perhaps."

 

 

"Well, you look into it. Judy couldn't learn to read or write became she
was too backward, doomed to illiteracy for the rest of her life. How
about giving her a test now? In fact, that's the main reason I wanted
to talk to you. I like Judy, and I feel responsible for her. If nobody
does anything about it, she'll go back to the school when her leg is
better. In due course they'll find out she's different. They'll take
months over it. Then, since her case is unique, they'll take more months
figuring out what to do about it. She can't be sent to an ordinary school
with girls of her own age, because she's so far behind. She can't be sent
to a primary school with seven-year-olds to catch up. Probably she'll be
left in the special school because that means less trouble for everybody."

 

 

"Oh, no!" said Anita, jumping up. "That would be horrible for the poor
kid. Somebody's got to . . . "

 

 

She broke off, for Fletcher was smiling at her, and she couldn't help
smiling back.

 

 

"Tell me what, particularly, you can't believe."

 

 

"Oh, everything. The whole crazy story."

 

 

"Yet you took part in a test looking for psi talent in Fletcher. Why,
if you were going to refuse to believe in it when you found it?"

 

 

"This isn't psi."

 

 

"Tell me, what is psi? What are the rules for clairvoyance? What are
you allowed to do, and not allowed to do, in the fields beyond human
knowledge?"

 

 

Rather weakly she said: "It's incredible."

 

 

"What, particularly, can't you believe?"

 

 

"Well, maybe the absence of science, of machines. I'm not technically
minded, and perhaps because of that I believe gadgets can do anything. If
you, Fletcher, had been put in a glass case with a steel band round his
head, and Ross sat in a chair with another band round his head, and lights
flashed along neon tubes, as in the films, I could probably believe it."

 

 

"Not very logical, is it?''

 

 

"Why not? When you get something like this that never happened before
. . . "