Transmigration (20 page)

 

 

"Get him, Gerry!" Sheila suddenly screamed.

 

 

She was right back against the wall, in some way terrified of
Fletcher-Baudaker, but something had snapped in her and she made
something snap in Gerry.

 

 

Gerry lashed wildly at the little man, and Fletcher, moving easily to
evade the blow, brushed against a lamp-standard. It teetered and fell on
him. Unhurt but dazed, he didn't move as Gerry caught him by the throat.

 

 

With the nervous frenzy of a man attacking something or someone he
feared, like a man stamping in terror on a snake, Gerry squeezed madly
and Baudaker was helpless. He heaved and fought for air and got none. He
could feel his eyes popping and he knew Gerry in his sudden insanity
would not release him while life remained in him.

 

 

Fletcher dimly heard Sheila chirping wild encouragement. Baudaker was
dying and there was nothing he could do about it. Gerry was twice as
strong as he was. But there was something Fletcher could do about it. He
did it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 5: GERRY

 

 

He released Baudaker and the little man slumped to the floor, eyes glazed
almost as in death.

 

 

But Fletcher had made the transfer in time.

 

 

"Finish him, you fooll" Sheila shrieked.

 

 

Gerry turned casually. "Ies all off, Sheila," he said.

 

 

"Christ, you can't stop now! Finish the little creep."

 

 

He felt a strong urge to slap her and knew that although part of this came
from Fletcher, some of it came from the habits of Gerry of slapping and
punching Sheila as indifferently as a schoolboy kicked stones. Fletcher
was in complete control, but Gerry was with him, unsurprised, wary,
sullen, rebellious. It was in Gerry's nature to hit Sheila because he
could not hit anyone else.

 

 

Fletcher, however, had no intention of hitting Sheila.

 

 

"Go home," he said.

 

 

She responded with a tornado of profanity and obscenity which seemed to be
their common language.

 

 

"Stop that," he said in disgust.

 

 

"You're going to put the money back?"

 

 

"Yes." He bent over Baudaker, loosening his tie and opening his shirt.
Baudaker was conscious, though every heaving breath was torture, and his
eyes showed he knew exactly what had happened. But even if he could have
spoken he would not have done so. He was leaving this to Fletcher.

 

 

Suddenly the universe exploded in pain, pain greater than he had
experienced as Gerry was strangling him. Sheila had kicked him as hard
as she was able in the side.

 

 

Eyes streaming with pain, he straightened with difficulty.

 

 

"Now look here," he said. "That's out, understand? I'm not going to hit
you, I don't like hitting you, but . . . "

 

 

"Since when?" she hooted derisively, and with a careless wrench hauled
her sweater up her body.

 

 

Her ribs and skinny midriff were patterned with bruises, blue, black,
purple and yellow. She had been beaten systematically, regularly,
remorselessly, as if the beating was a chore which was as obligatory as
eating and sleeping.

 

 

Suddenly excited, she breathed: "Hit me, Gerry. Go on, hurt me. I want
to be hurt. I want that feeling. Hit me till I can't stand. Hit me till
I scream for you to stop, and don't stop. Take me, Gerry."

 

 

Sick, Fletcher wanted nothing more than to be rid of her. "Sheila,"
he said firmly, and then paused. Tell her the truth? Ridiculous. Yet
she had to know that the Gerry she had known no longer existed.

 

 

"We've got to straighten ourselves out before it's too late. We've got
to do things the right way, the decent way."

 

 

He stopped because she was laughing incredulously and derisively.

 

 

"You, Gerry?" she sneered.

 

 

It was hopeless. Talking to her while she was in her present mood was
a waste of time.

 

 

Indeed, he began to be afraid that it would always be a waste of time.

 

 

At that early moment he suspected that working on Sheila from outside her,
even as Gerry, particularly as Gerry, was not going to be a success. It
was part of his job, part of his usual unsought responsibility, to try to
set Gerry right. And Gerry and Sheila were linked unto death -- everyone
seemed to take that for granted -- although they were not married or
engaged and perhaps never would be. Their kind of relationship did
not seem to encompass marriage. They were tethered together by lust,
masochism, sadism, but not by tenderness.

 

 

Anyway, he could do nothing about Sheila now.

 

 

Grotesquely she still had her sweater hanging like a muffler round her
neck. Her frail, discolored body aroused protectiveness as well as horror
in Fletcher, and he could feel Gerry experiencing the new feeling and
being baffled by it.

 

 

He stepped forward and Sheila tensed, expecting blows and both welcoming
and fearing the pain they would bring.

 

 

Gently, he pulled down her sweater.

 

 

At a loss, she looked at him and then at Baudaker, still on the floor,
still gasping, but less tortured now.

 

 

"You really want me to go?" she said, with sudden deadly calm.

 

 

"I can't make it any clearer, can I?"

 

 

"Then by Christ I'll go," she said savagely, and slammed the door behind
her. A moment later he heard the front door slam.

 

 

He bent over Baudaker again. "Can I get you anything?"

 

 

"Water, please," Baudaker croaked.

 

 

"It's tea you want," Fletcher said. "Just a minute. Shall I help you to
a chair?"

 

 

"No, I'll stay here."

 

 

"You know what's happened, of course."

 

 

"Yes. Tell me, what will it mean to Gerry?"

 

 

"I don't know. At the moment he's sort of standing back and looking on,
wondering just what you asked, what this is going to mean to him. One
thing -- he's not as selfish as I thought. He still cares in a certain
shamefaced way about you, and of course in his twisted way about Sheila."

 

 

"Be good to him," Baudaker begged.

 

 

"I'll try to be."

 

 

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry about this; I didn't want to lose you."

 

 

Fletcher smiled half incredulously as he went to the kitchen and put
on the kettle. Only Baudaker had ever said, or would ever say, anything
like that. All the others had been and would be unspeakably relieved to
be free of him. It could not be too soon for Gerry.

 

 

Baudaker was a friend, possibly the first he had ever had.

 

 

 

 

The first colloquy came a few minutes later after Fletcher had helped
Baudaker to bed, placed a pot of tea on the bedside table, and put
the car in. Fletcher, who had never in his life stolen as much as a
postage stamp, could not rest with Ł300 of stolen money in the house,
and intended to go to the shop right away.

 

 

--It would be all right to put it back tomorrow, Gerry said.

 

 

--No. Tonight.

 

 

--Ill have to climb in through a lavatory window.

 

 

--Good. You know the way, then.

 

 

--It's a long walk. Why not take the car? You can drive.

 

 

--But you haven't a driving license. Do you want to be picked up and
charged with taking away a car without permission and driving without
a license and without third party insurance, with Ł300 of stolen money
in the car?

 

 

Gerry didn't answer the question. He was uneasy rather than rebellious.
He was also reluctantly and resentfully ashamed, shocked to learn in
the most unambiguous way what Fletcher thought of him and his behavior
toward Baudaker, Sheila and his employers.

 

 

Of course, Gerry himself would have remained unimpressed if Fletcher,
as an ordinary living individual, had told him what he thought of
him. But now Gerry was partly Fletcher -- and possibly also partly Judy,
Ross and Baudaker. He was seeing himself in many mirrors, from several
unflattering angles.

 

 

--She made me hit her.

 

 

--You're stronger than she is. Much stronger. How could she make you?

 

 

--It seems different now.

 

 

--Never mind, said Fletcher with a sympathy and understanding he had
not shown toward Ross. Perhaps he had not then acquired sympathy and
understanding.
-- You're not eighteen yet. You've done nothing irreparable. Maybe I
can help you.

 

 

Gerry burst out suddenly
--You were in the old man!

 

 

Fletcher was taken aback that Gerry had only just realized this, despite
the conversation with Baudaker. But then, the boy did not possess more
than average intelligence.

 

 

--Yes.

 

 

--What are you, a sort of angel?

 

 

It was Fletcher's turn to be shocked. True, he had been able to do some
good, he hoped. But on the whole he regarded himself as a tortured soul
unable to rest. What he had learued in Edinburgh gave him a clearer idea
of the facts, but not much to justify the sense of purpose he yearned
to feel, because only purpose could justify what was happening. He had
always been a misfit and now he was far more of a misfit than he had
ever been in life.

 

 

--An angel? Ridiculous.

 

 

 

 

Gordon's was a very large marble-fronted shoe shop, on the town's main
street. The owner, Jeremy Gordon, still ran it like the tiny shoemaker's
shop he had started forty years ago. Although he had achieved reasonable
success, he still had only one shop when others who began as he did had
achieved a chain.

 

 

He had been robbed all his life and his rivals had always been first. Yet
he was a happy man, and for the first time Gerry felt some respect for
the old fool seeing him through Fletcher's eyes. He was not a silly
old man who deserved to be robbed, but a man who could never stop being
optimistic over human nature.

 

 

Restoring the stolen money proved to be extremely easy, because the shop,
though reasonably secure against an outside raider, was a cardboard shoe
box to anyone who worked in it. And this fact, seen through Fletcher's
eyes, made Gerry feel ashamed again.

 

 

Gerry did not make any effort to communicate on the way home.

 

 

Thunderous knocking on the rarely used front door, punctuated by imperious
peals of the bell, roused Gerry from a deep sleep, and a glance at the
luminous dial of his alarm clock told him it was 3 a.m. It would be
Sheila, of course.

 

 

Both he and Fletcher were disinclined to answer the door. But if Gerry
did not, Baudaker would have to get up.

 

 

Gerry got up reluctantly, scarcely able to see for sleep. Fletcher,
suppressed by the heaviness of Gerry's oblivion, was a mere passenger.
Gerry, like Ross, slept in pajama trousers only, and Fletcher vaguely
thought of putting something else on. But he was not sufficiently in
control to have any effect on Gerry, who stumbled to the front door and
opened it, blinking.

 

 

Policemen.

 

 

Two in uniform, one in plain clothes.

 

 

Roused a little, Fletcher realized that he would have known it was not
Sheila at the door if he had not been so committed in the heavy sleep
of a very tired seventeen-year-old. Then he saw that the police, grim
and certain though they were, were made less grim and less certain by
the totally convincing sleepiness of the youth in rumpled pajama trousers.

 

 

Neither Fletcher nor Gerry could achieve alertness for several minutes.
The three policemen were in the lounge. Baudaker did not appear and the
police did not insist on rousing him.

 

 

They had reason to believe that Ł300 was missing from Gordon's. Could
Gerry tell them anything?

 

 

Fully awake at last, Gerry said: "You got a call from Sheila?"

 

 

The plain-clothes man said: "Suppose we did, son?"

 

 

"We had a row," said Gerry.

 

 

"So she split on you. She didn't even wait till the morning."

 

 

"You don't know Sheila." Gerry-Fletcher paused: he didn't want to lie
or half-lie. The money had been taken, but it was safely back. There
was no need to do anything but wait.

 

 

"You mean she was lying, son?"

 

 

Fletcher found the "son" irritating. In his old-fashioned view, police
were friends if you had never broken the law, enemies if you were a
crook. This detective believed, still believed, that the kid in front
of him had stolen Ł300 from his employer. That was perfectly reasonable,
since Gerry had. But the friendliness jarred.

 

 

Fletcher, who had been Baudaker for long enough to forget his joy in
being young and strong and healthy as Judy and as Ross, suddenly had to
suppress an urge to dive through the window and escape, as Gerry could
easily do in his youth, and strength.

 

 

The police, it became apparent, were waiting too. Probably they were
waiting for a warrant to search the home. They had been invited in; at
least, Gerry had not opposed their entry. But they said nothing about
a search.