Black Diamond Page 21

  She would have liked to see the memorial for reasons other than its prettiness. She’d have liked to see the visible corroboration of the woman’s story. Of course, it was a famous theme: the loyal wife. And she remembered that there was a folksong, supposedly based on fact, about another woman from farther south, who had also tried to join her husband at the war but hadn’t been able to get across the river at one stage; she’d had to follow the river for miles, all the way up north. It had taken her about three years, until nearly the end of the fighting.

  She couldn’t remember if the woman had found her husband in the end. Probably, for the song to make sense, she must have, although in a way that didn’t matter. It was the effort that counted. Some women were just brave: they would try. Where did they find the reserves of courage – was it simply necessity that brought out noble action in people? That couldn’t be all there was to it. You had to be pretty good to begin with. The woman in the folksong had had children: sometimes motherhood made timid women strong. But often it worked the other way – it wore them down. And was it a sign of strength to leave your children in times of trouble, or was it better to stay with them? There really were no rules for behavior. Half the time she didn’t even understand her own actions. But she knew that nothing would have persuaded her to pick up a gun and go off to the wars dressed like the young Mozart. She’d have crawled into a hole somewhere and waited till the action was over. Perhaps it was an appreciation of her cowardice that made her admire these decisive, revolutionary women; she wasn’t particularly impressed by men who were of the same, heroic type. Men were supposed to be like that. Men of action were nothing special. They liked it. It was a biological compulsion, or so she’d been led to believe.

  It was still light when she got back to the house. She had time to make herself a cup of tea, sit down again with her book and get through the villain’s seduction of the heroine’s cousin, before she had to turn on a lamp.

  She was somewhere among the arguments about what the Dredd-Scott Decision had done to influence ordinary people’s lives, when the doorbell rang again. She switched on more lights, including the one outside on the porch. It was quite likely that the delivery men had just discovered that they’d brought her the wrong thing earlier in the day.

  This time she looked, leaning to the side and peering at the gauze-covered panel windows to the left and right of the door. She saw no delivery men. She saw a child: a small boy of about ten, who was dressed in a jacket and tie, as if he were going to a party. She assumed that he was one of the children whose parents had decided to set Halloween on the weekend, rather than on Monday.

  She undid the chain, opened the door and said hello.

  ‘Um, good evening,’ he said. He stood there smiling and nervous, and as if he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting any Halloween callers tonight,’ she told him. ‘And besides, why aren’t you wearing a costume?’

  ‘Halloween’s Monday,’ he said. ‘It’s not about that. Ah. I need help.’

  ‘Are you lost?’ Few children got lost after the age of six or seven, but it was an explanation she was always ready to accept. She got lost all the time herself.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right. I’m lost.’

  ‘Well, you’d better come in, I guess.’ She held the door open. He walked in after her. She led the way to the living room and to the hallway where the telephone sat on its table. ‘We can call your parents,’ she said.

  ‘Oh no, that’s just the trouble. I can’t.’ He sat down in a chair quickly, as if he’d be safer there. He held on tight to his knees. His look of discomfort seemed to be based on something other than the fact that he was too small for the chair. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said. ‘And it sounds weird.’

  She sat down in the chair facing his. ‘Well, you just tell me,’ she said. She’d never been the mainstay and comfort of a child before. She felt like a fake. She’d always imagined that motherly talents came naturally after childbirth and probably had something to do with hormones.

  ‘It sounds impossible,’ he began. ‘But I didn’t want to go to the police.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you know what the cops are like. They’ve got their hands full already. They won’t want to take care of some kid who’s off his rocker. They’d put me in a psychiatric ward.’ As he began to talk, he stopped looking so jittery. And his gestures, his facial expressions, were like those of an adult: matter-of-fact and easy.

  ‘Would they?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Roy,’ he said. He added absently, ‘It means king.’

  ‘I’m Sandra.’

  Roy held out his hand, shook her hand, said, ‘How do you do?’ and sat back in his chair again, like a businessman who was ready to begin a discussion. ‘Do you believe in magic?’ he asked.

  ‘Taking rabbits out of hats? Making things disappear?’

  ‘No, no. Not the stuff you can see in a show. Like the fairytales. Making things change. Turning somebody into a stone. Or into – something else, maybe.’

  ‘A prince turning into a frog, you mean? Or the other way around?’

  ‘That’s right. You think it’s possible?’

  ‘Does this have something to do with Halloween?’

  ‘No. At least, I don’t think so. But I hadn’t thought of that. I guess we’re coming up to that time of the year, aren’t we? Is it the equinox or the solstice? I always forget.’

  ‘The equinox. Daylight Saving is tomorrow. And Halloween is on Monday. Like you said.’

  ‘Um. You’d think if that had anything to do with it, it would have happened right on the day. Not one or two days before.’

  ‘Just tell me, Roy. What’s happened?’

  ‘Okay. I’ll tell it to you like a story. There’s this eleven-year-old kid. His father got divorced over a year and a half ago.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she married somebody else. Some guy with two kids of his own. And they didn’t like this boy. So, he kept saying to his father that it was no good – he wanted to live with him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sandra said. She’d lost track of how many people were in the cast of characters and which ‘he’ was at the center of the action.

  ‘So this boy,’ he went on, ‘got to live with his father. And he wouldn’t let him alone for a minute, so the father never got to go out with any women: he was going crazy. Then this kid saw some kind of show on TV – I don’t know what it was; and he got all interested in magic. He asked for a couple of books, and he’d sit in his room doing things like – oh, incantations, I guess. And then this morning I woke up, and look at me.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How old do you think I am?’

  She didn’t want to offend him by guessing too young. He might be small for his age. ‘I’m not very good at judging how old people are,’ she said.

  ‘I look about eleven, don’t I?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘I’m thirty-four. It’s my son who’s eleven.’

  He waited for her to take in what he’d said. She stared at him. He shrugged finally, and looked down at the floor. When she still didn’t say anything, he muttered, ‘I told you, it sounds weird.’

  She pushed herself forward in her chair. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked. ‘I was just about to make another one when you rang the bell.’

  ‘What I’d really like is a good, stiff drink, but I don’t know if I could take it. Maybe a coke, or something.’

  ‘How about a Sprite?’ She couldn’t remember if there were any Coca-Colas in the icebox.

  ‘Fine. I’m not out of my mind, you know.’

  ‘You don’t seem to be. But I’ve got to get used to the idea. Let me think a little. I’ll get things ready.’ She got up and walked into the kitchen.

  First, she put the kettle on. Then, she opened the icebox and took out a bottle of Sprite. It
wasn’t until she started to look for the icecubes that she began to feel incensed. It was a joke, of course: a kind of pre-Halloween prank, or possibly the date was coincidental and he was just trying this out for fun, to see how people would take it. There were really only two questions to consider: did he know what he was doing, or was he lost in some other way, so that he was driven to throw himself on the mercy of strangers? After all, he was only a child, even though he appeared to be extremely self-possessed.

  She thought he must know what he was doing. That might not mean that he was wholly malicious. It would probably be the usual thing: unhappy at home. If that were the answer, his father would seem to be the main culprit; no matter what background story the boy had told, the central theme was concerned with his father.

  She took the glass into the living room and handed it to him. ‘There you go,’ she said. Behind her in the kitchen the kettle started to whistle. She ran back.

  There was also the problem of whether this game of fooling the neighbors was a first attempt or a regular practice. If it were the first time, her reactions could be crucial to his future emotional state. That might also hold true if this were a habit. He was definitely a very smart little boy. He’d managed to make up a story that would prevent her from wanting to return him to a parent and that, at the same time, would make her think twice about getting in touch with the police.

  Well, she thought, poor thing. Her own upbringing had been distinctly old-fashioned, boringly solid: no divorce, no embattled couples or extramarital allegiances. She hadn’t liked her childhood, but she’d always known where she stood. Children nowadays sometimes couldn’t figure out what they were supposed to be. They ended up being given more advice and information by television programs than by their parents. Come to think of it, she’d once seen a movie on TV about this very subject: a comedy about a father and son who changed places. The transformation had had something to do with an object that had occult powers, like the magic lamp in Aladdin; one of the characters, either father or son, had made a wish. And the wish had switched them both around. This little boy, Roy, had probably seen some similar comedy episode. He’d simply altered it to suit his needs; that was what grown people did all the time, only they learned to tone down their fictions. The sheer outrageousness of his story was a sign of innocence.

  She carried the teacup carefully. As she approached her chair, she said, ‘I shouldn’t have filled this so full.’ She was always doing that and because she couldn’t drink anything too hot she’d have to leave it full and then she’d spill some. This time her hand was steady. She got the saucer on to the table and sat down. ‘So,’ she said, ‘what am I going to do with you?’

  ‘You don’t believe me.’

  ‘I guess I can’t understand how you could change a person from one body into another. I mean, just to begin with: the mind is part of the body. They grow together. So, if you had a different body, you’d be a different person. See what I mean?’

  ‘I don’t understand it, either. But it happened.’

  ‘What I do believe is that you’re in some kind of trouble.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything. If you call the police, I’ll run away again. They’d take me back to him. And I don’t know what he’d do. He might even kill me. He could do it. He’s bigger than I am now. And stronger. All that time I spent at the gym – Jesus.’

  ‘Am I the first person you came to for help?’

  ‘I tried two others. The first one lived right down the road. She actually called my son. My father. You know. I realize it sounds crazy. What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘That’s the problem. And what am I supposed to do? That’s another one. I can’t keep you here. Nobody can just let you stay. And if you’re stuck that way, what are you going to do about your job?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll do that. He’s going to be better at it than I was.’

  ‘Really? What’s your line of work?’

  ‘I do the advertising for a big firm of toy manufacturers.’

  ‘Isn’t that very specialized? You deal with accounts and presentation and all that?’

  He waved his hand. ‘He’s a natural,’ he said.

  She almost burst out laughing. To pretend to be his father, who was describing him in praiseworthy terms, must be making him feel good in several ways at once. It’s like the theater, she thought. And I’m the audience. ‘What about your mother?’ she asked. ‘That is: your ex-wife; wouldn’t she understand?’

  ‘Her? Are you kidding?’

  ‘You don’t think it’s worth a try?’

  ‘She didn’t even understand when everything was normal.’

  ‘Well, sometimes that’s the way it is. You don’t see other people’s worries until they’re brought to your attention.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be interested. She wants her own life.’

  ‘You’re still part of her life, aren’t you? You’re part of a family.’

  ‘No, listen. She wouldn’t believe me. She’d think I was doing it to get a rise out of her. Let’s stop talking about her.’

  ‘All right. What about your son?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘The way this thing works, he looks like you now and you look like him – is that right?’

  ‘That’s right. He’s got my body. And my face and voice and the car keys and the bank balance and the woman I’ve been going out with for the past couple of weeks; except, I don’t think he knows about that yet. But I guess he’ll find out.’

  ‘He can’t use the car, though.’

  ‘Oh, he can drive. I taught him last summer.’

  ‘Well.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘When did all this happen?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘When was the exact moment?’

  ‘I was trying to get him to go to bed and he wouldn’t. He used every trick he knew, distracting and delaying. But eventually he got into bed and I turned out the light and went downstairs. I was a little drunk. You know, you finally get out and have a nice meal with somebody and come back, pay the babysitter, and you think that’s the end. And then he starts up again. I could hear him working on his computer. He does that a lot. By the time I get up the stairs, he’s back in bed again, pretending to be asleep. Then, he lies. He says the machine works on its own sometimes.’

  ‘Do you think that could be true?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That the machine has something to do with whatever happened?’

  ‘Oh, no. It’s him.’

  ‘And the babysitter?’

  ‘Karen. She’s fine. She’s a girl from our neighborhood. Not like that other one he found for last night: Debbie. The minute he was out of the door, she started pulling all my clothes off – I couldn’t believe it. She carried me to the bathroom – she carried me. She was huge. I couldn’t do anything. I was kicking and yelling and everything. It was like she was deaf. I mean, she was like a robot. She threw me into the bathtub and started to scrub me raw. It was awful. I was humiliated. I guess she thought that was what babysitters were supposed to do. Unless she was crazy. She didn’t make me brush my teeth. I actually had to ask to do that. Jees. I bet he did it on purpose.’

  Sandra stood up and snapped on the ceiling light and two of the lower lamps. The more he talked, the more she thought that she really shouldn’t have invited him in. Now that he was there, she had to listen. And then what? She couldn’t send him away in the dark. And she didn’t like the idea of turning him in to the police. To hand a child over to the state’s official body of law enforcement would be a gross act of betrayal. Children weren’t criminals just because they ran away.

  There had been a story in the news once, a few years ago, about a boy who had run away from his parents; he’d managed all on his own to get to his grandmother’s house, some two hundred and fifty miles away. And when he’d arrived, his grandmother had immediately phoned the police. Whenever Sandra thought about that story, she was filled with outrage. Everyone she knew
had agreed with her at the time: it was a horrible thing to do. How could a child trust anyone after that?

  She said, ‘Do you think maybe something he did with the computer was what started it all?’

  ‘I don’t understand how it could have. But I don’t see how any of this could happen from any other cause, either.’

  ‘You heard the computer from downstairs.’

  ‘That’s right. And I ran up again to shut it off. I was ready to wipe the whole thing. He’s got games and all kinds of things in storage. He knows a lot more than I do. He was always winning prizes at those children’s clubs he belonged to. And then later, he’d win all the games you can plug into.’

  ‘Would you say he’s smarter than you are?’

  ‘Oh, he thinks so.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘I think he’s crazy. He’s sick. You can’t call somebody intelligent if he’s not … well, listen: a couple of years ago he had a pet hamster. He called it Schizo. It died. I don’t think he was reeding it the right stuff. Or maybe he was doing nutritional experiments on it – that’s what he said he did to the goldfish. Anyway, after it died, he wanted us to call him Schizo, instead of Eric. We found out he’d gotten all his friends at school to do it. One day Ginette answered the phone and there was this kid on the other end of the line, saying, “I’d like to speak to Schizo, please.” Now, that’s too much, isn’t it? That’s over the edge.’

  ‘If you’re unhappy, nothing’s beyond the limit. He was trying to keep the memory of his pet alive, wasn’t he? And I guess he’s unhappy about the divorce, too.’

  ‘Oh, the divorce puts him in a perfect position. He can have power over all of us. The hamster business was something else. That had to do with a thing called atavars, or avatars, I forget which. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d killed it as part of a ritual. He doesn’t feel affection, you know. He likes to have the upper hand.’

  He likes to rule, Sandra thought. Roy means king. She couldn’t figure out whether the story he was telling about his family was the way he’d meant to outline it, or whether her sympathetic reaction had caused him to change some masterplan he’d tried out before. He’d already talked to other people: that was what he said, although that too might be a lie.