The Chinese Egg (21 page)

“. . . because they'd only been caught that morning,” Chris ended.

“Only it isn't a smell that starts it off,” Vicky said.

“And you've no idea what it is?” Price asked. He saw Vicky look at him. She'd cottoned on to a change in his attitude. Whether this girl could see the future or not, she was certainly quick on picking up people's feelings.

“I think it's something that happens when we're together. We've never had flashes when we weren't,” Stephen said.

“What about that first time? You weren't together then. We hadn't even met you,” Chris said.

“But we were near each other. We were both at the zebra waiting to cross the road,” Vicky said.

“Was that when you saw the baby being taken?”

“No, quite different. We both saw an old lady being knocked down by a van.”

“I don't see what. . . .”

“It hadn't happened when we saw it. . . .”

“I thought Vicky was crazy,” Chris said.

“I said to Chris she was going to be knocked down and Chris said there wasn't an old lady on the crossing.”

“But it did happen five minutes later.”

Price sat looking from one face to another, wondering. Could they possibly be such good actors? It sounded impossible and yet he found he'd begun to half believe them.

“We weren't together the next time either,” Vicky said.

Stephen, embarrassed by the recollection, said, “I was outside the café, though.”

“We had different flashes that time. I saw the headlines in the paper and Stephen saw Mrs. Wilmington and the pram without the baby in it.”

“How long before it actually happened? Five minutes again?” Price asked.

“Much longer. Must have been days. More like a week.”

“Neither of you've ever had one of these flashes by yourself?”

“No.”

“Can you get them when you want?”

“No. We've tried. It doesn't work.”

“Have either of you ever had anything like this before? Visions? Heard voices? That sort of thing?”

“You make it sound phoney,” Vicky said frowning.

“More like Joan of Arc,” Chris said.

“Never mind what it sounds like. Have you?”

“I haven't,” Vicky said.

“Nor have I. Thank goodness. I could do without them now,” Stephen said.

“When was the first one? How long ago? When you saw the accident on the zebra crossing?”

“Right at the end of last term. So it must have been a Saturday or we wouldn't have been in the High Street in the morning. More like three weeks.”

“Is it always accidents you see? You didn't happen to see any Cup results? Or who won the National? You could make your fortune,” Price said, just as Chris had done.

Stephen said, “Yes,” just as Vicky said, “No, it isn't.” She
added, “Don't you remember when we saw Chris and Paul? And she said about him getting a place at York?”

“That's right! I'd forgotten.”

“But that was the only time.”

“And you haven't had any more since Sunday?” Price asked.

“No.”

Price said, “All right. Now tell me what you saw that last time. When you heard the girl say that about hurting the baby. You did see something as well as hear them talking, didn't you?”

“Saw them. I saw him, sort of, and Stephen saw her.”

“Anything else? Where were they? Was it in a tube train?”

They told him. But just a room, no indication where, wasn't going to be much use. “They never mentioned the place or anything?” No, all they'd heard was that one sentence of the girl's. Nothing about the room that they'd be able to recognize? No, it was just a room.

“Tell him about the picture,” the boy said.

“How's that going to help?”

“What's that?” Price said sharply.

“Vicky saw a picture on the wall. Behind the girl's head.”

“It was one of those mountains. . . a volcano. With fire and sparks and things coming out of its top.”

“How big? What, sort of frame, do you remember?”

“The frame was black, with gold bits. About that big,” Vicky said, measuring with her hands.

Price said, “Well, I'm. . . blowed.” In his mind he used a stronger word. Because how could the girl have known? It wasn't the sort of thing you'd invent. He'd been surprised himself, when he was looking round it, to find in Mrs. Plum's front first floor double a print of Vesuvius showering fire down on the unaware, bustling city of Pompeii. And the frame had indeed been black and gold.

When Price had left them, Stephen and the two girls sat round the table and stared at each other.

“He believes you! I knew he would!” Chris said.

“I didn't,” Stephen said.

“He really does. He asked you to tell him if you had any more flashes.”

“I wish we knew why we sometimes do and sometimes don't,” Stephen said.

“It's when you're together.”

“But not always when we're together.”

“There must be something else, then.”

“Perhaps it's the time of day?” Chris suggested.

“No, it isn't. It's been all sorts of time of day.”

“Something to do with the moon? When it's full. Like people going mad.”

“Thanks very much, Chris.”

“Anyway, it can't be that, because you've been having them all this month, and the moon's only full every four weeks.”

“I don't know, then.”

“What's up, Vicky? You look moonstruck or something.”

“You don't think. . .? No, it's silly.”

“What?”

“It's just that it never happened before.”

“What didn't happen?”

“The flashes. They only started afterwards, didn't they?”

“After what? Do finish what you were going to say. After what?”

Vicky took her hand out of her pocket and put the piece of wood on the table between them.

“You mean. . .? You mean, it's the egg that does it? My egg? But I don't see how. . . .”

“I don't either. Only it wasn't until you had it that we started seeing anything.”

“No. . . o. Only that doesn't prove anything really.”

“I just thought. . .” Vicky said, disappointed.

“I suppose it could be that.”

“Did you have it with you when we had the flashes?” Vicky asked. Stephen thought. “That first time, I did. And the next. I think I did the other two times too. It was in my pocket most of the time, I hadn't bothered to take it out.”

“Did you have your bit then, Vicky? Vicky? Did you?”

“I think so. I can't be absolutely sure.”

“That's it, then! You both have to be together, and you have to have the bits of the puzzle thing with you! That must be it. Mustn't it, Steve?”

“But it doesn't happen all the time even when we are and we've got the bits,” Vicky said.

“Why don't you try? You might see something else about the baby, and then you could go straight off and tell that detective,” Chris said.

Vicky and Stephen looked at each other.

“I think you ought to. Suppose something awful did happen to the baby?”

“You'd better come back to my place,” Stephen said, remembering gratefully that his father would certainly be at work.

“You don't need me,” Chris said.

But Vicky wanted her to come. Even with Chris there she only half liked being taken into the house by Stephen, and she was relieved when he said, after looking round the door of the kitchen, “Nobody here. Why don't you come in?” He sat them at the table and asked, “Had enough coffee, or would you like some more?”

“Can you make it like your Mum does?” Chris asked at once.

“No. But there's probably some here in the pot. Yes, there is. Would you like it?”

“Smashing. Tell you what, Steve. You go and fetch your bit of egg and Vicky and me'll put the coffee on to warm up.”

Stephen left them and went upstairs. To his fury he couldn't at once find the plastic bag which held the bits of the egg. He didn't realize why, then saw that his mother had been on one of her tidying jags, and everything was in a different place. He searched, swearing softly under his breath, and eventually found the plastic bag in the pocket of his other coat. He'd put it there himself and forgotten. He laughed at himself and wondered how many other sins which were really his own he blamed his mother for.

As he went down the stairs he could smell the coffee, and when he'd almost reached the hall, he could see Vicky's feet as she stood with Chris at the cooker. He was on the bottom step when the flash hit him. He grabbed the banister and stood still while the jagged edges of the frame jolted each other and the bright picture inside trembled into clarity. He just had time to feel surprise that what he was looking at wasn't the face of that fuzzy-haired girl with the baby. It was Chris's. He heard a boy's voice, a voice he should have recognized but didn't immediately. The boy was saying, “. . . didn't want to interfere. . . thought you were going out with him.” He saw Chris's face change and she said a name. His. She said, “Stephen? He's really nice but there's never been anything. . . .” He saw her face light up and glow—she really was astoundingly pretty—as the boy said, “Then it's all right if I ask you. . .” and then the blackness closed in and he was stepping down the last step and crossing the hall towards the kitchen door, trembling.

In the kitchen-dining room, Chris was standing at the cooker, with her back towards him, intent on pouring the coffee from the saucepan to a jug. Vicky was looking towards him. He saw immediately from her face that she'd had it too. She shook her head a fraction and he understood she meant that they mustn't speak of it in front of Chris. That was right. No one would want to think you could overhear bits of their private conversations. Funny, how he and Vicky sometimes knew without speaking what the other was thinking.

“There! Would your mother mind if I looked for some milk in
her fridge? I don't really like mine without,” Chris said, putting the mugs of coffee on the table. Looking at her more closely, Stephen saw that she hadn't got that extra flush of liveliness that added so much to her prettiness and which had so much struck him at their first meeting. It wasn't that she'd been remote or difficult today, she'd been warmly concerned for the lost baby, but she'd been somehow subdued. He felt he'd been ridiculously blind. He'd been jealous of Paul the first time he'd seen him with Chris. Why hadn't it occurred to him that Paul might feel the same about him? And what would he have done if it had? Paul had presumably just kept out of her way, and she minded. At which thought Stephen's jealousy renewed itself. He hadn't been thinking so much about her lately, but now for a moment he hated Paul for having the power to dim Chris's sparkle—and to light it up again. For that same moment he felt the unaccountable urge to snatch, the need to establish sole rights, which constitutes so large a part of sudden and overwhelming attraction to another person. He looked at Chris, still quite astonishingly much prettier than any girl he'd ever met, and resented the idea that she might prefer someone else, that he wouldn't have a chance if he really set about trying to win her. At the same time, an uneasy cool thought slid into the back of his mind that she wasn't his sort of person. He dismissed it angrily. He didn't want reason here, he wanted simply to feel.

He was so far away, pursuing his reactions to Chris, that when Vicky said, “Did you find it?” he'd forgotten what it was he'd gone to look for. Then he remembered. The egg. For answer he emptied the contents of the plastic bag on to the table. The separate pieces fell out, a jumble of crooked billets of wood, but so carefully carved, so lovingly shaped to fit into and hold each other, they had a sort of beauty, a look of purpose, even apart. Like Adam and Eve as God made them, each had its own symmetry, and yet was not complete in itself.

Vicky put her solitary piece on the table too.

“Why don't you put the whole thing together?” Chris asked. But Stephen hesitated, and Vicky stretched out a hand as if to draw her piece back again.

“Go on! Why don't you?” Chris urged.

Stephen said, “I don't know if. . .” just as Vicky said, “Suppose when it's put together it doesn't work?”

“You mean you mightn't get any more flashes?”

“That's right.”

“But. . .! You'd think it'd work better when it's like it was meant to be.”

“I don't think so,” Vicky said.

“Why not? How d'you know?”

“I didn't say know. I only think.”

“What? Why shouldn't it work when it's all put together?”

Vicky said, “Something to do with it being all in one piece. Then it doesn't need anything else, it's got everything it wants. . . I know it sounds crazy. . .” she stopped, embarrassed.

“I don't see. . .” Chris began.

“I know what Vicky means. If it's complete, it sort of isn't anything to do with us. If it's all in separate bits, then it does need us, or someone, to put it together.”

“But that's what I want you to do!” Chris exclaimed.

“But if we do, we've lost it. Or we've lost whatever we have as long as it's separate. Anyway I think Vicky is right. I think we shouldn't try to put it together until after we've found the baby. Then if we don't get any more flashes it won't matter.”

“There might be something else you want to find out then,” Chris said, and Stephen thought of wanting to know about girls, of discovering what they wanted; but was it Chris, he was thinking about? Or was it Vicky? Vicky thought about her father. She didn't really believe that the wooden egg would help her to find out where he was or what he was like. But if there was the smallest chance, she wasn't going to spoil it.