Transmigration (10 page)

 

 

Tactfully Anita took the paper and wrote their names and addresses. Ross
was still staring at Judy.

 

 

 

 

Ross invited Anita to lunch, and when she said her lunch would be waiting
for her at her lodgings, tried to get himself invited there. She refused
to take the hint, broad though it was, and left him.

 

 

The parting was not cordial. Few of their meetings or partings were.

 

 

Ross lunched at the Students' Union. As he finished the soup, a watery
brew with a few sprigs of parsley floating in it, a girl came over and
sat beside him.

 

 

Without enthusiasm he said: "Hello, Veronica. I got your letter."

 

 

She was a tall, powerful creature, attractive like the horses she rode
on her father's estate.

 

 

"And you're going to be like that about it," she said, ordering a pork
pie followed by apple tart.

 

 

"Like what about it?"

 

 

"Sulky, because I said no."

 

 

"Oh, you said no, did you?"

 

 

"I thought you said you got my letter."

 

 

"Yes, but I didn't read it. I seldom read letters."

 

 

"Then why write and ask me?'

 

 

"Eric Stirling made me. I wouldn't have done it, but I was drunk at
the time."

 

 

"Why didn't Eric Stirling ask me himself? He's the charities campaign
convener."

 

 

"Because he thought the invitation to be Lady Godiva in the parade would
be more appropriate coming from me than from him."

 

 

"And why did he think that?" she asked with dangerous calm.

 

 

"Because everybody knows that we slept together for three months before
I got tired of you."

 

 

"Everybody knows?"

 

 

"I've recommended you to all my friends. You must admit that's
generous. Have you had any offers?"

 

 

"You have no friends," she said drily, and moved to another table.

 

 

Ross cackled derisively.

 

 

Now that he had more information, Fletcher decided there were indeed
certain deep similarities between Ian Ross and himself. Fletcher had been
anti-social, and so, in a different way, was Ross. Nobody but Judy had
liked Fletcher; nobody seemed to like Ross. Fletcher had been a failure;
the way he was going, Ross was going to end up a failure too in middle
age, antagonizing all who might help him, rejecting the women who would
put up with him in favor of those who would not, posing in a way which
might win him a certain reluctant envy at university but would do him
no good in a profession or in commerce.

 

 

Offhand, from what he had seen of Ross, Fletcher guessed he would become a
bitter, frustrated modern languages teacher in one of the lesser public
schools, never attaining the responsibility of heading a department
because no one would ever select him for such responsibility. His acid
wit, becoming more biting with the passing years, would be heard only
in classrooms and common rooms.

 

 

Fletcher was able within Ross's brain, as he had been in Judy's, to
ignore what Ross did when it did not interest him, almost shut himself
off from Ross. What Ross did in the afternoon he had no idea. Fletcher
became aware of the external world again only quite late in the evening
when Ross, rather drunk, became involved in an argument in a pub with a
clutch of rugby players, and Anita Somerset's name was passed back and
forth like a rugby ball.

 

 

One of the rugby men was Eric Stirring. Perhaps in pique at Veronica's
refusal to be Lady Godiva and blaming Ross for it, he taunted Ross about
Anita, and Fletcher could feel Ross becoming furious.

 

 

"I seem to remember," Eric said, "your propounding a very simple
doctrine. Girls were made weaker than men as a prime condition for the
survival of the race. Now Anita isn't particularly strong, not nearly
as strong as Veronica, and from all accounts -- from your accounts,
anyway -- you managed to cope satisfactorily in Veronica's case."

 

 

Several of the rugby players, drunker than either Ross or Stirling,
intervened thickly with earthy comments.

 

 

"I used to lodge at 74 Old Castle Road," Eric observed, "until I was
kicked out. The old harridan who runs the place is very narrow-minded
for an ex-nurse. But that's by the way . . . one night, a night such
as this, I was in my room, somewhat inebriated, as I am now. I had
managed to reduce my apparel to one sock, and was standing at the open
window. A movement outside attracted my attention -- two elderly females
of forbidding aspect, in the lane behind the house, were staring at me."

 

 

The rugby players guffawed.

 

 

"It was a large window," said Eric reflectively. "I should like to say
they stared in admiration, but my respect for the truth compels me to
admit that their expression savored rather of horror."

 

 

There was another outburst of laughter, in which Ross did not join.

 

 

"Now the point is," Eric went on, "this lane is open to all. And Anita
Somerset's room is the one next to the one I then occupied. And the
coal cellar roof affords an easy way to reach the two rooms. Even those
two elderly females, had they felt so inclined, would have had no great
difficulty in climbing into my bedroom."

 

 

It was some time before the ribaid chorus died down.

 

 

"Someone such as you, Ross," said Eric, "holding your opinions, is
surely practically forced to take advantage of such a providential
dispensation. La Belle Somerset is almost certainly in her room now
. . . "

 

 

"I'm not forced to do anything," Ross retorted shortly. Fletcher noticed,
not for the first time, that when he was angry any gift for repartee he
possessed deserted him.

 

 

 

 

"Oh? One would have thought..."

 

 

"But I'll do it."

 

 

Sudden silence fell. Coarse badinage was one thing. This, suddenly,
was another.

 

 

Drunk as they were, they all knew Ross didn't mean he would accept the
challenge in the spirit of a conventional rag, good for a bellylaugh at
a pub afterward, raiding Anita's room and carrying off her panties as
a trophy.

 

 

This was serious.

 

 

Since it was serious, they decided that was none of their affair. They
turned away and finished their pints. It was closing time anyway.

 

 

Eric Stirling smiled and raised his glass to Ross.

 

 

 

 

The rear of 74 Old Castle Road was not quite as Eric had described it.

 

 

The lane, closed to traffic at both ends by posts, led from one cul-de-sac
to another. The Old Castle Road houses were cut off by a continuous high
wall in which there were no gates. Eric had exaggerated considerably in
saying two elderly ladies would have had no difficulty in climbing into
his bedroom. First there was the seven-foot wall to be negotiated. Then,
he had tacitly minimized the height of the bedroom windows. Although
there was only one floor below, it was an old house built on the grand
scale, and at the rear, where the ground was lower than at the front,
even the ground-floor windows were about ten feet up. As he had said,
there was a coal cellar with its roof close to the top of the wall. It was
not this, however, which led to the wall between the upstairs bedrooms,
but an out-jutting addition to the original building housing, probably,
a bathroom.

 

 

Anita was in her room. Light curtains were drawn, but her shadow as she
moved was plainly and provocatively recognizable.

 

 

Ross stood there for several minutes. Eric Stirling had bent the truth
quite considerably. Reaching Anita's window was a job for a cat burglar
rather than two old ladies. And the chances were that the catch of the
window would be set anyway.

 

 

Yet the challenge had been made and accepted, and it would sound terribly
weak later to claim that the climb was too difficult and dangerous. That
cunning so-and-so, Ross thought, knew that at the time.

 

 

Anita settled the matter by coming to the window, drawing the curtains
partially, and pulling up the window a few inches. She might almost be
opening the door for him.

 

 

Ross drew himself to the top of the wall. Some eight feet away and a
little higher was the roof of the cellar Eric had mentioned. It was a felt
roof and might not bear his weight. However, the cellar was obviously
old, like the house, like this entire district, and the chances were it
was as solid as most old buildings.

 

 

Ross stood up on the wall, balancing precariously, and leaped for the
roof. He landed easily and quietly on all fours.

 

 

Close up, the wall of the bathroom extension seemed even higher and more
forbidding. But there was a stout waste pipe offering a step about four
feet up, and above that the sill of a window, unlit, and then a slight
ledge above the window. Drunk as he was, Ross would have turned back
on finding any obstacle which he could honestly say made the thing too
difficult. Instead, there was always something to encourage him to take
the next step. Even Anita was cooperating a hundred per cent.

 

 

He put his foot on the pipe and drew himself up to the sill. The bathroom
window was open at the top, affording an excellent hold. He stepped up
on the cross-frame, holding the ledge above the window, and then when
he straightened he was able to reach the roof. There was no gutter at
this side; his hands were on solid brick. Drawing himself up, he rolled
over on the sloping roof with a slight rattle of slates. Then he got to
his feet and climbed carefully up the slope.

 

 

The height was not great enough to send Fletcher giddy with terror,
even when Ross glanced over the edge. Yet a fall from this roof could
be just as fatal as from the top of the Westfield skyscraper, and he
was glad to note that Ross had a wholesome respect for heights and took
no chances. The coal cellar was set against the wall of the extension
but not at its angle with the main building, and there was therefore,
a fall of some thirty-five feet to what looked like a concrete path in
the gloom below.

 

 

A much shorter fall had killed John Fletcher.

 

 

As near Anita's window as he could get on the bathroom roof, Ross paused
with a muttered curse. The window, which had appeared to be only inches
from the top of the sloping roof, was actually some distance away. With
nobody in the room inside, he could stretch to the sill and clamber
in. With Anita moving about in the room, however, it was impossible to
push up the window and climb in without alerting her.

 

 

What would Anita or any girl do when she heard and saw a man at her
window? Very likely slam it shut without thinking. And he'd fall and
probably be killed.

 

 

Ross cursed Anita, cursed Eric Stirling, cursed himself and cursed the
beer he had drunk for getting him into this situation.

 

 

Then abruptly he stopped cursing. Through the gap in the curtain he
saw Anita running hot water into the sink in her room. She had a green
bottle on a shelf at the back of the washbasin. It was obvious she was
going to wash her hair.

 

 

She took so long in getting started, however, that Ross began muttering
again in impatience. At last she reached behind her for the zip of
her dress.

 

 

While the dress was over her head, Ross reached over, threw up the
window and scrambled into the room. Emerging from her dress, Anita,
in a green slip, stared at him with surprise and disgust but no fear.

 

 

"Now you're in my power, you proud beauty," said Ross, striking a pose.

 

 

"Get out," she said with loathing.

 

 

"After all the trouble I took to get in? Not likely."

 

 

"You're drunk."

 

 

"Only moderately drunk."

 

 

She made no attempt to scuttle for cover or reach for a wrap. "I'm
not going to scream. I don't like scenes. But you realize, of course,
you're wasting your time?"

 

 

"I don't think so." He moved closer to her, and she didn't move. "I think
first," he said, "we should establish something, and this is the easiest
way to do it."

 

 

He struck her savagely across the face.

 

 

And as he did so, Fletcher struck too.

 

 

Fletcher still had only vague ideas of the powers he possessed, powers
which sometimes seemed to slip away from him altogether and at other
times amounted to total control. So far he had had no control whatever
over Ross.

 

 

But if one thing was obvious, it was that stress made a mighty difference
to his powers. At rest, when he was in no danger and his host was in
no danger, Fletcher could be powerless. When anything important was
going on, when strong emotions were at play in himself or in his host,
the situation changed.

 

 

Now Fletcher had total control. "I'm sorry, Anita," he said. "I'm
drunk. It was a dare. Goodbye."

 

 

He turned to the window.

 

 

Her hand to her cheek, where an angry red mark was coming up, she said
colorlessly: "Wait. If you're drunk you may break your leg or your
neck. I'll let you out through the house."