Among Others

by Jo Walton

  “Are you going to Glasgow?”

  “I’m already saving up for it. I went to Brighton on my bike, and slept in a tent, but I’ll need money for at least a share of a hotel room in Glasgow at Easter, and it would be nicer to go on the train.” He looked eager and animated.

  “A hotel room. Trainfare. And how much is the ticket?”

  “They call it membership,” he reproved me. “I’ve already bought mine. It was five pounds.”

  “I wonder if Daniel would pay all that. I wonder if he’d agree to me going. I wonder if I could persuade him to go too. He’d enjoy it.”

  “Who’s Daniel?” he asked, shifting away from me without getting out of the chair. “Your boyfriend?”

  “My father,” I said. “He reads SF. He met Greg and Janine and Pete on Sunday, and we all talked about books the whole time. He’d enjoy a convention, I’m sure he would.” I was much less sure his sisters would let him go. It wasn’t the kind of thing they’d want at all, doing something he wanted to away from them. They probably wouldn’t approve it for me either, not if they wanted me to be Nice Niece. I’d have to find some way of getting round them.

  “You’re so lucky,” Wim said, surprisingly.

  “Lucky? Why?” I blinked. I am not in the habit of thinking I am lucky, even when my leg isn’t strapped to a rack.

  “Having a rich father who reads SF. Mine thinks it’s childish. He was okay with it when I was twelve, but he thinks reading at all is sissy and reading kid stuff is babyish. He roars at me whenever he catches me reading. My mother reads what she calls nice romances, sometimes, Catherine Cookson and that sort of thing, but only when he isn’t in the house. She doesn’t understand at all. There are no books in our house. I’d give anything for parents who read.”

  “I only met Daniel this summer,” I said. “My parents are divorced, and I was brought up mostly by my grandparents. They didn’t have any money, but they did read, and encouraged us to read. And Daniel isn’t exactly rich. His sisters are, and they give him money but they keep him on a tight rein. They’re paying for me to go to Arlinghurst so they can get rid of me, I think. I don’t know if they’d let him have enough money to go to Glasgow, because they wouldn’t want him to go. They might let me go.”

  “Where’s your mum?” It was a natural question, but he asked it with an elaborate casualness that seemed rehearsed.

  “She’s in South Wales. She’s—” I hesitated, because I didn’t want to say either that she’s a witch, or that she’s mad, though both of those things are true. There isn’t a word that means both, really, and there should be. “She’s insane.”

  “You told the girls in school she’s a witch,” Wim said, tossing his hair back from his face.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve got a girlfriend who works in the laundry, and she told me.”

  My heart sank at the news he had a girlfriend. He was two years older than I was, he couldn’t possibly be interested in me and I knew that, even if he had come to see me and seemed to be paying a lot of attention to me. I knew at once that his girlfriend must be the girl I’d seen at the end of term wearily bundling uniform shirts into the washing machine. In a way, it was gratifying that he’d asked her about me.

  “Let them hate me as long as they fear me,” I quoted. “It’s what Tiberius—”

  “I’ve read I, Claudius,” he said. “You told them your mother’s a witch so the girls would be afraid of you?”

  “They’re awful bullies,” I explained. “They all knew each other and I didn’t know anyone, and my voice isn’t like theirs, and it seemed like a good strategy. It’s mostly worked, too, though it is a little lonely.”

  “She’s not a witch then?” He sounded oddly disappointed.

  “Well—actually, she is. A mad witch. An evil witch like in stories.” I didn’t want to talk about her, I didn’t want to tell him what she’s like. It’s hard to describe her anyway.

  He leaned forward and looked into my eyes. His eyes are very blue, as blue as the sky almost. “Can you read minds?”

  “What?” I was startled.

  “You know, like in Dying Inside.” He stayed where he was, just inches from me, looking into my eyes intensely. As far as breathless goes, it’s amazing I didn’t suffocate, even knowing he does have a girlfriend.

  “No! I don’t think anyone can do that,” I said in an odd sort of squeak.

  “I just wondered.” He sounded tentative and uncertain, as if he wished he hadn’t asked. He didn’t move away. “It’s just, the first time I saw you, I felt as if you were seeing right into me. And when I heard you’d said your mother was a witch, I thought—you know, did you ever read so much SF that you start thinking you don’t know quite what’s impossible any more? Where you’re ready to start admitting hypotheses that you know are screwy, but . . .” he trailed off.

  The first time I saw him, all I can remember is thinking how gorgeous he was. If he thought that was some kind of mystic communication, he was completely wrong. The bell rang for the end of visiting time.

  “She is a witch,” I said quickly, as he started to get up. “And there is magic.”

  He leaned forward over me, urgent. “Show me.”

  “It isn’t like it is in books,” I said, not much above a whisper, though with the clatter of visitors leaving there wasn’t much chance of being overheard.

  “Show me anyway.”

  “There isn’t anything to see. And I’ve sworn not to do it except to prevent harm!” Even as I said it I heard how feeble an excuse it seemed. His face closed down and he straightened up. “I might be able to show you something, though,” I said, desperate to have him believe me. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it. You’ll have to wait until I’m out of here.”

  “You’re not having me on?” he asked, suspicion clear in his voice.

  “No! Of course not!”

  “All right,” he said, ungraciously. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you for coming and for bringing the books,” I said.

  I watched him walk out of the ward, and then I’ve spent all the rest of the day eating the astronaut ice-cream (very peculiar stuff) and writing down every word of the conversation, even though writing is so awkward, so I won’t forget.

  I don’t have to do magic. If he’ll come into Poacher’s Wood, I can probably show him a fairy. He believes, he does believe, at least, he believes something. But standing in the wood with fairies I can see and he can’t if it comes to that is going to be very awkward, because he’s going to think I’m mad or lying, and either would be pretty awful.

  Oh well.

  THURSDAY 17TH JANUARY 1980

  It didn’t feel this bad even right after I did it.

  They took more x-rays. Dr. Abdul wanted to talk to Daniel, and seemed cross that he wasn’t there, as if I kept him in my pocket. They let me go, eventually, insisting I take a metal stick instead of using my perfectly nice fairy one. I only just made it to the bus stop, and then from the bus stop to the other bus stop. It’s a good thing there are walls to sit on. It was never this bad before. I think they’ve made it worse, I think they’ve wrecked it forever and that’s what he wanted to tell Daniel and wouldn’t tell me.

  I’m back in the library. Miss Carroll thinks I should be in bed. She brought me a barley sugar and a glass of water, even though eating in the library is strictly forbidden.

  Pain, pain, PAIN.

  FRIDAY 18TH JANUARY 1980

  In bed in the San. Lying down with pillows and no rack is wonderful. Lying still doesn’t hurt all that much. I never appreciated school food before either. Of course, one good thing about hospital was visitors. Nobody can visit me here except Deirdre and Miss Carroll. They’d have a fit at Janine or Greg, and probably expel me if Wim came, not that he would.

  I’m catching up on the school work I missed, well, I’ve done it all except the maths. I don’t have maths brain anyway, and somehow I can’t keep the numbers straight when th
ere’s all this pain. In geography, we are doing Glaciation. I have done this before, so I have no trouble with it. In fact, it’s boring, yes, glaciers, cwms or corries, terminal moraines, u-shaped valleys. Deirdre hadn’t heard of it before and confessed to nightmares about it. I was very good and didn’t tell her the story of Clarke’s “Forgotten Enemy.”

  I won’t be able to go to town tomorrow, but I hadn’t arranged to meet anyone anyway. Miss Carroll will take my library books back and collect any new ones. Maybe by Tuesday I’ll be all right. Or as all right as I was before.

  I want my mobility back. I feel trapped. I hate this.

  Return to Night is excessively and unsubtly Freudian. It does have some good bits though.

  SATURDAY 19TH JANUARY 1980

  Daniel came to see me, which was a surprise. He put his head around the door. “Who do you think I’ve brought?” he asked.

  I hoped for Sam, but I guessed right that it was his sisters. I was surprised that it was only one of them. “Hello, Aunt Anthea,” I said, which made her jump. It was just a guess of course, but a guess based in experience. Usually if there’s just one of them, it’s Anthea, who is the oldest.

  “I just couldn’t resist coming to see the old place,” she said.

  “I’m surprised the others could resist,” I said, as Nice Niece as I could be.

  “There wouldn’t have been room in the car, dear.”

  Now Daniel’s car, like most cars, like every car in the world apart from maybe Auntie Teg’s little orange Fiat 500, holds four people. Even Auntie Teg’s car, which we call Gamboge Gussie the Galloping Girl—Gussie because the registration number starts GCY—can hold four, it’s just a bit of a squash, especially if any of them are tall. So that was when I realised that they’d come to take me back with them.

  “To convalesce,” Daniel said.

  It seemed to me that it would have been more use if Daniel had come on a weekday and talked to Dr. Abdul, but it seemed he’d spoken to him on the phone—I wonder who initiated that call? In any case, it seemed as if the school thought it would take me a little while to be back in class, and I’d be better off being nursed at home. Well, that might be the case, for people who have homes. I tried every argument I could think of to stay in school, including a few outright Nice Niece ones, like not wanting to miss the hockey match against St. Felicity’s, but none of them held water.

  I found myself being helped down to the car. That sort of help is actually a hindrance. If you ever see someone with a walking stick, that stick, and their arm, are actually a leg. Grabbing it or lifting it or doing anything unasked to the stick and the arm are much the same as if you grabbed a normal person’s leg as they’re walking. I wish more people understood this. A number of girls saw me leaving, and of course Nurse knows, so I expect someone will tell Miss Carroll and she’ll think to tell Greg who will tell the others. “The others,” I say, and I do mean Janine and everyone as well as Wim. But I should admit that mostly I mean Wim. I think I have a bit of a crush on him. And I stupidly left his Zelazny books, which I was saving, in school, so I can’t even read them.

  SUNDAY 20TH JANUARY 1980

  There’s half a gale blowing, and it feels as if it could shake the Old Hall down. It bangs against the windows and creeps through the cracks and whistles down the chimneys. Lying here I can feel the whole house singing with it, as if it were a sailing ship.

  I have plenty of books, and Daniel comes up now and then to ask if I want more. I have pillows, and I’m not hooked to a rack. I can hobble to the bathroom. I have a decanter of water, a real decanter with a proper crystal stopper. They bring me meals, which are no worse than school meals. (If there’s magic in the food it’s the magic of the Old Hall going on as it always has without any disturbance, that’s all I can feel.) I have a radio, which plays the news, and the Archers, and Gardeners’ Question Time and, to my surprise and delight, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! It’s terrific as a radio play. I suppose I could retune the radio away from Radio 4, which Grampar still calls the Home Service, to Radio 1, which people used to call the Light Programme. The only advantage of this would be annoying the aunts, because Radio 4 might have other unexpected gems like HGttG, whereas all Radio 1 would have would be pop music. Most of the time I just read anyway.

  How long am I going to be stuck here?

  I hobbled downstairs for supper, which is what they call dinner when it isn’t formally served. It was macaroni cheese, overcooked and on the edge of inedible. They all sat there eating it and making inane remarks, nodding and smiling. I played Nice Niece. Actually I’m longing to talk to Daniel about the possibility of Glasgow at Easter, but I want to do it when there’s no chance of them hearing.

  Afterwards, I asked if it would be okay to phone Auntie Teg. They couldn’t very well say no, with Daniel right there, so I called her. She was horrified to hear about the hospital and that she hadn’t known, and didn’t believe that it seemed to have made things worse. She always tries to look on the bright side and find every silver lining, which is very nice sometimes, and there’s nobody in the world better to celebrate with, but isn’t very useful at the moment. She said she’d explain to Grampar why I hadn’t been in touch and give him my love. I hope it doesn’t upset him—but it won’t, she’ll probably say it’s making me better and soon I’ll be running again. I wish it was. Even when my leg isn’t actively hurting there’s a kind of an ache all the time now. I’m sure it’s worse.

  The phone is in the corridor, and on a sort of table with a padded bench attached. I was sitting on the padded bench while I talked to Auntie Teg. After I put the phone down, I wondered who else I could call, while I was here and everyone else was out of the way. The trouble is I don’t know numbers. There’d be no point trying to call Greg at the library on a Sunday night anyway. I don’t know anyone’s home number, not even Janine’s. There was a phone book next to the phone, a home-made one, with people’s numbers written in, not a big Yellow Pages type book. I flicked through it, not seeing anyone I knew, until I came to M, and there was Sam, his address and also his telephone number.

  His landlady answered right away, and she remembered me. “The little granddaughter,” she said. I’m not little, and it feels weird thinking of Sam being my grandfather. I already have Grampar, the position isn’t vacant. I like Sam though.

  After a moment he came to the phone. “Morwenna?” he said. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Not exactly wrong, only I’m at the Old Hall convalescing and I thought of you and wanted to speak to you.”

  “Convalescing from what?” he asked, so I told him the whole thing and how I thought it had made me worse. “Maybe, maybe,” he said. “But sometimes healing hurts, had you thought of that?”

  “They won’t tell me anything,” I said. “Dr. Abdul wanted to talk to Daniel, he wouldn’t say anything to me. I could be dying and they wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “Daniel would tell you, I think,” Sam said, but he didn’t sound sure.

  “If they’d let him,” I said.

  Sam didn’t say anything for a moment. “Maybe I’ll come down and see you,” he said. “I have an idea. Let me talk to Daniel.”

  I had to call Daniel then, and explain, and he sent me off to bed and talked to Sam for a while. Then he came up and told me Sam was coming to see me tomorrow, on the train, and he’d pick him up in Shrewsbury.

  It seems odd to think of Sam going anywhere, and odder to think of him here, but he’s coming tomorrow! Daniel says he’s getting to be a very old man and seldom goes anywhere, so I should think it a privilege, which I do.

  MONDAY 21ST JANUARY 1980

  Sam brought me a tiny bunch of snowdrops from his landlady’s back garden. “They’re just starting,” he said. Despite the long journey by train and then car—Daniel met him in Shrewsbury—they were in very good shape and had that special scent. Mor used to love snowdrops. They were her favourite flower. We planted some on her grave, I wonder if they’r
e out yet? One of the aunts put mine into a tiny crystal vase that matches the decanter and I have them on my bedside table.

  Sam also brought some more Plato—The Laws and Phaedrus, which I’ve been wanting because it’s the one they read in The Charioteer. They’re not new, he’s clearly had them a while, but he must have spent ages rooting around to find them. He also brought a little blue Pelican paperback book called The Greeks by H. D. F. Kitto, which he says will give me context. It’ll give me context for Mary Renault as well as Plato. I hope it’s interestingly written. I still haven’t started the Churchill history I got for a prize.

  The other thing he brought was a pot of comfrey ointment, which smells very weird. “I don’t know if it’ll help, but I brought it anyway,” he said. I rubbed some on my leg and it didn’t help at all, except for making it smell peculiar, but I appreciated the thought.

  Sam’s real thought though was that I should have acupuncture. There’s a kind of magic about Sam, not real magic, but he’s very solidly himself. It would be hard for any magic to find somewhere to start doing anything to him. It was interesting to see him with the aunts; he’s impeccably polite to them but he treats them as if they’re not important, and they don’t know how to deal with that. He has no cracks for them to get into. If they’d suggested acupuncture, which involves sticking needles into people, I’d have resisted as hard as I could. As it was, they were very opposed to the idea.

  “It’s silly Chinese superstition, you can’t possibly believe in it,” one said.

  “Morwenna’s terrified of needles, she wouldn’t even have her ears pierced,” another put in.