Among Others

by Jo Walton

  If I leave school a little bit early, I can go to the bookshop on the way to the station, I suppose.

  THURSDAY 14TH FEBRUARY 1980

  Well, that was awkward.

  Daniel’s “surprise” was turning up to drive me to Shrewsbury. I can’t think why he did it today, when it’s half term tomorrow, but I shouldn’t expect him to make sense. He was sitting outside in the car, looking very pleased with himself, like the cat who got the cream. I stopped still when I saw him, absolutely convulsed with horror.

  Wim was meeting me in Gobowen station. I had no way of contacting him to tell him what had happened. If I didn’t meet him, I wouldn’t see him until after half term. He’d think I’d dumped him, and on Valentine’s Day too.

  The alternative was to tell Daniel about Wim. I thought about that as I got into the car. The problem there was that I hadn’t said anything about him at all up to that point, because as usual my letters to Daniel had been exclusively about books. It was an excruciating situation. I couldn’t possibly ask Daniel to turn around and leave me alone, which would really have been what I’d have preferred.

  “I managed to get away,” Daniel said. “We can go to the Chinese restaurant again.”

  “That’s lovely, but,” I said, and stopped.

  “But what?” he asked, starting the engine and driving down the drive, between the two dead elms, which look terrible again now that the other trees are starting to think about getting leaves. “I thought you’d be pleased.” He sounded really pathetic.

  “I’m supposed to be meeting a friend in Gobowen railway station,” I said. “Do you think we could go there and collect him and take him with us?”

  Daniel’s face went oddly blank, then he smiled. “Of course,” he said, and did a U-turn in the road, which was, fortunately, deserted.

  After that, I couldn’t possibly say I wanted to go to the bookshop first.

  “Is this a boyfriend, or just a boy-type friend?” he asked.

  “Sort of a boyfriend. Well, actually a boyfriend, yes.” I was tripping over my own tongue in embarrassment.

  “So, tell me about him?” Daniel sounded encouraging, but also bewildered.

  I didn’t know quite what to say. “His name’s Wim. I met him in the book group. He’s seventeen. He likes Delany and Zelazny. He’s doing English, history, and chem for A Level, at the college, while working part time. I’m thinking of doing that myself next year, if I need to.”

  “Why would you need to?” Daniel asked.

  “I’ll be sixteen in June,” I said. “You won’t have to support me. I could live on my own.”

  “I’ll support you for as long as you want to be in full-time education,” Daniel said, not having read Doorways in the Sand or The Number of the Beast.

  “Did you know there’s a new Heinlein?” I asked, having remembered it.

  “You told me on Sunday,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it, even if it isn’t his best.”

  At that point, we were at Gobowen station. It was deserted. For once, I’d got somewhere ahead of Wim, because he was expecting me to come by buses around two sides of a triangle, while in fact I’d come by car down the third side. “He’ll be here soon, he’s always early,” I said. Daniel parked neatly on the forecourt.

  “How long have you been seeing each other?” he asked.

  I added it up. “Almost two weeks,” I said.

  To his credit, Daniel didn’t say anything about how I should have told him, or that I was too young, or anything like that. “Yet another new role,” is what he said, but he was smiling. “I feel absurdly nervous.”

  “Well how do you think I feel?” I asked.

  He laughed, and just then Wim came freewheeling into the station yard, hair blowing around his face. “Is that him?” Daniel asked.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling more proud than I had any right to be. I got out of the car, which Wim hadn’t been paying any attention to at all. He isn’t a very noticing person.

  Daniel got out too. “We can put the bike in the boot,” he said.

  “Wait here while I explain to him,” I said.

  I walked over to Wim. Daniel leaned on the car, smoking a cigarette and watched. Wim saw me, saw the Bentley, and then saw Daniel, I saw him registering. “Wim, my father turned up unexpectedly to take me to acupuncture. I had no warning at all either. Do you want to come to Shrewsbury with us, in the car?”

  He looked very surprised. “In the car? With your dad?”

  “He doesn’t mind. If you’d like to. But we wouldn’t be on our own, and we can’t talk about magic or anything, because he doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “Anything for a weird life,” Wim said, quoting Zaphod. Then he kissed me, a little tentatively, but still bravely considering that Daniel was standing right there. He pulled a packet out of his coat pocket and handed it to me almost defiantly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  I opened it right away. It was three books! Theodore Sturgeon’s A Touch of Strange, with a lovely cover of a woman’s head and the moon, Christopher Priest’s Inverted World, and something I’d never heard of by an author new to me, Gate of Ivrel by C. J. Cherryh. I was overwhelmed. “Oh Wim, that’s lovely. And I haven’t got any of them. I didn’t have a chance to buy you anything yet, but I did make this for you.” I pulled the poem out of my pocket. I’d written it on nice blue paper Miss Carroll had given me, in my best handwriting. (It’s the one that starts “To drag yourself over the dry rock of the deserts of the mind.”)

  He read it, and I waited while he read it, watching him, very conscious of Daniel waiting behind me. Wim blushed and pushed it into his pocket. I don’t know whether he liked it or not.

  Then I introduced him to Daniel, and they shook hands like a pair of judges. Things got a little easier when they cooperated in getting the bike into the car boot. Then we all climbed back in and started off for Shrewsbury. I realised as we did that the two of them were going to have to spend an hour together without me while I was having acupuncture. Has anything ever been awkwarder? It served Daniel right for not telling me, but poor Wim didn’t deserve it at all.

  In the car, we talked about Zelazny, a subject of deep and unfailing interest, and then we talked about Empire Star and how it could be just an ordinary adventure except that it isn’t. I felt that Daniel and Wim were starting to like each other through all this, though of course Wim was sitting in the back so they couldn’t exactly see each other. We came to Shrewsbury, early for my appointment. We had a little look at the bookshop, and Wim and Daniel had an argument about Heinlein, very much the argument that Wim and I had had, though at greater length. I was on Daniel’s side, and both of them knew it, but I tried to bite my tongue and not say anything and just look at the shelves. When he wasn’t looking I bought Sign of the Unicorn and Cat’s Cradle for Wim, and gave them to him when we got outside.

  Then I had to leave them together. They agreed to come to the clinic and meet me afterwards. I have never felt so apprehensive having acupuncture, not even the first time when I was afraid of the needles. I just tried to get my mental breath back when I was on the table, I didn’t concentrate on the diagram or the magic or anything. It didn’t seem to do me as much good as sometimes, or maybe I was better when I went in and didn’t notice the difference the way I sometimes do.

  They were waiting for me when I came out, both leaning against the wall. Next to Wim, Daniel looked old and saggy. When I came up to them they were talking about Wim’s experiences at Seacon in Brighton and his hopes for Albacon in Glasgow. “I wish I could go,” Daniel said.

  “Why don’t you?” Wim asked.

  Daniel just shrugged, looking defeated.

  We went to the Chinese restaurant, where we ate essentially the same as last time, Wim and I fumbling with the chopsticks, and talked mostly about Silverberg, with digressions into all the things we’d mentioned on Tuesday night in the Pavane talk. Daniel had read everything except A Dream of Wessex. I could see him and Wim
being impressed with each other, which was lovely, and very strange. When Daniel went to the bathroom, Wim took my hand. “I like your dad,” he said.

  “Good,” I said.

  “You’re so lucky,” he said again.

  “I suppose I could be a whole lot less lucky,” I said. Most people wouldn’t think Daniel much of a father, but there are far worse people. Then I remembered the last time Wim had said that and what we’d been talking about. “Oh, this is priceless, he said he’d support me until I finished in full time education. But he hasn’t read—”

  Wim burst out laughing, just as Daniel came back, so we had to explain to him. Fortunately, he thought it was funny too.

  Wim’s fortune cookie said “You have been given a gift,” Daniel’s said “Fortune favours the brave,” and mine said “The time to be happy is now.”

  Then Daniel drove us back. He asked Wim where he wanted to be dropped, and Wim said anywhere in cycling distance was fine, so he dropped him by the roundabout. I got out while they were getting the bike out, and boldly asked Wim for his phone number. “I could call you next week when I’m away,” I said. “And it would have been useful this afternoon.”

  “No it wouldn’t, I was coming from work,” he said. But he gave it to me, and Daniel wrote it down too. Daniel then gave Wim his card—he would have a card!—in exchange. Wim and I hugged, and kissed very decorously, then Daniel drove me back to school in time for prep.

  FRIDAY 15TH FEBRUARY 1980

  Sharon was picked up first, as usual. There are a whole lot of advantages to being Jewish if you ask me. There’s also the whole pile of things to watch out for. I must remember to ask Sam what happens if you break the rules.

  Daniel was one of the first of the regular parents though. “I liked your young man,” he said as I got into the car.

  “He liked you too,” I said, putting my seatbelt on.

  “I thought we might ask him to tea tomorrow, at the Old Hall. If he came to Shrewsbury on the train, we could meet him there. You two could go for a walk or something, and then we could all have tea.”

  Daniel sounded so tentative and hopeful that I couldn’t really say no. Also, I knew that Wim would like it. He’d like to see the Old Hall, and he’d like to see the aunts, because he knew they were magic. He wouldn’t be afraid of them, because he isn’t afraid of anything. Also, I wanted to see Wim, of course I did, even in less than ideal circumstances. “Terrific,” I said. “But have you asked your sisters?”

  “Anthea suggested it,” he said.

  “I thought they might not approve of me seeing a town boy,” I said.

  “Well . . .” Daniel hesitated. “They did say that in their day it wasn’t done, but I’m sure they’ll change their minds when they meet Wim and see how intelligent and well-spoken he is.”

  Well-spoken is code for middle class, by the way. I’ve figured that one out since I’ve been at Arlinghurst. Somebody or other once said that the British class system was branded on the tongue. Wim has a Shropshire accent but he uses grammar correctly. He sounds like an educated person. He doesn’t sound stuck up and pretentious like the girls in school, but I suppose I’m glad he counts as well-spoken enough for Daniel. It’s so stupid that this sort of thing counts!

  I had dinner with all of them, and had to answer lots of questions about school and Wim and more school. I was Nice Niece as best I could be. Everything went smoothly. Ear-piercing was not mentioned.

  After dinner, I rang Wim. Someone I assume was his mother answered, but got me Wim quite quickly. I was relieved he was there. He could easily have been at a disco with Shirley. “What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “Daniel was wondering if you’d like to come here to tea. You could come to Shrewsbury on the train, and we’d meet you.”

  “I thought you were going down to South Wales?” He sounded very far away.

  “Not until Sunday,” I said. “But it’s all right if you don’t want to come. You don’t work Saturdays, do you?”

  “I do, but only in the morning.”

  “Well, it’s up to you.” I didn’t want to push.

  “Would I get to see you?” he asked. “On our own, I mean.”

  Bless him. “Daniel said we could go for a walk or something. And they leave me alone a lot of the time.”

  “So, what should I wear? For afternoon tea at a manor house?”

  It was so sweet that he worried like that! “Just what you always wear would be fine,” I said. “It’s not a formal black-tie dinner.”

  “Will the sisters be there?” he asked.

  “Definitely.”

  “What a treat!” he said, his voice dripping with irony.

  “Well, see you tomorrow. On the one o’clock train?”

  “Tomorrow it is.”

  After he’d put the phone down I felt cold and lonely and wandered around from room to room for a while. Daniel was drinking in his study and the sisters were watching television in the drawing room. It almost makes it worse that I’m going to see him tomorrow than if it wasn’t for a week. I’d braced myself for that.

  SATURDAY 16TH FEBRUARY 1980

  The sun was shining and Wim showed up at the station in a collar and tie, which made him look younger, more like a schoolboy. I didn’t say that, of course. Daniel accommodatingly drove us to Acton Burnell castle. The castle is a ruin, covered in new spring grass and ivy.

  “There’s nobody else here,” Wim said when we got out of the car.

  “Well, it is February. Hardly grockle season,” Daniel said.

  Wim raised his eyebrows. “Tourists,” Daniel said. “We get a lot of them in the summer. Now, you can walk back from here. It’s not much over a mile. Or, if you don’t feel like walking, call from the phone box, Morwenna, all right?” There was a red phone box right there by the castle gate.

  “All right,” I muttered. He meant if my leg fell off, of course. I shouldn’t be churlish with people who want to accommodate me, really. It’s crass.

  The outwall was fallen, the moat was full of nettles, and you could just about tell what’s what in the keep if you’d seen a proper castle like Pembroke or Caerphilly where everything is marked. There were fairies everywhere, of course, which was why I’d suggested it.

  I’ve noticed before that there are two kinds of people for going round castles. There are the ones who say “And here’s where we’d put the boiling oil and here’s where we’d put the longbowmen,” and the ones who say “And here’s where we’d put the settee, and here’s where we’d hang the pictures.” Wim turned out very satisfactorily to be of the first camp. He’d been to Conwy and Beaumaris with his school, so he knew about castles. We fought a very successful siege (and had a few cuddles in corners out of the wind) before he even asked about fairies.

  “Tons of them,” I said, sitting down in a windowseat so that he could have my stick and see them. I looked out through the cross-shaped arrow slit, but the view so attractively framed was of pylons stretching out wires over neat Shropshire fields, and the red telephone box down below.

  Wim sat beside me, with my stick across his lap and watched them for a while. They didn’t take much notice of us sitting there. When we were children the fairies would play games with us, hide and seek, mostly, and other chasing games. The ones in the castle seemed to be playing games like that with each other, moving in and around the rooms, keeping out of each other’s sight, dashing through doorways ahead of entrances through broken walls. Not having the stick didn’t stop me seeing them, of course, so Wim and I sat there and wondered aloud what they were doing. Then one of them, a tall, impossibly tall, fairy woman, with long hair mixed with swan feathers, swept through the fallen wall, saw us and stopped. I nodded to her. She frowned and came over and stood before us. “Hello,” I said, and then in Welsh “Good afternoon.”

  “Go,” she said to me, in English. “Need. In—” She gestured.

  “In the Valleys?” I asked. I was used to guessi
ng games when it came to fairies and nouns. “In Aberdare? In the vales of coal and iron?”

  I could feel Wim looking at me.

  “Belong,” she said, and pointed at me.

  “Where I come from?” I asked. “I’m going tomorrow.”

  “Go,” she said. “Join.” Then she looked at Wim, and smiled, and drew her hand down the side of his face. “Beautiful.” Well, he was. She swept on, out of the doorway, and a parade of warty grey gnomes came in through the hole in the wall and followed her out without a glance in our direction.

  Wim stared after her, awestruck. “Wow,” he said, after a while.

  “Do you see what I mean now about hard to have a conversation?” I asked.

  “Impossible, yes,” he said. “Fragments like that, you wouldn’t know if you were making up the right half or not.” He was talking quite distractedly and still looking after her. “She really was beautiful.”

  “She meant that you were,” I said.

  He laughed. “You’re not serious? No, you are serious? Jesus!” He peered after her, but she was out of sight.

  “You are beautiful,” I said.

  “I get zits,” he said. “I cut myself shaving. I’m wearing a stupid tie. She—”

  “Have you read ‘Firiel’? In The Adventures of Tom Bombadil? The end of that? That’s what you’re feeling.”

  “Tolkien really knew what he was talking about,” Wim said.