Haggopian and Other Stories

“Afterwards?” she echoed me, considering it. “Well, George was very quiet about it… No, that’s not quite true. It’s not that he was quiet, rather that he avoided me more than ever, to such an extent that I hardly ever saw him—no more than a glimpse at a time as he came and went. Mother and father didn’t notice George’s increased coolness towards me, but I certainly did. I’m pretty sure it was then that he had finally recognised the source of this thing that came at odd times like some short-lived insanity to plague him. Yes, and looking back, I can see how I might easily have driven George completely insane! But of course, from that time on he was forewarned…”

“Forewarned?” I repeated her. “And the next time he—”

“The next time?” She turned her face so that I could see the fine scars on her otherwise smooth left cheek. I had always wondered about those scars. “I don’t remember a great deal about the next time—shock, I suppose, a ‘mental block’, you might call it—but anyway, the next time was the last time!…

“There was a boy who took me out once or twice, and I remember that when he stopped calling for me it was because of something George had said to him. Six months had gone by since my shameful and abortive experiment, and now I deliberately put it out of my mind as I determined to teach George a lesson. You must understand, Love, that this boy I mentioned, well…he meant a great deal to me.

“Anyway, I was out to get my own back. I didn’t know how George had managed to make it up with his girl, but he had. I was going to put an end to their little romance once and for all.

“It was a fairly warm, early October, I remember, when my chance eventually came. A Sunday afternoon, and George was out walking with his girl. I had it planned minutely. I knew exactly what I must say, how I must act, what I must do. I could do it in two minutes flat, and be back in my own body before George knew what was going on. For the first time my intentions were deliberately malicious…”

I waited for my aunt to continue, and after a while again prompted her: “And? Was this when—”

“Yes, this was when he walked me through the window. Well, he didn’t exactly walk me through it—I believe I leapt; or rather, he leapt me, if you see what I mean. One minute I was sitting on a grassy bank with the same sweet little girl, and the next there was this awful pain— My whole body hurt, and it was my body, for my consciousness was suddenly back where it belonged. Instantaneously, inadvertently, I was—myself!

“But I was lying crumpled on the lawn in front of the house! I remember seeing splinters of broken glass and bits of yellow-painted wood from my shattered bedroom window, and then I went into a faint with the pain.

“George came to see me in the hospital—once. He sneered when my parents had their backs turned. He leaned over my bed and said: “Got you, Hester!” Just that, nothing more.

“I had a broken leg and collarbone. It was three weeks before they let me go home. By then George had joined the Merchant Navy and my parents knew that somehow I was to blame. They were never the same to me from that time on. George had been the Apple of the Family Eye, if you know what I mean. They knew that his going away, in some unknown way, had been my fault. I did have a letter from George—well, a note. It simply warned me ‘never to do it again’, that there were worse things than falling through windows!”

“And you never did, er, do it again?”

“No, I didn’t dare; I haven’t dared since. There are worse things, Love, than being walked through a window! And if George hates me still as much as he might…

“But I’ve often wanted to do it again. George has two children, you know?”

I nodded an affirmation: “Yes, I’ve heard mother mention them. Joe and Doreen?”

“That’s right,” she nodded. “They’re hardly children any more, but I think of them that way. They’ll be in their twenties now, your cousins. George’s wife wrote to me once many years ago. I’ve no idea how she got my address. She did it behind George’s back, I imagine. Said how sorry she was that there was ‘trouble in the family’. She sent me photographs of the kids. They were beautiful. For all I know there may have been other children later—even grandchildren.”

“I don’t think so,” I told her. “I think I would have known. They’re still pretty reserved, my folks; but I would have learned that much, I’m sure. But tell me: how is it that you and mother aren’t closer? I mean, she never talks about you, my mother, and yet you are her sister.”