David Sutton - The Satyr's Head - Tales of Terror

‘He did find out, though?’

‘Oh, yes, he did,’ she slowly answered, her eyes seeming to glisten just a little in the homely evening glow of the room. ‘And as I’ve said, that’s why he left home in the end. It happened like this:

‘I had never been a pretty girl — no, don’t say anything, Love. You weren’t even a twinkle in your father’s eye then, he was only a boy himself, and so you wouldn’t know. But at a time of life when most girls only have to pout to set the boys on fire, well, I was only very plain — and I’m probably giving myself the benefit of the doubt at that.

‘Anyway, when George was out nights — walking his latest girl, dancing, or whatever — I was always at home on my own with my books. Quite simply, I came to be terribly jealous of my brother. Of course, you don’t know him, he had already been gone something like fifteen years when you were born, but George was a handsome lad. Not strong, mind you, but long and lean and a natural for the girls.

‘Eventually he found himself a special girlfriend and came to spend all his time with her. I remember being furious because he wouldn’t tell me anything about her…’

She paused and looked at me and after a while I said:

‘Uhhuh?’ inviting her to go on.

‘It was one Saturday night in the spring, I remember, not long after our nineteenth birthday, and George had spent the better part of an hour dandying himself up for this unknown girl. That night he seemed to take a sort of stupid, well, delight in spiting me; he refused to answer my questions about his girl or even mention her name. Finally, after he had set his tie straight and slicked his hair down for what seemed like the thousandth time, he dared to wink at me — maliciously, I thought, in my jealousy — as he went out into the night.

‘That did it. Something snapped! I stamped my foot and rushed upstairs to my room for a good cry. And in the middle of crying I had my idea—’

‘You decided to, er, swap identities with your brother, to have a look at his girl for yourself,’ I broke in. ‘Am I right?’

She nodded in answer, staring at the fire; ashamed of herself, I thought, after all this time. ‘Yes, I did,’ she said.

‘For the first time I used my power for my own ends. And mean and despicable ends they were.

‘But this time it wasn’t like before. There was no instantaneous, involuntary flowing of my psyche, as it were. No immediate change of personality. I had to force it, to concentrate and concentrate and push myself. But in a short period of time, before I even knew it, well, there I was.’

‘There you were? In Uncle George’s body?’

‘Yes, in his body, looking out through his eyes, holding in his hand the cool, slender hand of a very pretty girl. I had expected the girl, of course, and yet…

‘Confused and blustering, letting go of her hand, I jumped back and bumped into a man standing behind me.

The girl was saying: "George, what’s wrong?" in a whisper, and people were staring. We were in a second-show picture-house queue. Finally I managed to mumble an answer, in a horribly hoarse, unfamiliar, frightened voice — George’s voice, obviously, and my fear — and then the girl moved closer and kissed me gently on the cheek!

‘She did! But of course she would, wouldn’t she, if I were George? "Why, you jumped then like you’d been stung—" she started to say; but I wasn’t listening, Peter, for I had jumped again, even more violently, shrinking away from her in a kind of horror. I must have gone crimson, standing there in that queue, with all those unfamiliar people looking at me— and I had just been kissed by a girl!

‘You see, I wasn’t thinking like George at all! I just wished with all my heart that I hadn’t interfered, and before I knew it I had George’s body in motion and was running down the road, the picture-house queue behind me and the voice of this sweet little girl echoing after me in pained and astonished disbelief.

‘Altogether my spiteful adventure had taken only a few minutes, and, when at last I was able to do so, I controlled myself — or rather, George’s self — and hid in a shop doorway. It took another minute or two before I was composed sufficiently to manage a, well, a "return trip", but at last I made it and there I was back in my room.

‘I had been gone no more than seven or eight minutes all told, but I wasn’t back to exactly where I started out from. Oh, George hadn’t gone rushing downstairs again in a hysterical fit, like that time when I sat his exam for him — though of course the period of transition had been a much longer one on that occasion — but he had at least moved off the bed. I found myself standing beside the window…’ She paused.

‘And afterwards?’ I prompted her, fascinated.

‘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 recognized 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.