Twice Shy

'Stop feeling guilty,' I said. 'Go on about the handicapping.'

After a while he was able to.

'He gave me pages and pages of stuff. Dozens of them. All handwritten in diabolical handwriting. He wanted it organised into programs that any fool could run on a computer.' He paused. 'You do know about computers.'

'More about microchips than programming, which isn't saying much.'

'The other way round from most people, though.'

'I guess so,' I said.

'Anyway, I did them. Quite a lot of them. It turned out they were all much the same sort of thing. They weren't really very difficult, once I'd got the hang of what the notes all meant. It was understanding those which was the worst. So, anyway, I did the programs and got paid in cash.' He stopped and moved restlessly in his seat, glum and frowning.

'So what is wrong?' I asked.

'Well, I said it would be best if I ran the programs a few times on the computer he was going to use, because so many computers are different from each other, and although he'd told me the make of computer he'd be using and I'd made allowances, you never can really tell you've got no bugs until you actually try things out on the actual type of machine. But he wouldn't let me. I said he wasn't being reasonable and he told me to mind my own business. So I just shrugged him off and thought if he wanted to be so stupid it was his own affair. And then these other two men turned up.'

'What other two men?'

'I don't know. They just sneered when I asked their names. They told me to hand over to them the programs I'd made on the horses. I said I had done. They said they were nothing to do with the person who'd paid for the job, but all the same I was to give them the programs.'

'And did you?'

'Well, yes – in a way.'

'But, Peter-' I said.

He interrupted, 'Yes, I know, but they were so bloody frightening. They came the day before yesterday – it seems years ago – in the evening. Do

It appeared, however, that it had.

'Well,' he said, rallying, 'what I gave them was all that I had in the house, but it was really only first drafts, so to speak. Pretty rough. I'd written three or four trial programs out in long-hand, like I often do. I know a lot of people work on typewriters or even straight onto a computer, but I get on better with pencil and rubber, so what I gave them looked all right, especially if you didn't know the first thing about programming, which I should think they didn't, but not much of it would run as it stood. And I hadn't put the file names on anyway, or any REMS or anything, so even if they de-bugged the programs they wouldn't know what they referred to.'

Disentangling the facts from the jargon, it appeared that what he had done had been to deliver to possibly dangerous men a load of garbage, knowing full well what he was doing.

'I see,' I said slowly, 'what you meant by a mess.'

'I'd decided to take Do

I screwed the cap onto the bottle and I looked at my watch. 'It's getting on for midnight,' I said. 'We'd better go back.'

'I suppose so.'

I paused with my hand on the ignition key. 'Didn't you tell the police about your two unpleasant visitors?' I said.

'No, I didn't. I mean, how could I? They've been in and out of the house, and a policewoman too, but it was all about Do

'Anyway what?'

He shrugged uncomfortably. 'I got paid in cash. Quite a lot. I'm not going to declare it for tax. If I told the police… well, I'd more or less have to.'

'It might be better,' I said.

He shook his head. 'It would cost me a lot to tell the police, and what would I gain? They'd make a note of what I said and wait until Do

It didn't seem unreasonable to me that official sympathy had been mostly on the side of the baby's frantic mother, but I didn't say so.

'Perhaps it would be best, then,' I said, 'if you did take Do

He nodded.

'But what she really needs is proper psychiatric care. Even a spell in a mental hospital.'

'No,' he said.

'They have a high success rate with mental illness nowadays. Modern drugs, and hormones, and all that.'

'But she's not-' He stopped.

The old taboos died hard. 'The brain is part of the body,' I said. 'It's not separate. And it goes wrong sometimes, just like anything else. Like the liver. Or the kidneys. You wouldn't hesitate if it was her kidneys.'

He shook his head, however, and I didn't press it. Everyone had to decide things for themselves. I started the car and wheeled us back to the house, and Peter said as we turned into the short concrete driveway that Do

The weekend dragged on. I tried surreptitiously now and then to mark the inexorable exercise books, but the telephone rang more or less continuously and, as answering it seemed to be the domestic chore I was best fitted for, I slid into a routine of chat. Relatives, friends, press, officials, busybodies, cranks and stinkers, I talked with the lot.

Sarah cared for Do

When Peter talked to Do

I'm staying here,' Sarah said. 'Do

Do

'OK,' I said slowly, 'but take care.'

'What of?'Sarah said.

I glanced at Peter, who was agitatedly shaking his head. All the same, it seemed sensible to take simple precautions.

'Don't let Do

Do

Sarah saw the sense in that and calmed down, and a short while later I was ready to leave.

I said goodbye to them in the house because there seemed to be always people in the street staring at the windows with avid eyes, and right at the last minute Peter thrust into my hand three cassettes for playing in the car if I should get bored on the way home. I glanced at them briefly: The King and I, Oklahoma, and West Side Story. Hardly the latest rave, but I thanked him anyway, kissed Sarah for appearances, kissed Do