Something happened that was not vision, and with an unwelcome jolt he was catapulted out of the gliding landscape.
'Tickets please,' repeated a tired voice.
The carriage was now half full, with a miscellany of people who he had not seen arrive occupying the seats around him, passing the time in reading, watching the scenery, and chatting quietly together. A uniformed guard was standing in the aisle, waiting with bored resignation.
'Your ticket, sir.'
'Yes of course, sorry,' said Loofah, fumbling in his jeans.
The guard took the ticket and punched it. 'Synge Green next stop, sir,' he said.
'Thank you,' said Loofah, absently taking the ticket. Then he remembered. 'No, wait,' he exclaimed, 'I'm not going to Synge Green, I'm going to…'
But the guard had gone. He examined the ticket – and indeed it was for Synge Green, a single, exactly as the booking clerk and the ticket machine had suggested. How infuriating – now he was going to have to pay an excess when he got to the town.
After pocketing the offending ticket, Loofah surveyed the carriage without much interest. Beside him a young man in a pale anorak was unfurling tiny headphones and plugging them into his ears. A woman opposite flicked the pages of a glossy magazine whilst her companion, a tubby man in a blue sweatshirt, read a newspaper, one of the smaller variety with oversized headlines. On the other side of the aisle a father was pointing out passing sights of interest to his two young daughters. Loofah was about to turn back to the window when something caught him, seizing him by the throat; the man with the sweatshirt had refolded his paper to read the sport on the back page and there on the front, under a three inch screaming headline: 'Criminal pervert at large', was a picture of a man leering into the camera, a man with dark thinning hair and glasses, wearing a black jacket and pale tee-shirt.
The safe capsule of the train shattered and once again he was unprotected from the jagged horrors of the outside world. He could not escape its crimes – for all that he tried to convince himself that it, and not he, was the perpetrator of evil, the guilt seemed to stick to him like napalm, burning into the flesh of his soul. Fighting to contain a flash-flood of panic, Loofah squirmed in his seat and peered around the carriage like a frightened rabbit, dreading recognition and ready to bolt.
'Like to see a proper paper?' The young man in the pale anorak was leaning towards him, proffering a folded up newspaper. 'You might want to read some real news,' he said, with a knowing smile and a quick nod towards the tubby man and his tabloid.
With a muttered thanks Loofah took the newspaper and gingerly unfolded it. It was a broad-sheet, opening out into an expanse of paper the size of a galleon's mainsail. He nervously scanned the front page; it was all politics, finance, and foreign affairs: nothing of great interest, but then nothing about perverts and criminals either. He relaxed a little, calmed by the paper's reassuring restraint and maturity.
Now unfurling the sail, he skimmed a small article on page two about a football match. He had started to read about an industrial dispute at a major car company when something on the next page caught his attention – yet another picture of him. His guts had just begun to liquefy when he noticed the headline of the accompanying article: 'Government confirms arrival of The Seeker'.
Pulling the paper towards his chest, he tried to fold it back on itself, though with only partial success and soon floating sheets of newsprint filled the carriage, engulfing both Loofah and his neighbours like Mrs Frimpton's laundry. Realising that exerting any form of discipline over the paper was going to prove impossible, he allowed most of it its freedom whilst keeping hold only of the small section containing the relevant article – this he scanned quickly, to get the gist: '…the Seeker has arrived… government sources have expressed considerable satisfaction at the news… great things expected over the coming days and weeks… side-zip shoes in the latest Italian style…' All in all it was essentially the same as the fax, nothing really new. But then a particular sentence towards the end of the piece caught his eye: '…the Seeker is expected in Synge Green later today, where he is hoping to discover emergent propensities as his next step in the quest to find – .'
'Daddy! Daddy! Look at the funny man!'
Loofah looked up quickly, his stomach clenching. But the girl didn't mean him – she was pointing across the carriage at the window next to his seat. The train was now passing through woods, gliding smoothly between the trunks of the oak and birch on a bed of moss and dried leaves, and there among the trees walking parallel to it was a man – a man with dark thinning hair and a black jacket.
'It's him – the one from the paper.' Speaking in a shocked whisper and gripping her husband's arm, the woman opposite was also pointing out of the window. Together they looked from the figure in the woods to the tabloid – and then, very slowly, across at Loofah. A pair of jaws dropped in unison.
Instantly Loofah was on his feet, pushing the flapping mess of newsprint towards the young man beside him, then banging against knees and legs as he dived for the aisle. As he reached the doors at the centre of the carriage the creature was still in view, although now walking away into the trees. What was it doing here, he wondered, strolling in the woods when it was supposed to be in the next town doing its shopping? And where were Truscott and Meadows? – had it somehow managed to give them the slip?
Soon, however, all of these lesser questions faded to insignificance as the one big dilemma of the situation assertively elbowed its way to the front of his mind: should he try to get off the train and give chase, or get to the next town to meet the two policemen as instructed? As the train slid past a stand of rhododendron, the glossy foliage moulded itself into a fleshy face that glared at Loofah with its angry little eyes. Indeed, disobeying the Under Manager again was certainly not a prospect he relished. On the other hand, how would she react if she knew that he had seen the creature but allowed it to go on its way unmolested? And, what's more, to go on its way to commit further crimes – for which he would undoubtedly be held responsible. Loofah squirmed with indecision – he even looked to the rhododendron bush for guidance, though got nothing from it other than blank unwavering fury.
But in no time the creature would be out of sight – if was going to give chase, he had to decide now. As Loofah stood by the train doors watching the plump leather-clad back waddling among the birch trunks, he realised that the titanic horror that should have been engendered by the sight of this, the foulest and most loathsome entity in the known universe, had not materialised. In fact, now he that had had the time to have a good look at the creature, it didn't seem especially formidable at all. It seemed that he had overestimated his enemy – or maybe it was just that Loofah was made of sterner stuff than he realised. Either way, perhaps a confrontation would not be quite as terrible as he had anticipated. He squared his shoulders, gritted his teeth and focussed on his enemy with narrowed gimlet eyes. Yes, he could do it, he knew could – and the decision was made.
He pressed the red button above the doors, ignoring its blustering threats of dire consequences for wrongful use. As the doors swished open, there was a rush of air and a blur of trees hurtling past. A video clip of his eggshell body smashing into a speeding trunk flashed across Loofah's vision and he jerked back. But his surge of gritty determination refused to let him even contemplate reversing his hard won decision and so, with a muttered prayer, he stepped forward into the hurtling roar.
His trepidation was unfounded, for as he passed through the open doors the speed seemed to evaporate into the air and he stepped gently down onto a soft mattress of moss and leaves, and out into the sun-dappled afternoon. Watching the train wind smoothly away between the trunks like a silver snake, Loofah's determination faltered briefly as an icy hand fingered through his intestines; he was stranded now, all alone in this strange place with only his most bitter enemy for company.
And when he turned away from the departing train to give chase to this enemy, Loofah w
as disconcerted to see that the creature had apparently seen him alight and to his amazement and horror was now trotting towards him on its stubby little legs, waving cheerily as if to a long lost friend. It must be confusing him with somebody else, Loofah reasoned after the initial shock had subsided, but either way if the little monster thought it was heading a jolly social get-together then it was sadly mistaken. As his enemy passed out sight behind a rhododendron bush to avoid some brambles, he set his jaw, clenched his fists, and rushed forward to meet it.
It was then that Loofah saw that it was he who was mistaken.
'Hello again!' said the little fat man, smiling an oily smile as he emerged from behind the bush, 'I'm delighted see you. A most unexpected – though very welcome – surprise!'
For indeed it was his old friend, minus the bowler and wearing a tee-shirt and jacket over the usual suit.
'You probably didn't recognise me, did you? But you see I always wear something over the old suit when I've left the hat behind. Gets a bit chilly otherwise, don't you know.'
Loofah stared at the familiar clothes on the fat little body; it was insulting, like being imitated by a third rate impressionist.
'Now then, my dear fellow, we've got an awful lot to talk about. Why don't we just – ?'
'Sorry,' interrupted Loofah, 'I've just remembered – I have a… er… dental appointment. Must dash.'
'Hang on, old chap. Don't rush away!'
He heard steps behind him as the fat man tried to follow and broke into a run. In the distance, he caught a glimpse of silver metal among the far trees.
The One Who Is Two (Book 1 of White Rabbit) Page 41
