by Holt, Tom
Paul sighed. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘This is all strictly industrial light and magic, while they’re figuring out what to do next. Or else they’ve already figured it out, and it takes a while to get everything ready. In any case, nothing bad’s going to happen to us yet. Sit down, take the weight off your tyres. We could be here for some time.’
Monika hesitated, then sat down beside him. ‘Mr Carpenter,’ she said gravely, ‘there is something I would like to know. But it is personal.’
Paul picked a dried bulrush off the floor and held the end of it in the green fire. As he’d expected, it didn’t even char. ‘Go ahead,’ he said.
‘Well—’ She frowned, reminding him vaguely of someone or other. ‘I have to say it, you do not seem to be behaving normally. Your manner is different. I do not understand.’
Paul felt the end of the bulrush – quite cool – and threw it away. ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘and I don’t understand either. I think it was when we walked through the door, or maybe a little before that. I suddenly realised I didn’t feel—’ He stopped. ‘I was going to say, I didn’t feel frightened any more, but that’s not true at all. It’s more—’ He shrugged. ‘I think the word I’m after is intimidated. Sorry,’ he added, ‘I haven’t got a clue how to say that in German.’
‘No problem,’ Monika said, ‘I know what is intimidated. You do not feel inferior and out of place.’
Paul nodded. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘It’s like I’ve been here before. Actually, it’s more than that. This is going to sound pretty weird, but it’s almost like I feel at home here. But not in a good way,’ he added. ‘Like it’s familiar, but I don’t like it much. It feels like – I don’t know, sort of like Heathrow airport, or some big government office if I worked there. And that’s strange,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘because obviously I’ve never been in a place like this before, ever. The fire’s a fake, by the way. No heat or anything. I think where they went wrong was making it green – it’s unconvincing. It’s like they have a vague idea what I’m expecting to see, but they don’t understand. Like words copied out of a book by someone who doesn’t know the language.’
Monika shivered. ‘It is very cold,’ she said. ‘I do not like it here.’
‘Me neither. Is there a bell we could ring or something? It’s just psychology, making us wait around like this, but I’d rather get to the next bit.’
‘Excellent.’ Paul looked up to see who’d spoken. The little girl was back, and apparently she’d brought her friends. He wasn’t sure if they were the same kids he’d come across at the garage in the middle of nowhere, or whether they just looked very much like them.
‘Excuse me?’ he said.
‘You’re doing well,’ they said – they all spoke at the same time, but Paul could only hear one voice. ‘Better than we expected, anyhow. We think you’re ready to move on. How about it?’
Monika had grabbed Paul’s arm as if to warn him, but he took no notice. ‘I’m up for that,’ he said. ‘What’s involved, exactly?’
‘That’d be telling,’ the children replied. They were all, he noticed, wearing either sky blue or lilac, and identical blue-and-white trainers. ‘But since you’re being a good sport, we’ll give you a clue. This is—’ They giggled. ‘This is child’s play. Now we’re going to take you somewhere a bit scary. Do you want to continue, or have you had enough? If you want to back out now, that’s fine.’ At the far end of the hall, a small dog was barking. It wore a tartan flea-collar, and it had three heads. ‘You can go back the way you came, and no hard feelings.’
Paul thought for a moment. There was, after all, absolutely no reason why he should go on, was there? He’d got this far, made an effort, and he’d never wanted to be a hero in the first place. Honour was satisfied; except that Countess Judy had told him that they were holding Benny Shumway hostage, and there wasn’t anybody else who could get him out of there.
Wasn’t there? Bullshit. There was Professor van Spee, who was supposed to be some sort of really high-powered wizard; or Mr Suslowicz, who was a giant; or couldn’t Dennis Tanner come bursting in with an army of goblins? Or why couldn’t Countess Judy do it herself? Wasn’t she supposed to be the Queen of the Fey? It didn’t make sense, what she’d said. If Benny hadn’t been able to deal with these creeps, what possible chance had Paul got?
On the other hand; there was a lot he didn’t understand about the firm’s business, mostly because nobody had bothered to tell him. Maybe he really was the only one who could save Benny Shumway. And Benny was—
His friend? Hardly that. Benny Shumway was just some very strange short guy who’d once been grateful to him for coming with him to the Bank. That was hardly a life debt.
‘I think we should go back now,’ Monika said quietly.
But Paul shook his head. The gesture surprised him; he was under the impression that he was still making up his mind. Apparently not. ‘No, thanks,’ he told the children. ‘I’m ready when you are.’
The children grinned at him. ‘Excellent,’ they said. The lights went out, and almost immediately came back up again.
The shock hit Paul like a hammer.
The mood he was in, he could probably have handled something strange and unfamiliar, since that was what he’d been bracing himself against. What he saw when the light came back was the very last thing he’d been expecting. It was also so familiar, so ordinary, as to constitute his mental default setting. That was scary.
He was sitting on a bed. His bed. The duvet was dark blue, with red polka dots; he’d always hated it, from the day his mum brought it home from Marks’ sale, but she’d never taken any of his hints to that effect. Above him, a cluster of dusty Spitfires and Messerschmitts dangled from bits of fishing line. From the poster on the wall opposite, the crew of the starship Voyager smiled blandly over his head. He was home.
Chapter Six
‘You watched Voyager?’ Monika said at last. ‘Gott in Himmel.’
It should have been a momentous occasion, to be celebrated ever after with fireworks and a military band: the one and only time there’d been a girl in this room, even if she was really a Volkswagen Polo. But Paul hadn’t noticed. All the fatalistic confidence had drained out of him, like oil from a British motorcycle. He was home. Eeek.
In the main conference room at JWW, there was an enchanted table. It was polished to a mirror finish, and the technical term for it was ‘imp-reflecting’; a goblin masquerading as a human or a shapechanger would show up in it as it really was – all teeth and claws and tiny yellow eyes. Maybe the Fey had similar technology, Paul thought; because this room had the exact same effect. They’d unmasked him, caught him out, a stupid little boy pretending to be a grown man in a suit four sizes too big for him. This room no longer existed, of course. When his parents had moved to Florida, the house had been sold: everything that he couldn’t fit into two suitcases and a dozen supermarket cardboard boxes had gone to the charity shop or the tip. These posters, this duvet, those plastic aeroplanes were long gone; but the room was for ever, and he’d never left it. He was trapped in it for ever.
‘No,’ Paul said. ‘Well, yes, the pilot episode and some of the first series, but then I gave up. My mum bought me the poster for Christmas one year. I had to put it up, or she’d have been hurt.’
The thought made him shudder. His mother had always been so vulnerable to unintentional slights. The smallest thing could cut her to the quick; and he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her, naturally, so he’d always had to be so careful . . . Standing here again, surrounded by things he’d hated but put up with for years and years and years, he realised (consciously for the first time) that hurt and offence had been his mother’s sheepdogs, to herd him into the small, sparse pen she’d built for him. His mother’s sensitivity and his father’s contempt kept him here like chains.
‘Excuse me,’ Paul said. ‘Hello?’
At once, a small child materialised in front of him: a small boy in scru
ffy school uniform, shirt-tails trailing, tie askew and tightly knotted, sitting at the desk by the window with an exercise book open in front of him. ‘Is that you?’ Monika whispered.
Paul nodded. ‘When I was twelve,’ he replied.
‘You were – shorter,’ she said awkwardly. ‘You’ve grown.’
‘By eighteen inches,’ Paul replied. ‘Nice to think I’ve achieved something in the last ten years, even if it’s something a tree could’ve done much better.’
What she hadn’t needed to say was, Apart from that, you’re exactly the same. Well, at least she had a degree of tact. Vorsprung durcht Technik, and all that. ‘Well?’ said Little Paul, looking up at him, with an expression on his face that Paul had never seen in any mirror. ‘Here we are, then.’
‘Yes,’ Paul said.
‘Not quite so cocky now, are we?’
‘No.’
Little Paul shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘Warned you it’d be scary, but you wouldn’t listen. Full of it, you were. Serves you right, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’
Little Paul smirked, and stood up. ‘You people,’ he said. ‘Read a few books, learn which end of a rifle the bullet comes out of, and you think you’re bloody Siegfried. Your real hero, now, this wouldn’t phase him at all. He’d be all pissy because there’s no blue plaque and guided tour.’
‘I didn’t want to be a hero,’ Paul mumbled. ‘I only did the lessons and stuff because I’ve got to do three months in each department.’
Little Paul laughed. ‘It’s all right,’ he said; and despite the height differential, he might as well have been patting Paul on the head. ‘It’s not your fault, you’re just going where you’re sent. But it’s pretty bloody obvious, isn’t it? You aren’t cut out for this sort of thing. They should’ve let you carry on dowsing for bauxite. You’re good at that.’
‘Am I?’ Paul’s eyes widened a little. ‘Really?’
‘Really. Everybody’s good at something. Just like everybody can’t be good at everything. It’s OK. You just go back to your office, and we’ll say no more about it.’
That was so kind, so unbelievably generous that Paul wanted to cry. It was just like when he was small; people had always forgiven him eventually, no matter how thoughtless and inconsiderate he’d been, and he could never figure out why, he’d never deserved it. ‘Thank you,’ Paul said, suddenly remembering his manners. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added reflexively.
‘That’s all right. You’ve learned your lesson.’
Something was snuffling round his ankles, and he could smell dog. Ten to one on that it was a tiny Yorkshire terrier with a tartan collar and three heads. He’d always been frightened of dogs, even small ones (especially small ones) but this time he was glad it was there, because it meant he could go back—
‘Herr Carpenter. Paul.’ Monika’s voice. ‘I do not understand. What is the matter with you?’
Herr Carpenter; with a jolt of shock, Paul realised that she meant him. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘What?’
‘It is only a small boy,’ she was saying. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of. Why are you looking like that?’
Just for a split second, Little Paul gave Monika a look that ought to have turned her to stone. But when he spoke, that crushing drawl was back. ‘You want to go on? Fine, you go on. I’m warning you, though. This is ice cream and peaches compared to what’s next. You might care to think about that, before your four-wheeled friend here gets you into something you might regret.’
Worse than this? Impossible. But, quite unexpectedly, Paul wasn’t quite so sure any more. True, he’d been here; he’d been here a very long time, and he’d only escaped because Mum and Dad had decided they’d earned their place in the sun, and had only taken with them the things they really wanted, like the mahogany chiffonier and Aunt Clara’s china dogs. He’d escaped because he wasn’t worth taking, he knew that. But he’d escaped.
Suddenly he thought of Melze. When he’d started at senior school, his parents had told him that he didn’t really want to see his old friends any more; he’d be making new friends, nice boys and girls, not like the ones from round here . . . There had been a day when he’d been up here, with the polka dots and the perpetually tailspinning Hurricanes, and there’d been a knock at the front door. He’d heard Melze and her brother Jason: did Paul want to come out to play? And Mum had said, ‘Sorry, but Paul’s not here right now’; and her voice had told them that Paul would never be there if they came asking for him again, and they’d gone away and had never come back. The nice boys and girls at senior school had seen him as a target, or not at all (and that had been his fault, for not being outgoing and confident and charming, like he was supposed to be), and so he’d stayed here instead, in his room, with his books and his models, and Paul is such a disappointment to us, in some ways. But now Melze had come back, and she’d smiled at him—
‘If it’s all right with you,’ he heard himself saying, ‘I think I’d like to go on now, please.’
Little Paul looked at him blankly for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘if you think you can hack it. No skin off our nose.’
‘Thanks,’ Paul said; and almost before the word was out of his mouth, the faint glow of light outside the window had burst in and flooded the room. Paul shut his eyes, as though he’d carelessly looked straight at a welding torch. When he opened them again—
It was an office; a very beautiful, very expensive office. Even the walls were carpeted, and woven into the pile was a monogram, JWW intertwined like wrestling snakes. Somewhere a telephone was ringing, and Paul noticed that it was making one long purr, American style, instead of the querulous British beep-beep. Through the window he could see the flat roofs of lesser skyscrapers, and beyond them, a rocky hillside decorated with huge white letters.
Oh no, he thought.
A small girl wearing a Friends Forever T-shirt stood up from a luxurious leather armchair in the corner, and curtsied mockingly as she pointed across the room. There, in matching chairs across a low, broad glass table, sat a lean, bronzed, surfer-type young man and a dark, thin girl. He was drinking iced tea through a straw. She was absently reaming out her ear with her little finger. Paul only knew one person in the world who’d do a thing like that.
‘Welcome to Hollywood,’ whispered the Friends Forever child maliciously.
‘Where is this place?’ Monika was asking, but Paul ignored her. If he kept very still and quiet, he could just hear what the surfer and the thin girl were saying—
‘And after I broke up with him . . .’ said the thin girl.
Paul swung round, looking for the child, but she’d disappeared. Reluctantly, he turned back. The surfer was laughing at something apparently very funny.
‘Sounds like a total loser,’ he said. ‘Excuse me, but your taste in guys—’
The thin girl smiled bleakly. ‘Oh, it gets better,’ she said. ‘After him came Paul. My God.’ She looked away for a moment, as if regaining her composure.
‘That bad?’ said the surfer.
‘Worse. Really, really worse.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Absolutely. I mean, you’ve heard of Peter Pan, the little boy who didn’t want to grow up.’ The surfer was nodding gravely, like a plastic novelty Aristotle. ‘Like, talk about immature, Paul was Beaujolais Nouveau. And trying to talk to him was like juggling with custard.’
The surfer’s lips thinned. ‘Scared to commit, huh?’
The thin girl sighed and shook her head (and Paul thought: Her hair never swayed like that when she was with me . . . ) ‘I still don’t know how I stuck it out for as long as I did. Like, I remember reading once, this thing about an army officer; and in his report, someone had written: His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity. I think that’s maybe how I put up with Paul all that time. I mean, it was fascinating to watch, in a sick sort of a way. And it was my fault too, let’s be honest.’ She pulled a face. ‘There was this love potion – it’s
a long story. And for some stupid reason I thought that maybe I could change him, if I really loved him enough.’
‘Ah yes.’ The surfer grinned. ‘The famous JWW love philtre. But I thought that was, you know, for ever—’
‘That’s what it says on the bottle,’ the thin girl replied. ‘And I read up about it, and it’d never failed before. But then, it never had to contend with Paul Carpenter.’ She laughed. ‘They should bottle him and market him as the antidote. Actually, maybe that’s why they hired him in the first place. I mean, there has to be a reason.’
The surfer’s chuckle was deep and somehow very distasteful, or so Paul thought. ‘Sounds like there’s not much chance of you guys getting back together again,’ he said. ‘But maybe I’m missing something here. If the guy’s such a dork, why did you drink the love potion?’
The grin she gave him was sad and guilty. ‘Because I’m pathetic, I suppose. I mean, I’d just broken up with the other creep – no, wait, I’m losing count here. It was after the other other creep turned out to be a goblin in disguise.’
‘Bummer,’ whispered the surfer.
She nodded. ‘Actually he was a sort of off-relation of Mr Tanner, our mining and mineral rights partner; he’d disguised himself as a human and, well—’ Her ears and the tip of her nose pinkened. ‘Seduced me, I guess. And it wasn’t even because he fancied me, it was just part of some stupid office politics thing. You can imagine, that didn’t do my self-image a whole lot of good. And – well, there was Paul, following me round like some kind of pathetic lost puppy; and I thought, the hell with it, let’s be practical. I knew Paul was absolutely besotted with me; and if I took the potion, well, that’d be that taken care of and out of the way. I’d be in love with him for ever and ever, I’d be able to cross finding true love off my list of things to do, it’d be one less pressure on me—’ She shook her head sadly. ‘My parents’ fault, to a certain extent. I think they probably do love me, but they were always giving me that sad look – when are you going to settle down, find yourself a nice young man; it’s so much hassle, having to deal with that day after day after day. That’s why the love philtre’s such a great idea. Like arranged marriages, I guess, only you can have the convenience and the not-fussing, and true romance as well. Anyhow, that’s why I did it, and probably it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, only it didn’t work. I had to choose the one man in the universe who’s such a colossal waste of space and resources, even a love philtre can’t make him tolerable. So I dumped him and came over here.’
