Earth, Air, Fire & Custard Tom Holt

by Earth, Air, Fire

  At the christening. It sort of fell at my feet out of nowhere. Or they chucked it down for me to use. There was a bit of pink ribbon wrapped round the hilt, if that's any help.'

  'Pink?'

  Paul nodded. 'Pink. That's one thing I'm positive about. Goblin taste, you see.'

  But Mr Laertides shook his head. 'Clearly you don't know,' he said, 'but goblins - in their own proper shape, as opposed to masquerading as humans or other species - are violently allergic to the colour pink. It hurts them, literally, like burning. They can't touch anything pink, they can't even look at it for very long unless they're wearing special red-filter sunglasses.' He looked up, and his eyes were very deep, the follow-you-round-the-room eyes of a high-class painting. 'So it wasn't the goblins who gave you the sword. In fact, whoever put it there for you to find also boobytrapped it, so to speak, so that no goblin would touch it.'

  'I see,' Paul said, and if the Brothers Grimm had been running the universe, his nose would've grown maybe a quarter of an inch. 'So-'

  'So,' Mr Laertides said, 'it must've been put there by someone who wanted to help you. A friend. Someone,' he added, 'who also knew in advance what you were likely to be up against, presumably.'

  'Really? Why's that?'

  'Maybe there are still people in this world who go around carrying magic swords with them wherever they go as a matter of course. But the pink ribbon, the goblin-proofing if you like, strongly suggests forethought and preparation. So you've got an anonymous ally. A well-informed anonymous ally, which is even better. Lucky you. At some more appropriate time you can try and figure out who it could possibly have been. That still doesn't explain,' he went on, 'what you're doing out of the office during working hours when there isn't actually anything wrong with you.'

  Oh, Paul thought. 'Really?' he said. 'Dying doesn't count as being ill, then.'

  'But you aren't dead. And otherwise you're as fit as a fiddle.'

  'Mr Tanner gave me the day off,' Paul suddenly remembered. 'Three days, actually. I phoned Christine this morning and she checked with him. He said it'd be all right.'

  'Ah.' Mr Laertides nodded gravely. 'That's all right, then. And presumably you're headed for the coast in the hope that a bit of fresh sea air will put the roses back in your cheeks. Yes, that seems to be in order.' He smiled, and Paul felt himself relax. 'How far are you going?' he said.

  'Brighton,' Paul replied.

  'Really? There's a coincidence, that's where I'm headed. Party conference,' he explained, 'we have quite a few heavyweight political clients, as you'd expect. A simple glamour, like the one I told you about just now, and for a few minutes, just as long as it takes to make a speech, people will actually believe what they say. Very basic, level-one stuff, but we make them pay through the nose for it.' He paused, and gave Paul a look that he didn't like at all. 'Funny coincidence, really, because the reason I went looking for you this morning back at the office was, I was going to ask you if you felt like joining me, helping out with a few things.'

  Heavy hint; and Paul was just grateful he hadn't been standing directly underneath as it crashed to Earth, or he'd have been flattened. 'Great,' he said, with all the sincerity of a government apology. 'That'd be-' He couldn't quite find words to describe what that would be, but Mr Laertides grinned like a furnace and said, 'Excellent,' as though he'd just invented a way of bottling sunshine. Paul gave his mind a savage kick, and it sputtered reluctantly into life.

  'Just a moment, though,' he said. 'I haven't got any clothes with me, apart from a spare shirt and, um, things. No suit, I mean. And it wouldn't reflect well on the firm, your assistant turning up in scruffy old T-shirt and jeans-'

  Mr Laertides laughed; he sounded like a studio audience. 'That's not a problem,' he said. 'Lean across, you can see your reflection in the window.'

  Paul did as he was told. There was his face, he'd know it anywhere. But under his chin was a clean white collar and sober blue and grey tie, and across his shoulders a high-class charcoal-grey suit. His hair was neatly trimmed and combed. He looked like an actuary.

  'Glamour,' Mr Laertides explained, as Paul glanced quickly down at himself and saw the clothes he'd put on that morning. 'Simple little trick but well worth mastering. For one thing, you can save a fortune. I mean, since when can you afford Armani on what JWW pays you?'

  Paul thought about that. 'So anybody looking at me-'

  'Will see you as you appear in the window, yes. Take me, for instance,' Mr Laertides went on, brushing a spot of lint off his immaculate navy chalk-stripe lapel. 'I'm wearing a pyjama jacket with coffee stains down the front, jogging trousers and a pair of old gardening shoes. And, of course, it doesn't only apply to clothes.' He smiled. 'No offence,' he said, 'but I'll bet there've been times in your life when you wished you looked like that.' He pointed at the window, and Paul peered over his arm. He saw Mr Laertides's reflection, and next to it a man he'd never seen before (he'd have remembered if he had): a tall, fair-haired, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed youth, good-looking, intelligent, endlessly likeable, the Greek god of being nice. Instinctively, Paul looked round, but there was nobody on the seat apart from Mr Laertides and himself. 'That's me?' he mumbled, and Mr Laertides grinned and shook his head.

  'Of course it isn't,' he said. 'Actually, if you really want to know, that's my wife's cousin Larry. Nice enough bloke, got a job in a building society in Cobham, but he happens to be the most good-looking man I can think of offhand. Of course,' he went on, as the image faded and was replaced, heartbreakingly, with the long, skinny halfwit Paul had gradually reconciled himself to seeing in mirrors over the years, 'that look works wonders with middle-aged women in government offices, but it won't do you much good with the chicks. Too clean-cut. Sensible. Reliable. Boring. They'd be much more likely to go for something like - now then, let me see.'

  Paul must have looked away for a split second, because the reflection in the grubby window-glass was suddenly quite different: leaner, darker, sharper, more sardonic and above all, indescribably cool in a black leather jacket and faded denims with ripped knees. 'James Dean,' Mr Laertides was saying. 'John Travolta. The Fonze. Elvis. Totally retro, of course, but practically a classic, you'd be fighting them off with a baseball bat. Or maybe you'd prefer-'

  'No,' Paul said, extremely quickly, 'that'd do fine, really. Except-' He hesitated. 'It's not me, though, is it? I'd look ridiculous in something like that.'

  Mr Laertides shrugged. 'Millions of people all over the world look ridiculous,' he said, 'but they can't do anything about it, poor bastards. You, on the other hand-'

  'Yes?' Paul said hopefully, rubbing his chin with his hand. The man in the window had enough designer stubble to provide habitat for four dozen partridges, but Paul's chin felt as smooth as glass and familiarly clammy. 'Me?'

  'You can decide for yourself.' Paul craned his neck, but all he could see in the window now were trees, cows and countryside. 'All you have to do is learn a few words. It's perfectly safe, no nasty side effects, no selling your soul to the devil or ugly old paintings hidden up in the loft. From fridge magnet to babe magnet in one easy step. Or,' Mr Laertides added, as the train shot into a tunnel and the window went dark, 'maybe you've got scruples about cheating, or you simply can't be bothered. I mean, only very shallow people judge by appearances, and you'd rather soldier on, waiting for Miss Right to love you for who you really are deep down. Or maybe you'd have deep ethical reservations about inducing someone to love you by supernatural means.' He smiled very faintly. 'Some people have issues about that sort of thing, though God only knows why.'

  'No,' Paul heard himself shout. 'I mean, yes, that sounds like it might be, um, rather useful. And it'd get over the problem,' he added desperately, 'of me not having anything smart to wear for this job we're going to.'

  'Indeed,' Mr Laertides said gravely. 'There's that as well. Anyhow, you take your time and think it over, and when you've reached a decision-'

  'Yes please,' Paul snapped. 'Yes, I'd really like to learn
how to do that, if it wouldn't be any bother.'

  'Fine.' Mr Laertides held up his hand, palm facing outwards. 'You don't actually need the hand movements, but it's easier to learn doing it this way. All you've got to do,' he went on, 'is this.'

  He turned his hand round, pressed it against his face and started pressing, squeezing, moving things about. First he pushed his eyebrows back a little; then he squidged the sides of his mouth together, pulled his nose to make it longer, used his thumb and forefinger to lift and smooth out his cheekbones, as though his face was a lump of wet clay and he was carefully moulding it into shape. It only took him a few moments, and when he took his hand away, his face had changed completely. Not, it turned out, for the better. He'd made himself look exactly like Paul.

  'See?' he said. 'The first few times you try it, it helps to have a mirror. Otherwise you might find you come out looking like cheese on toast, or a Dali watch. Here,' he added, and once again he held his hand up. This time, his palm seemed to have turned to glass, and Paul could see himself reflected in it.

  'I'm not sure about this,' he muttered doubtfully. 'I mean, surely there's more to it than that, or else-'

  "Course there is,' said Mr Laertides. 'There's the small matter of natural ability, which is only granted to maybe one person in twenty million. But you've got it, just like your Uncle Ernie, rest his vicious soul, so that's all right. Go ahead,' he went on, 'try it. If you don't like the result, just shake your head a couple of times and it'll reset to zero.'

  Well, Paul thought, why the hell not? Very cautiously, he touched his fingertips to his face and pressed, watching the skin move. What first, he asked himself, where to begin? There were so many things about his appearance that he hated that for a while he couldn't decide what to tackle first. But his upper lip; that had always annoyed him - he was convinced that it made him look like a chipmunk eating a biscuit. Tentatively he drew it down with the top of his forefinger, pressing it gently against his front teeth. As he let go he expected to see the skin move back to where it should be, but it didn't.

  'It works,' he whispered.

  'Of course it works, silly,' said Mr Laertides. 'I do this sort of thing for a living, remember. Go on, don't stop, you're doing fine.'

  So Paul tried again. This time he pushed his nose back a little with the heel of his hand, smoothed out the irritating bump halfway along, squidged the ridge between finger and thumb to make it thinner and less pudgy. That didn't look quite right, though; in order to be any good, it needed the cheeks to be a bit flatter, the chin a tad more pointed, and he definitely had to do something about his ghastly wing-mirror ears- 'Too much, steady on,' Mr Laertides warned. 'Your problem is, you know what you don't like, you're not so sure about what you want instead. What you've done, you don't look handsome, you just look like someone's pressed you in a book like a daisy. What I usually suggest is, get an idea in your mind of what you're working towards. Easy way is to think of a face you know, a movie star or a TV personality, and try and make yourself look like that. In your case,' he mused, 'I'd go for either Leo DiCaprio or the young Hugh Grant. Oh, and don't forget the teeth,' he added. 'That's a mistake a lot of people make: they get the rest of their faces just right and then as soon as they open their mouths they look like a shark trying to swallow a keyboard.'

  Paul had always been hopeless with plasticene and making clay models in Art at school, but he found that if he just concentrated on the picture in his mind and stopped looking at his reflection, it was much easier. 'There,' he said, a few minutes later, 'how's that looking?'

  'It's an improvement,' Mr Laertides said. 'Has to be admitted, though, that's not saying a whole lot. No reflection on you, no pun intended, but you've got the sort of looks that most things improve, second-degree burns included.'

  It all seemed to take for ever; and then, quite suddenly, everything seemed to come right and fit together. 'That's it,' Mr Laertides called out, 'you've got it now. See? Told you it was dead simple. Actually,' he added, his eyebrows drawing together, 'that's not bad, not bad at all. Didn't I say I thought you had a flair for this sort of work?'

  Paul looked away from the window for a moment or so to reset his perceptions, then looked back. The face he saw in the glass was- Years of thoroughly justifiable modesty were getting in the way, but there was no call for any of that, since the face wasn't his, after all. But it was strikingly handsome: straight nose, high cheekbones, square jaw, finely tapered chin, large well-spaced eyes, firm mouth not too narrow or too broad, a basically serious face but fully equipped to handle a wide spectrum of emotions . . . He ventured a smile, and was agreeably startled by the flash of warmth, like sunlight breaking through clouds and flooding a deep valley. He tried a laugh; when Paul Carpenter laughed he looked like a baboon, but you could practically see the great golden soul behind this face peeping out at you through the windows of the eyes. He ran through a basic repertoire of expressions - brave, stern, compassionate, caring, happy, sad, serious, playful - and stopped because it was unbearably frustrating; because this was the face he should have been born with, if only there had been any justice in the world. With a face like this, he could have been somebody, a contender... Not just because it was cute and hunky and guaranteed sure-fire girl catnip, though of course that'd have solved or more likely pre-empted a great many of the personality defects that the real Paul Carpenter had had to live with all these years. It was more than that, though. He could've been himself in a face like this, instead of having to tailor his hopes, aspirations, objectives, expectations to suit the jumble of skin, bone, muscle and cartilage he'd been issued with when he was born. All his life, he realised bitterly, he'd had to be the boy who looked like a bolted Brussels-sprout plant (the clown, the butt, always left over when teams were picked, always on his own in the playground during break); and how stupid, how arbitrary to allocate him to village-idiot duties simply on the basis of nose length and ear configuration. You might as well choose somebody to be the President of the USA on the grounds that he could spit further than anybody else.

  'What's the matter?' Mr Laertides was saying. 'You look like someone's just filled your inside pocket with treacle. Don't you like it?'

  'Oh, I like it a lot,' Paul mumbled. 'That's the problem.'

  'Is it? Why?'

  Paul turned sharply and looked away. 'Because it's not me, is why. Because I've got to give it back and carry on being Chimp Boy for the rest of my life. It's not...'

  'Not fair?' Mr Laertides chuckled, and for some reason the floor under Paul's feet shook slightly. 'Come on, sunshine, how old are you? Nine? Is that hypocrisy, or what? You're getting all stressy because it's not fair that people judge by appearances, but what the hell else are you doing every time you fall in love at first sight? Think about it; at first sight. What kind of attitude is that, for crying out loud? You must be so shallow, it's a miracle you haven't evaporated yet.'

  'Yeah, well.' Paul shrugged. 'Like it'd have made a whole lot of difference if I'd fallen in love with girls because they're warm, caring human beings who want to work with disabled children and dream about world peace. They'd still have told me to drop dead, because I've got a face like a Disney character. Not that it matters, anyhow,' he added briskly, 'because I'm through with all that now. Thanks,' he added with a slight frown, 'to you and that medicine you made for me. I mean, because of that, isn't all this sort of thing a bit irrelevant?'

  'There's other things in life,' said Mr Laertides, 'besides getting off with girls, or had you forgotten about that? No, really. There's being taken seriously, for a start; having people predisposed to like you, willing to hear you out, listen to what you've got to say. I know, none of that stuff's in the same league as being able to pick up women in bars, but it might just be worth making a tiny effort now and again, don't you think?'

  Paul nodded. 'You're right,' he said. 'I'm sorry. But it still 'doesn't matter a toss, because sooner or later I've got to go back to being Coco the Clown. That's where I live,' he sai
d harshly, 'and anything else'd just be a short holiday I couldn't afford to pay for.'

  Mr Laertides's face was completely expressionless. 'Not necessarily,' he said.

  'Not necessarily?' Paul was aware that his voice was raised and messy-sounding, but there wasn't anything he could do about it; he was angry, and he needed to say his piece. 'Oh, sure. Like I can walk into the office on Monday morning looking like this. Nobody would believe it was me.'

  'True,' said Mr Laertides quietly. 'They'd think you were a client, or a rep or something.'

  'Exactly. I'd be kissing goodbye to my job, for one thing.'

  Probably because of the angle of the sun slanting through the train window, Mr Laertides's face was in shadow. 'Right,' he said. 'And that'd be a bad thing, of course.'

  The implied yeah, right stopped Paul short like a cow standing dead still on a railway line. 'Well, of course it would,' he said. 'Look, being me isn't a barrel of laughs, but that's who I am. I can't suddenly stop it and go and be someone else.'

  Mr Laertides shrugged just a little. 'You think so,' he said.

  'Oh, for- It doesn't matter what I think. It's not a matter of opinion. It's one of those things, that's all.'

  'I see. So you're resigned to it, in other words. You're so sure, you wouldn't even try something else, even if you had the chance.'

  Paul shook his head. For some reason, Mr Laertides seemed to be having trouble understanding him. 'Look,' he said, 'I'd love a chance of being someone else, like him.' He jerked his head sideways in the direction of the window. 'But it's not possible, so what the hell. Right?'

  'No.'

  It was probably his tone of voice that did it. Paul looked up sharply. 'Sorry?'

  'I said no,' Mr Laertides said. 'Meaning, if you want to be the bloke in the reflection there, that's no problem. Easy bloody peasy. All it'd take,' he added, 'would be for Paul Carpenter to die; and then, gradually and being tactful about it, you could take his place.'