Earth, Air, Fire & Custard Tom Holt

by Earth, Air, Fire

  Insensitive and immature he might have been, but Paul reckoned he knew Sophie quite well, well enough to predict what her reaction would be if he burst out laughing at this juncture. On the other hand, what with one thing and another, it'd been some time since he'd had a good laugh, and if anything in the whole world was genuinely, delightfully funny, it was the expression on her face- Screw it, Paul thought; and then the laughter took over.

  He was still laughing when Sophie jumped up, knocking over her chair, and fled; through the door and out into the street, with the end of her hair still in her mouth, entwined with spaghetti like ivy and Russian vine. Then he tried to pull himself together, but only because people were staring. More joy in heaven, he thought as he dragged money out of his wallet and dropped it on the table; he didn't dare try and finish his meal, for fear of choking to death. He found his way out into the street, leaned against a wall and laughed until he felt his stomach muscles twanging like guitar strings.

  'So you fed them,' said Mr Laertides, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. 'Then what?'

  Paul hesitated. By rights, of course, he ought to tell his boss the whole story. For all he knew, the business with Sophie vanishing and being replaced by Colin the goblin was the entire point of the experiment. The fact was, however, that there were elements of the story he didn't feel like explaining; how he'd first come across Colin, for example. Also, in spite of or perhaps precisely because of how helpful and nice Mr Laertides had been to him, he still didn't trust him as far as he could sneeze him through a blocked nostril. 'Nothing much,' he therefore replied. 'It was lunchtime, so we had lunch-'

  'Where?'

  'Some pasta place just across the road. Can't remember what it was called, sorry.'

  'Pasta,' Mr Laertides replied. 'Never got on with the stuff myself, I have to admit. Irrational, I know, but I never could drum up any enthusiasm for eating string. Give me a nice bacon sandwich any day. So then what?'

  'Then we came back here,' Paul said.

  'That's all?'

  'Yes.'

  'Oh.' Mr Laertides shrugged. 'Well, we can't expect miracles. All right, here's what I want you to do this afternoon.' He leaned forward, grabbed a copy of the Evening Standard off his desk, and opened it. 'Odeon, Tottenham Court Road. Programme starts 2.30 - but that means there's twenty minutes of trailers and mobile-phone adverts, so really it means ten to three, which ought to give you plenty of time. Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe. Do a pink form when you get back for the tickets and popcorn.'

  Tickets, plural, Paul noticed. 'Hang on,' he said. 'You want me to go to the pictures?'

  Mr Laertides nodded. 'It's extremely important,' he replied, 'especially in light of this morning. Yes, I think it's got to be done. You'll need to take someone with you, of course.'

  Paul stared at him. 'Will I?'

  'Well, of course. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any point, the whole thing'd be a waste of time. Tell you what,' he went on, 'you might as well get that Pettingell female to go with you. Theo can manage on his own for one afternoon.'

  Paul breathed out slowly through his nose before answering. 'Actually,' he said, 'that might not be a good idea. We, um, I think I might have offended her, when we were doing the ducks thing.'

  'Really? What did you do? Make a pass at her?'

  He wasn't sure why that made him so angry. Possibly the casual way Mr Laertides said it, as though Paul was the sort of person who went around making passes at girls, rather than just wanting to but not having the courage. 'No, of course I bloody didn't,' he said.

  Mr Laertides shrugged. 'All right,' he said, 'keep your hair on. So what did you do?'

  'I laughed.'

  'Laughed?'

  Paul nodded. 'She got a bit of her hair wound round her fork, along with the spaghetti. She didn't think it was very funny.'

  'Silly cow.' Mr Laertides grinned. 'Really, she did that? What happened?'

  'Anyway,' Paul said firmly, 'I don't think she'd want to go to the pictures with me after that. Not even if it's work.'

  'She'll bloody well go if I tell her to,' Mr Laertides said. 'First rule of business, don't let your personal feelings and antipathies get in the way of the job.'

  'Yes, right,' Paul said appeasingly. 'That's so true, yes. But if it s all the same to you - I mean, if she's sitting there feeling all sullen and resentful, then she won't be concentrating properly on, well, whatever it is we're there for. Will she?'

  'I suppose not,' Mr Laertides replied. 'All right, find someone else.'

  'Right,' Paul said; then, 'Who, though?' He paused. 'I suppose I could ask Mr Shumway.'

  'No,' Mr Laertides said quickly. 'No, that'd be no good, he has to go and do the banking at four. Look, it doesn't necessarily have to be someone from the office, even. Don't you know any girls who'd-?' He hesitated. 'No, of course not, I keep forgetting you're dead, so you don't know anybody much.'

  Paul frowned. 'I suppose there's always Mr Tanner's mother,' he said.

  'No, absolutely not. I mean, she's needed on reception. Look, are you quite sure about the Pettingell girl? I'm sure if you apologise nicely-'

  'No, really. I'll think of someone, I'm sure,' Paul added hopefully. 'Half-past two, did you say? In that case, I'd better be going.'

  Mr Laertides nodded. 'No need to come back here when the film's finished,' he said. 'See you in the morning, all right?'

  Paul was halfway to the street when the obvious answer struck him. He turned left and walked down the corridor to his office.

  He hadn't been in there since he'd died and resurrected himself as Phil Marlow, so he wasn't prepared for what he found, which was nothing at all. The room had been stripped bare of contents; they'd even taken up the carpet and removed the light bulb. The only thing left was the phone, resting on the floor with its flex curled up round it like a cat's tail. He knelt down and dialled Vicky's extension.

  'Hello,' he said. 'I, um, need someone to help with something. Are you free?'

  'Well, I'm hardly rushed off my feet,' Vicky's voice replied. 'You haven't actually given me any work to do since you arrived. What have I got to do?'

  A surge of embarrassment powerful enough to swamp a tropical atoll swept through Paul, and he replied, 'It's a bit complicated. Come down to my office, I'll tell you when you get here.'

  Slight pause. 'Your office. You mean Mr Laer-'

  'No, my office. Paul Carpenter's old room. I suppose it's my office - nobody else seems to want it for anything.'

  Less than a minute later, Vicky knocked at the door and came in. Today she had her hair pinned and combed on one side, swept over her shoulder on the other. She smiled at him and said, 'Well?'

  'First.' Paul took a step away from her, felt the wall against his back. 'First, I've got to tell you, this isn't my idea. In fact, it's a direct order from Mr Laertides, it's like vitally important for the job he's doing. Honest,' he added. 'You can ask him if you don't-'

  'Hold it,' she interrupted. 'What is this thing you want me to do? You said you'd explain.'

  'Yes, right.' Paul stopped, tried to appear calm, cool, at peace with the world. 'Look, Mr Laertides says I've got to go to Tottenham Court Road-'

  'Right, got you. I'll have to just nip back upstairs and fetch my coat.'

  'And watch a film,' Paul went on. 'Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe. And-' No way to cushion the shock, better just to blurt it out and have done. 'And I've got to take someone with me. And the person I first thought of wouldn't want to go, so I thought I'd ask you. Of course, if you're busy-'

  'Not likely.' She grinned. 'Stay there, I'll be right back.'

  The medicine, Paul muttered to himself as the door closed behind him; thank God for the medicine, or we'd be in real trouble here. It wasn't just that Vicky had somehow managed to grow even lovelier since he'd seen her last - he was used to that sort of thing thanks to Mr Tanner's mum, and he was practically immune; it was the sheer enthusiasm she'd displayed at the thought of going o
ut with him. (Hold it there, he commanded himself; just because we're going somewhere and it's out of the office, that doesn't make it going out.) It had never been like that with Sophie, that unalloyed cheerfulness. With Sophie, it had always been a case of the two of them facing up to the unavoidable fact that they loved each other; along the lines of we're both in this mess, so we'd better pull together, bit between the teeth, shoulders to the wheel, and make the best of it. Happiness hadn't really been a factor, apart from a very solemn sort of happiness that an uninformed outsider could well have mistaken for stoical resignation. But Vicky had practically bounced out of the room, like Zebedee in The Magic Roundabout. Of course, a career victim might be led astray by that into thinking that she actually liked him, which would in turn inevitably lead to infatuation, rejection, heartbreak- Would it, though? What if she did actually like him? The thought hit Paul like a kick from a mule. Now that he'd ditched Paul Carpenter and replaced him with handsome, confident, relaxed Phil Marlow, it was no longer utterly unthinkable that a girl might just possibly like him a bit, or even a bit plus; in which case there might be something rather more desirable than rejection and heartbreak waiting for him at the bottom of Life's cereal packet. Except, of course, that Paul Carpenter had taken the medicine, which meant Phil Marlow was incapable of falling in love- Sod it, Paul thought, and looked round for something expendable to hit, but of course the room was empty.

  'I'm ready.' Vicky was standing in the doorway, smiling at him, and for a moment he thought that maybe the medicine was starting to wear off; but he looked at her again and realised that what he'd thought might be the first flash of love's refining fire was probably only very mild indigestion. As he muttered, 'We'd better be going, then,' and shooed her out of the room, a little voice in the back of his mind asked him if his reaction would have been different if it had been Sophie standing in the doorway smiling. Luckily, he knew where listening to voices in one's head could lead to, and ignored it.

  It wasn't a bad film, but Paul hadn't enjoyed it much. The producers had done their best, filling the screen with hurtling cars, chattering machine-guns and great big explosions with cauliflowers of orange and red fire (it was, after all, a romantic comedy), but they failed to engage his interest; he was far more concerned with the presence in the seat next to him. Even when the gunfire and detonations were at their loudest, he was sure that he could hear the sound of her breathing, maybe even the slow beat of her heart. His general well-being wasn't helped by agonising cramp caused by sitting absolutely still, to avoid any possibility of accidental bodily contact.

  It was a long film, but not nearly long enough. As far as Paul was concerned, it raced along like the last day of the holidays, every passing second bringing closer the awful moment when the lights came up, and one or other of them would inevitably suggest rounding things off by going for a pizza. Even as poor Mr Crowe was locked in hand-to-hand combat with the villain twenty thousand feet in the air on the wing of a speeding 747, Paul had his eyes shut, to help him concentrate as he struggled to come up with an excuse that wouldn't sound too excruciatingly fatuous. Appointment with doctor, ditto dentist, optician, physiotherapist; birthday party for parent, sibling, friend; got to go back to the office and work was a non-starter, Vicky knew he didn't have anything to do because she was nominally his personal assistant. He was considering the merits of folding up like a dead spider and dropping to the ground, clutching his stomach and groaning - all right, so they might rush him into hospital and whip out his appendix, but that had to be preferable - when the lights came up and the screen was suddenly full of the names of assistant cameramen and location-unit accountants. He shot up out of his seat like toast from a toaster, and said, 'Sorry, but I've got to get back home, they're delivering a new fridge-freezer,' before he realised she hadn't said a word.

  'Oh,' Vicky said. 'Right. Well, see you at the office tomorrow, then.' A few minutes later, Paul was standing in the Tottenham Court Road, alone apart from a quarter-million or so irrelevant and harmless strangers embarking on the evening homeward lemming-run. Against all the odds, he'd made it. Carpenter 1, Cupid 0.

  That, he felt, called for a celebratory drink. He chose a pub doorway at random, oozed his way through the crush to the bar and eventually managed to get his hands on a full pint (moderation was for wimps) of ginger-beer shandy, which he carried off to an empty, smoke-shrouded corner. It was only once he'd finished his drink that he realised just how thirsty he was; but it had been dry work, sitting absolutely still in a confined place trying not to breathe too loudly. Paul fought his way back to the bar for a repeat prescription. The second pint made him feel much more lively. That suggested that it must be doing him some good, in which case it was practically his duty to have a couple more, so he did; at which point, boozer's relativity caught up with him, and he realised that what he needed most in the world was fresh air and a wall that kept still while he was leaning on it.

  There must have been something wrong with the fresh air, because as soon as Paul left the pub, something else seemed to have gone wrong with his legs; furthermore, the wall he chose for support turned out to be one of those pesky slithering-about types. As a result, through no fault of his own, he staggered, tripped and cannoned into a small, bald, round-headed man who happened to be passing by.

  'Steady on,' the man said, in an American accent; fortunately, he didn't seem to mind being trodden on, because he grinned pleasantly. Maybe he'd had trouble with slithery walls himself.

  'Sorry,' Paul said; and then it occurred to him that the man's face was familiar. 'Hold on,' he said, 'I know you from somewhere.'

  'Do you?'

  'Sure I do. Seen you somewhere just recently.' He frowned. 'That's it, you're whatsit with the funny name. Shop. Toothbrushes and antique furniture.'

  The man frowned. 'We met in a shop selling toothbrushes?'

  'No, no.' Paul shook his head, which must've provoked the wall somehow, because it shifted most inconveniently. Also, the pavement started playing up, probably in sympathy with the wall. 'Your shop. You got a shop selling toothbrushes and old pictures and stuff.'

  'I don't think so,' the man said. 'And I'm sure I'd be aware of it if I did.'

  Carefully, Paul detached himself from the wall, took a cautious step forward and examined the man closely. 'No disrespect,' he said, 'but you're wrong there. It's you, definitely.'

  The man raised his eyebrows. 'Well, I can agree with you on that score, because I am definitely me. It's the shop bit I'm having trouble with. Still, there you are. That's the thing I like about this country, there's scope for a wide range of different opinions.'

  It occurred to Paul that it wasn't the end of the world, even if the man wasn't prepared to admit to being the shopkeeper. Maybe he was self-conscious about it or something. 'Doesn't matter,' he said magnanimously. 'Not to worry. Sorry about your foot.

  The man shrugged. 'It's okay,' he said, 'I've got two.'

  'That's all right, then. Cheers.'

  The man smiled and walked away, and Paul shifted along a bit, in search of stabler walls and less stroppy pavements. It was odd, he thought; not that it figured tremendously in the vast overarching scheme of things, but the man he'd bumped into was quite definitely the man from the toothbrush shop, Mr, Mr Thing, Mr- Palaeologus. For some reason he couldn't quite pronounce it, even speaking wordlessly to his inner ear, but he could sort of see the word in his head. Funny sort of a name; but that was Americans for you. Paul had been an earnest student of international affairs all his life, and nothing the Yanks got up to surprised him any more.

  The pavements were against him all the way to the bus stop -a bit uncalled-for, he felt, since all he'd done was brush up against a wall who happened to be a friend of theirs. He fell asleep on the bus and woke up just in time to scramble out at his stop. While he'd been dozing the pavements had apparently found it in their stony hearts to forgive him, because they stayed more or less level as far as his front door. On the other hand, he'd got a
bit of a headache, doubtless because he'd had his head at a funny angle or something of the sort. He trudged up the stairs and let himself in, but the lights weren't working. Fuse blown, he diagnosed instantly. Bugger.

  But that was all right. Paul knew where the fuse box was, and all you had to do was look at a row of switches till you found the one that'd flipped itself down. There was just enough light seeping in from the street-lamps to see by, and he hopped up on a kitchen chair to investigate. Remarkably, he found that all the fuses must've blown simultaneously, because all the switches were pointing the same way. Freak power surge, he decided, probably a powerful electric storm. He flipped them all over, climbed down and tried the lights, which still didn't work. Funny.

  'Silly,' said a voice. 'It's the bulb that's gone, not the fuse. And now you've turned them all off, so nothing works.'

  'Ah, right,' Paul replied, feeling a trifle foolish. 'I'll just put them back, then.' He clambered back onto the chair, did the switches and then thought, Just a second: voice?

  'Hello?' he said cautiously. 'Who's that?'

  'Me,' the voice replied. 'Over here.' 'I can't see you.'

  'That's because the bulb's gone, you pinhead.'