Expecting Someone Taller

by Tom Holt

  ‘Thank you,’ said the girl, ‘but I’d better get on.’

  Malcolm began to feel that something he wanted was slipping through his fingers. ‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

  ‘At the George and Dragon,’ said the girl. ‘I hope that’s all right. Ms Weinburger booked me in there.’

  ‘You could stay here, if you like. There’s masses of room.’ As soon as he spoke the words, Malcolm wished he hadn’t. There was something about this girl that made him feel like a predator, even though such thoughts had not crossed the threshold of his mind. The girl looked at him for about three-quarters of a second (although it seemed much longer). Then she smiled again, an ‘It’s hopeless and we both know that, but . . .’ sort of a smile.

  ‘I’d like that very much,’ she said. ‘If you’re sure it’d be all right.’

  As far as Malcolm was concerned, it could go in the Oxford Dictionary as a definition of all right. ‘I’ll get the housekeeper to get a room ready,’ he said. ‘How long will it take you, do you think?’

  ‘About a week,’ said the girl, ‘if I start today.’

  ‘But aren’t you very tired, after your journey? How did you get here, by the way?’

  ‘I got the train to Taunton and the bus to Combe,’ said the girl.

  Malcolm was shocked to think of a girl like this having to travel by bus and train. He wanted to offer to buy her a car, but she would probably take it the wrong way.

  ‘Did that take long?’ A stupid question, and none of his business. Why should he care how long it took? Oddly enough, the girl didn’t say that. Instead, she answered the question.

  ‘Oh, about three hours. I missed the connection at Taunton, I’m afraid.’

  Try as he might, Malcolm could think of no way of prolonging the conversation. He had no idea what he should say or do next, which was a pity, since he could imagine nothing in the world more important.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’d better let you get on, then. See you later.’

  He left the library and walked slowly back to the drawing-room, bumping into several pieces of furniture on the way. This was awful, and he could see that plainly enough. Real life had caught up with him at last; not in the form of a Customs man or the Inexplicable Phenomena Unit, which he could probably have dealt with, but the juvenile delinquent with the golden arrows who had been making a dartboard of his heart since his voice had broken. This was no Rhinedaughter out of the world of his own in which he had been living and where he was master, but a fellow human being, a person, a potential source of great unhappiness.

  ‘Oh God,’ he moaned. ‘Not again.’

  He sat down on the stairs and looked across at the library door. If he went away, he might miss her coming out, and that would never do. Then it occurred to him that he could make himself invisible and go and watch her cataloguing books, which must surely be the most wonderful sight in the world. He closed his eyes and was lost to sight.

  Beside the unsalubrious waters of the Tone, Flosshilde stood and watched a seagull trying unsuccessfully to catch and eat an abandoned tyre. She knew how it felt, in a way, and out of pure sympathy she smiled at the tyre, which turned itself helpfully into a fish. The seagull, who had known all along that persistence overcomes all obstacles, devoured it thankfully, which was hard luck on the fish but nice for the seagull. You can’t please everybody all the time, Flosshilde reflected, and the relevance of this observation to her own case made her thoughtful.

  Not that she had any logical reason to be anything but happy; but in matters of happiness, logic plays but a small part. First, it was annoying that Malcolm had preferred to spend the day with a stuffy old librarian than a gorgeous Rhinedaughter. Second, it was annoying that she should be annoyed. In fact, it was the latter irritation that was the worse, or so she hoped. The first unpleasant thing was merely a matter of her vanity (she told herself). The second unpleasant thing might have serious consequences for her career. An enamoured Rhinedaughter, like a blind chauffeur, is unlikely to progress far in her chosen profession. Try as she might, however, she was unable to feel greatly concerned about the prospect, and that was worse still . . .

  ‘Bother,’ she said.

  Wellgunde, who had been circling slowly under the surface, jumped up onto the bank. ‘Get you,’ she said. ‘All dressed up and nowhere to go.’

  Flosshilde put her tongue out, but Wellgunde ignored her. ‘I thought you’d have been out with your friend,’ she said, shaking the water out of her hair.

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ replied Flosshilde.

  ‘Playing hard to get, are you?’

  At that particular moment, Flosshilde would have liked to be able to turn her sister into a narrowboat. ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do?’ she said wearily.

  ‘I’m keeping you company,’ replied Wellgunde. ‘You look as though you could do with cheering up.’

  ‘I’m perfectly cheerful, thank you,’ said Flosshilde coldly.

  ‘It must be wonderful to be in love,’ cooed Wellgunde. ‘I’m terribly jealous.’

  ‘I’m not in any such thing,’ snapped her sister. ‘But I can understand you being jealous.’

  Wellgunde took out a mirror and examined herself lovingly. ‘You’re only young once, I suppose,’ she said. ‘You go ahead and enjoy yourself. Don’t you worry about us.’

  Flosshilde frowned. Sisters can be very annoying at times.

  ‘Don’t let it worry you that if you go off with this Ring-Bearer of yours, we’ll never get our Ring back ever. Don’t let it cross your mind that the Ring is all we’ve got, since we haven’t got dashing boyfriends who have to disguise themselves as other people if they ever want to get anywhere.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’

  ‘We’re your sisters, after all. We don’t want to stand in your way for a second. And if you think it’s worth it, you go ahead. Well, since you’re not going to be busy this afternoon, you might put a duster round the riverbed. It was your turn yesterday, but you were out.’

  ‘Oh, go away,’ said Flosshilde rudely.

  ‘I’m going,’ said Wellgunde placidly. ‘I only popped up to tell you that while you’ve been moping about, we’ve been working.’

  ‘I thought you said you were going to leave him alone.’

  ‘We haven’t been persecuting your precious darling, if that’s what you mean. We’ve been chatting with Thought and Memory.’

  ‘How fascinating.’

  ‘Yes, it was rather. Apparently, they’ve been watching Combe Hall all day, and your friend was having ever such a long chat with an extremely nice-looking girl.’

  Any doubts Flosshilde might have had about her feelings for Malcolm were dispelled by this news. She went as white as a sheet.

  ‘Of course, they can’t read his thoughts because he’s the Ring-Bearer, so they can’t be sure, but to listen to those two you don’t have to be able to read thoughts to see what your friend thinks of his new friend. Written all over his silly face, they said.’

  ‘That’s nice for him,’ Flosshilde said, very quietly.

  ‘Well,’ said Wellgunde, ‘it’s not so nice for us, is it? What if he gives her the Ring? Where would we all be then?’

  Flosshilde said something extremely disrespectful about the Ring and dived into the Tone, leaving Wellgunde looking very pleased with herself. Perhaps, mused the eldest of the Rhinedaughters, she hadn’t told her sister the whole truth, but then, she had gone off in a huff without giving her a chance. Her conscience was clear . . .

  After spending the whole afternoon lugging heavy books about, Malcolm imagined, she would be sure to want a rest and possibly a drink. He wished he could have helped her, but that would have looked pointed, since one does not buy a dog and bark oneself. Besides, if he had materialised out of thin air and said ‘Can I carry that for you?’ she would probably have had a fit; another of the problems associated with dealing with a real person.

  She was certainly conscientious, and Malcolm a
dmired that, but she had carried on with her work for a very long time. When finally she seemed to be about to call it a day, Malcolm transported himself back to the stairs and wondered what on earth he was to do next. It seemed like hours before the library door opened, and still he hadn’t thought of anything. He stood up quickly, and tried to look as if he was just passing.

  ‘Finished for the day?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ she said, and smiled again. This smile, a sort of ‘If only . . . but no’ smile, wiped Malcolm’s mind clean of thoughts and words, and he stood gawping at her as if she was the one who had suddenly appeared out of thin air.

  ‘Are you sure it’s no trouble for me to stay here?’ she said.

  ‘No, of course not. I told the housekeeper to phone the George and Dragon.’

  ‘Thank you, then,’ she said.

  ‘I took your suitcase up to your room,’ he went on, as if this act had been comparable to saving her from drowning. ‘And I’ve told the cook you’ll be having dinner . . . If that’s all right, I mean.’

  That was not how he had meant to suggest that she should have dinner with him. He had wanted to suggest it casually. He had wanted many things in his life, and got very few of them. But the girl did not seem to mind. She said, ‘Are you sure that’s all right?’ and Malcolm felt a tiny flicker of impatience within his raging heart, but it passed very quickly.

  ‘It must be nice having a cook,’ she said.

  Malcolm felt the need to defend himself against a charge of hedonism. ‘I’m afraid I’m a dreadful cook,’ he said. ‘And she sort of came with the place.’

  The girl said nothing, and Malcolm forced some more words into his mouth, grabbing the first ones that came to hand.

  ‘You know how it is,’ he burbled, ‘these great big houses.’

  Utter drivel of course, but she seemed not to notice. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we used to live in a huge old house. It was dreadfully difficult to keep it clean and warm.’

  She seemed unwilling to expand on this point, and they walked on in silence. Malcolm had no idea where they were going, but that did not seem to matter very much.

  ‘Was it as big as this? Your house, I mean.’ Any more of this, Malcolm thought, and I shall bite my tongue off.

  ‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘It kept me and my sisters very busy.’

  ‘You’ve got sisters, then?’ he went on, as if that were the most remarkable thing that he had ever heard.

  ‘Eight,’ said the girl. ‘It’s a large family. Are you sure it’s all right me staying to dinner? I mean, you haven’t got people coming or anything?’

  ‘No,’ Malcolm said, ‘really. Shall we go and sit in the drawing-room?’

  The girl was silent, as if thinking this over very carefully. ‘Yes,’ she said at last.

  It was at this point that it occurred to Malcolm that he hadn’t read her thoughts, to see if by any chance they resembled his, no matter how remotely. But he found that he didn’t want to. It seemed somehow indecent, for she was not a God or a Rhinedaughter, but a human being. Besides, if she wasn’t thinking along the same lines as he was, he really didn’t want to know.

  ‘You speak English very well,’ she said, as Malcolm eventually found the drawing-room.

  ‘Thank you,’ Malcolm said, deeply touched, and only just managed to stop himself from returning the compliment. ‘I went to school in England,’ he said, truthfully. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said the girl, looking down at her feet.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’

  Malcolm was sure, but he felt it would be superfluous to say so. ‘What can I get you?’ he asked.

  ‘A small sherry, please.’

  Malcolm poured out a small sherry - very small, as it turned out, for he did not want her to think he was trying to get her drunk. ‘Is that enough?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s fine.’ Another smile, this time a ‘We can’t go on like this, you know’ smile.

  ‘So how long have you been cataloguing?’

  ‘About two years,’ said the girl. That seemed to put the seal on that particular subject.

  ‘I suppose it’s like being a librarian,’ Malcolm went on, and he reckoned that digging peat was probably easier work than making conversation under these circumstances. The girl agreed that it was very like being a librarian.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked, and Malcolm found that he could not remember. He had to think hard before he replied. Afterwards, there was a long silence, during which the girl drank a quarter of her small sherry. The temptation to read her thoughts was very strong, but Malcolm resisted it. It wouldn’t be fair.

  ‘So how do you set about cataloguing a library?’ he asked. The girl told him, and that took up at least three minutes, during which time Malcolm was able to collect what remained of his thoughts. Summoning up all his powers of imagination, he compiled a list of questions and topics which might, with a great deal of luck, get them through dinner.

  In the event, they nearly did, although Malcolm had to use a great deal of ingenuity. Why did he find it so easy to talk to Flosshilde, who was only a friend, and so difficult to keep a conversation going with the most wonderful person in the world? There was only one topic that he couldn’t mention; on the other hand, it was the one topic he did want to discuss with her. Instead, they mostly seemed to talk about libraries, a subject that Malcolm had never given much consideration to in the past. At about half-past nine, even this theme collapsed into silence, and Malcolm resigned himself to yet another disappointment. The girl was obviously nervous and ill at ease; scarcely to be wondered at. She had come here to do a straightforward job of work, the job she had trained to do and at which she was no doubt highly competent, and instead of being allowed to go to a comfortable hotel where she could take her shoes off and read a good book, she had been compelled to listen to his inane ramblings. She must think he was mad. Certainly, she wouldn’t be there in the morning. At first light, she would unlock her door and make a run for it, or climb out of the window down a rope of sheets. It was all unbearably sad, and as a human being he was a complete and utter failure. He had made the mistake of treating a normal, grown-up woman from the twentieth century as if she was something out of a romantic story, and he deserved all the heartbreak he was undoubtedly going to get.

  ‘I expect you’re very tired,’ he said abruptly, ‘after the journey and a hard day’s work. I’ll show you to your room.’

  They tracked up the stairs in silence. It was still light outside, but she could read a book or something until it was time to go to sleep. At least he wasn’t sending her to bed without any supper.

  ‘Good night, then,’ she said, and she smiled at him for the last time that day. It was a smile you could take a photograph by, and it said, ‘I like you very much and it’s a pity you think I’m so boring, but there we go.’ The door closed in front of the embers of it, and Malcolm stood in the hall opening and shutting his eyes. To hell with being fair. He located her thoughts and read them. Then he read them again, just to be sure. Then he read them again, because he liked them so much.

  ‘Well I’m damned,’ he said slowly to himself. ‘Well I never.’

  Then he went to bed.

  The two ravens floated down and perched on the roof of the Mercedes. Wotan put his head out of the window and said ‘Well?’

  ‘They’ve gone to bed,’ said Thought.

  ‘Separately,’ said Memory.

  ‘But not to worry,’ said Thought. ‘She’s doing all right.’

  Wotan frowned. ‘But he can read her thoughts,’ said Wotan. ‘He’ll just look into her mind and then it’ll be all over. He’ll chuck her out so fast she’ll bounce all the way down the drive.’

  Memory chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t worry on that score,’ he croaked. ‘He’s dead meat. Head over heels.’

  ‘And even if he does,’ said his partner, ‘he’ll only make things worse
for himself. I had a quick look myself.’

  ‘Oh.’ Wotan was baffled. ‘You can’t mean she fancies him?’

  ‘Something rotten,’ said Thought. ‘You wouldn’t read about it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s marvellous,’ Wotan said, disgusted. ‘Now I’ll never get the perishing thing back.’

  ‘Relax,’ said Memory. ‘You know her. Duty must come first, even if it means betraying the man she truly loves.’

  ‘Especially if it means betraying the man she loves,’ said Thought. ‘She’s a real chip off the old block, that girl.’

  Wotan was forced to agree. Of all his eight surviving daughters, the Valkyrie Ortlinde most resembled her father in her capacity for self-torture. She would revel in it. Most of all, she would enjoy blaming him afterwards.

  ‘We’ve cracked it,’ said Wotan.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Alberich loathed travelling by air. This was partly the natural prejudice of one who had lived most of his life underground, partly because the food that they serve you on little plastic trays with hollow mouldings to hold the ketchup gave him violent indigestion. But he was a businessman, and businessmen have to travel on aircraft. Since there seemed to be no prospect of progress in his quest for the Ring, he had thought it would be as well if he went back to Germany for a week to see what sort of a mess his partners were making of his mining consultancy. He had no interest in the work itself, but it provided his bread and butter; if it did not exactly keep the wolf from the door, it had enabled him to have a wolf-flap fitted so that the beast could come in and out without disturbing people.

  As luck would have it, he had been given a seat by the window, and he looked aimlessly out over the world that by rights should have been his. If he had had any say in its running, there would have been fewer cities and more forests. He let his attention wander for a moment.