by Tom Holt
He kneeled down beside her and prodded her tentatively on the point of the shoulder. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Excuse me, but would you mind very much waking up?’
No reply. Of course, he was used to girls ignoring him, it was one of the main default settings in his life, but just for once it would’ve been nice to have been pleasantly surprised. He sat down on the floor and looked at his watch. Almost midnight; and today was Tuesday. That meant Terry and Joanne, from the flat above his, would be back any minute from wherever it was they went on Tuesday nights. He reconsidered his options and found a third one he’d somehow overlooked. Flight.
Nothing simpler: go upstairs, double-lock the door and leave all the lights off. Stay like that for a couple of days, so people would assume he’d gone away for a while. One thing he was fairly sure of, nobody who knew him would think of his name in the context of abandoned nude girls. It was the obvious, sensible thing to do. Someone would call the police or the social services or whoever dealt with cases like this; they’d come and collect her, take her to a hospital or something of the sort, she’d get the finest medical treatment the Health Service could provide, followed by expert psychiatric care— Well, quite. She’d wake up and start demanding explanations in perfect Elizabethan English. She’d tell them she was Philippa Levens, Marchioness of Ipswich. When they didn’t believe her, she’d probably lose her rag and threaten to turn them into frogs. It didn’t take much in the way of imagination to figure out where she’d end up after that. But that wasn’t his problem, or at least it didn’t have to be, because, unlike her, he had the option to run away. Dammit, it wasn’t even his last chance; he still had several dozen hairs left from the lock, there was nothing to stop him doing it all over again, having given a little more thought to basic logistics and having made suitable preparations.
Indeed.
‘Please wake up,’ David hissed, prodding her shoulder quite hard this time. Still nothing. Might as well prod a sofa cushion (except that sofa cushions didn’t bruise).
He stood up and straightened his back. The truth was that he only had one option.
First things first. He grabbed her ankles — throughout, it should be borne in mind, he was at all times painfully aware that she wasn’t wearing anything apart from a few smears of green slime — and wheeled her round so that her head and shoulders were resting on the bottom stair. That was hard enough work in itself for someone who wasn’t used to lifting anything heavier than a computer monitor. Then, trying to remember the angles and handholds he’d seen Honest John using, he hopped up a few stairs, turned round, crouched down and very tentatively slipped his hands under her armpits. The feel of her skin against his was very strange and disconcerting; partly because of the slime, partly because of other factors he really didn’t want to stop and think about at that particular time.
In fact, she wasn’t quite as heavy as he’d anticipated: he could just about manage, one stair at a time. He’d never had any use for his physical strength before, what there was of it. He was, after all, a creature of intellect rather than brute muscle, a thinker, a dreamer, proud to be weedy. There had always been men in overalls to deal with this sort of thing, and his part in the order of things was to provide employment for the poor, unreasoning creatures. He could’ve used a couple of them right now (except, of course, that he couldn’t have) but there weren’t any around when he really needed them, so he had no choice but to find a way of managing. Amazingly, he managed.
Piece of cake, really.
His back foot slipped, and suddenly he was heading downstairs again on his bum, covering distance considerably faster than he’d been able to the last time he passed that way. He let go with one hand and grabbed for a banister rail. The tug on his shoulder nearly dislocated his arm, but at least they’d stopped going bump-bump-bump like Winnie the Pooh. That was, however, the best that could be said of their situation. Single-handed, he couldn’t haul her back up even one step. If he let go of the banister, he’d be headed for the bottom of the stairs at warp speed. To summarise, (always a great talent of his, getting straight to the heart of the problem) it was one minute to midnight on his birthday and he was stuck.
Having no better way to pass the time, David traced the slender thread of causality that connected him to the relatively carefree young idiot who’d woken up that morning and decided to screw up his entire life beyond all possible hope of recovery. At every stage, he realised, he’d peeled off and discarded whole handfuls of options, second chances, possible means of salvation, until he’d arrived here, halfway up his own stairs, with a banister rail in one hand and a naked clone in the other. One minute to midnight, on the first day of a new year in his life. Having no choice in the matter, he stayed as still as he could and waited for it to become Wednesday. ‘Happy birthday to me’, he sang quietly under his breath; but in his heart he knew it was fairly unlikely.
‘Hello,’ said a voice behind him. ‘Mind if I squeeze past?’
It was only pure instinct that stopped David from letting go of the banister. He tried to turn his head so as to get a look at whoever it was, but his neck wouldn’t unscrew far enough.
‘Oh,’ the voice went on, ‘I see, you’re a bit stuck, aren’t you? Hold still, I’ll see what I can do.’
Two hands like mole wrenches clamped on to his shoulders and he felt himself rising a short way into the air, like a Harrier; then he was sitting securely on a stair instead of dangling by one rapidly fading wrist; one of the wrenches let go of his shoulder and an arm in grey worsted brushed past his face, pushing it gently to one side. ‘There you go,’ the voice said, and he realised he could get his hand back under the clone’s armpit.
‘Thank you,’ he said automatically (good manners are like Russian vine, you can never quite get rid of them); then he looked up.
The man was wearing a smart business suit, crisp white shirt and shiny black brogues. His hair was short, pepper-and-salt, with a distinct curl just above the collar. There was a nasty mess like a pink fried egg where his left eye should have been. The voice was different.
‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ the man went on. ‘I’m Bill Van Oppen, I’ve just moved into the flat above yours. It was quite sudden,’ he added, with a smile that (for some reason) turned David’s stomach. ‘I’m in computers.’
Recovery time improves with practice. ‘Have you got a brother?’ David asked.
‘Several,’ replied Mr Van Oppen. ‘Look, I don’t want to intrude, but do you need a hand with that?’
Well, it was an option; nevertheless, David had an overwhelming sensation of being about to sign something he hadn’t been given a chance to read. But— ‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind.’ ‘Pleasure,’ said Mr Van Oppen. He was obviously stronger than he looked, or else he’d been professionally trained. One fluent bending motion and he had the clone in his arms, like Snow White being gathered up by her prince. ‘If you wouldn’t mind going on ahead and getting the door open?’
While he did as he was told, David was thinking: So if you’re Mr Van Oppen, and the other one was Mr Dean; and I don’t know what Honest John’s surname is, but I’m guessing it’s not Dean or Van Oppen... How many more of you are there, for crying out loud? He reached for the light switch, then thought better of it.
‘There you are,’ Mr Van Oppen said cheerfully, walking past David to the sofa and putting down his burden with a light, careful touch. ‘Mind if I use your bathroom? My hands are a bit slimy.’
He knew where the bathroom was without asking, just as he’d found the sofa in the dark, without even seeming to look. David heard the taps shooshing.
‘My God, is that the time?’ Mr Van Oppen rematerialised in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. ‘I’d better be cutting along, I’m late enough as it is. I expect I’ll be seeing you about the place from time to time. Nice to have met you.’
The door closed behind him, and David waited for five seconds before putting his bac
k to the wall and sliding down it until he was crouched on his heels in the dark. He listened, but all he could hear was breathing; his own, and a steady purring from the sofa. Sooner or later she was going to wake up (unless he killed her, smothered her with a cushion; after all, nobody even knew she existed, and wouldn’t it save a lot of fuss, in the long run? No, not even close to being an option) and once she was awake, one way or another his life was going to be extremely fraught for a while. But, at least for now, he had a brief interlude of peace and quiet, enough time to think of some way out of this mess— Well, he could tell her the truth (assuming the language barrier wasn’t insuperable). He could tell her the truth, sure; he could also run himself a nice bath and jump into it while holding the switched-on toaster. Fortunately, he didn’t have to do either. Instead, he could create a rather less provocative alternative, and who would there be to contradict him?
I was walking through the park, near the pond, and I heard this splash... So I ran over and there you were in the water, floundering about in that stagnant bit at the end, where it’s so deep. I think you must’ve bashed your head when you fell in; that’s probably why you can’t remember. Sorry, I looked but I couldn’t see your clothes anywhere. So why did I bring you all the way up here, instead of calling an ambulance? Well...
He shook his head and thumbed the ‘reset’ button on his imagination.
I was just about to get into bed when I heard this awful thump out there on the landing. So I opened the door and there you were, lying on the floor. Sorry, no idea what happened to your clothes. The green slime? Search me...
He frowned. At a pinch, it might just do, depending on how well he put it across. But surely he could do better.
So I looked out and there was this amazingly bright light up in the sky, and this big silvery dish thing was sort of hanging in the air; and a flap opened in the underside, and this dazzling blue beam...
... For God’s sake, it’s bad enough being burgled, at least you could have the common decency to put some clothes on when you break into someone’s flat. All right, yes, so I crept up behind you and smashed the goldfish bowl over your head; what was I expected to do, finding someone creeping round in the middle of the night...?
... Excuse me, but have you got any idea what’s going on? No, I just woke up myself. Never seen this place before in my life. God, my head hurts, I guess someone bashed me.
Oh boy. Doesn’t Nigel throw the wildest parties...?
He thought about all of them and swept them into his mental trash. That just left the truth. All right, so let’s just run through that and see if it sounds any better.
... I’ve been in love with you ever since I was a kid, even though you’ve been dead for four hundred years, so I cloned you from a lock of your hair. Hope that’s OK.
... You were dead. I brought you back to life. And here’s me thinking you might be just a little bit grateful...
... Hey, you know what? You’re even cuter than you look in your portrait. Will you marry me?
Slowly he shook his head. The fact had to be faced: all Mr Blair’s horses and all Mr Blair’s men couldn’t get a decent spin on this one. He stood up and plodded into the bathroom, looking for his towelling robe. It might just help if she had something to drape round herself.
When he came back, she was sitting up on the sofa. And the light was on.
‘But...’ he said. She looked at him.
‘Date,’ she said.
So that was what she sounded like. Of course, he could tell she was having a bit of trouble with her voice; she spoke like you do when you’ve been to the dentist, and half your face is dead and feels like it’s been blown up with a bicycle pump. But there was enough voice there to give a fairly good idea; lower than he’d expected, and gorgeous...
‘Date,’ she repeated angrily.
Date. Date. Date, for pity’s sake. Could mean the kind of date you eat; possibly a rather direct way of asking him if he fancied dinner or a movie sometime, but he doubted that. Date. Oh, right, yes, date— ‘It’s, um.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Wednesday, thirteenth of March.’
She scowled impatiently. ‘Year.’
‘2002.’
‘Wussat?’
‘2002.’
She paused for a moment, thinking. (He knew the feeling: brain clogged up with little wispy strands of sleep.) Then she grinned. ‘Yippee!’ she said.
‘Yippee?’
‘Good,’ she explained, beaming, and hopped to her feet. She staggered. ‘Much better,’ she added. ‘Gimme.’
‘Gimme?’
‘That.’ She reached out, slightly unsteady on her feet, and grabbed the robe from his hands. ‘Get lost,’ she added.
‘Ah. Right.’
‘Now.’
‘Um. All right, then. I’ll be in the—’
‘Now.’
‘Right. Sure.’ He turned round (he could feel his face burning, like a bombed oilfield) and strode into the bathroom, straight-legged like John Cleese. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it.
Huh? he thought.
Well. From one perspective at least, it had all gone much, much better than he’d dared to expect. From another— He thought about Mr Dean, and Honest John, and Mr Van Oppen. Was it just conceivably possible that someone was taking him for a mug?
‘Hairbrush!’
He opened the door just a little. ‘Sorry?’
‘Hairbrush!’
A frown folded his face. ‘Sorry,’ he repeated, ‘would you like me to get you a—?’
‘Forget it.’ She wrenched the door from his grip. She was wearing his bathrobe, and a smile you could have poured on strawberries. ‘Bath first. Go away.’
The door closed, with her on the inside, and once again he heard the sound of whooshing taps, followed by an angel singing:
‘My old man’s a dustman,
‘He wears a dustman’s hat—’
David nearly fell over. The voice: unmistakable. And, if he wasn’t mistaken, he’d heard that voice in his dreams since he was a kid— (No, really. He had this recurring dream where he’d
died and gone to heaven, and there was this incredibly lovely angel who just happened to look like the girl in the painting, and she was singing — exactly that voice —and then, just as he realised he wasn’t wearing any trousers, a huge silver trombone snuck up beside him and ate him, whereupon he woke up. A few years ago, when it was really bad, he’d been to see a shrink about it. The shrink had asked him a few questions about his personal life and relationships with women, looked at him in silence for about thirty seconds and advised him to stop drinking strong black coffee last thing at night.)
She’d known what the light switch was for; and ‘My Old Man’s A Dustman’ was an old song, sure, but not that old. Explanations, please? Well, the easiest one was that the lock of hair he’d paid so much money for wasn’t a genuine relic of the early seventeenth century but rather a snipping that some cunning bastard had picked up off a hairdresser’s floor a week ago last Tuesday; in which case, the voice and the total similarity between the clone and the girl in the painting was just a coincidence— Yeah, right. It was still a damn’ sight easier to believe than any of the alternative versions— The bathroom door opened and she came out, still wearing his robe and now with a towel wound round her hair. As David stared at her she looked like the newly born Aphrodite, assuming that the Olympian gods shopped for bathroom accessories at Marks & Sparks.
‘That’s better,’ she said. Her face was slightly pink, and a single moist curl was sneaking out onto her forehead from under the towel. ‘You must be Derek.’
‘David.’
‘Hmm? Oh, yes. Pleased to meet you. I’m Philippa Levens.’
She held out her hand, as if she was interviewing him for a job. He shook it. She had a grip like a bench vice.
‘Sorry for darting off like that,’ she said, crossing the room and flumping down on the sofa, ‘but you know how it is when you have
n’t had a bath for simply ages. Well, unless you count that horrid green stuff as a bath. Could I be awfully pushy and get you to pour me a drink?’
It took David three seconds to remember to breathe. ‘What? Oh, yes, sure. Um. What would you like?’
‘Large whisky, please. Glenlivet if you’ve got any; if not, any old single malt’ll do. No ice, just a splash of Evian.’
‘Coming right up.’ David shifted towards the kitchen, then stopped. Apart from the stuff that came out of the tap he had a dozen tea bags, a quarter of a jar of Gold Blend and two cans of lager, left over from his birthday before last. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I haven’t got anything like that.’
‘Oh.’ She frowned, ever so slightly. ‘I don’t suppose you’d fancy nipping out and getting some. If it’s no bother.’
‘Of course,’ David replied immediately. ‘Except it’s sort of after midnight. I don’t think there’s anywhere open.’
‘Bother.’ She scratched the tip of her nose with her little finger. ‘So how are things on the food front? Or would it be easier if I went and had a look for myself?’
‘Please, help yourself.’ The voice David could hear was his own, no question about that, but he couldn’t remember having chosen the words or made the decision to utter them. It was as if someone else was operating him by remote control. ‘It’s, um, through there.’
‘Yes,’ she said, as she hopped off the sofa and vanished into the kitchen. She moved very fast, though without appearing to move at all. ‘Poo,’ she said, as she opened the fridge door (and, yes, she had a point; it didn’t smell particularly nice in there at the best of times, which this wasn’t). ‘There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot in here,’ she went on, examining a packet of half-fat Cheddar and putting it back.
