The Portable Door (1987) (37 page)

“Ah,” said the goblin, in a tone of voice that Paul didn’t like one bit. “We’re going to fix that, right now.”

Paul felt as though his heart had been replaced with a bag of frozen peas. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he said.

“Oh, for crying out loud.” The goblin sounded annoyed. “You really are pathetic, aren’t you? All right, then.” Green sparkles cascaded in the air in front of Paul’s nose, and the goblin appeared. This time it was much larger; a head taller than Paul, and massively broad across the shoulders. “I’ll explain, shall I?” it said. “And then we can get on with it, whether you like it or not.”

Paul tried to back away, but the goblin reached out a long, muscular arm and gripped him round the throat, so firmly that he could scarcely breathe.

“Let’s see, now,” the goblin said. “There’s a good half-pint in one of them philtre bottles, and once they’re opened, they don’t keep. Waste not, want not, that’s what I say.”

Paul tried to pull the goblin’s hand away from his neck, and was given cause to regret it.

“What the bloody hell are you cribbing about?” the goblin said, and it sounded almost hurt. “You should be down on your flicking knees thanking me. You
do
want her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Paul said. “But.”

The goblin picked him up without apparent effort and slammed him against the wall. He froze with terror, and the goblin went on; “Trouble with you is, you don’t really know what you want. So it’s just as well I’m here to sort things out. Otherwise you’d be in a hell of a mess. I’m just saying thank you, that’s all, for a really nice trip out. Well, I’ve enjoyed it, even if you haven’t. Also, I guess, I just like bringing young folks together. Whether they like it,” the goblin added, with a pure Tanner grin, “or not.”

“Please,” Paul whispered. “Don’t.”

But the goblin shook its head. “Sorry,” it said, “but the plain fact is, I know what’s best for the pair of you, and that’s that. You’ll thank me in years to come; you’ll probably want to name your first kid after me. Rumpelstiltskin Carpenter, got a ring to it, don’t you think? I like babies,” the goblin added, licking its lips.

Then the goblin picked Paul up by the scruff of his neck and carried him down the corridor. One of the bedroom doors was open, and round it a green scaly arm beckoned to them. “Another reason,” the goblin went on, “is our Rosacrucia—that’s my niece, you’ve met her. Not that I’ve got anything against you humans, you understand, but what that girl needs is a nice goblin boyfriend, one of her own kind. If you’re all safely hitched, maybe she’ll stop trailing round after you and settle down.”

Sophie was sitting on the bed, with her eyes shut. She was still wearing the barmaid outfit, with a tiny green head poking up out of her cleavage. “Have fun,” said the goblin, and it vanished in a swirl of glittering confetti. “I think I’ll watch this one from the stalls,” explained the little green head.

Paul tried to back away, but his legs weren’t working. On the bedside table, he saw the plastic bottle of Valentine Express, a spoon and a glass. “Sophie,” he said.

“I know,” she muttered.

Somehow his hand had got round the neck of the bottle, and he was unscrewing the cap. He tried to spill the philtre out of the spoon, but all of it landed in the glass. He handed it to her, and she took it.

“It won’t be so bad,” Sophie said, in a faint voice. “I’m sorry.”

And then the door burst open. Paul tried to look round but his head was stuck. Mr Wurmtoter crossed the room in two long strides. He had a glove on his right hand, and an empty hamburger box in his left. “Excuse me,” he said, and quick as electricity he yanked the goblin out of the front of Sophie’s dress, stuffed it in the box, and snapped the lid shut.

Paul staggered, and fell over; Sophie sagged back and hit her head against the wall. Mr Wurmtoter grabbed the glass from her hand before she could drop it, and emptied it down the washstand sink. Then he turned. “Are you two all right?” he asked. “No, um, harm done?”

Paul got to his knees, that being the best he could do. “I’m all right,” he said.

“And me,” Sophie mumbled, sitting up. “What are you doing here?”

Mr Wurmtoter pulled a serious face. “I came as soon as I could,” he said. “It was Rosie—sorry, Mrs Tanner—who thought there might be something wrong. She saw what was going on in that stone of hers.” He breathed in deeply, then added, “I really am most frightfully sorry; on behalf of the firm, I mean. It goes without saying, this is nothing to do with us.” He scowled, then opened the burger box a tiny crack. “You’re
disgusting
, you,” he snapped, as a green nose stuck out. “That’s it as far as trips out of the office go, you hear me?” He closed the box, snapped his fingers over the lid, and threw it on the floor. “It’s all right,” he said, “I’ve put a B-76J on the box, he won’t get past
that
in a hurry. Well,” he went on, looking like an overgrown schoolboy who’s just owned up to breaking a window, “I’d better be getting back, I’m due in a meeting at quarter past. And really, I’m very sorry about this. We’ll have to see if there’s some way we can sort of make it up to you.”

Sophie breathed out. “That’s all right,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. And thank you.”

Mr Wurmtoter grinned feebly. “All part of the service,” he said, and left the room. A few seconds later, Paul happened to glance through the window and thought he caught sight of a white horse with broad, feathery wings sailing up into the sky. But he could have been imagining it.

“Well,” he said, after a very long silence, “there you are, then.”

Sophie looked at him, and nodded. “Would you mind getting out?” she said. “No, I don’t mean it like that. I just want to get out of these disgusting clothes.”

Paul wandered out into the corridor and hung around there, not knowing whether he ought to go back to his own room, or wait for her. He’d just made up his mind that she couldn’t possibly want to see him ever again when the door opened and she came out. She was still white as a sheet, but she gave him a little smile, enough to say that she was all right now.

“I need some fresh air, I think,” she said.

They went out into the village street, which was deserted. After they’d walked twenty yards or so, Paul turned to her and said, “You were very brave back there.”

She frowned at him. “Thank you so much,” she said. “Why, were you expecting me to faint or have a screaming fit or something?”

Paul didn’t say he was sorry, for once. “Well, anyway,” he said, “you were a bloody sight braver than I was. I was terrified.”

“Me too. It was all wriggly, like a dirty great big spider. I don’t like spiders.”

“Nor me.”

They walked on a little further before Paul said, “Did you believe him? Mr Wurmtoter, I mean. Do you think he saved us, or was it all part of some nasty scheme of theirs?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know and don’t care,” she said. “I think that horrible little
thing
was perfectly capable of dreaming the whole idea up on its own, but it’s also just the sort of thing Mr Wells’d do, if he thought there was something in it for him. But I can’t see how it’d help him, can you?”

Paul shook his head. It was in his mind to mention the Gilbert and Sullivan episode, but he didn’t. “I think Mr Wurmtoter was telling the truth,” he said. “I guess he was scared we’d take the firm to the industrial tribunal, or something like that.”

“Maybe.” Sophie stopped, and leaned her back against a wall. “Well,” she said, “at least we were luckier than that film star. I feel bad about that,” she added. “Not because of the money, but—”

Paul nodded. “I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do about it,” he said awkwardly; because of course he knew precisely what he could do about it: a quick trip through the door, back to six minutes to six that evening. Even if he had to bash award-winning Ashford Clent over the head with a shovel before he walked through the pub door, it’d set everything right again. But back then, the goblin would still be on the loose—“Probably not,” Sophie replied. “And it’s not like film stars are
people
, with feelings and stuff. Even so—” She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know,” she went on. “Thirty million dollars a film, and they get married and divorced every five minutes anyway. It could’ve been worse.” She turned her head and looked at him. “Could’ve been us,” she said quietly.

“Quite,” Paul said, and he looked away.
Could have been us;
and what would they have been doing right now, if Mr Wurmtoter hadn’t shown up in the nick of time? Walking together down this very street, quite possibly, hand in hand, gazing into each other’s eyes. But it wouldn’t have been right; not if he really loved her—which, he suddenly realised, he did. Not the familiar old Paul Carpenter crush, the desperate need to find himself a girl, any girl, because everybody else in the whole wide world had one except him. The only girl he’d ever want was this one.

He thought about the performance potter.
Shit
, he thought.

And then a picture floated into his mind of the plastic bottle of Valentine Express, still presumably sitting on Sophie’s bedside table—“What’s the matter?” she said. “You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“What?” He looked away. “Sorry,” he said, “I was just thinking about—well, you know.”

She nodded. “Me too,” she said. “But it’s all right now.”

“No it’s
not
,” Paul wanted to shout, because of course it wasn’t. It was all still very wrong, because if Vox the goblin had jumped out of his top pocket at that moment with the bottle in one hand and a tablespoon in the other and offered him the same deal over again, he couldn’t be absolutely sure that he wouldn’t—“That philtre stuff?” he said suddenly. “I think you ought to get rid of it quick. It’s not safe, having it lying about.”

“I was just thinking that,” she said. “Leave it to me, I’ll see to it.”

He nodded. For a moment, he’d been afraid she’d ask him to dispose of it, and he wouldn’t have wanted to have the bottle in his hand, not even for a second. Then Sophie darted forward and grabbed his arm. “Quick,” she hissed, “get out of the way.”

No explanation needed: walking down the street towards them were award-winning Ashford Clent and the client. Paul and Sophie ducked behind a pillar box until they’d gone by; and Paul couldn’t help noticing the expression of bewildered joy on the thirty-million-dollar face as it passed him.
Shit
, he thought again, and something deep inside him started to hurt like hell.

“Just a minute,” Sophie whispered. “I’ve had an idea.” Paul frowned. “What?”

“Stay there,” she said. “Did he see you? Clent?”

“Just now, or earlier?”

“Earlier.”

Paul shook his head. “Don’t think so,” he replied, “he went out like a light. Why?”

“Look.” Sophie was pointing; Clent and the client were going into the Green Dragon, on the other side of the road. “Stay here till I get back,” she said.

“Where are you going?”

She grinned at him. “Back to my room,” she said. “Then we’re going to buy the next Mrs Clent a drink.”

§

How Paul found the guts to do it, he wasn’t quite sure. Walk up to two perfect strangers in a pub holding two glasses of champagne and ask them if they’d mind having a drink with him, because he’d just won the Lottery—and they’d smiled and said, Yes, they’d be delighted, thank you; actually, Clent said, they were celebrating too, they’d just gotten engaged. The clunk he heard as he walked quickly out of the bar was the future Mrs Clent’s head hitting the table. The stuff worked fast, no doubt about it.

Twenty minutes later, they crept back, just to make sure. Just as well they had, because someone had called the doctor (a fat, middle-aged man with a Captain Mainwaring moustache); and when the future Mrs

Clent groaned and started to come round, it was only Sophie’s quick thinking—she dashed forward and screamed ‘Look, it’s Ashford
Clent!
’ at the top of her voice, causing the doctor to look away—that saved the day. But it was all right; the first thing the client saw when her eyes opened was the thirty-million-dollar face gazing earnestly down at her. The click of the mousetrap snapping shut was almost deafening.

“Right,” Sophie said, as they sprinted across the street. “
Now
I’m going to get rid of the bottle. Soon as we get back to the hotel, I’ll pour the rest of it down the bog.”

“Good idea,” Paul replied quietly. After all, it was only him—his dreams, his happiness, stuff like that—and it wouldn’t be the same if he got it by cheating. Would it?

Would it?
He thought of the glow in Clent’s eyes.
True happiness
, he thought; so what if it came out of a bottle, like corn-gold hair and whisky?
Hellfire and buggery
, he thought, she
deserves true happiness, even if I don’t
. And she’d be happy, as opposed to dead miserable, which was how she’d been ever since he’d known her.
Yes
, he thought,
definitely get rid of what’s left in the bottle
. Before he changed his mind.

At the top of the stairs, they hesitated; her room to the left, his to the right. “I don’t know about you,” Paul lied, “but I’m worn out. Think I’ll get an early night. Can you remember what time our train is in the morning?”

Sophie shook her head. “I think the goblin had the tickets,” she said.

“Oh. Oh well, we’ll just have to buy our own, then. I don’t suppose there’ll be any problem getting the money back, if we ask Mr Wurmtoter to sign the pink form.”

She laughed. “Goodnight, then,” she said. “I’ll go and empty that bottle now.”

“Right,” he said, and walked away without looking round.

§

There was a train leaving Ventcaster at ten to ten, connecting with the twelve-thirty from Manchester Piccadilly to Euston. In spite of a few minor dramas involving taxis from Cudsey and Banquo’s-heirs-type queues at the ticket office, they managed to make the connection. They’d hardly said a word to each other all day.

At Manchester, Paul bought a magazine to hide behind for the rest of the journey. Being short of time, he’d grabbed at random from the rack and been rewarded with
Stamp & Coin Monthly;
Sophie, who’d done the same thing, hadn’t fared much better with
Which Chainsaw?
After they’d sat opposite each other for an hour and a half without either of them turning a page, Sophie leaned forward and said, “Swap?”