You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (19 page)

Colin watched her leave. Very strange; she’d appeared to change her mind in mid-flow, and now it was all a storm in a teacup, no big deal. In which case, why had she come halfway across Greater London in her own time to talk to him about it?

He got himself another drink and had a nice quiet brood, with a panic chaser. Forget his Dad making a pact with the Evil One; forget the tree, and now the other fucking tree. Focus instead on the notion that he might be the victim of - he wasn’t quite sure how to categorise it, now that he came to think about it. It was either a crossed line in Destiny’s switchboard, or a rare and supernatural variation on an arranged marriage. Either way—

That at least was something that Colin could be definite about. Either way, it sucked and he wanted no part of it. All the time he’d been telling the nice lady about it, and listening to her explanation, his subconscious had been chewing doggedly over the available data on Ms Cassie Clay, and to his surprise he realised he’d somehow stumbled into a little pothole of clarity.

He didn’t love her. He didn’t even like her very much. She wasn’t nice-looking, she didn’t make him laugh, he couldn’t imagine sitting over empty plates with her in a restaurant, with the staff tapping their feet because it was past closing time but these two young lovebirds were still nattering away, oblivious of time … Now Famine— Sod it, he couldn’t possibly think of her as that. Fam. If you rewound those criteria and replayed them with Fam instead of Ms blasted Clay, it all played very smoothly indeed. Which was probably, he was prepared to concede, why he was falling in love with her.

Because it was boring and of no conceivable relevance to the widget-founding industry, Colin hadn’t taken much notice of the history they’d tried to squash into the space between his ears at school. But he did vaguely remember the American Declaration of Independence; which was when a bunch of ordinary people got pissed off with being shoved around by bullies and put a stop to it. No, they’d said, you can take all that, and you can stuff it. Right, then. Here and now, a declaration of not-taking-any-more-of-that-from-anybody. Not from supernature, which had no right to come splurging into his life without any warning. Not from his own pathetic excuse for a personality, which couldn’t even make up its mind who it was in love with until the nice lady had explained it all. Not from all the Hollingsheads dead and gone, with their traditions and expectations and demands; and abso-bloody-lutely not from Dad.

Screw what anybody thought of him, shame and guilt and all that. Just as soon as this mess was sorted out, and Ms Clay was out of his life for good, and Dad had come to his senses and told the Bad Person to get lost, there would be a new dawn for Colin Hollingshead. On that glorious day, there’d be an empty bed and loads of free shelf-space back at the family home; there’d be a vacancy for a junior gofer and blame-receptacle at Hollingshead & Farren Ltd; there’d be a tree poking up the stairwell with nobody to worry to death. He’d be off, out of it, gone. A flat of his own, a proper job, and with any luck a nice-looking, cheerful girlfriend he could go to the pictures and annoy clock-watching waiters with. One small drift for a wimp, a massive break-up of tectonic plates for Colinkind. Yes, he decided, as he drained his second pint and wiped froth on his cuff. Why not?

He looked up at the clock; half past eight. Options review. Well, he could go home, get moaned at for missing dinner, sit in front of the telly, go to bed. Alternatively, the world was at his feet, ready to thrill, chill and cloy him with an infinity of new experiences.

Qualify that: a rather circumscribed range of experiences that could be sampled without spending money, since he now had a total of twenty-seven pence. The number of things that you can experience in London in the twenty-first century for 27p is still pretty impressive, but offhand Colin couldn’t think of many that he fancied. On the short list he was left with were things like a nice walk, a nice sit on a low wall, a nice lean in a doorway, stuff like that. Still, Washington and Jefferson and Ben Franklin had probably had to make their own amusements, and it hadn’t broken their resolve. Of course, he reflected as he left the pub, it’d all be different if I had, say for the sake of argument, Fam here with me. Slot her into the equation, and a nice walk, lean or sit on a low wall would have a lot going for it. Now, if only he had her phone number, maybe he could do something about it.

A quiet doorway, the mobile, directory enquiries. Name, please? E. Williams, Mortlake. Could he possibly be more specific, please, since at the last count there were over a hundred and ten E. Williamses in the designated search area. Envy, he clarified, Envy Williams. N. V. Williams, not E. Williams? There’s six N. V. Williamses in the designated search area, can you be more specific? Thanks, Colin said, and forget it.

Not to worry; Fam would be at the office tomorrow and he could ask her in person. It’d constitute a significant step, of course, a diplomatic incident signalling a potential outbreak of amicabilities, but a man who’s just evicted family tradition, predestined true love and the Devil from his life isn’t put off by stuff like that. If she narrowed her eyes and asked him, ‘What do you want it for?’ he’d simply smile and say, ‘So I can ring you up, stupid,’ and that’d be that sorted and out of the way. True, he’d known a Colin Hollingshead once who’d have gone all droopy and wimpish at the thought of such a positive course of action. He could almost see him, far away below as he sailed through the clouds of newly accessible possibilities. Screw him, in any case. He belonged in a strange, unreal world of unexplained trees and days spent stuffing envelopes, and Colin was beginning In find it hard to imagine that he’d ever believed in him.

Someone jostled his arm. He opened his mouth for the instinctive automated apology, and stuck like it, face open like a door.

‘Sorry,’ said the offending passer-by. ‘Oh, it’s you. We meet again.’

With his jaw still at half-mast, Colin could only nod his head.

He wanted to look away, but his eyes had jammed and wouldn’t move.

‘You’re young Colin,’ the passer-by said. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name’s Oscar.’

‘M.’

‘We didn’t have a chance to talk the other night,’ said Oscar. ‘Since we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other in the future, we ought to establish the foundations of a working relationship. Get to know each other. Bond. Do you agree?’

Colin had once heard on the radio how much the average human head weighs. He couldn’t remember the exact figure quoted, but whatever it had been, it was way off. Right now, as he tried to nod his up and down a second time, it definitely weighed at least a ton.

‘Excellent. We should have—’ Pause, while the nightmare vision calling itself Oscar appeared to be trying to remember something. ‘We should drink a large number of alcoholic beverages, play darts, discuss team sports, motor vehicles and women, buy fried fish and sliced potatoes, and possibly urinate together in a shop doorway. That’s the correct procedure, isn’t it?’

‘Love to,’ Colin croaked. ‘Only—’

Oscar did something with its face that could possibly be interpreted as a frown. ‘You have other commitments at this time. I understand. We should reschedule. I can make eighteen-forty-five hours on Thursday the seventh.’

‘Eighteen forty-five?’

‘Eighteen forty-five precisely. The Devil is in the detail.’

‘Right.’ Colin tried to shut his mouth but it wouldn’t stay closed. ‘I mean, I think that’s OK, but I’d need to check. I’ll call you.’

‘Excellent.’ A nod, carried out with Prussian precision. ‘You can pass a message on to me through your father. If I haven’t heard from you by noon tomorrow, I shall contact you. Is that acceptable?’

‘M.’

‘This was a fortuitous encounter. Be seeing you, kid. Adieu.’

A few footsteps, and the darkness swallowed it. Colin breathed out and flumped hard against the nearest wall.

So much, then, for Paul Revere, Boston Harbour and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Maybe it wasn’t going to be that easy after all. Or maybe he’d been more than usually stupid, imagining that he could simply walk out on such a comprehensive assortment of really bad things—

What the hell was that?

Since we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other in the future. If Stephen King could put together a half-sentence anything like as scary as that, the talking-book rights alone would be enough to buy him Illinois. As the trembles and the shudders began, Colin tried to remember what it had actually looked like, but nothing came to mind except two eyes. Perfectly ordinary, they’d been, apart from the feeling they gave of being able to see everything.

Colin thought of his father. Then he thought about trying to get clever with the likes of that. Pulling the proverbial wool over those eyes suddenly didn’t seem such a piece of cake any more. (And presumably, that was just the messenger, the gofer: probably, in the diabolical hierarchy, someone of equivalent standing to himself. Somehow, that made the whole thing a lot worse.)

Anyhow, it had cleared up the small matter of where he was going to go next. Back into the pub for a drink stiff as any icicle. No, belay that; he only had twenty-seven pence. He paused on the threshold, and felt something crinkle in his shirt pocket. A twenty-pound note, which he was almost positive hadn’t been there before. For some reason, this stroke of unexpected luck made him shudder. For a moment he was locked in a ferocious mental debate. On the one hand, his mother had warned him about accepting money from strange men, and he was pretty sure Oscar could safely be included in that category. On the other hand, twenty quid employed judiciously on licensed premises could make him feel a lot better, if only for a little while. The demon drink, he thought. Humour.

It helped, a little. It didn’t make the horror go away, but it took the razor edge off it. Colin followed it up with a repeat prescription, which had no appreciable effect. He thought about that, and reached the conclusion that after a jolt as sobering as that, he’d probably be able to drink for a week before he slurred so much as a preposition.

‘Colin?’

Voices calling him again. No wonder Joan of Arc ended up so stroppy. He raised his head and saw a face he sort of recognised. Not that he cared a damn, since he really wasn’t in the mood, but at a guess he’d say it belonged to—

‘It’s me,’ said the face. ‘Steve Gillett. You remember? St George’s Secondary?’

‘Steve,’ said Colin.

What the face was saying was, of course, true; up to a point, anyhow. Yes, he’d been at school with the face’s owner, whose second name (now he came to think of it) was indeed Gillett. But his first name had been Snotty, and Colin was pretty sure that he’d always disliked him intensely, unless of course he was getting him muddled up with someone else.

‘Fancy seeing you again,’ said Snotty Gillett, sitting down opposite. ‘What’s it been, nine years?’

‘Eight,’ Colin said, and added, with the absolute minimum of enthusiasm, ‘So, how’ve you been keeping?’

‘Not so bad, thanks. You?’

‘Still breathing.’

Snotty seemed to find that painfully funny. He still snorted like a donkey when he laughed. ‘You went into your Dad’s company, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right,’ Colin replied.

‘Still there?’

‘Just about.’

If anything, that was even funnier. It was so funny that if the game-show comperes ever got to hear of it, they’d send scouts out on camels to find Colin, bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh.

‘So,’ Colin said, ‘what about you?’

‘Oh, I’m with Lemon. Joined them eighteen months ago - now I’m area manager.’

‘Lemon.’

‘Lemon,’ Snotty repeated. ‘You know, the mobile-phone network?’

‘Oh, right.’ Colin grinned feebly, aware that his prestige had just foundered. No point being the funniest man on earth if you were still living in the nineteenth century. ‘Area manager,’ he repeated. ‘Not bad.’

Snotty shrugged, a gesture intended to convey modesty; a failure. ‘It’s a great product,’ he said. ‘I just stand back and let it sell itself. Oh, hang on a tick.’ He turned round in his seat and waved to someone. ‘My girlfriend,’ he said. ‘She’s bringing the drinks. Talking of which, what’ll you have?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Same again, then.’ Snotty stood up and semaphored towards the bar. Apparently two fingers of the left hand uplifted while the right hand pats the top of the head is the international code for a large Scotch. ‘So,’ Snotty went on. ‘Married?’

Colin shook his head.

‘Going steady?’

‘No.’

‘Right, still playing the field.’ Snotty grinned, and Colin ached for an apple to stick in his mouth ‘See anything of the old gang?’

Colin was about to shake his head when he caught sight of someone over Snotty’s shoulder. She was carrying a tray, on which rested a pint of lager, something colourful with fruit in it and (believe it or not) a double whisky. An echo sounded inside Colin’s head; Snotty’s voice, saying my girlfriend.

‘Minnie, this is an old mate of mine from school, Colin Hollingshead. Colin, Minnie Williams.’

The penny dropping; the tinkle as it pitched. Famin. Minnie.

She said hello. The way she said it, the word had volume, colour and tone. What a nice surprise, it said.

The other penny dropping, clunk. ‘Of course,’ Snotty exclaimed, ‘Hollingshead and Farren. That’s where you’re working, right?’

She nodded, but she wasn’t looking at Snotty. She was also smiling.

There ought to be a dictionary of smiles; somewhere you can look them up and find out what they mean. It’d be a genuine service to humanity, but instead there’re just Jane’s Fighting Ships and the Observer Book of British Birds, useless stuff like that. In the absence of a definitive reference, the only option is a mixture of experience and intuition. Even so. If that smile didn’t mean, Oh good, maybe this evening won’t be such a drag after all, Colin was prepared to comb the local charity shops for a grey fedora and eat it.

As soon as he’d reached that conclusion, Colin was immediately at a complete loss for words. Luckily, though, Snotty seemed to regard a word driven in edgeways as an affront to his alpha-male status. He talked - about the old days at school, the mobile-phone industry, scandalous examples of bad driving he’d recently witnessed - and seemed not to notice that his audience wasn’t listening. In fact, they were as lost to him as the cities of the Incas, and the fool was too busy with the virtues of the latest Nokia even to notice. There was something faintly unreal about it; Minnie was smiling at Colin and he was smiling back, while the sound of poor old Snotty’s voice hung in the background like the faint whisper of a distant waterfall.