Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

by Tom Holt

  He could go away. The prospect stunned him. It had been nine months, more than nine months, since he’d been out of London except on grim and horrible official business. It was, he remembered, summer; he could borrow a tent, get on a coach, head off into the green and pleasant stuff, to fresh air and lush green grass and soldier ants in the groundsheet. He hadn’t been camping since he was a kid - actually, he’d loathed the one time they’d gone camping and had spent the whole holiday praying for the rain to wash the tent away so that they could go home. But camping was all he could afford, and what the hell was the point in being temporarily officially dead if you had to spend your limited ration of afterlife cooped up in a grotty bedsit watching daytime TV?

  By an amazing coincidence, the unemployed guitarist who lived on the floor above had a tent, which he wouldn’t be needing again until Glastonbury; Paul bumped into him on the stairs as he went to empty the bins, raised the subject hopefully and five minutes later returned to base with the black plastic sack containing the tent tucked safely under his arm. Great, he thought as he threw a few items of clothing into a Tescos bag, I’ve got everything I need, including my portable shelter. Wonderful; I’ve scrambled so far up the evolutionary ladder that I’m almost on equal terms with a snail.

  It had to be the seaside; because the only happy memory from his childhood that Paul could still call back every time, without fail, with perfect focus and total recall, was a week he’d spent at Weston-super-Mare when he’d been eight. True, it had rained for five of the seven days, and while it was raining his parents had sulked and snapped, and he’d read his comic at least two dozen times, to the point where, even now, he could draw most of it with his eyes shut. But when it hadn’t been raining they’d sat on the beach and he’d built sandcastles, and played beach football with Dad, and paddled in rock pools and persecuted small, strange-looking crustaceans among the seaweed. As he sat in the train, eyes shut, waiting for the slightly vertiginous judder that meant they were under way, he played back the scene one more time, just to make sure it was still there. Anybody looking at him would have assumed he was asleep and dreaming, but it was far, far better than any dream, because it had come true, once, and the past is perfect; it’s closed off and sealed, watertight and timetight, so that nothing can leak into it and spoil it. He knew he was grinning all over his face, and the other passengers in the compartment probably thought he was drunk or stoned or peculiar, but he didn’t care. He’d died often enough not to worry about what people on trains thought about him.

  Then a flexing of the seat cushion under his bum told Paul that someone had sat down next to him. Instinctively he shifted to make room, and opened his eyes.

  Shit, he thought.

  ‘Thought it was you,’ said Mr Laertides, frowning at him. ‘What’re you doing on a train? You’re supposed to be ill in bed.’

  As always, Mr Laertides had a disconcertingly unfinished look about him, the sort of mildly annoying failure to convince you’d associate with computer-generated animation in the movies. The light and shadows didn’t seem quite right under his eyes and beside his nose, and there were gaps in the way he moved, as though a few frames were missing.

  ‘Um,’ Paul said.

  ‘I was looking for you first thing,’ Mr Laertides went on. ‘You weren’t in your room, so I asked Christine, and she said you were off sick. At death’s door, she said.’

  Paul sighed. There had been a time when something like this, being caught skiving by the boss, would’ve been his worst nightmare. He was still fundamentally the same person who used to think that way, and it was a habit that he needed to break. Oddly enough, dying the first two times hadn’t cured him of his naughty-schoolboy complex; but this last time he’d come so close . . . So he grinned. ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘Literally. Only some clown locked it just as I was about to go through, so I had to go the long way round.’

  Mr Laertides froze for a moment; the look on his face put Paul in mind of a diplomat at the United Nations, waiting for the simultaneous translation. ‘Presumably you mean the door in the cashier’s office,’ he said. ‘I heard about that. But surely that was months ago, before I even joined the firm.’

  That hadn’t been what Paul was expecting; still, he wasn’t being told off, either. ‘This was yesterday,’ he said. ‘Actually,’ he added, frowning, ‘yesterday and the day before, because the christening was in the evening, right? After work. But when I tried to get through Benny’s door, he was just coming back from the Bank. I must’ve been down there a whole day.’

  Mr Laertides raised a faintly two-dimensional eyebrow. ‘I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘And talking of the christening, where did you get to? You were supposed to be the godfather, weren’t you? But I didn’t see you there.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ A tiny flicker of doubt snagged Paul’s attention, like a trout fly dragged through murky water. ‘You didn’t see the cake, with the girls jumping out?’

  ‘Cake? Oh, right, yes, I saw that.’

  ‘But you didn’t see me? I was the one cutting it, and then—’

  ‘Ah, got you.’ Mr Laertides nodded. ‘That would explain a lot. What you were doing on the wrong side of Mr Shumway’s door, for one thing. But you got back, evidently.’

  It was as though someone else was running Paul’s mind. Not an invasion or a hostile takeover, more as though a kind friend had said to him, You look really tired, you relax for ten minutes and I’ll hold the fort for you. Now this kind friend was telling him that it’d be good to confide in Mr Laertides, who seemed a nice enough bloke, even if he was a partner; and he’d be far less likely to get into trouble for skiving off work if he just fessed up and told the truth. Personally, Paul thought the kind friend was either drunk or exceptionally stupid, but it was out of his hands, unfortunately. ‘I saw Mr Dao and got the Door,’ he heard himself say. ‘Oh, and I was able to get that far because there was still a bit of blood left on the sword.’

  Mr Laertides was perfectly still, apart from a tiny flicker round the edges. ‘Maybe you’d like to start at the beginning,’ he said.

  So Paul told him all about it, straight through to the point where Mr Tanner’s mum had brought him the slice of cake and left him to eat it. When he’d finished, Mr Laertides steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips, a study in profound thought by an undistinguished pupil of Rodin. ‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ he said.

  Paul had to grin at that. ‘Which bit did you have in mind?’ he said.

  ‘The sword,’ Mr Laertides said. ‘Everything else is pretty straightforward - though, if you don’t mind me saying so, I think you might be a bit more careful choosing your friends in future. It’s fine for Rosie Tanner to say it was simple and obvious, what you had to do to escape, but she wasn’t the one having to do it. But that’s beside the point, and we can all be a tad thoughtless at times. No, what I can’t figure out is this sword thing.’

  Mr Laertides wasn’t making any effort to keep his voice down, but the other passengers in the compartment (which was almost full) didn’t seem to be taking any notice. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said with a faint smile, as though he could read Paul’s thoughts. ‘They can’t see us chatting. What they think they can see is you fast asleep, and me talking very loudly into my mobile phone about some really boring meeting I’m late for. So, they aren’t listening to me. A simple first-level glamour, your basic Jedi mind trick. I can teach you how to do that in five minutes flat, if you’re interested.’

  ‘Can you? I mean, that’d be really kind of you, of course, only—’

  Mr Laertides shrugged. ‘The offer’s still open - working in my department for a couple of months, once you’re finished with Theo. Entirely up to you, and you don’t have to decide yet, of course. But about the sword. You said you kept it with you, after you—’

  ‘Died,’ Paul said. ‘That’s right. The goblins killed me, and the next thing I knew I was sitting in this television studio; and I
still had the sword in my hand.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ Mr Laertides said, and the intensity in his voice was rather unsettling. ‘That’s not supposed to happen, really it isn’t. You know the saying, you can’t take it with you. Absolutely true, no exceptions. The very most you can do is have it sent on to await arrival, but that’s a different procedure entirely.’ He sat scowling thoughtfully for three seconds, then leaned forward a little. ‘So what became of it?’ he asked. ‘The sword, I mean. Did you leave it down there, in the Underworld?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I think I must still have had it when I ran at the door, but after that I’m not sure. No, hang on; I remember wondering where it had got to after I tried to get through the door and it was shut. I suppose I must’ve dropped it down there somewhere; but I didn’t get around to looking for it because that was when Mr Dao showed up again, and I suddenly thought of using the Portable Door, and of course that shoved the sword clean out of my mind.’

  ‘Ah.’ Mr Laertides didn’t relax, but he turned down the volume of his body language a little. ‘In which case, presumably, it’s lost down there for ever. Which is a pity - I’d have liked to have seen this remarkable object. Where did you say you got it from?’

  At the christening. It sort of fell at my feet out of nowhere. Or they chucked it down for me to use. There was a bit of pink ribbon wrapped round the hilt, if that’s any help.’

  ‘Pink?’

  Paul nodded. ‘Pink. That’s one thing I’m positive about. Goblin taste, you see.’

  But Mr Laertides shook his head. ‘Clearly you don’t know,’ he said, ‘but goblins - in their own proper shape, as opposed to masquerading as humans or other species - are violently allergic to the colour pink. It hurts them, literally, like burning. They can’t touch anything pink, they can’t even look at it for very long unless they’re wearing special red-filter sunglasses.’ He looked up, and his eyes were very deep, the follow-you-round-the-room eyes of a high-class painting. ‘So it wasn’t the goblins who gave you the sword. In fact, whoever put it there for you to find also boobytrapped it, so to speak, so that no goblin would touch it.’

  ‘I see,’ Paul said, and if the Brothers Grimm had been running the universe, his nose would’ve grown maybe a quarter of an inch. ‘So—’

  ‘So,’ Mr Laertides said, ‘it must’ve been put there by someone who wanted to help you. A friend. Someone,’ he added, ‘who also knew in advance what you were likely to be up against, presumably. ’

  ‘Really? Why’s that?’

  ‘Maybe there are still people in this world who go around carrying magic swords with them wherever they go as a matter of course. But the pink ribbon, the goblin-proofing if you like, strongly suggests forethought and preparation. So you’ve got an anonymous ally. A well-informed anonymous ally, which is even better. Lucky you. At some more appropriate time you can try and figure out who it could possibly have been. That still doesn’t explain,’ he went on, ‘what you’re doing out of the office during working hours when there isn’t actually anything wrong with you.’

  Oh, Paul thought. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Dying doesn’t count as being ill, then.’

  ‘But you aren’t dead. And otherwise you’re as fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘Mr Tanner gave me the day off,’ Paul suddenly remembered. ‘Three days, actually. I phoned Christine this morning and she checked with him. He said it’d be all right.’

  ‘Ah.’ Mr Laertides nodded gravely. ‘That’s all right, then. And presumably you’re headed for the coast in the hope that a bit of fresh sea air will put the roses back in your cheeks. Yes, that seems to be in order.’ He smiled, and Paul felt himself relax. ‘How far are you going?’ he said.

  ‘Brighton,’ Paul replied.

  ‘Really? There’s a coincidence, that’s where I’m headed. Party conference,’ he explained, ‘we have quite a few heavyweight political clients, as you’d expect. A simple glamour, like the one I told you about just now, and for a few minutes, just as long as it takes to make a speech, people will actually believe what they say. Very basic, level-one stuff, but we make them pay through the nose for it.’ He paused, and gave Paul a look that he didn’t like at all. ‘Funny coincidence, really, because the reason I went looking for you this morning back at the office was, I was going to ask you if you felt like joining me, helping out with a few things.’

  Heavy hint; and Paul was just grateful he hadn’t been standing directly underneath as it crashed to Earth, or he’d have been flattened. ‘Great,’ he said, with all the sincerity of a government apology. ‘That’d be—’ He couldn’t quite find words to describe what that would be, but Mr Laertides grinned like a furnace and said, ‘Excellent,’ as though he’d just invented a way of bottling sunshine. Paul gave his mind a savage kick, and it sputtered reluctantly into life.

  ‘Just a moment, though,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got any clothes with me, apart from a spare shirt and, um, things. No suit, I mean. And it wouldn’t reflect well on the firm, your assistant turning up in scruffy old T-shirt and jeans—’

  Mr Laertides laughed; he sounded like a studio audience. ‘That’s not a problem,’ he said. ‘Lean across, you can see your reflection in the window.’

  Paul did as he was told. There was his face, he’d know it anywhere. But under his chin was a clean white collar and sober blue and grey tie, and across his shoulders a high-class charcoal-grey suit. His hair was neatly trimmed and combed. He looked like an actuary.

  ‘Glamour,’ Mr Laertides explained, as Paul glanced quickly down at himself and saw the clothes he’d put on that morning. ‘Simple little trick but well worth mastering. For one thing, you can save a fortune. I mean, since when can you afford Armani on what JWW pays you?’

  Paul thought about that. ‘So anybody looking at me—’

  ‘Will see you as you appear in the window, yes. Take me, for instance,’ Mr Laertides went on, brushing a spot of lint off his immaculate navy chalk-stripe lapel. ‘I’m wearing a pyjama jacket with coffee stains down the front, jogging trousers and a pair of old gardening shoes. And, of course, it doesn’t only apply to clothes.’ He smiled. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but I’ll bet there’ve been times in your life when you wished you looked like that.’ He pointed at the window, and Paul peered over his arm. He saw Mr Laertides’s reflection, and next to it a man he’d never seen before (he’d have remembered if he had): a tall, fair-haired, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed youth, good-looking, intelligent, endlessly likeable, the Greek god of being nice. Instinctively, Paul looked round, but there was nobody on the seat apart from Mr Laertides and himself. ‘That’s me?’ he mumbled, and Mr Laertides grinned and shook his head.

  ‘Of course it isn’t,’ he said. ‘Actually, if you really want to know, that’s my wife’s cousin Larry. Nice enough bloke, got a job in a building society in Cobham, but he happens to be the most good-looking man I can think of offhand. Of course,’ he went on, as the image faded and was replaced, heartbreakingly, with the long, skinny halfwit Paul had gradually reconciled himself to seeing in mirrors over the years, ‘that look works wonders with middle-aged women in government offices, but it won’t do you much good with the chicks. Too clean-cut. Sensible. Reliable. Boring. They’d be much more likely to go for something like - now then, let me see.’

  Paul must have looked away for a split second, because the reflection in the grubby window-glass was suddenly quite different: leaner, darker, sharper, more sardonic and above all, indescribably cool in a black leather jacket and faded denims with ripped knees. ‘James Dean,’ Mr Laertides was saying. ‘John Travolta. The Fonze. Elvis. Totally retro, of course, but practically a classic, you’d be fighting them off with a baseball bat. Or maybe you’d prefer—’

  ‘No,’ Paul said, extremely quickly, ‘that’d do fine, really. Except—’ He hesitated. ‘It’s not me, though, is it? I’d look ridiculous in something like that.’

  Mr Laertides shrugged. ‘Millions of people all over the
world look ridiculous,’ he said, ‘but they can’t do anything about it, poor bastards. You, on the other hand—’

  ‘Yes?’ Paul said hopefully, rubbing his chin with his hand. The man in the window had enough designer stubble to provide habitat for four dozen partridges, but Paul’s chin felt as smooth as glass and familiarly clammy. ‘Me?’

  ‘You can decide for yourself.’ Paul craned his neck, but all he could see in the window now were trees, cows and countryside. ‘All you have to do is learn a few words. It’s perfectly safe, no nasty side effects, no selling your soul to the devil or ugly old paintings hidden up in the loft. From fridge magnet to babe magnet in one easy step. Or,’ Mr Laertides added, as the train shot into a tunnel and the window went dark, ‘maybe you’ve got scruples about cheating, or you simpy can’t be bothered. I mean, only very shallow people judge by appearances, and you’d rather soldier on, waiting for Miss Right to love you for who you really are deep down. Or maybe you’d have deep ethical reservations about inducing someone to love you by supernatural means.’ He smiled very faintly. ‘Some people have issues about that sort of thing, though God only knows why.’

  ‘No,’ Paul heard himself shout. ‘I mean, yes, that sounds like it might be, um, rather useful. And it’d get over the problem,’ he added desperately, ‘of me not having anything smart to wear for this job we’re going to.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Mr Laertides said gravely. ‘There’s that as well. Anyhow, you take your time and think it over, and when you’ve reached a decision—’

  ‘Yes please,’ Paul snapped. ‘Yes, I’d really like to learn how to do that, if it wouldn’t be any bother.’

  ‘Fine.’ Mr Laertides held up his hand, palm facing outwards. ‘You don’t actually need the hand movements, but it’s easier to learn doing it this way. All you’ve got to do,’ he went on, ‘is this.’

  He turned his hand round, pressed it against his face and started pressing, squeezing, moving things about. First he pushed his eyebrows back a little; then he squidged the sides of his mouth together, pulled his nose to make it longer, used his thumb and forefinger to lift and smooth out his cheekbones, as though his face was a lump of wet clay and he was carefully moulding it into shape. It only took him a few moments, and when he took his hand away, his face had changed completely. Not, it turned out, for the better. He’d made himself look exactly like Paul.