Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

by Tom Holt

  ‘She’ll bloody well go if I tell her to,’ Mr Laertides said. ‘First rule of business, don’t let your personal feelings and antipathies get in the way of the job.’

  ‘Yes, right,’ Paul said appeasingly. ‘That’s so true, yes. But if it’s all the same to you - I mean, if she’s sitting there feeling all sullen and resentful, then she won’t be concentrating properly on, well, whatever it is we’re there for. Will she?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Mr Laertides replied. ‘All right, find someone else.’

  ‘Right,’ Paul said; then, ‘Who, though?’ He paused. ‘I suppose I could ask Mr Shumway.’

  ‘No,’ Mr Laertides said quickly. ‘No, that’d be no good, he has to go and do the banking at four. Look, it doesn’t necessarily have to be someone from the office, even. Don’t you know any girls who’d—?’ He hesitated. ‘No, of course not, I keep forgetting you’re dead, so you don’t know anybody much.’

  Paul frowned. ‘I suppose there’s always Mr Tanner’s mother,’ he said.

  ‘No, absolutely not. I mean, she’s needed on reception. Look, are you quite sure about the Pettingell girl? I’m sure if you apologise nicely—’

  ‘No, really. I’ll think of someone, I’m sure,’ Paul added hopefully. ‘Half-past two, did you say? In that case, I’d better be going.’

  Mr Laertides nodded. ‘No need to come back here when the film’s finished,’ he said. ‘See you in the morning, all right?’

  Paul was halfway to the street when the obvious answer struck him. He turned left and walked down the corridor to his office.

  He hadn’t been in there since he’d died and resurrected himself as Phil Marlow, so he wasn’t prepared for what he found, which was nothing at all.The room had been stripped bare of contents; they’d even taken up the carpet and removed the light bulb. The only thing left was the phone, resting on the floor with its flex curled up round it like a cat’s tail. He knelt down and dialled Vicky’s extension.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I, um, need someone to help with something. Are you free?’

  ‘Well, I’m hardly rushed off my feet,’ Vicky’s voice replied. ‘You haven’t actually given me any work to do since you arrived. What have I got to do?’

  A surge of embarrassment powerful enough to swamp a tropical atoll swept through Paul, and he replied, ‘It’s a bit complicated. Come down to my office, I’ll tell you when you get here.’

  Slight pause. ‘Your office. You mean Mr Laer—’

  ‘No, my office. Paul Carpenter’s old room. I suppose it’s my office - nobody else seems to want it for anything.’

  Less than a minute later, Vicky knocked at the door and came in. Today she had her hair pinned and combed on one side, swept over her shoulder on the other. She smiled at him and said, ‘Well?’

  ‘First.’ Paul took a step away from her, felt the wall against his back. ‘First, I’ve got to tell you, this isn’t my idea. In fact, it’s a direct order from Mr Laertides, it’s like vitally important for the job he’s doing. Honest,’ he added. ‘You can ask him if you don’t—’

  ‘Hold it,’ she interrupted. ‘What is this thing you want me to do? You said you’d explain.’

  ‘Yes, right.’ Paul stopped, tried to appear calm, cool, at peace with the world. ‘Look, Mr Laertides says I’ve got to go to Tottenham Court Road—’

  ‘Right, got you. I’ll have to just nip back upstairs and fetch my coat.’

  ‘And watch a film,’ Paul went on. ‘Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe. And—’ No way to cushion the shock, better just to blurt it out and have done. ‘And I’ve got to take someone with me. And the person I first thought of wouldn’t want to go, so I thought I’d ask you. Of course, if you’re busy—’

  ‘Not likely.’ She grinned. ‘Stay there, I’ll be right back.’

  The medicine, Paul muttered to himself as the door closed behind him; thank God for the medicine, or we’d be in real trouble here. It wasn’t just that Vicky had somehow managed to grow even lovelier since he’d seen her last - he was used to that sort of thing thanks to Mr Tanner’s mum, and he was practically immune; it was the sheer enthusiasm she’d displayed at the thought of going out with him. (Hold it there, he commanded himself; just because we’re going somewhere and it’s out of the office, that doesn’t make it going out.) It had never been like that with Sophie, that unalloyed cheerfulness. With Sophie, it had always been a case of the two of them facing up to the unavoidable fact that they loved each other; along the lines of we’re both in this mess, so we’d better pull together, bit between the teeth, shoulders to the wheel, and make the best of it. Happiness hadn’t really been a factor, apart from a very solemn sort of happiness that an uninformed outsider could well have mistaken for stoical resignation. But Vicky had practically bounced out of the room, like Zebedee in The Magic Roundabout. Of course, a career victim might be led astray by that into thinking that she actually liked him, which would in turn inevitably lead to infatuation, rejection, heartbreak—

  Would it, though? What if she did actually like him?

  The thought hit Paul like a kick from a mule. Now that he’d ditched Paul Carpenter and replaced him with handsome, confident, relaxed Phil Marlow, it was no longer utterly unthinkable that a girl might just possibly like him a bit, or even a bit plus; in which case there might be something rather more desirable than rejection and heartbreak waiting for him at the bottom of Life’s cereal packet. Except, of course, that Paul Carpenter had taken the medicine, which meant Phil Marlow was incapable of falling in love—

  Sod it, Paul thought, and looked round for something expendable to hit, but of course the room was empty.

  ‘I’m ready.’ Vicky was standing in the doorway, smiling at him, and for a moment he thought that maybe the medicine was starting to wear off; but he looked at her again and realised that what he’d thought might be the first flash of love’s refining fire was probably only very mild indigestion. As he muttered, ‘We’d better be going, then,’ and shooed her out of the room, a little voice in the back of his mind asked him if his reaction would have been different if it had been Sophie standing in the doorway smiling. Luckily, he knew where listening to voices in one’s head could lead to, and ignored it.

  It wasn’t a bad film, but Paul hadn’t enjoyed it much. The producers had done their best, filling the screen with hurtling cars, chattering machine-guns and great big explosions with cauliflowers of orange and red fire (it was, after all, a romantic comedy), but they failed to engage his interest; he was far more concerned with the presence in the seat next to him. Even when the gunfire and detonations were at their loudest, he was sure that he could hear the sound of her breathing, maybe even the slow beat of her heart. His general well-being wasn’t helped by agonising cramp caused by sitting absolutely still, to avoid any possibility of accidental bodily contact.

  It was a long film, but not nearly long enough. As far as Paul was concerned, it raced along like the last day of the holidays, every passing second bringing closer the awful moment when the lights came up, and one or other of them would inevitably suggest rounding things off by going for a pizza. Even as poor Mr Crowe was locked in hand-to-hand combat with the villain twenty thousand feet in the air on the wing of a speeding 747, Paul had his eyes shut, to help him concentrate as he struggled to come up with an excuse that wouldn’t sound too excruciatingly fatuous. Appointment with doctor, ditto dentist, optician, physiotherapist; birthday party for parent, sibling, friend; got to go back to the office and work was a non-starter, Vicky knew he didn’t have anything to do because she was nominally his personal assistant. He was considering the merits of folding up like a dead spider and dropping to the ground, clutching his stomach and groaning - all right, so they might rush him into hospital and whip out his appendix, but that had to be preferable - when the lights came up and the screen was suddenly full of the names of assistant cameramen and location-unit accountants. He shot up out of his seat like toast from a toaster, and said, ‘Sorry, but I�
��ve got to get back home, they’re delivering a new fridge-freezer, ’ before he realised she hadn’t said a word.

  ‘Oh,’ Vicky said. ‘Right. Well, see you at the office tomorrow, then.’ A few minutes later, Paul was standing in the Tottenham Court Road, alone apart from a quarter-million or so irrelevant and harmless strangers embarking on the evening homeward lemming-run. Against all the odds, he’d made it. Carpenter 1, Cupid 0.

  That, he felt, called for a celebratory drink. He chose a pub doorway at random, oozed his way through the crush to the bar and eventually managed to get his hands on a full pint (moderation was for wimps) of ginger-beer shandy, which he carried off to an empty, smoke-shrouded corner. It was only once he’d finished his drink that he realised just how thirsty he was; but it had been dry work, sitting absolutely still in a confined place trying not to breathe too loudly. Paul fought his way back to the bar for a repeat prescription.The second pint made him feel much more lively. That suggested that it must be doing him some good, in which case it was practically his duty to have a couple more, so he did; at which point, boozer’s relativity caught up with him, and he realised that what he needed most in the world was fresh air and a wall that kept still while he was leaning on it.

  There must have been something wrong with the fresh air, because as soon as Paul left the pub, something else seemed to have gone wrong with his legs; furthermore, the wall he chose for support turned out to be one of those pesky slithering-about types. As a result, through no fault of his own, he staggered, tripped and cannoned into a small, bald, round-headed man who happened to be passing by.

  ‘Steady on,’ the man said, in an American accent; fortunately, he didn’t seem to mind being trodden on, because he grinned pleasantly. Maybe he’d had trouble with slithery walls himself.

  ‘Sorry,’ Paul said; and then it occurred to him that the man’s face was familiar. ‘Hold on,’ he said, ‘I know you from somewhere. ’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Sure I do. Seen you somewhere just recently.’ He frowned. ‘That’s it, you’re whatsit with the funny name. Shop. Toothbrushes and antique furniture.’

  The man frowned. ‘We met in a shop selling toothbrushes?’

  ‘No, no.’ Paul shook his head, which must’ve provoked the wall somehow, because it shifted most inconveniently. Also, the pavement started playing up, probably in sympathy with the wall. ‘Your shop. You got a shop selling toothbrushes and old pictures and stuff.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ the man said. ‘And I’m sure I’d be aware of it if I did.’

  Carefully, Paul detached himself from the wall, took a cautious step forward and examined the man closely. ‘No disrespect,’ he said, ‘but you’re wrong there. It’s you, definitely.’

  The man raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, I can agree with you on that score, because I am definitely me. It’s the shop bit I’m having trouble with. Still, there you are. That’s the thing I like about this country, there’s scope for a wide range of different opinions.’

  It occurred to Paul that it wasn’t the end of the world, even if the man wasn’t prepared to admit to being the shopkeeper. Maybe he was self-conscious about it or something. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Not to worry. Sorry about your foot.’

  The man shrugged. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘I’ve got two.’

  ‘That’s all right, then. Cheers.’

  The man smiled and walked away, and Paul shifted along a bit, in search of stabler walls and less stroppy pavements. It was odd, he thought; not that it figured tremendously in the vast overarching scheme of things, but the man he’d bumped into was quite definitely the man from the toothbrush shop, Mr, Mr Thing, Mr—

  Palaeologus. For some reason he couldn’t quite pronounce it, even speaking wordlessly to his inner ear, but he could sort of see the word in his head. Funny sort of a name; but that was Americans for you. Paul had been an earnest student of international affairs all his life, and nothing the Yanks got up to surprised him any more.

  The pavements were against him all the way to the bus stop - a bit uncalled-for, he felt, since all he’d done was brush up against a wall who happened to be a friend of theirs. He fell asleep on the bus and woke up just in time to scramble out at his stop. While he’d been dozing the pavements had apparently found it in their stony hearts to forgive him, because they stayed more or less level as far as his front door. On the other hand, he’d got a bit of a headache, doubtless because he’d had his head at a funny angle or something of the sort. He trudged up the stairs and let himself in, but the lights weren’t working. Fuse blown, he diagnosed instantly. Bugger.

  But that was all right. Paul knew where the fuse box was, and all you had to do was look at a row of switches till you found the one that’d flipped itself down. There was just enough light seeping in from the street-lamps to see by, and he hopped up on a kitchen chair to investigate. Remarkably, he found that all the fuses must’ve blown simultaneously, because all the switches were pointing the same way. Freak power surge, he decided, probably a powerful electric storm. He flipped them all over, climbed down and tried the lights, which still didn’t work. Funny.

  ‘Silly,’ said a voice. ‘It’s the bulb that’s gone, not the fuse. And now you’ve turned them all off, so nothing works.’

  ‘Ah, right,’ Paul replied, feeling a trifle foolish. ‘I’ll just put them back, then.’ He clambered back onto the chair, did the switches and then thought, Just a second: voice?

  ‘Hello?’ he said cautiously. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Me,’ the voice replied. ‘Over here.’

  ‘I can’t see you.’

  ‘That’s because the bulb’s gone, you pinhead.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ Maybe it was the befuddling effects of his nap on the bus, or dizziness from hopping on and off chairs, or just possibly it was a side effect of the ginger-beer shandies; but Paul couldn’t quite marshal the words he needed to get across what he wanted to say; namely, who the hell are you and what are you doing in my flat? Screw verbal communication anyway, he decided. Why ask when he could see for himself, which he could do perfectly easily just as soon as he’d changed that annoying bulb? Which he couldn’t do in the dark, because he couldn’t find a spare—

  But (and this was where he had an ace in the hole in this battle against the universe) he did know exactly where to lay his hand on a candle and a box of matches; right here on the kitchen shelf, next to the pasta jar.

  Paul located the jar rather cleverly by touch (and the crash it made as it hit the tiles confirmed its identity); and there next to it, just as he’d thought, were the candle and the matchbox. He struck a match, tried to light his middle finger, decided that was a bad idea and lit the wick of the candle instead. Now he had light; armed with which, he was the equal of anything the world could throw at him. He picked up the candle and directed its glowing yellow circle around the room. Nobody there.

  ‘Stop mucking about,’ he ordered, because an Englishman’s home is his castle, even though most Englishmen tend to end up in the dungeons. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Here,’ the voice said, sounding bored. ‘Where I usually am.’

  That didn’t make a whole lot of sense; because if Paul had been sharing his flat with whoever the voice belonged to, he reckoned he’d have noticed it by now. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Humour me. Where’s that?’

  ‘Right in front of you, of course. Between the sink and the washing machine.’

  Paul frowned, and lifted the candle higher. There was the sink, right, yes; there was the washing machine. Between them, there was just the fridge, no gap large enough for anybody to hide in. ‘No you aren’t,’ Paul pointed out.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘No, you bloody well aren’t. Look,’ he added, marching across the floor and standing next to the fridge door. ‘No gap, see? Sink, fridge, washing machine. Nobody there.’

  The voice sighed. ‘You’ve been drinking,’ it said. ‘That’d account for it. Even you are
n’t generally this stupid.’

  Paul froze. He had a nasty feeling that the voice was coming from inside the fridge. Nerving himself against what he might find, he grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. Nothing. The light didn’t even come on and his candle flame showed him nothing except a sad-looking lump of antique cheese and a milk carton.

  This was really stupid, but: ‘Are you in there?’

  This time the voice laughed. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ it said; at which point Paul realised that for the last few minutes he’d been having a conversation with his fridge.

  He slammed the door shut and jumped back. ‘You?’

  ‘Finally.’ A long sigh, and a faint gurgle of plumbing. ‘For someone in your line of work, you’re a bit bloody slow off the mark.’

  ‘You’re the fridge.’

  ‘Yes, I’m the fridge. Of course, I knew that already.’

  ‘But—’ Pity about the four pints of intoxicant; this was a situation he’d have preferred to face without having to think his way through all that beer. ‘You can’t be, I’ve been keeping food in you for the last nine months. I mean, how long—?’

  ‘I’ve always been here,’ the fridge replied, and repeated the gurgling noise, which put Paul in mind of something or other he couldn’t quite place. ‘Looking after you, like I promised I would. But now I need you to do something for me.’

  ‘Oh. What?’

  ‘Switch me back on. He’s been here. He turned me off at the mains. If I go cold, I’ll die. It’s all right, I’ve still got half an hour left, at least. But if you wouldn’t mind—’

  ‘Like you promised?’ Paul said. ‘Promised who?’

  ‘The switch. Please.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, yes.’ Hot wax from the candle ran down over the back of his hand; he nearly dropped it. ‘I’ll just turn on the lamp here, so I can see—’

  ‘Don’t bother, it won’t work. I told you, he was here. He’s killed all the bulbs.’