‘But… if she doesn’t know, why do you scream and swear at her when you end up in the water?’
Orson’s face flushed. ‘I am the Traveller, aren’t I?’ he said.
*
The centre court at Wimbledon was deserted and Thomas landed softly - with a small hop. Orson’s drooping eyelid lifted; surprised at the boy’s quick mastery, but saying nothing. He clambered up the ladder and made himself at home in the umpire’s chair. Thomas sat on the bottom rung.
‘Orson?’
‘Mmh?’
‘Was Chester the first Traveller?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then how did he get to Rainbow’s End?’
Orson cackled. ‘He was a duke,’ he said. ‘Somewhere around here.’ He waved his arm at Wimbledon and England in general. ‘But a wastrel really. Until he met up with the wrong people.’ Orson looked down at Thomas - for once. ‘He cheated some Gypsies at cards, and tried seducing their shaman’s daughter. Rainbow’s End is where he woke up.’
‘He must be terribly old,’ said Thomas.
‘He is.’
*
It was a short hop to the sixteenth green at St. Andrews. Thomas was enjoying himself but his limbs ached from all of the suddenly-being-sucked-into-the-air, the one thing a Traveller can’t control. The course was deserted.
‘So, what did George ask you?’ Orson had a sly gleam in his eyes.
‘George?’ Thomas knew very well whom Orson meant, but pretended ignorance.
‘George, yes.’ Orson bulged his eyes. ‘The fairy.’
‘Oh…’ Thomas blushed, then looked away. ‘He asked me for a kiss,’ he mumbled.
Orson cackled. ‘At Rainbow’s End the fairies really are fairies,’ he said.
21
They landed on top of Izzy’s building at three o’clock. Only a few minutes before the sun disappeared behind some high-rise buildings to the west. This time Orson was in charge; he wasn’t prepared to fall eighteen stories.
‘We’re spending the night here,’ he said.
In the building across the street, a frizzy-purple-haired secretary watched the old man and the boy land. As if in a trance, she reached for her medication. Her boss came in a minute later and found her, still gaping at the now empty roof opposite. ‘Feeling under the weather again, are we Suzie?’ he asked.
The whole of the building’s roof not taken up by the penthouse was tiled in terracotta, and there were a lot of plants in pots and drums and other containers. The penthouse had large sliding doors - one of which had been left open, and when they stepped inside, Thomas’ mouth fell open.
‘Impressive, huh?’ asked Orson, and the boy nodded in awed silence. There were huge rooms, open-planned and on different levels - some sunken and others elevated; all furnished in leather and glass and chrome, and beautiful paintings and vases and carpets and rugs.
The bedroom in which Orson left him (Izzy was not home yet, but Orson seemed very much at home in anyway), was decorated in blue and grey pastels and had a king-sized bed. A large painting of two little girls chasing butterflies in a flowered field hung on the wall.
His bathroom reminded of Annie’s - but without the view: all glass and shining taps and a bath big enough to swim in. A cricket chirped somewhere - insistent - and when Thomas went back inside the bedroom, a small red light flashed on the transparent telephone on one bedside table.
‘Pick it up, if it’s yours!’ Orson’s gravelly voice croaked from elsewhere in the penthouse. Izzy’s was at the other end, welcoming Thomas and asking him to take a bath or a shower, whichever he preferred, and to get dressed in the clothes inside his cupboard.
The bath had buttons that activated jets of water squirting from different directions and in differing strengths, and more buttons for bubbles and foam. Thomas tried them all.
The clothes were tan trousers, a formal white shirt with a button-down collar (which Thomas left undone), and a royal blue dinner jacket. The vest of his thermal underwear showed at his neck (it was winter after all), and of two pairs of identical shoes, the larger size fit. In the jackets breast pocket was an expensive looking watch, which he slipped on. He looked at himself in the mirror, and thought he looked quite spiffy - if he had to say so himself. If only Grammy could see him now…
Orson waited in the sunken lounge - sipping at something red. He wore a navy blue double-breasted suit with red pinstripes. It had obviously been tailored to his personal needs, for the trousers fit his short legs exactly. His shoes were wine-red brogues. In all - very distinguished. He pressed a small black button on one wall and the door on an elevator slid open. It only went down one floor and opened into Izzy’s office.
*
They were on the eleventh floor. A long passage with a grey and red patterned carpet stretched before them, and doors and windows of numerous offices on their left and right.
‘The first ten floors of the building are residential,’ said Izzy. ‘Flats, Thomas. All occupied by the Rainbow’s End Corporation’s employees. Mostly single parents and young people whom we have helped. A lot of them have been to Rainbow’s End when they were younger, but of course, they don’t know it. The next seven floors are taken up by the various branches of the business: most of which I started, I’m proud to say.’ They began walking, and all the windows Thomas looked through, showed people working.
‘This floor is taken up by our mining division.’ Izzy saw Thomas’ questioning look. ‘We do own some real mines, Thomas,’ he smiled. ‘Seven, to be exact. A gold mine in Australia, one in South Africa and another two in Peru. A diamond mine in Namibia; rubies and sapphires in Thailand and also New South Wales, Australia.
‘Not one of them is profitable - they employ more people than necessary and pay inordinately high wages. The two in Peru run at a loss. They are there simply as a means: to help us help people.’ Izzy smiled again. ‘They also give us a legal channel through which to sell Rainbow’s End’s gold and gems.’
He opened the door at the end of the passage and they went up the fire-escape to the next floor.
*
‘On this floor we have our clothing division. Design, patterns and administration. We have two clothing factories. One in Ireland and one in Indonesia. They manufacture children’s clothing and formal wear mostly, but can be geared for almost any other apparel,’ Izzy said. ‘The clothes you are wearing, as well as all of that on Rainbow’s End, including the Wise One’s and the Little People’s, come from Rainbow Clothing.
‘As with the mines, there is almost no profit. We employ too many people, and donate too much of our product to children’s homes and the poor.’
Unlike the floor below, they went into many of the offices, and everybody seemed either busy with a calculator or a computer, or at a draughting table. They all seemed happy; Izzy called them by their first names and they called him Mr. Greenbaum. Almost everyone had met Orson before, and the little man’s face flushed red every time Izzy introduced Thomas as “Mr. Frazier’s grandson”. They took the steps again.
*
‘This entire floor is Jewellery,’ Izzy said. ‘Millions of pounds of gems and gold are kept here. Hence the security.’ He finished punching in a security code, and the heavy steel door opened with a loud “clack”. The carpet was thick and pink, with a powder-blue motif.
‘Most of Rainbow’s End’s gold and gems end up here. The design and manufacturing - even the marketing strategy of the finished product, it all happens in these offices. Private viewings as well. We have eleven shops in Britain and another twenty-three in the rest of Europe.’ He pointed at Thomas’ wrist. ‘Your watch comes from one of them. Our prices start at a couple of hundred pounds - or euros - depending on where you are, and we have sold a few pieces that ran to more than a million.’
Thomas gasped, and Izzy, with a small smile and a shrug of his bony shoulders, said, ‘Alas - no profit. Or almost none.’
*
‘Agriculture,’ said Izzy of the next floor, an
d in answer to Thomas’ new puzzled look, put a hand on the boy’s jacketed shoulder. He explained, ‘The Rainbow Corporation owns several farms, Thomas. Three in the United States - cattle in Texas, wheat in Kansas and oranges in California. Three here in England - mostly vegetables; one in South Africa and one in Australia - both fruit. Sheep in New Zealand; three vineyards - another in South Africa, one in France and one in Spain.
‘Their related industries as well: meat, fruit, and vegetable processing. Packaging plants. Fertilizer manufacturing, insecticides, packaging materials, transportation… And marketing, of course.’
He answered Thomas’ questioning look with a wry grin and a shake of his head. ‘No profit,’ he said.
*
‘This is our Banking division,’ said Izzy when they stepped onto the fifteenth floor. ‘Rainbow Banking has two specialities - large loans to other Corporations and other banks; and home loans to lower and lower-middle income people. The first is extremely profitable, the second extremely unprofitable. Our bank has never taken somebody’s house; never foreclosed.’ He grinned. ‘Numerous people who have found themselves destitute and on the brink of losing it all, have suddenly found themselves the winners of a competition they could not remember entering, or the beneficiaries of an unknown uncle - who had passed away somewhere in Mongolia’s - will.’
Thomas waited, and Izzy held the tips of his thumb and forefinger a half an inch apart.
‘A small profit,’ he said.
*
‘This floor and the next,’ Izzy said of the sixteenth and seventeenth, is taken up by our property division, acquisitions, accounts, salaries and other admin. The corporation owns a lot of property: this building and two smaller ones like it; the houses and land taken up by our children’s homes; the food and clothing factories; houses and flats in various other countries, farms…
‘We also employ almost seventy thousand people, mostly in the mines and the food and clothing plants. The monthly amount of paperwork is horrendous…
‘One of our most recent acquisitions,’ said Izzy, ‘is a small cottage in Rockham, Northumberland. It’s been purchased from a certain Mr. Grimple, and now belongs to a young Master Thomas Ross.’
*
They were back where they had started from. ‘The eighteenth floor is split into ten almost equal sections,’ said Izzy. ‘Eight for my vice-presidents.’ He ticked them off on his long fingers. ‘One for the clothing division; one for jewellery; two for mining - gold and gems; two for banking - corporate loans and home loans; two for agriculture - one for the farms, the other for the factories and infrastructure. The two remaining sections are my office and the boardroom.’ He looked at his wristwatch. It was almost six. ‘And now we have to go,’ he said. ‘Louis is waiting for us and then we have a dinner reservation at “Christina’s”.’
*****
“Louis” was one of the shops taking space on the ground floor of the Rainbow’s End building. It was a men’s hairdresser, where Izzy had a shave every weekday morning, and a trim of his remaining hair once a week. The pillars on the side of the door had red and white stripes, and just inside stood a large glass cabinet, displaying a variety of smoking pipes, mouth-organs, hairbrushes and combs, hand mirrors, aftershave lotions and eau de Cologne. Also Brylcreem, dubbin and shoe polish. On top of the cabinet, a large bottle of lollypops and an old-fashioned cash register with a lever on its side.
Louis and his two assistants wore white linen jackets with scissors in their breast pockets, black pants with knife-edge creases and shiny shoes. Their side whiskers were long and they all smelled of the same heavy cologne. They looked like brothers and Thomas later found out they were.
Izzy’s was only a perfunctory trim; Maurice gave Thomas a neat, short cut suited to Rainbow’s End’s weather; and Louis himself attended Orson - giving the old Traveller’s grey mop a distinguished cut and taking off his patchy beard with a straight razor. The barber talked all the time and Thomas couldn’t hear them, but Orson cackled a lot.
*
“Christina’s” was a small restaurant - one of the best in London, with a very select clientele. They had a five year waiting list for membership, and everybody called “Mr. Izzy” by his name. Their speciality was seafood and Thomas chose Fish and Chips (the best he’d ever had); Izzy and Orson shared a huge seafood platter, and a couple of bottles of very expensive wine.
Izzy talked to Thomas about Rainbow’s End’s finances. About non-profit organisations and tax-shelters… and thanks to the memory transfer part of his initiation, Thomas understood principles and terms and a hundred other things which would have been just a lot of gibberish a week ago.
*
Later that night - just before bed - in Izzy’s beautiful sunken lounge, he gave Orson and Thomas some papers to read and to sign. The first was the transfer document for Pine Cottage.
‘As I said earlier - it is now yours,’ he said, showing Thomas where to write his name. ‘The transfer should be completed in a month or so, and you can take Orson there then. I have also taken the liberty of arranging a Headstone for Rose…’ Izzy cleared his throat. ‘I think you will like it.’
‘Thank you Izzy,’ Thomas said softly.
Izzy’s eyes were kind. ‘You are welcome, Thomas. But never forget that Rose was one of us too.’ He took another set of papers out of the yellow folder in front of him. ‘These are papers declaring me your legal guardian,’ he said. ‘The process was made a lot easier and faster because we know the right people to call on. People… officials we work with in conjunction with the orphanages; we prefer to call them children’s homes, by the way.
‘The ideal situation of course, would have been for it to be your grandfather.’ Izzy glanced slyly at Orson, who went red and grumbled something. ‘But unfortunately he does not exist, and therefore cannot claim domicile.’ The two old men laughed.
‘It gives you an address here on the Earth and it also gives me the authority to handle your affairs back here. Most importantly - the police have stopped looking for you.’ Izzy arranged the papers in a neat pile. He smiled at Thomas, ‘So, if it is all right with you, I am now officially - legally - your adoptive father.’
Thomas nodded, speechless, and Izzy grinned at a scowling Orson. ‘You, grandpa,’ he said, ‘can call me son.’
*
They left London with the very first rays of sunshine, and Thomas, who had taken off his wristwatch before they left the penthouse, felt a sense of freedom when they landed in the Rainbow Pool at Rainbow’s End, where time does not exist. Both on their feet.
22
The sun had set a couple of hours ago. Thomas was sitting on one of the benches outside the cave’s entrance, enjoying the solitude and the quiet. The other children were inside, the boys in the dining room (which had been changed into a games room for the night; complete with pool tables, and pinball and foosball tables); and the girls in one of their bedrooms, which had a ten-pin bowling alley in it, or shopping in the warehouse. The youngest children were already asleep. Thomas had joined Gary in a few games of pinball and one of pool, and then, feeling restless, had gone outside.
The meadows of Rainbow’s End stretched away before him; darkly golden in the moonlight, and the river a silver snake bisecting them. Far away and against the lower horizon, the magic forest lay dark under the glittering canopy of stars. He got up, and after going down the steep, and into the valley, started walking. The well-trodden path was still warm under his bare feet, and the tall grass at its sides caressed his lower legs. He crossed the higher-up bridge and heard the music soft on the air when still a hundred metres away from Ariana’s Pool. He recognized it as he got closer - it was “The Blue Danube”, one of the pieces Grammy had taught him to waltz to. It finished, and then started over, and then he was at the pool. Ariana was on the Talking Rock, her knees drawn up under her chin, dark hair veiling her face, the moon and starlight casting an ethereal glow around her. The music was sublimely beautiful, soft, but loud
enough to carry. Thomas could see no music-system and supposed (correctly), that there was none. The sound emitted from the very rocks surrounding the pool, pure and gooseflesh-wonderful, further enhanced by the small waterfall further down, whispering water-music. The frogs and crickets were busily and loudly croaking and chirping, and Thomas could swear they were keeping time - some carrying the tune, others croaking the shorter, and still others, the longer notes. He stood rooted in place, listening with delighted rapture, and when the combined orchestras finished with a loud and sustained crescendo, couldn’t stop himself, but involuntary, unselfconsciously, and loudly clapped his hands. And all was quiet suddenly, except the softly splashing water.
Ariana turned her head and smiled, and her teeth were very white in the dark. ‘Hello, Thomas,’ she said, and patted the empty space on the rock beside her. He sat and she said, ‘I’m glad you came.’
Thomas, surprised, asked, ‘You knew I was coming?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I willed it.’
‘Why?’
‘Shhh…’ Clapped her hands softly and another waltz started up, equally beautiful even though Thomas didn’t know its name. And then “The Moonlight Serenade”; and another…
And then, after their last applause, the goddess clapped her hands twice, loudly, and all was quiet of a sudden. They listened to the quiet, and the rustling in the trees and the grass; to the hoot of an owl and the squeak of a bat, to the softly falling water… The music of the night.
Rainbow's End - Wizard Page 19