by Tom Holt
‘You’re doing it again,’ Colin said. ‘Jargon. Try that again in plain English.’
Oscar seemed almost embarrassed. ‘I am sorry,’ it said. ‘I am not proficient at plain English. It is not much used where I come from. We do not find it conducive to’ It hesitated. ‘To productivity. Perhaps,’ it went on, ‘this is not the best environment for a discussion of this sort. I believe it is traditional to conduct vital negotiations while eating food. Let’s do lunch.’
‘I’d rather not, thanks.’
‘Are you sure? I can provide you with a suitably extended spoon. Humour,’ it added, hopefully.
‘I think we should get this straight right now. What are you trying to tell me? What’ll happen if I just walk out and don’t come back?’
It was as though Oscar had closed down or gone off-line; it stood still and quiet for a long time, to the point where Colin began to wonder if he’d killed it. ‘You want me to tell you that?’ it said at last.
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. Should you act in the manner you have outlined, the contract will have been breached. We will no longer have to provide workers and material support to your business, and you’ Another pause; was Oscar feeling squeamish about something? Surely not. ‘You will have to fulfil your obligations under the contract immediately. Do you understand me?’
Colin wilted like a flat tyre. So that was that. If he walked out, Dad would have to go to Hell straight away: not pass Go, do not collect two hundred pounds. Simple as that, once you pared away the legal gibberish.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘So I’m stuck here, then. Indefinitely.’
Oscar shook its head. ‘Not indefinitely,’ it said. ‘For the term of your father’s natural life.’
‘Ah.’
‘And now,’ Oscar said, ‘you must go to the machine shop and exercise authority. At once.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Colin snapped. ‘Can’t I just stay here and sulk? I’m sure you don’t need me down there. I don’t know how to run a factory. Dad does all that.’
‘It is required,’ Oscar said.
‘Balls.’ And now he’d sworn at the Devil. Just as well his mother couldn’t hear him, or she’d be really upset. Tell him he’d come to a bad end, most like. ‘Or are you going to tell me you’ll whatsit the contract if I don’t?’
Oscar hesitated. ‘It is required,’ it repeated awkwardly.
Or?’
‘Or there may be a downturn in morale and industrial relations, leading to a decline in productivity.’
Colin stood up. ‘I’ll risk it,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go out for a breath of fresh air.’
Oscar sniffed. ‘There is air in the building,’ it pointed out.
Colin walked past it onto the landing, then sprinted down the stairs as fast as he could go. At reception, Rosie called out, ‘That Oscar’s looking for you,’ but he ignored her and bundled out into the street.
Outside, he paused. Just getting out of there made him feel a lot better, but it was hardly a plan of action. He looked up and down the street, open to suggestions. Sod this, he thought, I’ll He’d what? He knew what he wanted to do: he wanted to go to 70 St Mary Axe, see Cassie Clay and demand that she explained the contract, in language that he could understand, so he’d know exactly what kind of hold the bastards had over him. If he knew that, he could at least start working on an escape plan. That was what he’d like to do, but he had an unpleasant feeling it might not be possible. The railway station was closed until further notice, he didn’t have a car yet - come on, he told himself, there’s got to be a way to do a simple thing like get up to London. Buses? Taxi?
Colin had a bad feeling about those two options. Somehow, he had an idea that if he went and stood at the bus stop, he’d be there a very long time. He remembered the cup of tea. Even so: there had to be a way, even if he was right and there was an exceptionally powerful supernatural force bent on making him stay put. So what if they could sabotage public transport? He could hire a car. Yes, of course. Then he’d set off in the opposite direction, make for Kingston or Basingstoke, and then double back and outsmart them that way. Maybe it wouldn’t work, but he wouldn’t mind trying. It’d be (he grinned sadly) something to do.
Hire a car … He remembered. There was a hire-car place own on the Richmond road, only a few hundred yards away. Into his mind flitted an image of Steve McQueen on a motorbike. Of course, in the film Mr McQueen had been trying to get home, and here he was, desperate to break out of it.
The hire-car place was on the left-hand side, just past Halfords
Apparently not. It had been there; he’d seen it only the other day, a large glass-fronted building on a corner. Instead, he found two small buildings, a florist’s and a mobile-phone shop, and, on the opposite side of the road, a photos-while-you-wait place which he could’ve sworn he’d last seen down the other end of the road, three doors up from Laura Ashley.
This, Colin told himself, is silly.
He stood on the corner, wondering what to do next; and while his mind was wandering, a taxi pulled up next to him. Its yellow light was on, and the driver was looking at him.
Oh well, Colin thought. He went over, and the driver said, ‘Where to?’
‘Can you take to me 70 St Mary Axe?’ he asked.
‘Hop in.’
There’d be roadworks, of course; or a burst water main, or a tailback, traffic diverted via Orpington, Salford and the Great Barrier Reef. Humour, as Oscar would say. Colin got in nevertheless. It’d be interesting to see just how far he managed to go before they turned him back. He snuggled into the seat, stretched out his legs and closed his eyes. He was wasting his time, but at least it was out of the office and away from Oscar and the demons, for a little while.
‘Seventy St Mary Axe,’ the driver called out.
Colin’s eyes snapped open, and he leaned forward. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
“Course I’m bloody sure. I do this for a living, you know.’
Colin jumped out, handed over money, waved away the change. Just as the driver pulled away, Colin caught sight of the man’s eyes; they were strangely red, as though he was a photo of himself taken indoors with a flash.
‘Bugger me,’ Colin said aloud, as he stared at the old-fashioned brass plate and the revolving door. ‘I made it.’ He smiled out of pure exuberant joy. ‘Eat your heart out, Steve,’ he added, and barged into the door, which whirled him round a couple of times like a rogue centrifuge and spat him out in the front office of JWW.
‘You,’ said a voice.
His eyes opened wide. Couldn’t be
‘Fam?’
‘Colin.’ She was sitting behind the front desk, staring at him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came to see’ Fuck that, he thought. ‘What about you? What’re jou?’
She looked at him with a mixture of misery and contempt. ‘I work here,’ she said.
‘Here?’
‘Yes, here.’ Fam looked round to see if anybody was watching, and lowered her voice. ‘It was the only job I could find, after your Dad fired me. Really, Colin, I didn’t think you’d be so bloody petty.’
Colin opened his mouth and closed it again, like a whale catching krill.
‘He told me, you know, straight out, like it was my fault. You dump my son, he said, you can bloody well get another job. My Mum said I should take you to the tribunal, but I told her, I don’t want anything to do with any of them ever again.’
‘My Dad said that?’
‘Yes, he did.’ Fam scowled at him so fiercely that he winced. ‘So I told him I never wanted the stupid job and he could go to hell.’
‘And what did he say to that?’
‘He just laughed. Thought it was dead funny. So I went home und looked through the ads in the paper, and this place was the only one that’d even give me an interview. Took me on straight away, which just shows. Some people aren’t compl
ete bastards.’
Colin put a hand on the desk to stop himself falling over.
Didn’t make sense, his brain was screaming at him. First, all the unseen bloody forces are trying to keep me from finding her, and now they’re practically throwing her at me, except that she hates me, because my stupid Dad Hold it right there. His father, who’d fired her. Go to hell, she’d told him.
And why not?
‘Listen,’ he said, and the urgency in his voice cut her off in mid-protest. ‘It’s really, really complicated and bizarre and hard to explain, but I promise faithfully that I’ll try, okay? But first I’ve got to see one of the people who work here, Cassie Clay. It shouldn’t take’
‘Cassie Clay,’ Fam interrupted venomously. ‘Her. The one you were slobbering all over in the office that day, back at your place.’
‘I wasn’t bloody slobbering,’ Colin hissed. ‘Look, I’m not the tiniest bit interested in the stupid cow, except that I desperately need to ask her something about a really ghastly, horrible mess we’re in at work; and just maybe she might be able to tell me how I can get out of it, and if I can I’m going to leave Hollingshead’s and probably the country, and’ Just a fraction of a second’s hesitation; but he was right up on top of the wave, so why not carry on and see where it took him? ‘And if I do that,’ he heard himself say, ‘I haven’t got a clue what I’ll do or where I’ll go, and you probably think I’ve gone barking mad but I genuinely mean this: if it turns out I can go, will you please, please come with me?’
There was a moment’s dead silence. ‘You what?’
‘I love you,’ Colin said. ‘You’re my one true love, you’re the only reason my life could possibly be worth living, and will you bloody well come with me or not?’
Maybe, if a trapdoor in the ceiling had opened and swamped Fam in runny custard, she might have been marginally more astonished. Too close to call, really. ‘I’
‘Well? I hate to hurry you, but I’ve got to see this dratted Clay woman.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Damn.’ Colin breathed out hard through his nose. ‘All right, tell you what. I’ll go and see Cassie Clay, and while I’m in there you can be thinking it over. Then, soon as I’m done, you can tell me what you’ve decided. All right?’
‘All right,’ Fam said, in a tiny voice. ‘I’ll buzz her and ask if she can see you.’
Colin shook his head. ‘Tell her I’m on my way up. Where’s her office, by the way?’
‘Um, I’m not actually sure,’ she replied. ‘It’s a rather odd building, you can get lost in it. I’d better ring through to her - don’t want to lose this job as well.’
Colin sighed. ‘Yes, all right. But don’t ask if she can spare me five minutes. Tell her I’ve got to see her right now. Matter of life and death. Matter of life after death, actually, but that’s part of the long, complicated explanation, so we’ll save it for later, all right?’
Fam rang through. ‘She’ll be straight down,’ she said. ‘Sounded almost like she was expecting you.’
Colin shrugged. ‘She’s strange. In fact, I think they all are. Fam, have they told you what it is they actually do here? Because’
‘Of course they have,’ she replied. ‘They’re tea and coffee importers, it says so on the brass plate outside.’ She frowned. ‘What’s so desperately important and involves tea?’ she added.
Colin felt the grin take control of his face before he could stop it. ‘I need to dump about a hundred tons of it in a harbour,’ he said. He almost added ‘Humour’ out of sheer force of habit. ‘Look, forget I said that. I really will explain, I promise.’ The fire door was opening; that’d be Cassie. ‘And think about what I said, right?’ he hissed, as Cassie walked into reception. ‘Promise?’
Fam mouthed yes at him, and he looked away.
‘In here,’ Cassie said. ‘My office. We won’t be disturbed in here. I’ve got all the documents and stuff.’
Colin looked round, and took an instant dislike to the place.
For one thing, there was something very odd about it. No matter how hard they try not to, people can’t help leaving an impression on rooms they spend time in. Sometimes it’s obvious - fluffy cushions, bead curtains, framed photographs of fat children cuddling dogs, cured and stuffed squirrels in a glass case, the smell of forgotten salad rotting in obscurity. Sometimes it’s more subliminal: the perfectly tidy desk and immaculately placed furniture of the neurotic, for example. Cassie Clay’s office, by contrast, told him nothing at all. It was as though nobody had been in the room for months.
But he wasn’t interested in rooms, no matter how weird and physically impossible they might be. All he wanted to do was get the information he needed and leave, pausing only to sweep Fam off her feet and into his arms on the way out, so, if they’d laid on all this ambience for his benefit, they’d been wasting their time.
‘In here,’ Cassie went on, ‘I’ve got a photocopy of the contract your father signed, along with the correspondence between us and them, notes of my phone conversations, all that kind of thing. Do you want to work through it together, or what?’
Colin shrugged. ‘Do what you like,’ he said. ‘What I want to know is, how does it affect me personally? Because that bloody horrible thing that calls itself Oscar told me I couldn’t quit or run away, or they’d foreclose at once and my Dad’d go straight to Well, you know. So, can you look at the paperwork and tell me if that’s really true, or whether they’re lying about it.’
Cassie nodded. ‘Bear with me,’ she said, ‘I’ll have a’ She broke off. First she stared at the contract - she was only on the first page - and then at Colin.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question,’ she said, ‘but what’s your father’s first name?’
‘Colin,’ Colin replied. ‘Same as me. What about it?’
Cassie breathed a massive sigh of relief. ‘That’s all right, then,’ she said. ‘Only, when I drew up the contract, his name wasn’t in the file anywhere, or in the letter of instruction, so I left a blank for him to fill in. So when I looked at it just now and saw what’s been written in there, Colin Derek Hollingshead, I thought for u moment there’d been some sort of terrible’
‘Did you say Derek?’
Cassie looked up. ‘That’s right. Here, see for yourself.’
‘My father’s middle name is Henry.’
‘What?’
‘And I was called Colin Derek after my Mum’s cousin in Give me that,’ Colin snapped, grabbing the contract from her. ‘You must’ve …’
Dad’s handwriting had always been something of a mystery to him. He’d always wondered how come a forceful, dynamic man like his father could have such childish, girly handwriting.
‘Oh shit,’ he said.
Childish and girly, but crystal clear. And unmistakable.
‘I don’t understand,’ Cassie was bleating. Colin laughed.
‘Don’t you?’ he said. ‘I do. I fucking well understand, all right.’ He could feel the anger welling up inside him like a balloon. ‘You know what he’s done? It wasn’t his soul he sold to the Devil - it was mine.’
Three seconds passed, during which there was no sound at nil.
‘Oh,’ Cassie said.
Which only went to show: she might’ve known a very great deal about magical law and spiritual conveyancing, but absolutely nothing about tact. Colin, on the other hand, seemed lo have stopped entirely, as though God had hit the pause button. It wasn’t that the anger had gone away; far from it. Rather, it was now so huge, filling him so completely, that at first he could neither move nor speak; and when the pressure dropped just a little, all he could come out with was a small, flat voice, like the snotty cow in a Japanese car who reminds you that you haven’t put you*r seat belt on.
‘He can’t do that, can he?’ Colin said.
‘Well, no,’ Cassie replied quickly. ‘I mean, if you’re not a party to the contract
it’s not binding on you, obviously. It’d only affect you if you actually signed’ She tailed off, then added, ‘You did sign, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. You witnessed my signature.’
‘So I did,’ Cassie replied. ‘Actually, I remember thinking at the time, why’s he got to sign, it’s nothing to do with him; but I assumed it was just an indemnity or something, just so they could cover themselves’
‘You thought that,’ Colin said, very quietly indeed.
‘Yes, but I didn’t actually read’
‘You didn’t actually read what it said. I see.’
At least Cassie didn’t say sorry at that point; not because she wasn’t about to, her common sense having evaporated like whisky on a hot stove, but because at that moment the door opened and Fam came in, holding a tray. On it were two cups and saucers, a sugar bowl, a milk jug and a small plate of digestive biscuits.
‘Thought you might like some tea,’ she said, putting the tray down on the table, and left.
It was only after she’d gone that Colin realised it had been her; and the irony of it burst through his stunned numbness like an armour-piercing shell. Just when he’d got somewhere; just when there was a chance she’d say yes and come with him to Vanuatu or the Andaman Islands and help him with the beachcombing and the splitting open of coconuts or whatever the future held for them both, just at that moment, this had to happen. It was just so bloody unkind
‘Milk and sugar?’ Cassie whispered.
‘Yes, please,’ Colin replied automatically. ‘No sugar.’
‘Biscuit?’
‘Thanks.’ A plate appeared on the periphery of his vision; he reached out and took a biscuit, then stared at it blankly for a second or two, trying to remember what the hell he was supposed to do with it. ‘So what you’re saying is,’ he said, ‘I signed the contract, so Dad gets his demon workforce and I’m the one who goes to Hell for ever and ever.’