by Tom Holt
‘Fine,’ Connie said. ‘Push off.’
Pause. The thin-faced girl was clearly waiting for something to happen. Equally clearly, it wasn’t. First she registered patience, then frustration, then irritation, finally panic. ‘This isn’t right,’ she said, in a distinctly unhappy voice. ‘I ought to be on my way home by now. I shouldn’t still be here, or in this’
‘Outfit?’
‘In this corporeal state,’ the thin-faced girl amended. ‘I should have resolved myself back into a higher plane of existence.’
This time, Connie laughed; not kindly, but with genuine warmth. ‘Still here, though, aren’t you? Which means,’ she added crisply, ‘that the balls-up hasn’t been sorted out after all. Something’s still wrong, and you still don’t know what it is.’
The thin-faced girl gave her a scowl that you could’ve impaled kebabs on. ‘So it would seem. ‘
‘You don’t know,’ Connie repeated. ‘But I’ll bet you your wings and your ducky little golden harp that I do. Intuition,’ she added ferociously, ‘something you sneer at but don’t have. Were those horrible bloody baseball caps your idea, by the way? If so’
‘Just a minute.’ Cassie had come back to life again. ‘Connie, do you really think you know what the problem is?’
‘Yes. But I don’t see why I should tell her anything. She’s the one who made us do those stupid bloody assessments. And she changed the coffee from Gold Blend to Tesco’s own brand. I can forgive most things, but sheer petty mean-mindedness’
‘Connie,’ Cassie snapped. ‘What’s the problem?’
Connie wavered for a moment. ‘Oh, all right, then,’ she said. ‘Look, it’s really very simple. Margaret Thatcher here -‘ the thin-faced girl winced sharply but said nothing ‘- seems to have been basing her calculations on the assumption that you and young Colin are both reincarnations of the original star-crossed lovers, right?’
‘Yes,’ the thin-faced girl said. ‘Actually, it’s more than an assumption. We have delicate, precision-calibrated equipment that allows us to trace the passage of a soul through its various avatars; even in this case, where the incarnations have been running backwards instead of forwards. Our instruments clearly show that Ms Clay here is the fifteenth incarnation of the female star-crossed lover. As for Mr Hollingshead, it’s perfectly obvious that he’s also an avatar. Quite apart from our instrument readings, the fact that the pending forfeiture of his soul caused such an upheaval’
‘Sod your instruments,’ Connie interrupted. ‘All right, maybe Cassie’s an incarnation, I’ll give you that. But not young Colin. He’s not a fifteenth-generation retread. He’s the original.’
Stunned silence.
‘That’s not possible,’ the thin-faced girl said eventually. ‘We know who the originals were. Furthermore, Ms Clay here has actually met them. They came through the connecting door from the Land of the Dead to consult her.’
Cassie looked up sharply. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘Simple. I opened the door and let them through.’
‘Did you, now?’ Connie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Thanks. That ties up another loose end. Really, you’re being very helpful all of a sudden. But forget about that for a second. I was explaining it all to you, or had you forgotten?’
‘Carry on,’ the thin-faced girl replied.
Like I told you (Connie said), it’s pretty straightforward once you stop and think about it. You see, you’ve been coming at it from the wrong direction. Typical, I might add, but I won’t, because otherwise we’ll be here all night.
The point about this mess, as I see it, is not just that we’ve got a case of true love, but a case of true love that got screwed up. So, what we need to do is find the cause of the screw-up. Now, what makes true love so important is that it’s true love. It’s boy meets girl, they fall in love, they live happily ever after; absolutely basic, no frills, no complications. Once their eyes have met across a crowded room, that’s it. No force on earth can ever separate them, as long as they live.
Almost.
Because, of course, there is one force on earth that can bugger it all up, and that’s J. W. Wells & Co’s patent oxy-hydrogen love philtre. Guaranteed. The only way a true lover can be prised off his one true love and made to fancy someone else is five millilitres of the good old stuff, taken internally.
That simplifies things, doesn’t it? Of course, I haven’t got access to all your search results and instrument data, so I can’t be sure that out of all the poor sods who’ve been dragged into this mess by way of retrospective reincarnation or whatever, young Hollingshead’s the only male partner who’s ever had a dose of the big bad medicine. However, I’ll bet you the knickers I’m wearing that it’s true. Of course, Cassie’s drunk the stuff as well, so it’s possible that she was an original rather than a remake, but I don’t think that’s the case. You see, while all this garbage has been going on around him, Colin here reckons that he’s found his one true love: stout girl, works on the front desk here, name of Famine Williams. And - no disrespect, Cassie dear - the same can’t be said of our Cassie. In fact, she wouldn’t know love if it bit her on the nose.
Now; once you’ve got that far, everything else just sort of drops nicely into place. Colin and his Fam are true lovers; but something goes wrong, with disastrous results. Fine. You and your bunch of idiots swing into action to sort out the problem. But the problem won’t sort out, because the reincarnate-‘em-and-fix-it-next-time-round option’s not available to you, thanks to Daddy Hollingshead’s ill-timed pact with the Devil. Result: incarnations back up into the past. One of them is Cassie here. You, with all your technological wizardry, assume that Cas and Colin are avatars, and you decide to force them to fall in love by spiking their tea with JWW philtre. A bit high-handed, maybe, but at least I can see where you were coming from. Like most people who do unbelievable amounts of harm and damage to others, you were only doing what you thought was for the best.
OK. Let’s just stop and think about this. Something buggers up Colin and Fam’s true love. We’ve already seen that, one, the chronology of this is all to cock, thanks to the contract with your mate Oscar; two, that only JWW philtre could’ve caused the screw-up in the first place. Got it?
Oh, come on. It’s obvious. It’s obvious what messed up Colin and Fam. It was you, dosing Colin with the philtre and making him fall for Cassie. See what you did? By trying to solve the problem, you bloody well caused it in the first place.
The two seconds after Connie stopped speaking were a very long time. Galaxies could have spawned in that time, and drifted from one side of the universe to the other.
‘Oh,’ said the thin-faced girl.
‘I think that puts it rather neatly,’ Connie said. ‘“Oh.”’ She breathed out through her nose, like an irritable horse. ‘For crying out load, ‘ she snapped. ‘I thought the whole point about you people is that you’re supposed to be infallible, and omniscient, and all that stuff. You know, to err is human, which you most certainly aren’t. But instead, you got it wrong. More than that, it’s because you got it wrong that there was something to get wrong in the first place. No disrespect, but if you lot were running the brewery Christmas party, someone’d end up having to do a last-minute emergency dash to the off-licence.’
The thin-faced girl looked at her. ‘Have you finished?’ she said.
‘For now.’
‘Good.’
‘Very well.’ The thin-faced girl held out a piece of paper. ‘I assume you’re competent at simple arithmetic. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to add up the column of figures and divide the result by twenty-six.’
‘You what?’
‘If you’d be so kind.’
Connie shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ she said. A minute or so later, she said, ‘Nine.’
Then something curious happened. The thin-faced girl smiled; not a humourless grin or a sardonic smirk, but a great big beaming smile. Practically angelic.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘So
that’s all right.’
Not only did the penny drop, it landed with enough force to bury itself to the rim in concrete. ‘So maths is working again,’ Connie said. ‘Which means the cock-up is all sorted out.’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ the thin-faced girl replied. ‘Before that can happen, Mr Hollingshead needs to go down to the front office.’
‘Me?’ Colin sat up sharply. ‘What’ve I got to do with? Ah, right,’ he added. ‘But that won’t do any good,’ he said sadly. ‘She dumped me, remember.’
‘I think it may be possible to induce her to change her mind,’ the thin-faced girl said. ‘Provided you can do a simple thing like apologising without making a mess of it. Given the trouble we’ve all been to in order to secure you a happy ending, it’d be appreciated if you could see your way to making a special effort. ‘
Colin was about to object that all that trouble wouldn’t have been necessary if a bunch of bastards hadn’t decided to play funny games with his life, but he decided not to. More important things to do. He stood up. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Well, goodbye.’
‘Goodbye.’ The thin-faced girl dipped her head in a very tiny gesture of acknowledgement. ‘Send us a postcard from Vanuatu.’
Colin thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said, and left the room.
‘Now, then.’ The thin-faced girl had slipped straight back into brisk mode. ‘Before we wrap up this meeting, are there any questions?’
Do angels have teeth? Connie wondered, and if so, what weapon and how much force would be needed to smash them in? ‘Yes, actually,’ she said. ‘Why did you open the door in Benny’s office? You nearly scared the poor lamb to death.’
‘It was essential,’ the thin-faced girl replied.
‘So the dead couple could come and see me?’ Cassie put in.
The thin-faced girl shook her head. ‘That was merely a diversion,’ she said, ‘or at best an incidental benefit. The real reason was so that Mr Hollingshead could go through the connecting door into the Bank of the Dead, and then come back again.’
‘Really?’ Connie said. ‘Why?’
This time, the thin-faced girl’s smile was more of a sneer. ‘Because he had drunk the philtre and fallen in love with Ms Clay, but that had failed to solve the problem. Therefore it was necessary to undo the philtre’s effects. The philtre, you will recall, remains effective for as long as the person who drinks it lives.’
‘But that’ Connie frowned. ‘Oh, right. And going to the Bank counts as dying.’
‘Correct, technically speaking. Of course, the Bank officials recognised that they had no jurisdiction over Mr Hollingshead and sent him back’
‘Just visiting,’ Connie said, remembering something. ‘The get-out-of-death-free card. No, it’s all right, it doesn’t matter. Go on.’
‘Thank you. I should point out,’ the thin-faced girl went on, ‘that this was something of a miscalculation on our part. Simply visiting the Bank does not, in fact, count as death, a fact subsequently pointed out to me in a memo from the Bank’s acting assistant manager. Fortunately, he had the insight and the intelligence to recognise a star-crossed lover when he saw one, and send him back immediately. Otherwise’ She paused, and if it had been possible for angels to blush, she would have. ‘It also follows,’ she went on, ‘that it couldn’t have been Mr Hollingshead’s visit to the Bank that released him from the effects of the philtre, and I can only conclude that you were correct and that it was his pre-existing true love for Ms Williams that achieved that result. Nonetheless, thanks to Mr Dao an awkward complication was avoided,’ she said. ‘For which we can all be heartily grateful.’
She wasn’t expecting the awkward silence that followed. It was Connie, needless to say, who broke it.
‘Some of us, at any rate,’ she said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Connie exploded. ‘You think you’ve been ever so smart and clever, even though you misread the whole stupid business and nearly got us all killed, or unborn or whatever. But maybe you’re overlooking the fact that poor Cassie here’s been left up to her neck in it; unless, of course, you’ve got the power to override a duly executed binding contract.’
Before the thin-faced girl could reply, Cassie sighed and said, ‘It’s all right. I don’t mind.’
Connie scowled at her. ‘Cassie, dear, don’t be so bloody stupid. Haven’t you been listening? These people’
‘It’s all right,’ Cassie repeated firmly. ‘It doesn’t matter, because I don’t believe in all that bullshit. Hell, I mean, and afterlives and stuff.’
The thin-faced girl pursed her lips. ‘With respect’
‘Respect,’ Cassie snapped. ‘That’s a laugh, coming from you. No I don’t believe in you either. Oh, I’m prepared to accept that you’re some kind of supernatural bureaucrat, because I know people like that exist, I spend half my life leaving messages on their voice mail. But that’s all you are. I don’t believe in you because that’d mean I had to believe you’re somehow better than me, and quite obviously you’re not; you’re just bigger and stronger. So I don’t believe in Hell, either. I think it’s just ordinary death, or maybe not even that. In fact, do you know what I think Hell is, Miss whatever-your-stupid-name-is? I think it’s being pushed around by the likes of you; in which case, I’ve put up with it this long, I can probably cope with it for ever and ever. Just knowing that whatever happens, I was in the right and you people were in the wrong will make it bearable. No, shut up, Connie,’ she added sharply. ‘I’m just about to get my own back, so don’t interrupt. I’m going to teach this stupid cow a lesson she won’t ever forget.’
The thin-faced girl’s face had never been thinner. You could’ve shaved with it. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘How do you propose doing that?’
Cassie’s turn to smile; definitely angelic. ‘Easy,’ she said. ‘I’m going to forgive you.’
The brief silence that followed was broken by a loud, vulgar noise from Connie: part whoop, part snort of laughter, part rebel yell. ‘Cassie, that’s brilliant. You go, girl. Oh, she’s going to have so much trouble explaining that one away to her boss when she gets home.’ She grinned savagely, like a wolf. ‘I take it you do have assessments and performance reviews and stuff where you come from?’
‘Of course,’ the thin-faced girl said.
‘And baseball caps? Tell me you have baseball caps.’
‘Certainly. We find them a very potent symbol of the team ethic’
‘That settles it,’ Connie said cheerfully. ‘It’s the Other Place for me when I go.’
‘Ms Clay.’ The thin-faced girl was doing icicle impressions. ‘I realise that, through no fault of your own, you’ve been placed in a highly invidious position. Let me assure you that I will bring pressure to bear through every available channel to ensure that your stay in the environment in question will be as painless as possible. However ‘
It was probably just as well for her that she got no further, given the mood that Connie was in. As it was, the door opened and Benny Shumway charged in. He was out of breath, and holding a plastic carrier bag.
‘Connie,’ he barked, ignoring everyone else in the room, ‘I’ve just been talking to young Hollingshead. Is it true?’
Connie nodded. ‘If you mean about the contract.’
‘Yes. Right.’ He turned away and faced Cassie. ‘Here,’ he said, reaching into the bag. ‘Catch.’
He threw something. Much to her surprise, Cassie caught it.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’m not hungry. And anyway, I don’t like apples.’
‘Apples?’ Connie said. ‘Benny’
The thin-faced girl had pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘Ms Clay,’ she said, ‘please give me that.’
Cassie looked at her, and then at Benny, who said, ‘Just eat the fucking apple, Cassie. Trust me.’
‘What?’ Cassie said. ‘Disobey a direct order from the boss?’
‘Yes.’
She smiled. ‘No contest,’ she said, and bit.
All the way home in the taxi, they hardly said a word; but when they reached Mortlake, they got out and walked up the street for a bit, until they reached a shop. Yesterday it had been a Dixons. The day before that, it had passed through a Robert Dyas phase before morphing into a Body Shop. But before that, in the distant, unreal time before the weirdness came, it had been the same travel agency for fifteen years; and, when Colin looked up at the words written on its window, that was what it was again.
Colin smiled. ‘Let’s go in,’ he said.
Fam hesitated, but not for very long. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘By the way, where the hell is Vanuatu, anyway?’
‘No idea. But I want to go there anyway.’
‘Oh.’ Fam looked at him, then down at the ground. ‘Do we really have to?’ she said. ‘I mean, I do love you, and everything’s all right, and I know you want to get away from all this horrible stuff that’s happened to you, with your Dad and those nasty people and the love potion and everything, but ‘
‘No,’ Colin said firmly. ‘I want us to go to Vanuatu.’ She was still looking at him, but now she was smiling. ‘All right,’ she said.
Colin put his hand on the shop door and pushed gently. ‘And then,’ he said, ‘I want us both to come back.’
‘It was nice of her,’ Benny said, putting his feet up on Connie’s desk, ‘to give us the company.’
Connie shrugged. ‘It was the least she could do,’ she replied with her mouth full. ‘And anyway, you heard what she said: her lot didn’t have any more use for it. Typical bureaucratic mentality; it’s less hassle to get rid of it than to figure out how to write it up in the accounts. Not,’ she added, ‘that I’m complaining. It’s just’
Cassie looked at her. ‘What?’