by So Long
He yawned and dug his copy of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the
Galaxy out of his satchel. He activated the screen, and flicked
idly through some level three entries and some level four
entries. He was looking for some good insomnia cures. He found
Rest, which was what he reckoned he needed. He found Rest and
Recuperation and was about to pass on when he suddenly had a
better idea. He looked up at the monitor screen. The battle was
raging more fiercely every second and the noise was appalling.
The ship juddered, screamed, and lurched as each new bolt of
stunning energy was delivered or received.
He looked back down at the Guide again and flipped through a few
likely locations. He suddenly laughed, and then rummaged in his
satchel again.
He pulled out a small memory dump module, wiped off the fluff and
biscuit crumbs, and plugged it into an interface on the back of
the Guide.
When all the information that he could think was relevant had
been dumped into the module, he unplugged it again, tossed it
lightly in the palm of his hand, put the Guide away in his
satchel, smirked, and went in search of the ship's computer data
banks.
=================================================================
Chapter 20
"The purpose of having the sun go low in the evenings, in the
summer, especially in parks," said the voice earnestly, "is to
make girl's breasts bob up and down more clearly to the eye. I am
convinced that this is the case."
Arthur and Fenchurch giggled about this to each other as they
passed. She hugged him more tightly for a moment.
"And I am certain," said the frizzy ginger-haired youth with the
long thin nose who was epostulating from his deckchair by the
side of the Serpentine, "that if one worked the argument through,
one would find that it flowed with perfect naturalness and logic
from everything," he insisted to his thin dark-haired companion
who was slumped in the next door deckchair feeling dejected about
his spots, "that Darwin was going on about. This is certain. This
is indisputable. And," he added, "I love it."
He turned sharply and squinted through his spectacles at
Fenchurch. Arthur steered her away and could feel her silently
quaking.
"Next guess," she said, when she had stopped giggling, "come on."
"All right," he said, "your elbow. Your left elbow. There's
something wrong with your left elbow."
"Wrong again," she said, "completely wrong. You're on completely
the wrong track."
The summer sun was sinking through the tress in the park, looking
as if - Let's not mince words. Hyde Park is stunning. Everything
about it is stunning except for the rubbish on Monday mornings.
Even the ducks are stunning. Anyone who can go through Hyde Park
on a summer's evening and not feel moved by it is probably going
through in an ambulance with the sheet pulled over their face.
It is a park in which people do more extraordinary things than
they do elsewhere. Arthur and Fenchurch found a man in shorts
practising the bagpipes to himself under a tree. The piper paused
to chase off an American couple who had tried, timidly to put
some coins on the box his bagpipes came in.
"No!" he shouted at them, "go away! I'm only practising."
He started resolutely to reinflate his bag, but even the noise
this made could not disfigure their mood.
Arthur put his arms around her and moved them slowly downwards.
"I don't think it can be your bottom," he said after a while,"
there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that at all."
"Yes," she agreed, "there's absolutely nothing wrong with my
bottom."
They kissed for so long that eventually the piper went and
practised on the other side of the tree.
"I'll tell you a story," said Arthur.
"Good."
They found a patch of grass which was relatively free of couples
actually lying on top of each other and sat and watched the
stunning ducks and the low sunlight rippling on the water which
ran beneath the stunning ducks.
"A story," said Fenchurch, cuddling his arm to her.
"Which will tell you something of the sort of things that happen
to me. It's absolutely true."
"You know sometimes people tell you stories that are supposed to
be something that happened to their wife's cousin's best friend,
but actually probably got made up somewhere along the line."
"Well, it's like one of those stories, except that it actually
happened, and I know it actually happened, because the person it
actually happened to was me."
"Like the raffle ticket."
Arthur laughed. "Yes. I had a train to catch," he went on. "I
arrived at the station ..."
"Did I ever tell you," interrupted Fenchurch, "what happened to
my parents in a station?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "you did."
"Just checking."
Arthur glanced at his watch. "I suppose we could think of getting
back," he said.
"Tell me the story," said Fenchurch firmly. "You arrived at the
station."
"I was about twenty minutes early. I'd got the time of the train
wrong. I suppose it is at least equally possible," he added after
a moment's reflection, "that British Rail had got the time of the
train wrong. Hadn't occurred to me before."
"Get on with it." Fenchurch laughed.
"So I bought a newspaper, to do the crossword, and went to the
buffet to get a cup of coffee."
"You do the crossword?"
"Yes."
"Which one?"
"The Guardian usually."
"I think it tries to be too cute. I prefer the Times. Did you
solve it?"
"What?"
"The crossword in the Guardian."
"I haven't had a chance to look at it yet," said Arthur, "I'm
still trying to buy the coffee."
"All right then. Buy the coffee."
"I'm buying it. I am also," said Arthur, "buying some biscuits."
"What sort?"
"Rich Tea."
"Good choice."
"I like them. Laden with all these new possessions, I go and sit
at a table. And don't ask me what the table was like because this
was some time ago and I can't remember. It was probably round."
"All right."
"So let me give you the layout. Me sitting at the table. On my
left, the newspaper. On my right, the cup of coffee. In the
middle of the table, the packet of biscuits."
"I see it perfectly."
"What you don't see," said Arthur, "because I haven't mentioned
him yet, is the guy sitting at the table already. He is sitting
there opposite me."
"What's he like?"
"Perfectly ordinary. Briefcase. Business suit. He didn't look,"
said Arthur, "as if he was about to do anything weird."
"Ah. I know the type. What did he do?"
"He did this. He leaned across the table, picked up the packet of
biscuits, tore it open, took one out, and ..."
"What?"
"Ate it."
"What?"
&
nbsp; "He ate it."
Fenchurch looked at him in astonishment. "What on Earth did you
do?"
"Well, in the circumstances I did what any red-blooded Englishman
would do. I was compelled," said Arthur, "to ignore it."
"What? Why?"
"Well, it's not the sort of thing you're trained for is it? I
searched my soul, and discovered that there was nothing anywhere
in my upbringing, experience or even primal instincts to tell me
how to react to someone who has quite simply, calmly, sitting
right there in front of me, stolen one of my biscuits."
"Well, you could ..." Fenchurch thought about it. "I must say I'm
not sure what I would have done either. So what happened?"
"I stared furiously at the crossword," said Arthur. "Couldn't do
a single clue, took a sip of coffee, it was too hot to drink, so
there was nothing for it. I braced myself. I took a biscuit,
trying very hard not to notice," he added, "that the packet was
already mysteriously open ..."
"But you're fighting back, taking a tough line."
"After my fashion, yes. I ate the biscuit. I ate it very
deliberately and visibly, so that he would have no doubt as to
what it was I was doing. When I eat a biscuit," Arthur said, "it
stays eaten."
"So what did he do?"
"Took another one. Honestly," insisted Arthur, "this is exactly
what happened. He took another biscuit, he ate it. Clear as
daylight. Certain as we are sitting on the ground."
Fenchurch stirred uncomfortably.
"And the problem was," said Arthur, "that having not said
anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to
broach the subject the second time around. What do you say?
`Excuse me ... I couldn't help noticing, er ...' Doesn't work.
No, I ignored it with, if anything, even more vigour than
previously."
"My man ..."
"Stared at the crossword, again, still couldn't budge a bit of
it, so showing some of the spirit that Henry V did on St
Crispin's Day ..."
"What?"
"I went into the breach again. I took," said Arthur, "another
biscuit. And for an instant our eyes met."
"Like this?"
"Yes, well, no, not quite like that. But they met. Just for an
instant. And we both looked away. But I am here to tell you,"
said Arthur, "that there was a little electricity in the air.
There was a little tension building up over the table. At about
this time."
"I can imagine."
"We went through the whole packet like this. Him, me, him, me
..."
"The whole packet?"
"Well it was only eight biscuits but it seemed like a lifetime of
biscuits we were getting through at this point. Gladiators could
hardly have had a tougher time."
"Gladiators," said Fenchurch, "would have had to do it in the
sun. More physically gruelling."
"There is that. So. When the empty packet was lying dead between
us the man at last got up, having done his worst, and left. I
heaved a sigh of relief, of course. As it happened, my train was
announced a moment or two later, so I finished my coffee, stood
up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper ..."
"Yes?"
"Were my biscuits."
"What?" said Fenchurch. "What?"
"True."
"No!" She gasped and tossed herself back on the grass laughing.
She sat up again.
"You completely nitwit," she hooted, "you almost completely and
utterly foolish person."
She pushed him backwards, rolled over him, kissed him and rolled
off again. He was surprised at how light she was.
"Now you tell me a story."
"I thought," she said putting on a low husky voice, "that you
were very keen to get back."
"No hurry," he said airily, "I want you to tell me a story."
She looked out over the kale and pondered.
"All right," she said, "it's only a short one. And not funny like
yours, but ... Anyway."
She looked down. Arthur could feel that it was one of those sorts
of moments. The air seemed to stand still around them, waiting.
Arthur wished that the air would go away and mind its own
business.
"When I was a kid," she said. "These sort of stories always start
like this, don't they, `When I was a kid ...' Anyway. This is the
bit where the girl suddenly says, `When I was a kid' and starts
to unburden herself. We have got to that bit. When I was a kid I
had this picture hanging over the foot of my bed ... What do you
think of it so far?"
"I like it. I think it's moving well. You're getting the bedroom
interest in nice and early. We could probably do with some
development with the picture."
"It was one of those pictures that children are supposed to
like," she said, "but don't. Full of endearing little animals
doing endearing things, you know?"
"I know. I was plagued with them too. Rabbits in waistcoats."
"Exactly. These rabbits were in fact on a raft, as were assorted
rats and owls. There may even have been a reindeer."
"On the raft."
"On the raft. And a boy was sitting on the raft."
"Among the rabbits in waistcoats and the owls and the reindeer."
"Precisely there. A boy of the cheery gypsy ragamuffin variety."
"Ugh."
"The picture worried me, I must say. There was an otter swimming
in front of the raft, and I used to lie awake at night worrying
about this otter having to pull the raft, with all these wretched
animals on it who shouldn't even be on a raft, and the otter had
such a thin tail to pull it with I thought it must hurt pulling
it all the time. Worried me. Not badly, but just vaguely, all the
time.
"Then one day - and remember I'd been looking at this picture
every night for years - I suddenly noticed that the raft had a
sail. Never seen it before. The otter was fine, he was just
swimming along."
She shrugged.
"Good story?" she said.
"Ends weakly," said Arthur, "leaves the audience crying `Yes, but
what of it?' Fine up till there, but needs a final sting before
the credits."
Fenchurch laughed and hugged her legs.
"It was just such a sudden revelation, years of almost unnoticed
worry just dropping away, like taking off heavy weights, like
black and white becoming colour, like a dry stick suddenly being
watered. The sudden shift of perspective that says `Put away your
worries, the world is a good and perfect place. It is in fact
very easy.' You probably thing I'm saying that because I'm going
to say that I felt like that this afternoon or something, don't
you?"
"Well, I ..." said Arthur, his composure suddenly shattered.
"Well, it's all right," she said, "I did. That's exactly what I
felt. But you see, I've felt that before, even stronger.
Incredibly strongly. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a one," she said
gazing off into the distance, "for sudden startling revelations."
Arthur was at sea, could hardly speak, and
felt it wiser,
therefore, for the moment not to try.
"It was very odd," she said, much as one of the pursuing
Egyptians might have said that the behaviour of the Red Sea when
Moses waved his rod at it was a little on the strange side.
"Very odd," she repeated, "for days before, the strangest feeling
had been building in me, as if I was going to give birth. No, it
wasn't like that in fact, it was more as if I was being connected
into something, bit by bit. No, not even that; it was as if the
whole of the Earth, through me, was going to ..."
"Does the number," said Arthur gently, "forty-two mean anything
to you at all?"
"What? No, what are you talking about?" exclaimed Fenchurch.
"Just a thought," murmured Arthur.
"Arthur, I mean this, this is very real to me, this is serious."
"I was being perfectly serious," said Arthur. "It's just the