Djinn Rummy (13 page)

‘Ready?'

‘Yup.'

The Chief Druid winced slightly. Although he was aware of how vitally important it was to attract keen new blood to the Circle, so that the ancient secrets could be passed down to generations yet unborn, he still hadn't come to terms with young Kevin's attitude. The sceptical part of him still harboured a suspicion that Kevin, who was an insurance broker, had only joined in the hope of picking up new clients.

However.

‘We shall now,' he said gravely, ‘link hands and invoke the Goddess.'

‘Ready when you are, Humph.'

Ready when you are, Humph
. It was at time like this that he wondered whether there was any point in passing down the ancient secrets. There was a sporting chance, he reflected gloomily, that if the Goddess did materialise Kevin would immediately leap forward and try to sell her a unit-linked endowment policy.

‘Everybody join hands,' he went on, ‘and keep holy silence in the presence of . . . Are you all right back there, Mr Prenderby?'

‘Yes, thank you, Chief Druid.'

‘It isn't time for your pills yet, is it?'

‘Not for another half-hour, thank you, Chief Druid.'

‘That's all right, then.' The Chief Druid glanced round. His flock were waiting, with all the silent embarrassment of grown men asked to hold hands with other grown men who they'd probably see again the next day, but wearing suits and ties rather than long grey woollen gowns. He cast another sprig of mistletoe on to the fire and took a deep breath.

WHOOSH!

‘Stone the flaming crows!' The Chief Druid recognised the voice of Shane, who was on an exchange visit arranged with the Order's New South Wales congregation. He cringed. Just his rotten luck, he said to himself. The one time the Goddess actually manifests herself in my Circle, and the first person to greet her is this antipodean lout.

‘Hello, boys,' said the Goddess.

She stood in the centre of the fire, which had leapt up to meet her like a large, friendly dog. Red tongues of flame licked round her, and her head was surrounded by a chaplet of pale blue light.

‘G'day, Miss.' The Australian shook his hand free from
the clammy paw of Mr Prenderby (who looked like he was going to need his pills sooner than usual) and extended it gingerly. A long, yellow, spotted snake materialised out of the fire and curled round his forearm as far as the elbow:

‘And what,' drawled the Goddess, ‘can I do for
you
?'

‘Excuse me.' Kevin's voice. The Chief Druid couldn't bear to watch. It shouldn't be like this, he told himself; it wasn't like this in the books.

The Goddess turned her head and smiled politely, like the Queen being introduced to the teams at half-time during the Cup Final. Kevin smiled back, instinctively using the wide grin he used for Putting Clients At Their Ease.

‘Excuse me,' he said, ‘but I take it you are the, um, Goddess? No offence, but I think we ought to just . . . rivet-rivet-rivet.'

The Circle froze, and the only sound was the sobbing of the wind and the frantic croaking of the small yellow frog that had once been Kevin.

‘Satisfied?' asked the Goddess. ‘Or would you like me to do something really convincing?'

The six druids fell simultaneously to their knees.

‘Now then,' said the Goddess briskly, ‘to business. Any requests, anybody?'

No reply. The Goddess clicked her tongue.

‘Oh come
on
, people,' she said, ‘I'm sure you didn't drag me all the way down here just to chat about the weather. Anybody for a bumper harvest? Rain for the crops? The winner of the 3.15 at Chepstow?'

The Chief Druid ran a desperate scan through the jumbled mess between his ears, but nothing occurred to him. He briefly considered saying, ‘All hail!', but decided that She'd take that as a reference to the weather, a subject she apparently wasn't inclined to discuss.

‘Well,' said the Goddess, ‘if nobody wants anything at all, we'd better just fast forward to the wicker-cage bit, and then call it a day.'

For crying out loud, somebody say something
. The Chief Priest swung a hasty glance round the Circle, but nobody was moving. They were all frozen like snakes watching a mongoose; except for Mr Prenderby, who had nodded off again.

‘I see.' The Goddess sighed. ‘Well then, the wicker-cage it is, then. And whose turn is it to be burnt alive this evening? I do hope somebody's remembered to bring some matches.'

‘I have a request, Majesty.'

The Chief Druid's relief was short-lived, because the words were still hanging in the crisp night air when he realised that the voice that had spoken them was his own.

‘Splendid,' the Goddess said. ‘Right, what'll it be?'

‘Um.' The Chief Druid felt his tongue dragging like sandpaper across the roof of his mouth. ‘Do you know,' he went on, ‘it's just slipped my mind for a moment.'

‘Has it really?'

‘Yes, Majesty.'

‘Would it help,' the Goddess went on, ‘if I just quickly read your mind? It won't take me two seconds.'

‘Please don't trouble yourself, Majesty.'

‘It's no trouble.' Suddenly the Chief Druid was horribly aware of the Goddess's eyes; he could feel them poking into his brain like knitting needles. No question at all that she could see exactly what he was thinking.

‘I see,' said the Goddess. ‘Yes, I can see your request in there, plain as day.'

‘You can?'

‘Of course I can, silly.' The Goddess smiled at him. ‘You want me to afflict the world with seven plagues, don't you?'

‘I do? I mean, yes, of course. How clever of you to -'

‘You want me to trample the Unbeliever like a worm under the claw of the gryphon. You want me to unleash the fury of the Nine Terrible Winds, and visit the wrath of Belenos upon the heads of the ungodly.'

The Chief Druid nodded. As he did so, he was aware that he was on the receiving end of some pretty old-fashioned looks from the rest of the Circle (particularly Mr Cruickshank, who taught Drama at the local junior school and had a Greenpeace sticker in the back window of his Citroen) but he ignored them. ‘Quite right,' he stuttered. ‘My sentiments exactly, er, Majesty.'

The Goddess nodded. ‘Fine,' she said. ‘Ordinarily, that'd be a pretty tall order, but since it's you -'

‘Excuse me.'

The Chief Druid's head whirled round like a weather-vane in a hurricane. Mr Cruickshank had raised his hand.

‘Yes?'

‘Excuse me, Goddess,' said Mr Cruickshank, his eyes nearly popping out of his head, ‘but, if you don't mind me asking -'

‘Yes?'

‘These seven plagues . . .'

‘Ah yes.' The Goddess dipped her head placidly. ‘Mr Owen will correct me if I'm wrong,' she said, dropping a smile in the Chief Druid's direction, ‘but what I think he had in mind was plagues of hail, brimstone, frogs, sulphur, locusts, giant ants and burning pitch. That's right, isn't it?'

The Chief Druid felt his head nod.

‘In any particular order, or just as it comes?'

‘Oh, as it comes. Whatever's the most convenient for you.'

‘Thank you.' The Goddess considered for a moment. ‘In that case,' she said, ‘I think we'll set the ball rolling with locusts. Is that all right with everyone?'

A flash of blue lightning rent the night sky, and six heads rapidly nodded their agreement.

‘You're sure? It's your request, after all.'

‘No, really,' gabbled the Chief Druid. ‘Locusts, by all means.'

‘Locusts it shall be, then,' the Goddess replied. ‘Will Tuesday be soon enough, do you think?'

The Chief Druid shuddered. He had spent that afternoon planting out his spring cabbages. He assured the Goddess that there was no hurry.

‘Oh, I think I should be able to manage Tuesday. Now then, any more for any more?'

Apparently not. A few seconds later, the Goddess was gone. As she sped through the fog and filthy air, she gave herself a little shake and turned back into the genie Philadelphia Machine and Tool Corporation IX.

A genie with a mandate.

 

The small yellow frog that had once been Kevin hopped slowly across the blasted heath.

Right now, he might be a small yellow frog; but not so long ago he had been an insurance broker, and we have already seen how insurance is like a pyramid -

(Huge, incomprehensible, hideously expensive, completely unnecessary and specifically designed only to be of any benefit to you once you're dead? Well, quite; but also . . .)

- a pyramid, with tens of thousands of little people like Kevin at the bottom, and a small number of very big people indeed at the top.

If one of the little people at the bottom shouts loud enough, one of the big people at the top will hear him.

Exhausted, the little yellow frog crawled the last few agonising inches and flopped into a stagnant pond. For two minutes he lay bobbing in the brackish water, gathering his strength.

They will hear him, because there is money at stake; and money is the ultimate hearing aid.

The little yellow frog stretched his legs and kicked feebly. A small string of bubbles broke the surface of the water. Deep down, among the pondweed and the mosquito larvae, Kevin rested, took stock of his position, and reflected on what he had to do next.

First, he had to file a claim. Without the policy document to hand, he couldn't be sure that there wasn't something in the fine print that excluded being turned into a frog from the All Risks cover; Act of Goddess, probably. But there was no harm in trying.

Second, he had to report to his superiors.

The loss adjusters at the top of the pyramid have a refreshingly dynamic approach to their art. Instead of simply coming on the scene when the dust has settled and trying to make the best of a bad job, they prefer to think positive. The best way to adjust a loss, they feel, is
retrospectively
.

Not long afterwards, a small yellow head appeared above the surface of the pond, blinked, and turned its snout towards the waning moon.

‘Rivet,' it said. ‘Rivet-rivet-rivet.'

 

 

 

 

W
ould you like, Jane asked, ‘a cup of tea?'

Kiss nodded, unable to speak. Genies, of course, can't stomach tea. The tannin does something drastic to the inexplicable tangle of chemical reactions that makes up their digestion. He grinned awkwardly.

‘I brought you some feathers,' he mumbled, and thrust the bundle at her. She simpered.

‘Gosh,' she said. ‘Aren't they pretty? Let me put them in some water.'

She grabbed the feathers and fled into the kitchen, leaving Kiss to speculate as to what in hell's name was going on.

Heatstroke? He hadn't been anywhere hot. Malaria? Genies don't get malaria. A recent sharp bang on the head? No. Then what . . .?

Eliminate the impossible -

‘Impossible!' he said aloud.

- and whatever remains, however improbable -

‘No way,' he muttered. ‘Biological impossibility.'

- must be the truth . . .

‘
Shit!
' he said.

And yet. Weirder things have been known. It's a fact
that human beings (and genies count as human for this purpose) can get attached to almost anything, with the possible exception of Death and lawyers. And there was something indescribably charming about the way the corners of her mouth puckered up when she smiled . . .

‘Oh, for crying out loud!' the genie exclaimed. And then the truth hit him. He peered down at his chest and saw, on the left side, a small round hole in his shirt. A few minutes later and it wouldn't have been there; the holes Cupid makes in cloth heal themselves in about a quarter of an hour, on average.

The bastard, Kiss said to himself. The absolute bastard.

But what could he do about it? Well, he could try changing himself into a woman - a piece of cake for a Force Twelve - but he had the feeling that that wouldn't make things better in the slightest degree; in fact, it would complicate matters horrendously. The same was true of turning into a cat, an ant or a three-legged stool.

He could get hold of that bloody aggravating child and twist his head off. That would make him feel better, for a while; but he knew perfectly well that even Cupid was incapable of undoing the damage. All he could realistically hope for was that with the passage of time the wound would heal of its own accord. But how long? With mortals, he knew, the process usually took somewhere between three and sixty years, and he didn't have that much time. Marriage, of course, was a recognised form of accelerating the process, but even so . . .

And why? The question flared in his mind like an explosion in a fuel dump. What possible reason could Cupid have for a stunt like this?

He could think of a reason. Cold sweat began to seep through his pores.

The door opened and Jane sidled through, holding a teacup and a large cut-glass vase full of soggy-looking phoenix feathers.

‘There,' she said, ‘don't they look nice?'

Kiss nodded dumbly. He had been an observer of human behaviour long enough to know perfectly well what came next; that excruciatingly embarrassing hour or so that you always get when two people realise that they're in love, but both of them would rather be buried alive in a pit full of quicklime than raise the topic in conversation. There would also be much staring at shoelaces, averting of eyes, feelings of nausea and meaningless small talk marinaded in sublimated soppiness.