My Hero (38 page)

M
ain Street.

You've seen it over and over again. You could draw a map of it blindfold.

Here we have the Lucky Strike saloon; swinging doors, pianola tinnily tinkling
Dixie
, raucous voices implying that the cowpokes are cutting the dust after six weeks on the Lone Star trail. Next door, the general store, presided over by a nervous Swede who knows for a fact that before long some bastard in a poncho is going to come in, load up a buckboard with his entire stock of dynamite and
leave without paying
. Sharing a party wall with the general store, the barbershop-cum-funeral-parlour, presided over by a long, thin, elderly loon who wears wire-framed John Lennon spectacles and giggles a lot. Due south lie the livery stable, the blacksmith, the dentist (J. Holliday prop
^r
; painless extractions guaranteed; CLOSED) and the bank, miraculously open between robberies. On the other side of the street, we have the sheriff 's office (W
^tt
Earp, prop
^r
; CLOSED), the Silver Dollar saloon (see above under Lucky Strike), the Wells Fargo office, the dry goods store (for dry, read inflammable, as some clown with an oil
lamp will inevitably demonstrate before the titles roll) and one or two other establishments not essential to the plot and accordingly left anonymous. Main Street. All human life is here; although, quite often, not for very long.

In a cloud of dust, six horsepersons thunder into town, draw up in front of the Lucky Strike and tether their horses to the rail. Quite soon, they have the front stoop to themselves. Trouble has come to Main Street, punctual as ever. You can set your watch by Trouble in this town.

‘Where . . . ?' Skinner began to say; then Max tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the sign over the doorway of the Bank.

 

BANK OF CHICOPEE FALLS

 

Skinner's mouth fell open, as if some joker had cut the tendons in his jaw. He stared, unable to speak.

‘Welcome home,' Claudia said. ‘Of course, you're a bit early. In thirty-odd years or so—'

‘Thirty-six, ma'am,' Max amended.

‘Thirty-six years, you'll be born. Yes, I know,' she said, before Skinner could interrupt. ‘Last time around you were born in Chicago. Well, this time you're going to be born here. Or rather, you won't, because the world's about to end, but don't worry about it. You're home, that's the main thing.'

Skinner nodded. ‘That's my place over there,' he said. ‘Look, where it says W
^tt
Earp Prop
^r
CLOSED. Hey, I never knew it used to be the sheriff 's office.'

‘You learn something new every day,' Claudia replied cheerfully. ‘Pretty futile under the circumstances, but it's the right attitude. Congratulations, Mr Skinner, Ms Armitage, on a job well done.'

Jane stared. ‘Excuse me?'

‘Your quest,' Claudia replied. ‘Your mission, to rescue our tubby friend here and bring him back into Reality. I had every confidence in you, of course.'

‘I . . .' Skinner tried to think of something to say, but couldn't. He was
home
, dammit; the question which still nagged away at him was, which home? Yes, it was Chicopee Falls, the armpit of Iowa, his Real home, but it looked uncommonly like the ghastly places he'd spent the last thirty-six years dodging about in, through and round. And the trouble was, he couldn't tell them apart any longer. And yes, he
was
home; it was no more and no less of a homecoming than that of the man returning unscathed from the War to find his street flattened by a land-mine, or pulled down to make way for Progress, or simply painted another colour and sold to the upwardly mobile. Turn your back for more than a minute and Home changes. ‘Gee,' he said. ‘Good to be back.'

‘Excuse me,' said Hamlet.

‘Sorry, we're neglecting you,' Claudia said, smirking.

‘I couldn't help noticing,' Hamlet said, ‘that we're standing in front of a saloon.'

‘Quite right.'

Hamlet nodded. ‘I'm going to have a drink,' he said. ‘What a perfectly splendid idea,' Claudia said. ‘You won't mind if I don't join you, I've got a few things more to see to. Come along, Max.'

They were halfway down the steps before Titania called out, ‘Excuse me.'

‘Yes?'

‘Does this mean we're not prisoners any more?'

Claudia shrugged. ‘Up to you entirely. I've finished with you, you see. If I were you, I'd enjoy the rest of your life. Ciao.'

Alone on the stoop, Titania watched them ride away.
Inside the saloon, she could hear Hamlet's voice asking everyone what they were having, the pianola still playing
Dixie
, Jane asking where the Ladies' was. No reason, she told herself, why I shouldn't go through and join them. No reason why I should, either.

No reason . . .

Ever since she'd found herself involved in this strange sequence of events, she'd been waiting for the reason; the oh-so-that-was-it reason, the answer to the question
Why me?
And now the world was about to end - was ending, in fact - and she still couldn't see the answer. A very good reason for not seeing something is because it isn't there.

A wagon rolled by, piled high with logwood and chased by three small children and a dog. She waited for it to become relevant to the story. It didn't. It just kept rollin'.

Welcome to Reality.

In Reality, there is no plot. In real-life newsreel footage of the bomb going off, the fatal shooting, the tanks rumbling through the rubble-strewn street, there's always one little man, quietly dressed and respectable, standing peacefully at the edge of the picture and
looking the other way
. In Fiction, he couldn't exist. Everybody is involved. They have their exits and their entrances.

This is Reality, and I have no part in it. Oh, she wasn't naive, she'd heard stories; innocent ingénues fresh from the country, young and easily led, get roped in as last-minute love interests because the editor has pointed out to the author that he's got an all-male cast, and then get quietly forgotten about and abandoned at the end of Chapter Twelve. That's Fiction. Fiction's a bitch and then you're cut. Reality . . .

Characters in Fiction aren't much given to introspection, except in the line of duty. No character ever slumped across a bar at three in the morning and moaned, ‘How come I've made such a fuck-up of my life?', for the simple
reason that no character in the universe of poetry and prose ever fucked up his own life. That's what authors are for.

Why, Titania mused nonetheless, me? Let's think about this.

All right then, who is Titania? Well, she's this ravishingly gorgeous upper-class bint who falls for a funny, fat, middle-aged, working-class guy with artificially big ears. The term
stooge
tends to spring irrepressibly to mind. Great. This Is Your Life, and so on.

So far, so comprehensible; because Skinner's (a) funny, fat, middle-aged and American (equivalent to working-class as far as suitability is concerned) and (b) the unwilling plaything of a malicious destiny, translated willy-nilly into an alien dimension in circumstances connected with a work of dramatic fiction. A nasty trick to play on a girl, but logical. It would explain why me rather than, say, Modesty Blaise or Anna Karenina. But . . .

But it hadn't
happened
. There hadn't been any suggestion that she should fall for the poor sucker. All she'd done was tag along. The Jane creature had been the heroine, and she'd just been Spare Girl.

Plausible enough in Reality; in Fiction, impossible.

So?

She looked up. A face was grinning at her from behind the stoop rail.

‘Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,' it said, and its voice sounded funny. It sounded like an actor.

Golly, she remembered, that's my cue. Even before she found the place in her mind, even before her tongue started to move . . .

‘What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence. I have forsworn his bed and company. Hey, what the . . . ?'

The face came back with the next line (‘Tarry, rash wanton'; a line she'd particularly hated ever since she'd
found out that wantons are also little suet dumplings you get in Chinese soup) but there was something about it not quite, not altogether, not entirely . . .

It wasn't Oberon. That was, of course, a pretty sweeping statement, because Oberon rarely looked the same two days running; for the simple reason that he looked like whoever happened to be playing him at the time. Anybody can be Oberon - the postman, the milkman, the snotty clerk in the building society - provided he belongs to an amateur dramatic society and waits his turn. To be Oberon, all you have to do is say Oberon's lines, like that man was doing.

But that man, nevertheless, wasn't Oberon. That was somebody else.

She had an idea he answered to the name Max.

 

Seven glasses of whisky later, Skinner suddenly found himself feeling strangely weary.

‘I think,' he yawned, ‘I'll just go lie down. That's if you don't need me for ten minutes.'

Jane, who hadn't spoken to him, or anyone, since they'd walked into the saloon, nodded her approval. Hamlet, who was playing poker with five savage-looking men in enormous hats, didn't look up. Titania had wandered off somewhere. This is the way the world ends, apparently.

He wandered out on to the stoop, which was empty, and sat down in a rocking chair. Somebody had left a bottle of whisky and a glass handy, and there was a fine view down Main Street which, Skinner felt, was probably quite conducive to sleep. After a while, his head began to nod—

—And to reverberate with strange words, words wanting to be said aloud. Alarmed, Skinner woke himself up. All alone. Main Street. Whisky. Probably needled whisky, accounting for hallucination of offstage voices. Nasty
whisky. Sleep it off, wake up healthy and happy and sane.

The words drifted back, lurked just out of his field of vision, crept up on him. Just before he drifted into sleep, they pounced.

Just before, mind; not after.

‘I see their knavery,' Skinner mumbled (and a tiny part of his brain clung, as it were, to the door handle and screamed,
Look out, you fool, they're coming to get you!
). ‘This is to make an ass of me, to fright me if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can. I will
Skinner you crazy bastard, get outa there, now before you drown in wet shit
up and down here and I will sing . . .'

He raised his head and noticed, for the first time, that there was a girl asleep in the other rocking chair, the one opposite. At once his mind was full of voices. There was a rough, crude voice, hoarsely muttering the Elizabethan equivalent of
Cor yeah, thassa bit of all right, innit?
There was a high-pitched American voice saying,
Nooo, you fucking idiot, it's Titania, you know her, get the hell outa there, something terrible's about to
. . . And there was a wordless braying sort of voice suggesting that what he really wanted, most in all the world, was a nice warm stall, fresh straw and a carrot.

The girl sat up. Their eyes met. For a fraction of a second they shared the single telepathic concept,
Oh shit!

‘What angel,' mumbled the girl, ‘wakes me from my flowery bed?'

The ninety-five per cent of Skinner's mind that was no longer his own yelled
Cue!
at him. He ignored it. Slowly he reached up and felt his ears.

 

In a cloud of dust, a horseman thunders into town, draws up in front of the livery stable, and glances up at the clock.

Five minutes to twelve. High noon.

‘Hell,' Regalian muttered under his breath. He reined in the horse and looked round, then caught sight of two familiar faces.

‘Howdy.'

‘Hello there.'

For a moment he contemplated riding away, or steering the horse straight at them to ride them down. Pointless. Instead, he jumped down from the horse and tied it to the rail. Let them come.

‘You're late,' said Claudia. ‘But we managed without you.'

‘You managed . . . ?' Regalian caught his breath. ‘But this is . . .'

‘Reality.' Claudia did her Cheshire cat impression. ‘And Fiction too.' She looked up at the clock and smiled. ‘You're just in time,' she said.

‘For the fight?'

‘For the wedding.'

Something banged on the door of Regalian's brain demanding to be let in, but he ignored it. ‘But the show-down, ' he said. ‘Surely . . .' He hesitated. ‘Claudia,' he went on, ‘what
are
you playing at, you evil bitch?'

Claudia tried to look offended but her smirk got in the way. ‘Nothing at all,' she replied. ‘Your friends are free to go. Any time they want to.'

‘But . . .' He scowled. ‘What wedding?'

Claudia shook her head. Regalian noticed that Max had somehow disappeared.
Kill Claudia! Now might I do it, pat
. . .

‘Do you know,' she said, ‘what day it is?'

‘What?'

‘The date. In real-time.'

‘No. Why?'

Claudia's grin widened, threatening to unzip her entire face. ‘June the Twenty-first,' she said. ‘Midsummer's day.
Ah well, things to do. No hard feelings?'

‘You
bitch
!'

 

Jane's head nodded on to her folded arms. Despite the smoke and the noise and the piano still tinnily tinkling
Dixie
, she was tired. She slept.

Hamlet leaned back in his chair while the poker game clattered around him, the players moving and grunting like robots, mechanical toys. He'd folded in this particular hand long since. His eyelids felt heavy. His eyes closed. The other players quietly got up and left. The saloon was empty.