Out of the Sun (42 page)

"Wouldn't have thought so. Not a level-headed guy like Dave, anyway."

"Even level-headed guys have to believe the unbelievable if they come smack up against it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm not sure." He smiled, eager to defuse the moment. "Fancy a drink? They told me I should keep the throat lubricated."

"They did?"

"Actually, no." His smile turned into a sheepish grin. "I think it must have slipped their minds."

The Lord Nelson was busier than it had been on Tuesday. It was market day, the barmaid explained. Harry and Donna retreated to a small table sandwiched between a fruit machine and a settle-back, where Harry eased his sore throat with several enthusiastic swallows of beer while Donna took one tentative sip at her Perrier water.

"How's Makepeace?" he enquired, just as the ebb in their conversation began to stretch towards an awkward silence.

"Disappointed She thought like me that with all the publicity the Globescope story's been getting there'd be a genuine worldwide debate about the predictions we made. Which is about the only way the issues are going to be looked at with the seriousness they deserve. Instead, it's become just another big business crime story. And the media are rapidly losing interest even in that now it's become obvious there isn't going to be a trial. I mean, why worry about whether the planet's still going to be habitable a hundred years from now when you can spend all day plugged into one cable station or another pondering the vital mystery of whether a retired foot baller murdered his ex-wife? That seems to be the rationale."

"You sound even more cynical than me."

"Not cynical. Just depressed by people's lack of concern for the needs of the next generation and the one after that." She frowned at him. "When I came over a month ago, you were the one who was depressed. But you seem to have bounced back since. Quicker than I'd have expected."

"I think I'm just pleased to be alive." He grinned at her over the rim of his glass, conscious as he was that his mood amounted to more than relief at cheating death. His unwonted contentment stemmed rather from a posthumous pact with Athene Tilson. One he was only now fully aware he had entered into. He and a dead mathematician had helped the next generation and the one after that. They would never know they had been helped. But nevertheless they had been. And Harry had played his unwitting part in the process. "What about that news you promised me, Donna?" he continued. "Aren't you going to put me out of my misery?"

"Get yourself another pint first. You might need it."

"OK." Needing no second invitation, he rose and ambled through the ruck to the bar, glass in hand. The barmaid was busy, but the landlord emerged from the rear to serve him as if on cue. "Pint of Broadside, please."

"Certainly, sir. Weren't you in here a couple of days ago?"

"Er .. . Maybe."

"Yen, you're the fellow who left those notebooks behind. Have you had them back yet? We put them by somewhere."

"Notebooks?" Harry tried to look as uncomprehending as he could. "Sorry. I don't know what you're talking about."

"You must do. It was definitely you."

"Fraid not. You've got the wrong man. Not the first time it's happened." Harry paid for his beer and took a sip from it. "I think I must have one of those faces. You know? Strangely familiar."

"Strange is right."

"Yeh, well, there you go." He took another sip. "The beer's very good, by the way. Thanks a lot." He turned and strolled nonchalantly back to the table.

"What was all that about?" Donna asked as he sat down.

"A case of mistaken identity. Don't worry about it."

"If you're sure."

"I am. Honestly. And you won't get round to telling me your news by going on about it, so why don't '

"I'm pregnant."

Harry slowly lowered his glass, which had been halfway to his lips, back onto the table and stared at her. "What?"

"I'm seven weeks pregnant."

"Seven weeks? You mean .. ."

"That's right, Harry. I'm carrying your child."

"But .. . you can't be. I mean ... I thought .. . you must have .. ."

"I don't think either of us was expecting what happened in Washington to happen, do you? And sex wasn't exactly top of my agenda while I was on the run. I was taking precautions against getting killed, not pregnant. Besides .. . She laughed, a bittersweet laugh mixing irony and regret in a stubborn blend of hope. "Besides, a man of your age and habits has no business being so damned fertile."

Harry grimaced. "Sorry about that."

"Are you?"

"Well, that depends ... I suppose ... on how you .. . feel about it."

"Shocked. Taken aback. Thrown off balance. Hit by a train when I didn't even know I was standing on the track. I reckon that about covers it."

"Not what you'd call an entirely welcome development, then?"

"Not at first. I even considered .. . terminating it."

"Still considering it?"

"No. I wouldn't have told you if I had been. I thought it all through over Christmas with my folks in Seattle. Weighed up my needs, the child's needs and yours as best I could. I guess the Globescope affair played its part. I guess it prompted me to show some faith in the future. Mine, anyway. Or should I say ours?" She leant towards him. "I mean to have this child, Harry. I'm not exactly sure of all the reasons. The future. The past. You. Me. David. Plus a bundle of hang-ups and hormones. But I'm going to go through with it. Alone, if I have to."

If you have to?"

"Nobody's going to cut you out of fatherhood this time. Unless you cut yourself out."

He reached across the table and took her hand tentatively in his. "What are you saying, Donna?" Part of him already knew. But he needed to hear the words in order to believe them.

"I'm saying you might like to think about swapping the catacombs of Kensal Green Cemetery for the streets of San Francisco. I'm saying we can have a future together."

The three of us?"

"Exactly. But I can only speak for two of us. It's up to you now."

Robert Goddard was born in Hampshire, where he and his wife now live. He read History at Cambridge and worked as an educational administrator in Devon before becoming a full-time novelist. His previous novels are Past Caring, In Pale Battalions, Painting the Darkness, Into The Blue (winner of the first W.H.Smith Thumping Good Read' Award), Take No Farewell, Hand in Glove, Closed Circle and Borrowed Time.