The Triple Goddess (184 page)

If we’re up with the light we can catch them there yawning.

Then their picturesque clothes are all put away,

And it’s off to their beds while we go and play

And look up, and laugh at our friends as we say,

“Seems most of the clouds are missing today!”

Lastly, as a valediction, is a poem called
Good Night
.

All right, this is it. Good Night, Farewell,

Goodbye to Everything. Pip-pip,
Ciao
,

Over and Out,
Sayonara
, and any other way

You care to express it; it’s up to you.

Bonne nuit
,
Schlafen sie gut
.
Arrivederci?

No, French is better: not
Au revoir
but
Adieu
.

Teddy bears and other soft toys,

Settle down, please. Bugs will not bite,

And there are no monsters left under beds.

Children: there will be no fidgeting,

Talking or whispering after the lamps

Have been turned out. And no nightlights.

Shut-eye? Yes, forty winks and more.

Beauty sleep? Of a kind, perhaps,

And I don’t know how many millions of naps

As I concentrate on counting Aristotles

Passing through the gates and into the fold.

They’ve just had supper, but it doesn’t

Seem to be slowing them down.

Well, perhaps they are getting a bit slower...

Yes, definitely. Now they’re all inside

And Someone’s putting the breakfast things

Out on the table and pouring the milk:

Lots of white creamy milk, into a jug.

Whoever It is, is stirring it and stirring it,

And it’s gradually getting thicker and thicker,

And darker and darker,

And thicker and darker;

So dark and thick that I think

It might be turning into...chocolate.

Yes, it’s turning into chocolate!

Lots and lots of lovely...good night...chocolate.

Goodnight!

’

Chapter Forty

In Hugo Bonvilian’s office, Father Time turned his seat around so that now he was facing away from his audience, who was still in his chair behind the desk.

Companionably silent, the gazes of the two men intersected as they looked upon the chapel tower.

As if in response to their interest, the bell tolled the hour, four times.

To Bonvilian’s ear the notes sounded cracked…perhaps no more than usual, because, as he now realized, the reason that he had not thought to have the clock stopped during Central’s proscription of Time was that he had never heard it.

Laszlo got up, and at the door he rounded. ‘I’ll be in the tower.’

‘Of course.’

The door closed, and Bonvilian pushed his chair back and stretched, luxuriating in the quiet of the emptying world.

After some minutes had passed, he pulled forward, opened his middle desk drawer, and took out a small framed photograph: it was of Gloria Mundy, and Bonvilian had abstracted the picture from her hospital employment file.

As he was about to close the drawer, his eye was caught by a flash of silver at the back, and he reached in and removed the remains of a bar of chocolate. Closing the drawer, he propped the photograph before him, unwrapped the last two squares of chocolate from the foil, bit down on the line between them, and, without chewing, savoured and swallowed the confection as it melted.

The flavour, enhanced by the beauty of the moment, was better than anything he had ever tasted.

The bell clonked the passage of the first quarter and the commencement of the second; and there was a crash as, either of its own accord or with Father Time’s assistance, it became detached from its mounting and fell through the unresisting platforms below.

It was a quarter past four in the afternoon, four-fifteen
post meridiem
.

Military Time 16:15, sixteen-fifteen, Zulu Time; and the world was due to end at 16:17:12, sixteen seventeen and twelve seconds; Civilian Time, at Greenwich Mean Time 4:17 p.m., four seventeen, or seventeen minutes past four, and twelve seconds…

…videlicet, or viz., in two minutes and twelve seconds’ time, eleven seconds, ten seconds, nine seconds…

Sitting with his hands clasped contemplating Gloria Mundy’s picture, which now seemed more like a portrait than a photograph, Bonvilian was not surprised when the image faded to nothing.

Two minutes later, and sensing the seconds, a smile crept across his face. Standing, he picked up a glass paperweight from the desktop with his left hand, and hefted it several times.

Then in one smooth motion, he curled his arm back, closed his eyes, swung about and hurled the object at the wall behind him with all his might.

It was a good shot: though not aimed, it was guided by certainty; and as the calendar clock’s face splintered, and the piece fell to the floor, on it were registered a briefly historic date and time.

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