Wish You Were Here (23 page)

‘Could be,' Hat replied cautiously. ‘There's an eagle in there, mind.'

‘Really? Hey, that's great. All the story needs to make it truly cosmic is a threatened-habitat angle.'

Hat nodded. ‘I see,' he said, wriggling out past Wesley's elbow and picking up his hat. ‘In that case, I guess I'd better leave you to it.'

‘OK,' Linda said. ‘And remember, if you see any submarines . . .'

‘Sure,' Hat replied. Then he clamped his hat onto his head as firmly as it would go, tucked his shattered arms and legs tight into his body, deliberately fell over and rolled all the way down the hill to get his bones set.

Linda watched him go, shrugged, and set off up the slope, cursing the thoughtlessness of whoever was responsible for the terrain. Some people. No respect. She was just beginning to feel nicely cross when—

Goddamnit!

Heedless of the uneven ground she ran, sliding and staggering, to the foot of the cliff, which she immediately began to swarm up, totally without science but with boundless enthusiasm. No way a piffling sheer rock face was going to get between her and her story!

Above her head was the mouth of the cave. She waited until gravity was looking the other way, and jumped.

The very tips of her fingers hooked over the rocky ledge. Engaging her adrenalin drive and whacking the throttle wide open, she swung herself up, dropping her knee over the cavemouth's lintel just as the strength in her fingertips gave way. A few chunks of rock, dislodged by her entrance, rattled and bounced away down the cliff, taking their own sweet time before hitting the ground. She didn't notice. What she was seeing and hearing in the studio of her mind was far too enthralling for her to bother about crumbling ledges, vertiginous drops or the risk of a horrible death. As far as she was concerned, if a horrible death wanted to meet her, she might just be able to spare it five minutes a fortnight Tuesday, but it would be well advised to phone nearer the time and confirm if it wanted to avoid a wasted journey.

She hauled herself into the cave and lay on her stomach, panting, only an inch or so away from the object of her fascination. It was a hat.

It was round. And broad-brimmed. It had lots of corks hanging from it, attached to the brim by little bits of string. In other words, it was an Australian hat.

‘
Yes!
' Linda gasped, reaching out to touch it. Her fingertips were just about to make contact with the outermost fibres of its fabric when, agonisingly, it was snatched away.

‘Hey!' said a female voice.

Linda looked up. There was some sort of female attached to the hat by means of a podgy-fingered hand and sixteen inches of arm. Linda blinked. Dear God, she prayed, sweet Lord in Heaven, don't let her be CBS News or the
Boston Globe
.

‘What d'you think you're doing with my hat?' she demanded.

Linda stared at her, feeling as if she'd just found the Holy Grail only to find the words
Batteries Not Included
engraved on the rim. ‘Your h-h-?' she stuttered.

‘Yeah,' replied the female. ‘My hat. Lay off it, will you?'

Linda fought back the panic. ‘But I
need
that hat,' she gasped. ‘Really, I do.'

The girl shrugged. ‘So go buy yourself one,' she replied. ‘They're only $12.99 from the big Government surplus store in Oskaloosa.'

Linda stared. ‘You
bought
that hat?' she whimpered.

‘Yes. So what?'

‘But - but you're not
Australian
.'

‘True.' The girl nodded. ‘I'm two-fifths Irish, one fifth Polish, one fifth Italian and one fifth Swede, not that it's any damn business of yours.'

Linda swallowed hard. ‘You just
bought
it? In a
shop
? You're certain about that?'

‘Yes.'

‘In Oskaloosa?'

‘Yes.'

‘Ah,
damn
!' Linda flopped down on the ground and lay still, while the bailiffs came for her remaining adrenalin. Then a thought occurred to her, and she looked up. ‘Did you say one-fifth Italian?' she asked.

‘Yes. Do you happen to know how to revive a stunned eagle?'

‘No. And Polish, was that?'

‘That's right.'

Linda chewed her lower lip thoughtfully.You had to be careful nowadays, but with a little careful scripting and some subliminal camera angles, Polish and Italian could be made to translate as
Vatican Secret Agent
. ‘You don't,' she enquired tentatively, ‘work for the Pope at all, do you?'

‘What?'

‘The Pope. No? Oh, never mind. Can I just
borrow
your hat, for a second or two. I just want to look at it.'

The girl shrugged. ‘Be my guest,' she said. ‘Here.'

Linda took it gingerly and examined it for telltale clues; a smear of submarine oil here, a few flakes of chipped marble there. She didn't find any; instead she saw, inside the lining, a label which read:

Slowly she passed the hat back. She couldn't have felt more let down if she'd managed to get to see God, and God had made a pass at her. ‘Oh well,' she said. ‘One fifth Italian?'

‘I think the eagle's about to come round.'

‘Eagle?'

The girl pointed. ‘Over there. About eighteen inches to your left.'

Linda looked round. ‘Oh,' she said, ‘that eagle. My endangered habitat angle.'

‘Huh?'

It suddenly occurred to Linda that a word of explanation might be in order. ‘I'm a journalist,' she said, and smiled reassuringly.

‘You are, huh?'

‘That's right.'

‘Figures. Did you get the Vikings and the goblins too?'

Linda furrowed her brow. ‘No,' she replied. ‘What Vikings?'

‘Oh.' The girl looked disappointed. ‘Then bang goes that theory. Shucks.' The girl shrugged. ‘Then it's back to the drawing board, I guess.What are you going to do now?'

‘Go back outside and watch for submarines,' Linda replied, puzzled that anybody should need to ask. ‘Oh, that reminds me. Have you seen any?'

‘Any what?'

‘Submarines.'

‘No.'

‘Oh.' Linda thought for a moment. ‘How about tanks and missiles and rockets and things? Probably encased in concrete blocks,' she added.

‘Nope. Sorry.'

‘Hell. I think your eagle's just woken up, by the way. He just tried to bite my ankle.'

‘Actually,' said the girl, ‘he's a lawyer.'

‘A lawyer?'

‘That's what he told me.'

Linda mused for a moment, wondering whether lawyers disguised as enormous eagles could somehow be worked in as background. ‘Nah,' she said aloud, ‘that's no use, they'd only say I was faking the pictures. If you see any submarines, you will let me know?'

‘If you like. You haven't seen a set of car keys lying about, have you?'

‘Car keys? No, sorry. Can you remember where you had them last?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, there you are, then. Try and remember about the submarines.' She sighed, lowered herself carefully over the ledge and started to climb down the cliff, preoccupied.

Strange woman, said Janice to herself, as she knelt down beside the eagle. Almost at once, it raised its head and stared at her.

‘My keys,' it said. ‘My keys!'

‘Ah yes,' Janice mumbled. ‘Your keys. I'm afraid there's been a bit of an accident. You see . . .'

‘My
keys
!!'

‘They were here a short time ago,' Janice said. ‘But first there was the lunatic with the rock, and then that crazy journalist, and I've looked everywhere, and they've gone.'

The eagle lowered its head and made a high, thin keening noise. Exhausted, Janice leaned back against the cave wall and closed her eyes. ‘Do you have to make that horrible noise?' she snapped.

‘Yes.'

‘I thought you said you were a lawyer. Lawyers don't make high-pitched screaming noises.'

‘How would you know?'

‘They don't on
LA Law
,' Janice replied firmly. ‘And they don't in Cleveland, either. My cousin's sister-in-law—'

‘Look.' Calvin Dieb sat up, or as near to sitting up as his shape would allow. ‘Somebody's playing games with us, it's obvious. Whoever it is who changed me into an eagle and did whatever's been happening to you has also stolen my goddamn keys. Agreed?'

Janice nodded. ‘I hear you,' she said. ‘So what do you reckon?'

‘Right.' Dieb pulled his mind together, and tried to concentrate. ‘I think you and I are just regular people. What about the other two?'

‘The rock fiend and the reporter? Hard to tell. On balance, I think the reporter was, 'cos she seemed to be acting the way they usually do.'

‘Oh? Like what?'

‘Like she was only interested in what she wanted for her story, not what was actually going on.'

Dieb shook his head. ‘Unless we're certain, let's assume she wasn't; safer that way. OK, so we know we're both all right. Obviously,' he went on, ‘the most important thing is for us to stick together, not let them split us up. Agreed?'

‘Agreed.'

‘Fine. Now, th—'

He vanished.

 

‘Ugh,' said Wesley.

‘Feeling better?'

Wesley looked up. ‘Oh Christ, it's you again.Why can't you just—?'

The beautiful girl raised a perfect eyebrow. ‘Don't tell me,' she said. ‘At your school you could either do tact or woodwork, and you're reasonably good at woodwork. Am I right?'

‘No, actually. I always hit my thumb with the hammer. What's woodwork got to do with anything?'

The girl reached out a hand and pulled him to his feet. ‘That was Phase Two,' she said. ‘You failed.'

‘I did?'

The girl nodded. ‘You were meant to,' she added. ‘In fact, it'd spoil the whole thing if you didn't.'

Wesley scowled, and looked up at the cliff face. ‘Who was - I mean, who were those people? The eagle, I mean, and the . . .'

‘The short, fat, pig-faced girl?'

‘She's not . . .'

The beautiful girl snickered and turned away to hide her grin.
Yes
, muttered Wesley under his breath. Bet you could make a pretty neat chest of drawers, at that. ‘It's all right,' she said. ‘Don't worry about it.'

‘The hell with you.' Wesley tried to push past, but the beautiful girl tripped him up and he went sprawling.

‘She's gone now,' she said. ‘There's no point climbing all that way up there again.'

‘Where's she gone to?' Wesley gasped, scrambling to his feet.

‘Somewhere you can't follow,' she replied, with a soupçon of grated harshness. ‘I said, forget it. You had your chance to rescue a damsel in distress and win your only true love, and you blew it. Now we go on to Phase Three. You do still want to get out of here, don't you?'

‘Of course I do.' Wesley hesitated, looking up at the cave. ‘Of course I do,' he repeated, but with rather less conviction.

‘Well then.' The girl grabbed him by the collar and spun him round; she made it look easy. ‘And don't worry, you'll forget about her eventually. Give it fifty years or so and you'll hardly give her a second thought.'

Wesley considered saying something, but decided against it. Fury, heartbreak, despair and the like tended to muck up his vocabulary, leaving him with as much chance of hitting on the right word as finding a pint of fresh milk in a supermarket at ten to eight on a Saturday night. Instead, he tightened his fists until they hurt and relaxed them again.

‘I see,' he said. ‘Fine. Can we get on with Phase Three now, please? I'm getting rather sick of this game, and I'd like to go home as soon as possible.'

The girl giggled. ‘I'd lay off trying to be angry with dignity if I were you,' she said. ‘It makes you go all pink, like tinned salmon. Actually, I think you might rather like Phase Three, in the mood you're in. It involves quite a bit of . . .' She paused, flicking through her mental card-index. ‘Hooliganism,' she said. ‘Don't suppose you ever went in for that when you were a kid. Too scared of getting caught.'

Despite the bad reviews of his angry dignity, Wesley persevered with it. ‘If you mean throwing stones through windows and spraying things on walls, you're right, I never did. Not because I was frightened—'

‘
Look out!
'

Without even thinking, Wesley hurled himself to the ground, grazing the palms of his hands and bumping his chin, so that his teeth jarred together. ‘Agh!' he said.

‘Sorry,' said the girl, looking down at him. ‘Didn't want you to get hit by the low-flying pigs.'

‘Oh, very funny.'

The girl shrugged. ‘It wasn't bad,' she said, ‘but I don't suppose they'll be leaving out whole chunks of Groucho Marx and Noël Coward just to make room for it in the new edition of the
Dictionary of Quotations
. Are you going to get up, or would you rather crawl all the way to the next location? You can if you like, but it's rather a long way.'

 

When Calvin Dieb came to, he found himself tied to a stake.

Another thing he noticed was that it had suddenly gone dark, leading him to the conclusion that wherever he'd been while he hadn't been inside the body of Calvin Dieb, he'd been there for quite some time.The only light, in fact, came from the huge bonfire, around which a large number of people were apparently dancing. Fortunately, the light reflected well off the surface of the lake, so he could clearly make out the curious Native American folk costumes the dancers were wearing, and the strange multi-coloured pigments they'd applied to their bodies and faces. They were also singing, but Calvin had an ear for music the way a snake has a leg to stand on; so they could have been singing Country standards or
La Traviata
for all he knew. He couldn't make out any of the words, but that didn't mean anything either. He had an idea it wasn't the ‘Star-Spangled Banner', but that was as far as he got.