Wish You Were Here (32 page)

There was a moment of embarrassed silence; then the defence attorney stood up and addressed the bench. ‘Your honour,' he said, ‘if I can just confer with my colleague for a moment? Thank you.'

The two Calvin Diebs stood up and went off into a huddle over by the witness box; then the prosecutor sat down again, while the defence approached the bench. Although he was whispering to the judge, Calvin could hear every word.

‘It's like this, your honour,' he was saying. ‘It seems my colleague's on a contingency basis too, so we've agreed to split the fee between us and I'll throw the trial. I trust that meets with your approval? In the interests of justice, I mean.'

The judge nodded. ‘Sure thing,' she said. ‘Last thing anybody wants is for the scumbag to walk.'

Calvin - the Calvin Calvin hoped was the real Calvin - jumped to his feet and started to protest, whereupon the court cop leaned over and dealt him a horrendous blow on the head with his nightstick. The last thing he remembered seeing in this life was the jury-box, crammed to bursting with the entire population of the Universe (Hey! Get a load of those guys from Ursa Minor! Count those prehensile ears!) and they were all waving and cheering like mad.

The defence attorney gathered up his papers, nodded to his colleague and left the court.

The prosecutor stood for a moment, looking down at the file open before him, and then across at the body slumped over the table, dead as a manifesto promise in mid-term. Then he felt something in his left hand, and unclenched his fist.

It was a set of keys.

He looked up at the judge, who nodded. ‘You'll have to split them with the rest of you,' she said. ‘That's the part of you that was prepared to sell the rest of you down the river, remember, so I guess your problems aren't entirely over. Still, it's an improvement. How about if you keep the ignition key and give him the filler cap key and the mascot?'

‘He can have the mascot,' Calvin Dieb replied solemnly. ‘We'll negotiate for the rest.'

‘So long, Calvin.'

Calvin inclined his head. ‘So long,' he said. ‘And thanks, I guess. If ever there's anything I can—'

‘You'll be sorry you said that,' answered the judge.

‘Hey, it was just a figure of—'

Calvin vanished.

 

When Janice rematerialised, she found herself back in the forest. Having looked round carefully to make sure there were no Vikings, motorcyclists, eagles, doctors, game-show hosts or other pests anywhere to be seen, she sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, crossed her arms and waited to see what would happen next.

She didn't have long to wait. About twenty seconds later, she heard a soft hissing noise down by her ankle, looked down and saw a hat.

‘Pst!' it was saying.

She frowned. There was something in the hat's demeanour - the angle of its brim, perhaps, or the slight droop in its feather - that suggested that it was about to try and sell her life insurance.

‘Well?' she said.

‘Wanna buy a map?'

Janice started. ‘What kind of map?' she asked cautiously. ‘If it's one where X marks the spot, and there's dead men's chests and so on, I really don't want to know.'

The hat rotated half a turn clockwise, then swung back again. ‘Nothing like that,' it said. ‘Listen, it's a map of how to get out of here. Only five hundred bucks. Guaranteed. No quibble warranty. This does not affect your statutory . . .'

‘
Really
out of here?' Janice demanded. ‘You mean, back into real life, where I don't have to hide in the bushes every time a male squirrel runs along a tree, just in case it falls in love with me and follows me about?'

The hat tilted backwards and forwards. ‘User-friendly, ' it urged. ‘Easy to read, guaranteed not to crease or tear if used in accordance with manufacturer's directions. '

The frown on Janice's face thickened into a scowl, as if cornflour had been added. ‘I don't care if it glows in the dark and hums Scott Joplin so long as it shows me the way out,' she replied irritably. ‘Here, let's have a look.'

‘Oh no you don't,' said the hat, moving back a pace or two. ‘If you look at the map, you see the way out and you don't buy.'

‘Forget it, then,' Janice said, forcing herself to sound indifferent. ‘You see, unless I actually look at the map, I won't know if it's what you say it is. It's not that I'm calling you a liar,' she added quickly, as the hat started to vibrate. ‘But you're a hat, for Chrissakes. How'd you know it's really real? For all I know, hat, you could be talking through yourself.'

‘No money,' said the hat sadly, ‘no deal.'

‘Tell you what. I'll give you fifty bucks. How does that sound?'

‘Insulting,' replied the hat sulkily. ‘Hey, lady, what d'you do in your spare time when you aren't pulling gift horses' lips apart and sticking little mirrors in their mouths?'

Janice yawned. ‘All right,' she said, ‘seventy-five. But that's my last offer, 'cos that's all I got.'

‘Seventy-five lousy bucks for your dream come true?' The hat slowly rotated. ‘Lady, I
know
you're gonna be sorry. This is a once-only offer, remember, so . . .'

‘What did you say?'

‘Once-only offer,' the hat repeated. ‘You're gonna be sorry.'

‘No, before that.'

‘Seventy-five lousy bucks for your dream come true?'

‘That's the bit,' Janice said. ‘Look, I can do seventy-five bucks cash, and the rest by card . . .'

The hat sniggered. ‘Sorry, lady,' it said. ‘Strictly cash. So long.'

‘No, wait—'

The hat wasn't there any more. Janice looked for it under the repulsive-looking yellow fungus it had been leaning against, but there was no sign. She swore quietly and stood up, reasoning that if nobody was going to come and collect her, she might as well go and find somebody. With luck, whoever she found might be neither malevolent nor crazy. You never knew.

‘Excuse me.'

She whirled round, overbalanced, and slipped, ending up in an undignified stack directly on top of the repulsive fungus. She looked up, and saw a man—

The hell with it; a
dazzlingly handsome, incredibly gorgeous
man in - she hated to have to admit it, but they were princely robes. He had a small gold crown nestling in the equally golden curls of his hair, and he was flanked on both sides by footmen in fancy dress and powdered wigs. And one of them was carrying a cushion.

And on the cushion—

‘Excuse me,' the prince repeated, adorably, ‘but would you mind awfully just, um, putting your foot in this, how shall I put it, slipper? That's if you don't mind, of course. I'd hate to think I was imposing, or anything.'

Janice stared at what was on the cushion as if it had been her head rather than a glass slipper. Not that it was what she'd call a slipper; where she came from, slippers had no backs and soft pink fur, and you kicked them under your bed when friends dropped by because you'd die of shame if they saw them. This object had a three-inch heel.

‘Is that what I think it is?' she asked quietly.

The prince looked at her curiously. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘That depends on what you think it is, surely.'

‘I think it's the glass slipper left behind by the beautiful but mysterious maiden you danced with last night,' Janice muttered. ‘Am I warm?'

‘I don't know. If I had a thermometer we could take your temperature, I suppose.'

Janice frowned ever so slightly. ‘No,' she said, ‘what I meant was, am I sort of right about the shoe? And the beautiful but mysterious maiden and all that.'

The prince nodded. ‘I expect you heard the pronouncement, ' he said, and his voice was like that soft rustling as you pull out the thin bit of corrugated cardboard they put into boxes of chocolates to stop the coffee creams getting squished in transit. ‘I had it pronounced all over the kingdom, you see. I imagine you heard it somewhere, sort of out of the corner of your ear. Subliminally, I think they call it.'

Janice nodded. The footman advanced, bearing the cushion. Janice unlaced her left sensible walking shoe. The footman lifted the slipper off the cushion.

‘Actually,' Janice said, as the footman slid the slipper over her toes, ‘there's something that puzzles me. Mind if I ask you to explain it to me?'

‘By all means,' replied the prince, smiling stunningly.

‘Well,' Janice said, as the back of the slipper nestled up against her heel like a cat after the tinned salmon you're just easing out of the can, ‘it's like this. You danced with this girl all night, and you thought she was so gorgeous you couldn't live without her, so you're searching the kingdom till you find her, yes?'

‘That's right.'

‘Your Majesty,' hissed the footman with respectful urgency. ‘The slipper, your Maj—'

‘OK,' Janice said. ‘If she made this amazingly deep impression on you, how come the only way you can recognise this person is by whether or not a shoe fits her foot? I mean, wouldn't you be better off looking at girls' faces and seeing if maybe something goes
ching!
in the old memory banks? Quite apart from the fact that this slipper's a standard 5C fitting, which means that in the USA alone there's upwards of a million and a half girls it'd fit like a glove. Had you considered either of those points, by any chance?'

‘Your Majesty,' the footman persevered, maybe just a little louder, ‘the slipper. It fi—'

‘Gosh,' said the prince, biting his lip. ‘I hadn't thought of that. Had you, Murdoch?'

‘No, Your Majesty,' replied the other footman.

‘How about you, Skellidge?'

The footman with the slipper didn't sigh; footmen, like Mr Spock, don't show emotion. But there was just the faintest hint in the way he didn't say anything, move or make a sound that implied the words,
Oh shit, here we go
. ‘No, Your Majesty,' he said. ‘If Your Majesty would care to look, Your Majesty might observe that the slipper fits.'

The prince started. ‘It does?'

‘Perfectly, Your Majesty.'

‘Then - oh.' The Prince hesitated, and his divinely beautiful forehead crinkled. ‘But, as the young lady just explained, that's not really conclusive evidence, is it?'

‘No, Your Majesty.'

‘All it does is whittle it down to a million and a half possible candidates.'

‘Quite so, Your Majesty.'

‘Just a moment,' Janice objected.

‘Whereas,' the Prince went on, ‘I really ought to be able to recognise the girl of my dreams when I see her, oughtn't I?'

‘Yes, Your Majesty.'

‘And,' the Prince went on, peering carefully at Janice's face, ‘I'm afraid I can't remember ever having seen this young lady in my life before.' He sighed, and straightened up. ‘Well anyway,' he said, ‘it's not her, so we can eliminate her from our enquiries. So that leaves just—'

‘One million, four hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go, Your Majesty. In North America, that is. Elsewhere in the world . . .'

‘Quite.' The Prince nodded gravely. ‘Miss,' he said, turning to Janice, ‘I'm most dreadfully obliged to you. You see, I was all set to marry the first girl this thing fitted, and then love her devotedly for ever. Thanks to you, though . . .'

Janice thought about that, and was left with the feeling you sometimes get when you've just turned the ignition key, and the key snaps cleanly off in your hand. ‘On reflection,' she said feebly, ‘I can see a few obvious flaws in my logic, so perhaps you shouldn't pay any attention to a word I say. In fact, if I were you I'd wipe it from my mind completely.'

The Prince smiled again; so warm a smile, you could dry socks over it. ‘You're far too modest, Miss,' he said. ‘It's only your clear thinking and exceptional insight that's saved me from making a truly, truly horrible mistake. I really am most awfully grateful.'

‘Yes, but . . .'

With a grunt so soft that only a bat with a hearing aid could have heard it, the footman removed the slipper, wiped it out with a lace kerchief, and laid it carefully back on the cushion. ‘And as a small gesture of appreciation,' the Prince went on, ‘on behalf of the Kingdom as well as myself?'

‘Yes?' Janice demanded breathlessly.

‘I'd like you to accept this ten-dollar book token, with my compliments.' He snapped his fingers, whereupon the second footman stepped forward, put a white envelope in Janice's hand, bowed at an angle of precisely twenty-one degrees, and stepped back again.

‘Gee,' Janice said, in a low, thin monotone. ‘I don't know what to say.'

The Prince beamed at her. ‘Think nothing of it,' he said. ‘All right, Murdoch, back the way we came. There's an old chateau about three miles along the top road we haven't tried yet.' He was about to walk off, but turned and gave Janice a long, thrilling look. ‘And don't worry,' he added, with a flash of his sparkling eyes. ‘I feel sure that one day
your
prince will come. Just you wait and see.'

‘You reckon?'

The Prince shrugged. ‘Who knows? Don't give up the day job, though. Skellidge, the route map.'

The little procession departed, leaving Janice standing there doing active volcano impressions. It wasn't so much that she'd just trodden on the happy ending, she decided, as the fact that she'd been right, and they'd punished her for it. That made her think about the doctor, the one who'd been here since World War One just because he wanted to make people better. Then she remembered that she'd also turned down the offer of a ridiculously cheap escape out of all of this, and began to whimper.