Wish You Were Here (37 page)

A second and a half earlier, and he'd have been in time.

He was just propping himself up on his elbows and wondering (a) where the little bloke with the button had got to and (b) what the small, squishy, squirming thing he was lying on might be, when a fast-moving procession appeared over the skyline. It was led by Linda and Janice, running with more enthusiasm than wisdom straight for the bramble-patch. Seventy yards or so behind them came Calvin Dieb and the Prince, anybody's race with a hundred yards still to go, and Murdoch and Skellidge making quite reasonable time at a sort of stately canter.

All a bit pointless now, Wesley reflected; unless, of course, the Prince had some way of stopping the bombs his button had presumably launched. But he wouldn't
want
to, would he, any more than a bullet would suddenly decide to change course and go round rather than through you. Pity, that.

Even though he wasn't feeling at his blithest and best, he couldn't help smiling just a bit when Linda and Janice caught their feet in exactly the same brambles, did exactly the same little dance and arrived beside him in exactly the same way. He'd remembered thinking while he'd been bum-sliding down that self-same slope, ‘I bet this'd be very funny to watch,' and this time he had the satisfaction of being the audience.

He'd been right. It was hilarious; more so, he guessed, with two of them doing it. Ah, well; last orders for humour at the bar, please, ladies and gentlemen.

‘Hello,' he said. ‘It's too late.'

‘Huh?' Janice, who'd come to an abrupt halt on and around his legs, raised her head and looked at him as if he'd just turned himself into a strawberry flapjack. ‘Too late for what?'

‘Everything,' Wesley replied sadly, as the rest of the cast (who'd managed to avoid the brambles and the mud; spoilsports, the lot of 'em) came panting up. ‘This little pillock I'm lying on pressed the button.'

‘What button?'

‘Never mind. Doesn't matter. Forget I spoke.' Wesley stood up, apologised politely to Captain Hat, smiled politely at everybody else present and wandered away to throw stones in the lake. Or at it, rather, since he had a shrewd notion that everything was somehow the lake's fault anyway.

‘Who was that?' Linda demanded, and although she didn't actually add out loud that the public had a right to know, her tone of voice implied it. ‘And what's this button?'

Calvin Dieb cleared his throat. ‘Something you obviously didn't know about,' he said. ‘A shame, really. You see, His Royal Whatever here wants to blow up the world, all in the name of pure, true love of course, so it's OK really, or at any rate it makes a refreshing change from politics; and the deal was, if he could find someone to kidnap the, um, I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch the name, Ms—?'

‘DeWeese,' Janice said. ‘Janice DeWeese.'

‘Very pleased to know you, if only temporarily. Anyhow, you kidnapped Ms Deweese—'

‘I did not,' Linda objected. ‘I rescued her. Didn't I?'

‘Arguably,' Janice said.

Calvin held up a hand for silence. ‘The way His Majesty saw it, you kidnapped her. And so his buddy in the wig and the fancy dress produced the good old doomsday button - that's it there, on the ground. And it seems like this small person here—'

‘Hat,' said Hat.

‘Gesundheit. This small guy appears to have walked off with it and, um, pressed it. Which means, I guess, we're all going to—'

‘
Hey!
' Janice objected. ‘Don't talk crazy, Mister whoever-you-are.' She stopped, and squinted. ‘Just a minute, aren't you that goddamn bird?'

Calvin nodded. ‘I was,' he admitted, ‘but I guess I grew out of it.'

Janice decided not to pursue that. ‘Whatever,' she said. ‘Still doesn't mean that button's actually going to blow up the world. It's not like any of this is
real
, for Chrissakes.'

‘Who is this broad?' Talks to Squirrels demanded loudly, shooting Janice in the ear. ‘And where does she get off saying we're not real?'

‘But you're not,' Janice replied. ‘And please have the good manners not to shoot people when they're talking to you.'

Talks shrugged. ‘Does it matter?' he replied. ‘After all, any minute now you're all just gonna be black outlines and puffs of smoke, which'll make shooting you even more pointless than it already is. I figure I might as well enjoy myself while I can.'

‘But it's all just an illusion,' Janice protested loudly. ‘Nothing really
happens
here. Even the people who get blown up get put back together again. It's just symbolism and stuff. Nobody's actually gonna
die
, are they?'

Calvin raised both eyebrows. ‘One thing's for sure,' he said pleasantly. ‘In about ten minutes or so from now, we'll all know the definite answer. And in the meantime,' he added, ‘I don't see as there's a hell of a lot we can do about it. I suggest we all stop fussing about it and relax. You know, go with it. Be as one with the holocaust.'

There was a brief silence, broken only by Skellidge discreetly tapping Talks To Squirrels on the shoulder, clearing his throat head-waiter style and murmuring, ‘Excuse me, sir, but do you have a reservation?'

‘Just a moment.' This time it was Linda; and shortly afterwards there was a fine old debate going on, with Janice proposing the motion that it was all some kind of dream, Calvin being aggravatingly well adjusted about everything, Linda writing things down on her shirt-cuff to be used in evidence, the Prince nodding agreement with everyone in the intervals of looking up at the sky and then down at his watch, Talks to Squirrels shooting people and Captain Hat quietly examining the contents of their pockets for items of value. For his part, Wesley carried on throwing stones until he hadn't got any more stones to throw; at which point, he turned to the nearer of the two footmen and coughed.

‘'Scuse me.'

‘Sir?'

‘Which one are you?'

The footman thought for a moment. ‘I, sir, am Murdoch.'

‘Fine.' Wesley smiled pleasantly. ‘Murdoch, the stones.'

‘Certainly, sir. The sandstone or the flint?'

‘Oh, let's make it the flint, shall we? It isn't every day the world gets blown up.'

Murdoch raised an eyebrow. ‘Blown up, sir?' he enquired.

Wesley nodded. ‘That's what that button thing was for, wasn't it?'

‘No, sir,' Murdoch replied, bending at the waist as he produced a large, satin-lined box full of the finest selected Brandon flints. ‘Certainly not, sir. That would be most injudicious, if I might say so.'

‘Ah.' Wesley reached out for a flint, and paused. ‘Which one's the coffee cream, then?'

‘Sir?'

‘A joke. Forget it.' He frowned. ‘So the world
isn't
going to get blown up, then?'

‘No, sir. You should be so lucky, sir.'

‘Ah.' There was one particularly fine flat-bottomed flint near the left-hand edge, and Wesley picked it out. ‘You mean, something worse?'

‘Something bigger, sir. Will that be all?'

Wesley nodded; then he drew back his arm and let fly. The stone spun from his hand, hit the surface of the lake and bounced, the way flat stones do unless they happen to have politicians living under them. It seemed to bounce for ever such a long time, and Wesley (who'd never managed to get a stone to skip more than twice before) watched it until it was nearly out of sight; at which point, it changed into a mallard drake and made a perfect landing out near the middle of the lake. Then he saw something else.

‘Murdoch.'

‘Sir?'

‘What's that funny-looking greyish brown splodge?'

‘Sir?'

Wesley pointed. ‘On the hillside there, between the trees. It looks like someone's just poured gravy over the top of the hill.'

‘No, sir. That would be the lemmings.'

‘Ah.' Wesley double-checked his mental file, just in case there was something obvious he hadn't taken on board. ‘Lemmings,' he repeated.

‘Indeed, sir. The Doomsday lemmings, to be precise.'

‘Right,' said Wesley, ‘got you. Thanks a lot.'

‘Sir.'

‘Murdoch.'

‘Sir?'

Wesley rubbed his chin, and said, ‘Excuse me if this sounds a bit feeble, but I'm from England, and we don't actually have Doomsday lemmings there. Could you just sort of explain? A bit?'

Murdoch's lips twitched into a thin smile. ‘Certainly, sir,' he said. ‘You are aware, I take it, of the tradition that holds that all lemmings have a death wish, in pursuance of which they leap off cliffs into the waters below?'

Wesley nodded. ‘There's a computer game, in fact, where you have to . . . Sorry, please go on.'

‘And,' Murdoch continued austerely, ‘you will be aware by now that to jump into this lake is to have your wish come true?'

‘Yup.'

Murdoch turned and pointed at the grey tide washing over the bluffs into the lake, like beans in sauce slopping out of the tin. ‘Their wish is about to come universally true, sir. Hence the expression, Doomsday lemmings.'

‘Ah. Right. Sorry I asked.'

‘My pleasure, sir.'

Wesley propped his chin on his hands and decided to sulk. After all; buttons to blow up the world; Doomsday lemmings; all these people who'd been cropping up all over the place, sometimes real and sometimes not.

It was time, he said to himself, that someone sorted it all out.

Yeah, well. When, looking back over the history of the planet, wasn't it? But nothing ever was, not in real life. Confusion and chaos crash down from the high points of the past, spitting foam and spray; but they hit the surface of the present, and everything evens out into one flat, calm mirror. Nothing is solved or explained, but after long enough none of it matters. The worst part was that he'd come here deliberately.

He studied the lake, and the ridge of the mountains encircling it like someone curled up on his side, asleep under an eiderdown of trees. He'd long since given up trying to find his bearings; it was never the same twice, although he hadn't actually seen the mountains move or the trees being herded like sheep to another position. By way of experiment, he closed his eyes and opened them again; sure enough, the whole landscape was different when you looked closely. Where there had been a cliff - the one the lemmings had been jumping over - there was now a sparsely wooded incline running right down to the lake's edge. Where a rocky outcrop had stood a moment ago, there was now a low knoll crowned by a clump of thin, straggly fir trees. This is all a picture, he realised, in the mind of someone with an unreliable memory or a slapdash attitude towards continuity. Someone who doesn't think backgrounds really matter very much. Like me, for example.

Figures.

‘Pretty, isn't it?' He looked round to see Calvin Dieb sitting beside him. ‘Hey, you can just see my car from here.'

Wesley looked hard. ‘You can?'

Dieb nodded. ‘Well, not the actual car.You can just see the sun glinting on the windshield.'

‘A reflection, you mean?'

‘Yeah, a reflection. And don't bother saying it,' Dieb added with a grin, ‘'cos I'm way ahead of you. I realised. There is no car, only a reflection.'

Wesley didn't reply. The duck that had been his stone was still there, but it wasn't doing anything of note, even though it was now an otter. ‘What do you think is going to happen?' he asked.

‘Happen?' Dieb shrugged. ‘Search me, pal. Does it matter?'

‘Well, yes.'Wesley found a stone that hadn't been there a moment ago, a round pebble shaped like a duck's egg, and lobbed it smoothly into the water. It hit the surface and skimmed away out of sight. ‘Even if it is all imagination, like whatsername says. I mean, if I believe it's happening, then surely it is. To me, I mean.'

‘Maybe.' Calvin's shoulders rose and fell. ‘I used to believe my life was happening to me, so what do I know? I used to think I was the big lawyer all American mothers want their kids to be. I used to think I had money and power and a superior intellect, which made it all right for me to do the things I did. I used to think my ex-wife didn't understand me. I used to think my Dad understood why I never called home. I even used to think I had a set of keys for my car. Only goes to show, huh?'

‘But you did.'

Calvin nodded. ‘That's the worst kind of fantasy,' he said, ‘the kind that's true. And before you ask, yes, I missed the Sixties too.'

‘Um.' Wesley shifted an inch or so away, trying not to be too obvious about it. ‘So you're going to chuck in the lawyering, are you? When you get back, I mean?'

Dieb looked at him as if he'd just offered him a dollar fifty for his soul. ‘Chuck in the law?' he repeated. ‘Hell, no. Why the hell would I want to do that, for God's sake?'

‘But I thought . . .' Wesley groped for words in the lining of his mind's pocket. ‘All this revelation and seeing the light stuff. I thought you meant you'd, oh, I don't know, decided to turn over a new leaf, live a nobler and more fulfilling life, that sort of—'

‘Kid.' Dieb looked at him as if from a long way away. ‘Just because I've finally realised what a shitty person I've been all these years doesn't make me want to stop being
me
. It just means I can stop feeling guilty, is all. I mean, if I'd discovered that deep down I was a really nice guy, caring and considerate and concerned about people, then I'd be worried sick. No way would you get me back in that office, not even if you called out the National Guard with firehoses.' He smiled. ‘But I ain't. I'm a jerk. But now I can feel
good
about being a jerk. That's why I feel - well, kind of at peace, I guess. And you know, I suppose that's all I ever wanted. Deep down, I mean. How about you?'