My Hero (20 page)

For a brief moment, he was at a loss, then the correct explanation registered, and he looked round for confirmation. He found it.

‘Terribly sorry,' he said. ‘You must be the Hatter, and you're the March Hare.'

‘Yes,' replied the Hatter. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at?'

‘Just passing through.' Regalian started to inch his way off the table, trying his best to cause as little further damage as possible. There was a sharp crunch as he knelt on a plate of cucumber sandwiches.

‘This really isn't on, though,' complained the Hare. ‘I mean, yes, we are supposed to be off-the-wall, kooky characters from the back lots of the human subconscious. We're quite prepared to hold our paws up to that one, sure. Still doesn't give you the right to come bursting in here trashing our crockery.' It sighed, and pointed at what was left of the teapot. ‘I mean, how the hell are we supposed to get the Dormouse in that?'

‘Can't stop,' Regalian muttered. ‘Send me the bill for the damage, okay?' He rolled off the table, holstered the gun and stopped. ‘Hang on,' he said. ‘Just one thing. Am I human or a beaver?'

The Hare and the Hatter looked at each other. ‘Is this one of those wordplay gags,' asked the Hare wearily, ‘like the treacle-well and the best butter and so on, because if so, we really aren't in the mood.'

‘Nope. Just a simple request for information.'

‘Fine. You're not a beaver. Whether you're human or not is a matter between you and your author, in which I have no wish to get involved. Now piss off.'

‘Obliged to you. Goodbye.'

After he had gone, the Hatter and the Hare exchanged long, significant looks.

‘And we're supposed to be the goofy ones,' said the Hatter.

‘That's the trouble with this business,' the Hare agreed. ‘Too much amateur bloody competition. Come on, let's get this lot cleared away.'

They lifted off the tablecloth, shook it free of Wedgwood shrapnel, replaced the cups, saucers and plates, and made a fresh pot of tea. In doing so the Hatter got tea-stains on his shirt-cuffs and the Hare cut his paw.The Dormouse stayed fast asleep.

‘Okay,' said the Hare, ‘that's all right, then. Now, where were—?'

There was a crash.

‘Oh for crying out loud,' said the Hatter.

‘Enough,' agreed the Hare, dodging a fast-spreading tea-slick, ‘is enough. From now on it's paper plates and a disposable tablecloth.'

‘Excuse me.'

‘Alternatively,' suggested the Hatter, ‘we could try moving the table.'

‘Excuse me.'

The Hatter scowled. ‘What do you want?'

Titania stood up, brushing bits of broken china off herself. ‘Sorry about this,' she said. ‘We didn't realise you were here.'

‘Evidently.'

‘Did you,' Titania persevered, ‘see a man come this way a few minutes ago? Big chap, tall, probably holding a gun?'

The Hare gave her a long look. ‘We did just happen to notice him, yes. Friend of yours?'

‘Yes.'

‘Figures.'

‘Which way did he go?'

The Hare rubbed its chin. ‘Let me see,' it said. ‘If memory serves me correctly, he came in where you did, landed on the teapot, crawled all over the sandwiches, stood on the sugar bowl, kicked over the cakestand and went off that way.' It pointed vaguely at a house behind them. ‘What is it you people are going to, anyway? Some sort of Hell's Angels convention?'

Titania turned to Skinner, white-faced. ‘Are you going to let him talk to me like that?' she demanded.

‘Yes. Look,' he added, ‘it wasn't my idea to have a love interest. Nobody asked me.'

‘Nor me,' Titania snapped. ‘Believe me, I was much happier with the damn donkey.'

Skinner nodded. ‘More your type,' he said.

The Hare banged on the table with a spoon. ‘Look,' it said, ‘would you two clowns mind having your argument somewhere else? We're five pages behind schedule as it is.'

‘Sorry.' Titania crunched her way to the edge of the table and dropped to the ground. ‘We'll pay for the damage, of course. Just send the bill to—'

‘Get out of here, both of you, before I call the flamingoes. '

‘We're just going.'

This time, the Hatter and the Hare waited ten minutes before clearing away the breakages and re-laying the table. They also moved the whole shooting match ten feet to the right. Then they sat in brooding silence, not eating or drinking, just in case. There were bits of broken china
in the sugar, and the Victoria Sponge would never be the same again.

After a while, the Hare looked at its watch.

‘I think,' it said, ‘we're probably safe now. Right, you pour the tea and I'll see what can be done with this blasted cake.'

At which point, Alice came hurrying in, ran full-tilt into the table (which was, of course, ten feet out of position) and landed face-down in the black forest gateau. There was a long silence.

‘Stuff it,' said the Hare, resignedly. ‘I turned down a part in
Our Mutual Friend
for this. I'm going home now, and if anybody tries to stop me I'll break their bloody neck. So—'

He stopped. Someone was prodding a gun in the small of his back.

‘Okay,' growled the bounty hunter, emerging from behind a bush. ‘Nobody moves, or the rabbit gets it.'

 

‘I would strongly advocate,' said Rossfleisch, rather self-consciously, ‘that everybody remains exactly where they are. Otherwise . . .'

 

(This, of course, is the entirely legitimate literary device of drawing parallels. One character unconsciously echoes another, setting up a resonance that crosses over the divisions of situation and form.

In all fiction, there is a tendency to symmetry and balance. Particularly balance. For every cue, a reply. For every entrance, an exit.

And for every exit, an entrance.)

 

The siege had lasted three hours.

Outside the building, the usual muster of police cars,
vans, men with flak jackets, men with megaphones, men with television cameras. Another day, another melodrama.

Inside the building, two men - well, two humanoids - facing each other.

Not quite in and not quite out of the building (to be precise, wandering around in the sewers underneath the building with a torch, a portable word processor and a very wry expression, because of the smell), a novelist.

Gee, mused Hamlet, but life can be a right bugger sometimes. Now if I was really Hamlet,
the
Hamlet, I could launch into a bit of impassioned oratory and talk this idiot into letting me go, or at least send him to sleep, which would amount to the same thing. A bit of blank verse, a few slices of heavy-duty industrial-grade imagery, and Bob's your uncle. But no. All I can think of to say is,
Gosh, this is silly, isn't it?
and that doesn't quite have the necessary voltage to do the job.

Nevertheless, one can but try.

‘Gosh,' he said, ‘this is silly, isn't it?'

The mad scientist nodded. ‘I quite agree, my dear fellow,' he said. ‘Ludicrous. It only goes to show how low scientific research is in some people's scale of priorities. Still,' he added, drumming his fingers on the casing of the cassette player, ‘the remedy is in your own hands. You're completely bulletproof. All you have to do is lead the way, and we could be out of here in no time at all.'

‘Yes, but—'

‘In fact,' said Rossfleisch, glancing at his watch, ‘if this goes on much longer I may have to insist. I really can't afford to waste much more time in here. I have experiments that need constant monitoring.'

Hamlet edged closer to the window.With luck, he might just be able to jump through it before the doctor had time to switch on the tape.

‘All the same,' he said, ‘it's a bit thick, don't you think?
I mean to say, all this fuss and bother and sirens going and men with rifles and things. Have you seen—?'

‘Please come away from the window.'

Hell! ‘But like you said, I'm bulletproof, there's no danger—'

‘In case you should get the urge to jump. That wouldn't do at all, you know.'

‘Ah. Right.'

He was just about to try another line of argument, something involving the bearing of fardels, although if anyone asked him what a fardel was he'd have to admit he hadn't a clue, when his high-performance ears picked up a strange noise. A scrabbling sound, coming from under the building.

‘Hey . . .' he said, and checked himself quickly. Best not to let the loony know about it, he reasoned. After all, it might be help.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Hey,' Hamlet improvised, ‘did you realise you can see right across the city from here?'

 

Jane pushed.

Whatever it was she was pushing against, it lifted; and she found she was looking up into a room. A boiler room, by the looks of it, or something similar.

She was, of course, hopelessly and irretrievably lost. When she'd been standing at the edge of the police cordon, staring at the building in which she knew Hamlet to be trapped, and wondering what her hero would do if he were here, it had seemed the most logical thing in the world to head for the nearest manhole cover and drop in.

That had been some time ago.

Since then, she had reassessed her priorities. Yes, she still wanted to find Hamlet and rescue him. But more
than that, more than anything else in the world, what she really wanted to do was get out of the drains and have a long, scented bath lasting maybe three months.

She hauled herself up out of the sewer, closed the cover behind her and sat down on a wooden crate to rest and think about what to do next. While she was thinking, she switched on the WP and waited for it to warm up.

It started to beep.

It wasn't the ouch-you're-hurting-me beep she got when she did something wrong, or the hurry-up-I-want-more-paper beep. It was somehow more friendly; no, that wasn't the word. More positive. It was a come-on-don't-dawdle-it's-this-way sort of beep, and it gave her the impression that the machine wanted to tell her something. If it had been a dog, she realised, the WP would be rushing round her feet with its lead in its mouth.

‘All right,' she said, ‘which way?'

‘Sorry?'

‘I'm terribly sorry, I don't under—'

‘Oh, right, up the
stairs
. Got you. And then what?'

‘You mean a fire door.'

‘What, because of the snipers? Yes, good point.'

‘Yes, all right, I'm coming as quick as I can.'

She scrambled to her feet, hefted the word processor and started to jog up the iron spiral staircase that led out of the boiler room. Halfway up she stopped and frowned.

‘Just a minute,' she demanded. ‘Who the hell are you and how come you can—?'

‘Oh I see. Sorry.You did say left at the top, didn't you?'

‘No, I haven't the faintest idea what a fardel is, but I promise I'll look it up as soon as we get home. Now, is it left or isn't it?'

 

Hamlet held his breath. Any moment now. Then straight through the window, hit the deck, remember to roll, and . . .

‘Who were you talking to just now?' the Doctor asked quietly.

‘Me?' Hamlet swallowed hard. ‘Oh, nothing, just soliloquising. You know, thinking what a rogue and peasant slave I've been all these years.'

The Doctor glowered at him. ‘There's someone coming, isn't there?' he said accusingly. ‘Someone you can talk to without actually speaking.'

‘Gosh,' said Hamlet, ‘you
are
clever, aren't you? I wish I was as brainy as you, it must be wonderful to be so—'

‘Behind the curtain, quickly,' the Doctor snapped. ‘Come on, jump to it. I'm afraid I'm in no mood for silly games.'

Behind the curtain. Oh joy!
‘Must I? What about the snipers? You said just now—'

‘Do as you're told!' the Doctor growled, and he brandished the cassette recorder significantly. Masking a grin the size of Yorkshire, Hamlet nodded and stepped behind the curtain . . .

 

A hint for aspiring character-nappers. Stop and think what a curtain is. Reflect for a moment what happens when a character steps out in front of a curtain, and what also happens when he goes behind one.

Some curtains are better than others. The best sort are fireproof and required by law to be raised and lowered in the presence of five hundred empty seats and the ice-cream queues. Next best are the thick, dusty red velvet jobs with gold tassels. At a pinch, though, any curtain will do. Or even, if the worst comes to the worst, an arras.

 

Suddenly, Hamlet knew exactly who he was and what he was supposed to do next. With a brave flourish he drew the sword that was now hanging by his side, identified the bulge in the curtain and lunged with all his might. The correct line was,
‘A rat! A rat!'
, but he was in a hurry.

The sword-blade bent like a bow and snapped, just as Hamlet winked out of existence and dematerialised in a shower of golden sparks.

On the other side of the curtain, Dr Rossfleisch stared in complete bewilderment at the filing cabinet, which had six inches of rapier blade protruding through the side of the drawer marked ‘N - P', and so entirely failed to notice the door opening, Jane coming through, or the torch landing hard and square on the back of his head.