Wish You Were Here (28 page)

‘Piss off,' she said.

‘Sorry?'

‘Piss off,' Janice repeated, elocuting. ‘Go away, with prejudice. Go play with a dead body. Understand?'

‘Oh.'

‘I mean it. Given a choice between you and one of your dismembered corpses, I'd choose the corpse every time.' She paused, and grinned unpleasantly. ‘Go jump in the lake,' she added.

‘Jump in the lake?'

Janice nodded. ‘It's over there somewhere. Big wet thing, with upside-down trees all over it.'

‘Done that.'

‘Huh?'

Dave nodded. ‘Done that, what, eighty years ago. Back in the First World War. That's why I'm here.'

Janice didn't like the sound of that. ‘And you're still here?' she asked. ‘After all this time?'

‘Yeah. Bummer, isn't it? You see, I used to be a doctor. Really keen on doctoring, I used to be. What I really wanted more than anything else was to be able to take people who'd got all smashed up, like the poor bleeders we used to fish out of the trenches and pick off the barbed wire, and put 'em back together again, good as new. So, when I fell in the lake . . .'

A dull, sick feeling slapped itself across Janice's mind. ‘But that's crazy,' she said. ‘That was a good thing to want, surely.'

‘I used to think so, too,' Dave sighed. ‘Never could see the harm in it.'

‘But they're
punishing
you for it,' Janice said, horrified. ‘You wanted to save people's lives, and they kept you here. That's
bad
.'

Dave shrugged. ‘Got what I asked for, though, didn't I?' He chuckled bitterly. ‘Can't complain on that score. The only difference is, in the trenches we used to get a couple of days off every month. Used to enjoy me days off, I did. Used to go into Armentières and play dominoes with the Canadians.'

Janice took a step or so backwards, ignoring whatever it was that felt soft and squidgy under her foot. Up till now, she'd felt confused and put-upon. Now she was starting to get angry.

‘I've had about enough of this,' she said. ‘I guess it's OK what they're doing to me, because I asked for it, in a way. But picking on a doctor because he wanted to make people better just isn't right.'

Dave frowned, puzzled. ‘So what're you going to do about it?' he said.

‘Complain,' Janice answered immediately. ‘Demand to see the manager. Write my Congressman. I don't know. I'm going to do something, though, just you wait.'

‘How about . . . ?'

‘Oh, get lost, I'm busy. I want to talk to someone in authority.'

‘But . . .'

Whatever Dave said next, he said it to empty air.

 

 

W
esley fell over.

There was a simple reason for this. At the moment he disappeared, he'd been aiming a punch at a fairly substantial lawyer. When he reappeared, the space the lawyer should have occupied turned out to contain nothing but oxygen, nitrogen and a few trace elements of no great importance. Since there was nothing to stop the momentum of his fist, he accordingly fell over and landed, face down, in what had once been a bison's dinner. Subsequently it had gone clean through the bison and come to rest, in a collapsed pyramid shape, on the ground.

‘Ack!' Wesley observed, sitting up and wiping it out of his eyes.

‘Serves you right for playing rough games,' said the bison reproachfully. ‘Bet you didn't expect to see me again.'

‘Where'd he go?'

‘The lawyer?' The bison's jaws moved methodically. ‘Sorry, but you don't need to know that. Classified.'

Wesley said something succinct under his breath that summed up what he felt about classified information. ‘Look,' he went on, ‘this game, or ordeal, or whatever it's supposed to be. When's it due to finish?'

‘When it's over.'

‘Fine. Thank you ever so much. And when will it be over?'

‘When it's finished.'

Carefully, trying not to get the former bison food on more of him than he could help, Wesley got to his feet and looked round. There had been a time, he freely admitted, when he looked at the world through rose-tinted glasses. In retrospect, that had been better, surely.

‘Do you realise,' he said wearily, ‘that not so long ago, I used to feel sad at the thought that the American bison was hunted to the verge of extinction. Now I only wish they'd done a thorough job.'

‘So?' The bison turned its head and looked at him through soft, brown, stupid eyes. ‘There's no point blaming me,' he said. ‘I didn't start this.You came all this way specially, remember, just to meet me. Hey.You're on holiday, lighten up. Isn't this still more fun than being in the office?'

Wesley thought about that for a moment. ‘Well,' he said, ‘yes. But then again, so would hanging by my feet over a vat of molten lead. That doesn't actually prove anything. More to the point, we don't seem to be
achieving
very much. OK, I've had exciting experiences I'd have missed out on if I'd stayed in Brierley Hill, but they've all been horrible; except for meeting, um, her, but now she's gone again and it doesn't look like I'll get to meet her again.' He sighed. Below where he stood, the lake lay like a newly ironed duvet, lovingly hand-embroidered with a curious motif of upside-down mountains. ‘If we've got to do this, can't we at least make it useful?'

‘You mean profitable?'

‘Well - yes, in the wider sense, I suppose I do. Well, quite. What's in it for me?'

‘I see. You'd rather it was like a game show or something? '

‘No,' Wesley replied firmly, ‘of course not. I only meant—'

But the bison had vanished, and the girl had come back; except that now she'd exchanged her fringed buckskin tunic for something skimpy and sequin-covered. She was also taller, blonde and totally different, though naturally still gorgeous.

‘Better?' she said through a rose-rimmed hole in her smile. ‘More in keeping with the way you perceive this experience?'

‘Oh, don't be like that.'

‘What's in it for me, you said,' the girl continued, the savagery of her tone of voice contrasting markedly with the toothpaste-ad smile it came out through. ‘I now see that you're one of those people who wouldn't accept a first-class suite in the Kingdom of Heaven unless there was a radio alarm-clock thrown in free as well. All right then, buster, have it your way. This is your chance to win Fabulous Prizes. But don't come whining to me if you don't like this format after all.'

‘No, look, really,'Wesley said, but the girl had stomped off in a huff and vanished, leaving only a Cheshire-Cat echo of her smile behind, like the green blobs you see with your eyes shut after you've stared into the sun. Since he had no idea what he was supposed to do now, Wesley sat down on a rock and waited.

But not for long. In fact, he just had time to think,
Oh for pity's sake
, before the sky went red on him.

 

‘Here we are,' said the girl, with synthetic cheerfulness. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting.'

The inspector took the ledgers from her with a grunt. ‘Now then,' he said, ‘we can get started. I've had instructions to pay particular attention to operating systems, with a view to identifying any possible misapplication of resources, inefficient use of materials or funding, unnecessary duplications . . .'

He broke off, and looked ostentatiously around. He didn't say anything for quite some time.

‘Sorry about this,' said the girl, avoiding his eye. ‘It happens sometimes. Doesn't mean anything, of course. We're all used to it by now.'

The inspector didn't appear to have heard her. ‘Perhaps,' he said, in a voice marginally more aggravating than the one he'd been using before, ‘you'd care to explain why we appear to be standing in a theatre.'

The girl grinned. Sheepishly would be an underestimate. Sheep have more sense than to get themselves into messes of this magnitude. ‘It's not a theatre,' she whispered, ‘not as such. More like a TV studio.'

‘Those people . . .'

‘The audience.'

‘Ah.' The inspector made a note in his notebook. ‘I take it they're not full-time employees. I'd hate to think you were incurring regular expenditure . . .'

‘Oh no.'The girl shook her head, perhaps a little more vigorously than necessary. ‘Well, they are, full-time employees, I mean; but they're not just employed to sit. If you look closely, you'll see they're all Vikings and Indians in disguise.'

‘Ah.' The inspector stole a quick look over the rims of his spectacles. ‘Apparently they are. You keep a full-time staff of Indians and Vikings, then? Perhaps you'd care to explain . . .'

The girl cringed. ‘Sorry to butt in,' she muttered, ‘but would you mind awfully, er, saying something to them? A few jokes, just to warm up, get the sound levels right, that sort of thing? You see, you're actually the—'

‘The what?'

‘The host.'

‘I
see
.' An expression of bewildered disgust migrated across the inspector's face. ‘Could you perhaps explain the reason for that?'

‘Oh, saving costs, of course,' the girl replied, crossing the fingers of both hands behind her back. ‘We found that if we were prepared to be, you know, adaptable, turn our hands to different skills, we could save substantially on manning levels without in any way impairing the smooth running of the, um, whatever. Just a few jokes? Why did the chicken, that sort of thing? It's for a good cause.'

But the inspector only turned his head to the left, gave the red velvet backdrop a severe look, and jotted down something in his notebook. While he was doing this, a door in the wings opened and an unseen hand shoved Wesley into the middle of the stage.

‘Excuse me,' whispered the girl.

‘Hmm?'

‘Sorry to interrupt, but the, um, first contestant . . .'

The inspector looked at her, and then at Wesley, and then back at her. ‘I'm sorry,' he said, ‘but this is going to have to go in my report.'

‘OK, fine. Look, could you just, um, read what's on the card, please? Just this once. For me.'

During this exchange, Wesley had looked round, seen the faces of the audience like a great expanse of water lapping at his feet, tried to make a run for it, been retrieved by two of the larger Vikings in evening dress and frogmarched back to where he'd just run from. He now had the aspect of a caged crocodile in a handbag factory, and both arms held firmly up his back. He was being ordered to smile.

‘Please,' begged the girl. ‘Oh, go on.'

A refusal was just about to jump out of the inspector's mouth and pull the ripcord when a little voice in the back of his mind said,
Well, why not?
He didn't know how it came to be there, or why on earth he should be listening to it; on the other hand - why not indeed? He looked down at the card the girl had given him, cleared his throat and tried to do something he hadn't attempted since he was a mere stripling of four thousand and six. He tried to smile.

‘Hello,' he read, ‘and welcome to Death Or Glory, the game where you only get the prizes if you're really unlucky.' He stopped, frowned and turned back to the girl, who nodded reassuringly. He went on, ‘Now a big hand please for our first contestant, Wesley Higgins.'

For some reason, the Indians and the Vikings and the bears and the goblins and the other parts played by members of the company found this statement tremendously exciting, because they started to cheer and whoop and whistle as if he'd just announced free beer all round. While all that was going on, the girl handed him another card.

‘Thank you, thank you,' he recited. ‘And Wesley's first task will be, pause for effect - not the bits in brackets? Got you, right - to take all his clothes off and play the violin. Contestant, you have three minutes starting
now
.'

‘Hey!' Wesley shrieked, as the Vikings started to confiscate his clothes. ‘I thought you said I wasn't going to have to . . .'

A third Viking shoved a violin into his hands. The audience was making the sort of noises audiences everywhere make under these conditions. It's probably fortunate that Charles Darwin never saw a game show studio audience, or else he might have started to wonder whether he hadn't got his celebrated theory of evolution the wrong way round.

As Wesley stood, wearing nothing except what was left of the bison by-product he'd fallen in, and doing his inadequate best to hide his embarrassment from a hallful of Vikings with one small violin, the inspector read out another card.