Anyway, that was the incident of the midnight visitor. After a while, Susan considered that she must have imagined it. That was the only logical explanation. And Susan was good at those.
Everyone, they say, is looking for something.
Imp was looking for somewhere to go.
The farm cart that had brought him the last stretch of the way was rumbling off across the fields.
He looked at the signpost. One arm pointed to Quirm, the other to Ankh-Morpork. He knew just enough to know that Ankh-Morpork was a big city, but built on loam and therefore of no interest to the druids in his family. He had three Ankh-Morpork dollars and some change. It probably wasn’t very much in Ankh-Morpork.
He didn’t know anything about Quirm, except that it was on the coast. The road to Quirm didn’t look very worn, while the one to Ankh-Morpork was heavily rutted.
It’d be sensible to go to Quirm to get the feel of city life. It’d be sensible to learn a bit about how city people thought before heading for Ankh-Morpork, which they said was the largest city in the world. It’d be sensible to get some kind of job in Quirm and raise a bit of extra cash. It’d be sensible to learn to walk before he started to run.
Common sense told Imp all these things, so he marched off firmly towards Ankh-Morpork.
As far as looks were concerned, Susan had always put people in mind of a dandelion on the point of telling the time. The college dressed its gels in a loose navy-blue woollen smock that stretched from neck to just above the ankle – practical, healthy and as attractive as a plank. The waistline was somewhere around knee level. Susan was beginning to fill it out, however, in accordance with the ancient rules hesitantly and erratically alluded to by Miss Delcross in Biology and Hygiene. Gels left her class with the vague feeling that they were supposed to marry a rabbit. (Susan had left with the feeling that the cardboard skeleton on the hook in the corner looked like someone she’d known . . .)
It was her hair that made people stop and turn to watch her. It was pure white, except for a black streak. School regulations required that it be in two plait’s, but it had an uncanny tendency to unravel itself and spring back into its preferred shape, like Medusa’s snakes.2
And then there was the birthmark, if that’s what it was. It only showed up if she blushed, when three faint pale lines appeared across her cheek and made it look exactly as though she’d been slapped. On the occasions when she was angry – and she was quite often angry, at the sheer stupidity of the world – they glowed.
In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She’d much prefer to read a good book. Currently she had Wold’s Logic and Paradox open on her desk and was reading it with her chin in her hands.
She listened with half an ear to what the rest of the class was doing.
It was a poem about daffodils.
Apparently the poet had liked them very much.
Susan was quite stoical about this. It was a free country. People could like daffodils if they wanted to. They just should not, in Susan’s very definite and precise opinion, be allowed to take up more than a page to say so.
She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it.
Around her, the poet’s vision was taken apart with inexpert tools.
The kitchen was built on the same gargantuan lines as the rest of the house. An army of cooks could get lost in it. The far walls were hidden in the shadows and the stovepipe, supported at intervals by soot-covered chains and bits of greasy rope, disappeared into the gloom somewhere a quarter of a mile above the floor. At least, it did to the eye of the outsider.
Albert spent his time in a small tiled patch big enough to contain the dresser, the table and the stove. And a rocking chair.
‘When a man says “What’s it all about then, seriously, when you get right down to it?” he’s in a bad way,’ he said, rolling a cigarette. ‘So I don’t know what it means when he says it. It’s one of his fancies again.’
The room’s only other occupant nodded. His mouth was full.
‘All that business with his daughter,’ said Albert. ‘I mean . . . daughter? And then he heard about apprentices. Nothing would do but he had to go and get one! Hah! Nothing but trouble, that was. And you, too, come to think of it . . . you’re one of his fancies. No offence meant,’ he added, aware of who he was talking to. ‘You worked out all right. You do a good job.’
Another nod.
‘He always gets it wrong,’ said Albert. ‘That’s the trouble. Like when he heard about Hogswatchnight? Remember that? We had to do the whole thing, the oak tree in a pot, the paper sausages, the pork dinner, him sitting there with a paper hat on saying IS THIS JOLLY? I made him a little desk ornament thing and he gave me a brick.’
Albert put the cigarette to his lips. It had been expertly rolled. Only an expert could get a rollup so thin and yet so soggy.
‘It was a good brick, mind. I’ve still got it somewhere.’
SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats.
‘You put your finger on it, right enough,’ said Albert. ‘At least, you would have done if you had a proper one. He always misses the point. You see, he can’t get over things. He can’t forget.’
He sucked on the wretched homemade until his eyes watered.
“‘What’s it all about, seriously, when you get right down to it?”‘ said Albert. ‘Oh, dear.’
He glanced up at the kitchen clock, out of a special human kind of habit. It had never worked since Albert had bought it.
‘He’s normally in by this time,’ he said. ‘I’d better do his tray. Can’t think what’s keeping him.’
The holy man sat under a holy tree, legs crossed, hands on knees. He kept his eyes shut in order to focus better on the Infinite, and wore nothing but a loincloth in order to show his disdain of discly things.
There was a wooden bowl in front of him.
He was aware, after a while, that he was being watched. He opened one eye.
There was an indistinct figure sitting a few feet away. Later on, he was sure that the figure had been of . . . someone. He couldn’t quite remember the description, but the person must certainly have had one. He was about . . . this tall, and sort of . . . definitely . . .
EXCUSE ME.
‘Yes, my son?’ His brow wrinkled. ‘You are male, aren’t you?’ he added.
YOU TOOK A LOT OF FINDING. BUT I AM GOOD AT IT.
‘Yes?’
I AM TOLD YOU KNOW EVERYTHING.
The holy man opened the other eye.
‘The secret of existence is to disdain earthly ties, shun the chimera of material worth, and seek one-ness with the Infinite,’ he said. ‘And keep your thieving hands off my begging bowl.’
The sight of the supplicant was giving him trouble.
I’VE SEEN THE INFINITE, said the stranger. IT’S NOTHING SPECIAL.
The holy man glanced around.
‘Don’t be daft; he said. ‘You can’t see the Infinite. ‘Cos it’s infinite.’
I HAVE.
‘All right, what did it look like?’
IT’S BLUE.
The holy man shifted uneasily. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. A quick burst of the Infinite and a meaningful nudge in the direction of the begging bowl was how it was supposed to go.
“S black,’ he muttered.
NOT, said the stranger, WHEN SEEN FROM THE OUTSIDE. THE NIGHT SKY IS BLACK. BUT THAT IS JUST SPACE. INFINITY, HOWEVER, IS BLUE.
‘And I suppose you know what sound is made by one hand clapping, do you?’ said the holy man nastily.
YES. CL. THE OTHER HAND MAKES THE AP.
‘Ah-ha, no, you’re wrong there,’ said the holy man, back on firmer ground. He waved a skinny hand. ‘No sound, see?’
THAT WASN’T A CLAP. THAT WAS JUST A WAVE.
‘It was a clap. I just wasn’t using both hands. What kind of blue, anyway?’
YOU JUST WAVED. I DON’T CALL THAT VERY PHILOSOPHICAL. DUCK EGG.
The holy man glanced down the mountain. Several people were approaching. They had flowers in their hair and were carrying what looked very much like a bowl of rice.
OR POSSIBLY EAU-DE-NIL.
‘Look, my son,’ the holy man said hurriedly, ‘what exactly is it you want? I haven’t got all day.’
YES, YOU HAVE. TAKE IT FROM ME.
‘What do you want?’
WHY DO THINGS HAVE TO BE THE WAY THEY ARE?