In the meantime, she tried to enjoy the sad celebration.
The very smell of the snork roasting over open fires seemed sad, as it wafted under the gloomy Yassaccan pines and then mingled with the softer, sadder scents of the night jasmine and the weeping oleanders that crowded Corporal Golholiwol’s garden. The Yassaccans took it in turn to host important national events, and it just happened to be Corporal Golholiwol’s turn. He had provided seven snorks for roasting, plates of fish and fruit and fresh vegetables from his garden. Unlike the Blerontinians, the Yassaccans took no interest in canape´s and preferred good plain food washed down with plenty of Yassaccan ale and sweet potato wine.
The Journalist gloomily thought it all pretty poor fare, but he tried to hide his contempt for the lack of ‘fish-paste’, tiny chicken vol-au-vents and cocktail sausages on sticks.
But, no matter how much Nettie complimented him on his crackling, Corporal Golholiwol refused to emerge from his gloom. ‘In the old days,’ he explained to Nettie, ‘we would have roasted seventy snorks! I would have been able to provide so much fish we could have filled the Ocean of Summer-Plastering! And all the beer and wine… well! It would have flowed from those fountains you see over there in the centre of the garden… ah! These are thin times indeed for Yassacca.’ And he gloomily stared into the empty ale mug he held in his hands.
Captain Bolfass was also gloomy. He kept trying not to stare at Nettie, who had discarded her Gap T-shirt hand-knitted waistcoat and miniskirt in favour of a simple Yassaccan shift, slit up to the thigh and embroidered at one corner. She looked breathtaking, and the poor Captain’s breath was so taken that he sighed and tried to imagine how he could ever have lived without her.
‘Who are you mooning over now, Captain Bolläss?’ asked his wife.
‘Excuse me, my dear,’ replied Bolfass, ‘it is just that that young Earth woman has stolen my soul with her beauty.’
‘Poor dear!’ said Mrs Bolfass, taking his hand and stroking it. ‘I’m sure you’ll get better.’
‘Ah!’ sighed Captain Bolfass. ‘I do hope so… I do hope so…’
‘Perhaps you should see Dr Ponkaliwack?’
‘No… no. I’ll be all right .’ sighed the Captain. (On Yassacca, being ‘in love’ was considered a form of illness.)
But the old Yassaccan songs that the band were now playing caused the Captain to sigh again and again and even brought a tear to his eye. They were ancient songs of yearning for better tools and materials, songs of lament for construction projects that were never finished, and songs of regret for the great craftsmen of yesteryear who would never plane nor chisel again.
Lucy found Dan hidden at the far end of the garden, sitting on a low wall under the oleanders, sunk in utter despondency. He held a piece of snork crackling in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. ‘Go away!’ he said.
‘Oh, Dan!’ Lucy sat beside him and tried to put her arm around him. ‘Let’s get married!’
‘Married!’ exclaimed Dan. ‘Huh! After what I saw that alien doing to you?’
‘Don’t be…’ well Lucy wasn’t quite sure what she was telling Dan not to be: ‘foolish’? ‘jealous’? ‘sulky’? He had a right to be all those things, and yet… she couldn’t help feeling he was overdoing it. ‘Dan! We love each other – don’t we?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Dan. ‘Do we?’
‘Of course we do!’ cried Lucy. ‘We’re going to set up the hotel and run it together and have children.
‘No we aren’t,’ said Dan. ‘We can’t get back to Earth and even if we could, the hotel’s a pile of rubble!’
‘But we’ve got the money from Top Ten Travel!’ ‘But that doesn’t mean we love each other!’ ‘But we do! We’ve been together all this time!’ Dan stared gloomily at the piece of snork crackling in his hand. Finally he looked at Lucy and said: ‘Here comes Nettie.’
Nettie had been looking for Lucy and Dan all over the garden. ‘May I join the funeral?’ she said.
Dan nodded and Nettie sat down on the other side of him. Lucy took her hand away from Dan’s.