William de Worde turned a page in his notebook and continued to scribble. The crew were watching him as if he was a public entertainment.
That’s a grand gift you have there, sur,’ said Arnold Sideways. ‘It does the heart good to see the pencil waggling like that. I wish I had the knowing of it, but I’ve never been mechanical.’
‘Would you care for a cup of tea?’ said the Duck Man.
‘You drink tea down here?’
‘Of course. Why not? What kind of people do you think we are?’ The Duck Man held up a blackened teapot and a rusty mug with an inviting smile.
It was probably a good moment to be polite, thought William. Besides, the water would have been boiled, wouldn’t it?
‘. . . no milk, though,’ he said quickly. He could imagine what the milk would be like.
‘Ah, I said you were a gentleman,’ said the Duck Man, pouring a tarry brown liquid into the mug. ‘Milk in tea is an abomination.’ He picked up, with a dainty gesture, a plate and pair of tongs. ‘Slice of lemon?’ he added.
‘Lemon? You have lemon?’
‘Oh, even Mr Ron here would rather wash under his arms than
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have anything but lemon in his tea,’ said the Duck Man, plopping a slice into William’s mug.
‘And four sugars,’ said Arnold Sideways.
William took a deep draught of the tea. It was thick and stewed, but it was also sweet and hot. And slightly lemony. All in all, he considered, it could have been much worse.
‘Yes, we’re very fortunate when it comes to slices of lemon,’ said the Duck Man, busily fussing over the tea things. ‘Why, it is indeed a bad day when we can’t find two or three slices floating down the river.’
William stared fixedly at the river wall.
Spit or swallow, he thought, the eternal conundrum.
‘Are you all right, Mr de Worde?’
‘Mmf.’
‘Too much sugar?’
‘Mmf,’
‘Not too hot?’
William gratefully sprayed the tea in the direction of the river.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Yes! Too hot! That’s what it was! Too hot! Lovely tea but – too hot! I’ll just put the rest down here by my foot to cool down, shall I?’
He snatched up his pencil and pad.
‘So . . . er, Wuffles, which man was it that you bit on the leg?’
Wuffles barked.
‘He bit all of them,’ said the voice of Deep Bone. ‘When you’re biting, why stop?’
‘Would you know them if you bit them again?’
‘He says he would. He says the big man tasted of . . . you know . . .’ Deep Bone paused, ‘like a . . . wossname . . . big, big bowl with hot water and soap in it.’
‘A bath?’
Wuffles growled.
‘That’d . . . be the word,’ said Deep Bone. ‘An’ the other one smelled of cheap hair oil. And the one who looked like G– like Lord Vetinari, he smelled of wine,’
‘Wine?’
‘Yes. Wuffles also says he’d like to apologize for biting you just
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now, but he got carried away with the recollection. We– that is to say, dogs have very physical memories, if you see what I mean,’
William nodded and rubbed his leg. The description of the invasion of the Oblong Office had been carried out in a succession of yelps, barks and growls, with Wuffles running around in circles and snapping at his own tail until he bumped into William’s ankle.
‘And Ron’s been carrying him around in his coat ever since?’
‘No one bothers Foul Ole Ron,’ said Deep Bone.
‘I believe you,’ said William. He nodded at Wuffles.
‘I want to get an iconograph of him,’ he said. This is . . . amazing stuff. But we must have a picture to prove I’ve really talked to Wuffles. Well . . . via an interpreter, obviously. I wouldn’t want people to think this is one of the Inquirer’s stupid “talking dog” stories . . .’
There was some muttering amongst the crew. The request was not being favourably received.
This is a select neighbourhood, you know,’ said the Duck Man. ‘We don’t allow just anybody down here,’
‘But there’s a path running right under the bridge!’ said William. ‘Anyone could walk right past!’
‘Werll, yerss,’ said Coffin Henry. They could.’ He coughed and spat with great expertise into the fire. ‘Only they don’t no more.’
‘Bugrit,’ explained Foul Ole Ron. ‘Choking a tinker? Garn! I told ’em. Millennium hand and shrimp!’
Then you’d better come back to the office with me,’ said William. ‘After all, you’ve been carrying him around while you’ve been selling the papers, haven’t you?’
Too dangerous now,’ said Deep Bone.
‘Would it be less dangerous for another fifty dollars?’ said William.
‘Another fifty dollars?’ said Arnold Sideways. That’ll make it fifteen dollars!’
‘A hundred dollars,’ said William wearily. ‘You do realize, don’t you, that this is in the public interest?’
The crew craned their necks.
‘Don’t see anyone watching,’ said Coffin Henry.
William stepped forward, quite accidentally knocking over his tea.
‘Come on, then,’ he said.
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Mr Tulip was beginning to worry now. This was unusual. In the area of worry, he had tended to be the cause rather than the recipient. But Mr Pin was not acting right, and since Mr Pin was the man who did the thinking this was a matter of some concern. Mr Tulip was good at thinking in split-seconds, and when it came to art appreciation he could easily think in centuries, but he was not happy over middle distances. He needed Mr Pin for that.
But Mr Pin was talking to himself, and kept staring at shadows.
‘We’ll be heading off now?’ said Mr Tulip, in the hope of directing matters. ‘We’ve got the –ing payment with a –ing big bonus, no –ing point in hanging around?’
He was also worried about the way Mr Pin had acted with the –ing lawyer. It wasn’t like him to point a weapon at someone and then not use it. The New Firm didn’t go round threatening people. They were the threat. All that –ing stuff about ‘letting you live for today’ . . . that was amateur stuff.
‘I said, are we heading–‘
‘What do you think happens to people when they die, Tulip?’
Mr Tulip was taken aback. ‘What kind of –ing question is that? You &«owwhat happens!’
‘Do I?’
‘Certainly. Remember when we had to leave that guy in that –ing barn and it was a week before we got to bury him properly? Remember how his–‘
‘I don’t mean bodies!’
‘Ah. Religion stuff, then?’
‘Yes!’
‘I never worry about that –ing stuff.’
‘Never?’
‘Never –ing give it a thought. I’ve got my potato.’
Then Mr Tulip found that he’d walked a few feet alone, because Mr Pin had stopped dead.
‘Potato?’
‘Oh, yeah. Keep it on a string round my neck.’ Mr Tulip tapped his huge chest.
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‘And that’s religious?’
‘Well, yeah. If you’ve got your potato when you die, everything will be okay.’
‘What religion is that?’
‘Dunno. Never ran across it outside our village. I was only a kid. I mean, it’s like gods, right? When you’re a kid, they say “that’s God, that is”. Then you grow up and you find there’s –ing millions of ’em. Same with religion.’
‘And it’s all okay if you have a potato when you die?’
‘Yep. You’re allowed to come back and have another life.’
‘Even if. . .’ Mr Pin swallowed, for he was in territory which had never before existed on his internal atlas, ‘. . . even if you’ve done things which people might think were bad?’
‘Like chopping up people and –ing shovin’ ’em off cliffs?’
‘Yeah, that kind of thing
Mr Tulip sniffed, causing his nose to flash. ‘We-ell, it’s okay so long as you’re really –ing sorry about it.’
Mr Pin was amazed, and a little suspicious. But he could feel things. . . catching up. There were faces in the darkness and voices on the cusp of hearing. He dared not turn his head now, in case he saw anything behind him.
You could buy a sack of potatoes for a dollar.
‘It works?’ he said.
‘Sure. Back home people’d been doing it for hundreds of –ing years. They wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t –ing work, would they?’
‘Where was that?’
Mr Tulip tried to concentrate on this question, but there were many scabs in his memory.
There was . . . forests,’ he said. ‘And . . . bright candles,’ he muttered. ‘An’ . . . secrets,’ he added, staring into nothing.
‘And potatoes?’
Mr Tulip came back to the here and now.
‘Yeah, them,’ he said. ‘Always lots of –ing potatoes. If you’ve got your potato, it will be all right.’
‘But . . . I thought you had to pray in deserts and go to a temple every day, and sing songs, and give stuff to the poor . . . ?’