Lucy said nothing.
‘Aunt Evelyn phoned last night asking how many we’d be.’
‘Let’s see,’ Lucy said tightly. ‘Me, you and Dad. Let’s call that three. Shall I count again?’
‘No, of course not, darling, only, she said you could bring a date if you –’
‘Goodbye, Mother.’ The violence with which she banged the phone down caused the bedside lamp to sway dangerously. Reaching for it, Lucy knocked over her cup of tea. A warm brown stain spread across the white sheepskin rug by her bed.
‘Oh, shit!’ Lucy felt like crying. It was all her mother’s fault.
Even if you hadn’t actually met Lucy’s mother, you might feel that you knew someone very like her. Laura Davenport had the air of an expensive pony – sturdy, alert and well-groomed. Sometime in the past, she had swapped her wanton youth for a prudent marriage and an attractive home in the Regency style, and now lived the life of a proper suburban wife. She specialized in expensive tweeds and cashmere cardigans in useful colours, cooked an excellent roast beef and only occasionally wondered how her life might have turned out differently.
None of these sensible qualities had quite prepared her for the emergence of her younger daughter, who resembled no one in the family, either in appearance or nature. Lucy was the sort of generous-breasted creamy-skinned hour-glass-figured young woman worshipped by artists and lovers from an earlier era, when words like Rubenesque expressed a pure admiration of rose-tinted faces poised serenely above monumental breasts, rippled thighs and dimpled buttocks; bodies that looked most alluring when dressed in nothing but a large gilt frame. With her small ankles and her pale gold hair, Lucy was a creature designed for an earlier sensibility, her shape unfashionable, perhaps, but gorgeous.
Like many girls her age, Lucy yearned for love. This should not have been difficult to realize. But the same luminosity that attracted perfect strangers also impeded her. Some men took her dramatic outline for evidence that she was stupid. Some assumed she must be arrogant. Others guessed that she’d never consider them anyway, so why make the effort? A surprising number of potential partners were thereby eliminated before she’d even had a chance to learn their names.
And then there was her mother, always nudging her in the direction of suitable men, while hinting that in her day, you didn’t just sit around waiting for Mr Right; you went out, were proactive. The result of all this proactivity struck Lucy as equivocal. Her mother had obviously experienced many things in her time, but had ended up marrying her father – a perfectly dear man, but one with whom (even to Lucy’s affectionate eye) she appeared to have little in common. Lucy’s brain slid to her godfather, Bernard, as it had many times over the years. Had her mother been proactive with him?
Oh, to hell with everyone else, she thought. She was only twenty-one. There was plenty of time to sort out her love life. And anyway, it was hardly a tragedy to be a virgin at her age. No matter how much it felt like one.
Lucy scrambled for her keys, phone and bag, locked the door and ran to the bus stop – late and bad-tempered thanks to her mother and the spilled tea. Unless the bus came right away, she’d have no time to stop for breakfast. Nothing till eleven. The thought of which made her even grumpier.
But the bus came at once, traffic was light and the driver made six green lights in a row. By the time Lucy reached her stop she was feeling infinitely cheerier.
The café owner greeted her with a wave. ‘Toast?’
‘Two,’ she said. ‘And coffee, please.’ What a difference it made just to see a friendly face in the morning. A bit of pleasant human contact was all it took to lift her mood, and by the time she reached work she was feeling cheerful again. After coffee and toast she began to wonder how she’d ever managed to feel out of sorts. Life’s pleasures were so simple, really. It was all a matter of appreciating what you had – and knowing that things could be always be worse.
8
Bob’s mother is playing poker and drinking gin. Having played a great number of winning hands, she concludes that the gin must be lucky and begins to order doubles. Hand after hand, the cards line up for her in flushes, straights and pairs, until Mona’s pile of chips forms a large undulating wall behind which she can hide her delight.
Bob shows up late, as usual, accompanied by Eck. He takes the empty seat next to his mother and nods at the dealer. Eck moves at once to the edge of the table, eyeing a plate of sandwiches with naked lust.
‘And who’s this?’ Mona coos delightedly in the direction of the little creature. ‘What an adorable thing. Is he your …’ She raises a suggestive eyebrow.
‘My what?’
‘Your child?’ She wiggles her fingers, but the little beast keeps his distance, stretching his nose as far as it extends and sniffing cautiously in the direction of her hand.
‘My child? Of course he’s not my child. Look at him! He’s an Eck, for God’s sake. Is that my nose? Get a grip, Mother. He’s nothing. Just a thing.’
A thing? The Eck frowns and puffs up his fur in outrage. He has always considered himself a step or two up from a thing.
‘Come here, little Eck-thing,’ Mona coaxes, and when the Eck takes a step closer, she pats his head, smooths down his soft fur and coos. ‘Cute thing. Nice thing. Are you certain he’s not yours, darling? There’s something around the mouth that’s just exactly reminiscent of you when you were a wee –’
Bob narrows his eyes and scowls.
Across from Mona, Mr Emoto Hed clears his throat. ‘Are we here to gab or to gamble?’ His voice contains a rumbling threat. Despite a soft spot for Mona, he has no affection for her son, who has a habit of hanging around at card games helping himself to his mother’s winnings.
Even when he likes people, Mr Hed is not one for making himself pleasant.
Next to Hed sits his daughter, Estelle, a somewhat self-effacing girl with quiet manners and a cool intellect. She never gambles. Now she looks at Eck. ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘What a lovely creature.’
‘Love-ly?’ Bob pokes Eck in the ribs, toppling him. He yelps in pain. ‘Hear that? She thinks you’re lovely.’
Estelle, who has clocked the direction of Eck’s yearning, picks up the large plate of sandwiches and offers them. Eck’s eyes are huge with longing. He devours the lot in less time than it takes to blink and then slumps, sedated, against his benefactor’s leg. She reaches down to stroke him and he purrs sleepily.
Another hand is dealt and Mona picks hers up slowly. Nothing. She folds.
Bob frowns and follows, slapping his cards down on the table with peevish force. The noise makes Eck jump.
Her next hand is so spectacularly bad that Mona begins to suspect foul play, flicking her eyes (a little unsteadily) from one neutral face to the next. She draws three cards and calls for another gin.
By the twenty-fourth worst hand in the history of poker, Mona’s fortune has diminished to a pile of chips the size of a teacup. She casts about, scrutinizing her opponents. Of course, each has the capacity – that is to say, the power – to cheat, but galactic poker is inviolate, and no one in the long and tangled history of the game has ever cheated. Or at least admitted to cheating.
For the next hand, the dealer flips her a two of spades, a four of clubs, one joker, a picture of a furry kitten and a postcard from Marbella.
Mona leaps up in a fury and staggers, nearly tipping the table. All at once she is thirty feet tall. Flames shoot from the tips of her fingers and lap round her giant torso. Her bronze and copper hair snakes in wild flaming tendrils round her head. ‘Someone is asss-tempting to imp-fluence this game,’ she says in her best steel-dipped-in-gin purr. ‘And when I find out who it is the consequences will be … calumnitudinal. Catastropherous.’ She sways, the gin swooshing catastropherously behind her eyes.
‘Sit down, Mother,’ hisses Bob.
Mr Hed smiles, and Estelle looks down at her hands. Every other player concentrates on
his or her own expression of shocked innocence. ‘I am greatly hurt by your accusation,’ says Emoto Hed mildly, rising slowly to his feet in a great crackling magnetic disturbance. Slowly, in mirror motion, he and Mona sit down.
The game continues.
9
Mr B stares at the huge stack of paperwork, hands laid softly on the fine ebonized surface of his Biedermeier secretaire, in readiness, like a pianist about to launch into Liszt. He absently traces a pale maple flicker in the wood before choosing a file and removing it from the heap. With a sense of deep dejection he opens it. He remembers purchasing this desk in Vienna, sometime after Napoleon’s armies were dealt their final blow at Waterloo. It might have been only last week, so recent does it seem.
He tries not to dwell on the past. No point, he tells himself. This is how he has survived thus far, one foot in front of the other, nice and steady. And if his dedication has shown any sign of flagging, it is only the hopeless, the relentless, the unworthy stupidity of the colossal idiotic…
Stop. Stop.
He drops his head into his hands.
At last he pulls out a file, the file, the all-important file, his letter of resignation. He has checked and rechecked every word, every line, dotted every ‘i’, crossed every ‘t’. Now, at last, he is ready. He is utterly certain of its perfection, and of his need to submit it at once. The time is right. Holding his breath (for this is a moment of great solemnity, the gentle nudging of the first domino in what he hopes will become a long series of follow-on actions), he slides the letter into an envelope with exquisite care, seals it and … there. It is gone.
A deep breath. The die is cast. Surely the committee will take pity, or, if not pity, will at least recognize the desperation, the logical argument he has made for a long rest, or a different sort of job (more menial if need be, though preferably – in recognition of excellence over time – a superior desk job somewhere). As long as it’s stress-free. Quiet. No Bob.
He savours the moment with something between elation and fear. Change is possible after all. He exalts in the step he has managed to take at last. Six weeks’ notice, and then the future beckons with its vast postbag of possibilities. He will concentrate on his exit strategy. Not long now. Plenty to do in preparation. He lets his breath out with a sigh.
If he were a different sort of man, he would scream, sing, leap with joy.
He pushes his spectacles back up to the bridge of his nose. Now that the thing is done, there’s the day’s work to be getting on with. Mr B eyes the untidy heaps of prayers, his heart filled with the knowledge that this process is finite, at least as far as he is concerned. W today. War (genocide/mass-acres/ethnic cleansing), Water (polluted/lack of/poisoned), Widows and Wills (unfair/illegally altered). He singles out the file marked Whales.
Every day he thinks of his whales. When his patience for Bob wanes to its lowest ebb, he thinks of them, big and solemn, with their deep echoing songs. They are his. Of course Bob’s work is not without things to admire. Mr B marvels that the same God who leaves his dirty clothes in a mouldering heap by the side of his bed could have created golden eagles and elephants and butterflies. Such moments of transcendent inspiration! Other creatures fill him with admiration as well – heavy loping striped tigers and graceful long-necked swans, creaking as they fly. Ludicrous pincushion porcupines. It’s not that the boy is altogether devoid of talent, but he is devoid of discipline, compassion and emotional depth. Foresight.
How is it, he wonders, that Bob has managed to remain so detached from his more beautiful creations? It’s his attention span as much as anything, his inability to sustain interest, the tendency to discard his new toys in some barren corner of the Earth where they gather dust while he pursues (yet another) hotted-up floozy.
Mr B looks out of the window. Had the job seemed such a bad idea at the time? ‘We need you,’ they’d said, ‘your experience, your stability, your people skills.’ No description, conveniently, of the loser they’d appointed with him.
Let’s face it, he’d been flattered. They’d known exactly what sugared words to whisper in his ear as they lowered the noose.
‘Impossible job to fill,’ they’d told him. And they’d known. Oh yes, he was certain now that they’d known from the beginning. The boy was obviously thick as a divot, and if there hadn’t been a push from someone with a bit of influence he’d still be out in the middle of the great galactic nothingness, sleeping, probably, or picking his nose.
‘He’ll grow into the job,’ they’d assured him, ‘gain stature along the way.’ Of course he hadn’t, and in the end, no one cared. There were so many more advanced corners of the universe requiring attention.
Mr B sighs.
At least Bob has gone out. Let him be someone else’s problem tonight.
10
The dealer deals.
Mona’s cards, a full house of aces and kings, makes her think that perhaps she’s been a bit hasty in accusing Hed of cheating. Perhaps she’s just been unlucky. Ha ha, she thinks, and pushes what is left of her chips into the centre of the table.
Hed lays down a royal flush.
The players leap up as one. Mona bursts into flame, and when Hed offers the next bet at double or nothing she accepts immediately, some might say precipitously. Never a player to quit while the going is good, Mona casts about for a stake.
Bob looks bored.
‘Well?’ says Hed. Menace rises from him like dust.
Mona’s eyes come to rest on the Eck. With a quick lunge, she grabs him round the middle and sets him on to the table, where he stands, blinking.
‘Here,’ says Mona.
‘What kind of a stake is that?’ Hed’s face registers disdain.
Bob yawns, pushes the hair out of his eyes. ‘He’s the last of the Ecks. After him, they’re extinct.’
‘Very valuable,’ says Mona eagerly.
Trembling, the Eck seeks sympathy from one impassive face after another.
‘Just one left. Rarer than rare.’ Mona’s eyes glitter unnaturally.
Estelle stands up. ‘Stop,’ she says quietly. And then louder, ‘Stop!’
Everyone turns to look at her.
‘Put him back on the floor. He is a creature, not a thing.’
‘He’s mine,’ insists Mona, ‘and I can do with him what I like.’ To prove her point, she pokes him. He gives a little cry and Mona turns to Hed. ‘That’s my stake. The last of the Ecks. His life. To do with what you will.’
Estelle turns to one of the other players. ‘Make some black coffee, please.’ She looks back at Mona, who is waving her glass over her head for a refill, and puts one hand out to stop the waiter from stepping forward. ‘That’s enough, Mona.’ Her voice is calm. ‘Eck, you can go.’
‘No he can’t,’ Mona says firmly. ‘He’s my Eck.’ Her eyes lock Hed’s, glinting.
‘He’s my Eck, actually,’ Bob mutters. ‘You never even noticed him before today.’
Hed sneers. ‘What would I want with him anyway? So he’s the last of the Ecks. He’s still worthless.’
The little creature droops.
Mona leans in, a bit loopy with gin, and lowers her voice. ‘Ecks are said to have the sweetest-tasting meat of any creature in nine thousand galaxies.’ She holds Hed’s gaze and lowers her voice still further to a whisper. ‘Just between you and me, that’s why he’s the last one.’
Bob rolls his eyes.
This proves too much for the Eck, who squeaks with outrage and crumples into himself. Estelle reaches out to him. ‘No one,’ she says quietly, ‘is going to eat you.’ She turns to her father. ‘Are you?’
Neither Mona nor Hed will show weakness by being the first to look away. ‘The sweetest meat in nine thousand galaxies?’ Hed looks thoughtful. ‘How is it that I have never tasted Eck?’ He thinks for a moment and then holds out his hand. ‘Done. I accept your stake.’
‘Just a minute. He’s
my Eck, not yours.’ Bob’s glare takes in his mother and Hed. ‘If anyone’s going to eat him, it should be me.’
Estelle lifts the Eck off the table. ‘Don’t listen,’ she whispers. To the assembled players, she speaks sternly. ‘Stop this now. It isn’t right. You know it isn’t right. Bob? He’s your pet. Don’t let them do this.’
Bob slumps deep in his chair. ‘Let’s get on with the game. I’ve got stuff to do.’
Smiling grimly, Mona produces a brand-new deck of cards and hands it to the dealer, who unwraps it and deals. The game is over in less than a minute.
When he realizes what has happened, the Eck begins to wail.
Mona retires unsteadily, her eyes crossed. Bob follows, muttering. The players disperse.
Estelle places one firm hand on her father’s arm. ‘Daddy, you can’t eat him.’
‘A bet is a bet.’
‘Only if you say it is,’ says Estelle.
Emoto Hed smiles his not very nice smile. ‘I’m quite looking forward to my first taste of Eck. And my last, obviously.’ He laughs a not very nice laugh.
The Eck shrinks.
‘Not in front of him, please, Daddy.’
Hed drums his fingers. ‘I won the Eck fair and square and he’s mine to eat if I want to.’
‘I won’t let him be eaten.’ Estelle’s face is composed and just the slightest bit stern. Her voice is cool.
Hed’s eyes darken. Black smoke rolls off him in stinking waves. ‘A deal,’ he rumbles in a voice deep as death, ‘is a deal.’
Estelle does not flinch.
Her father’s presence becomes a devastating absence, a malignant Hed-shaped void sucking all light and heat into its core.
But his daughter is unfazed. Everywhere Hed looks he meets her gaze. At last he sighs, ceases to smoke, becomes manifest once more. ‘Only, you know what an old softie I am. He can have a reprieve.’
Estelle lets her guard down a fraction. Her eyes soften and she places her hand on his arm. ‘Thank you, Daddy. I knew you’d see sense.’