Dirk found the idea quite breathtaking.
That is, if he were the only god at large--which, once you were to accept the first extravagant hypothesis, was hardly likely to be the case.
But imagine for a moment such a person attempting to leave the country, armed with no passport, no credit cards, merely the power to throw thunderbolts and who knew what else. You would probably have to imagine a scene very similar to the one that did in fact occur at Terminal Two, Heathrow.
But why, if you were a Norse god, would you be needing to leave the country by means of a scheduled airline? Surely there were other means? Dirk rather thought that one of the perks of being an immortal divine might be the ability to fly under your own power. From what he remembered of his reading of the Norse legends many years ago, the gods were continually flying all over the place and there was never any mention of them hanging around in departure lounges eating crummy buns. Admittedly, the world was not, in those days, bristling with air-traffic controllers, radar, missile warning systems and such like. Still, a quick hop across the North Sea shouldn't be that much of a problem for a god, particularly if the weather was in your favour, which, if you were the God of Thunder, you would pretty much expect it to be, or want to know the reason why. Should it?
Another tiny note sang in the back of Dirk's mind and then was lost in the hubbub.
He wondered for a moment what it was like to be a whale. Physically, he thought, he was probably well placed to get some good insights, though whales were better adapted for their lives of gliding about in the vast pelagic blueness than he was for his of struggling up through the Pentonville Road traffic in a weary old Jaguar--but what he was thinking of, in fact, was the whales' songs. In the past the whales had been able to sing to each other across whole oceans, even from one ocean to another because sound travels such huge distances underwater. But now, again because of the way in which sound travels, there is no part of the ocean that is not constantly jangling with the hubbub of ships' motors, through which it is now virtually impossible for the whales to hear each other's songs or messages.
So fucking what, is pretty much the way that people tend to view this problem, and understandably so, thought Dirk. After all, who wants to hear a bunch of fat fish, oh all right, mammals, burping at each other?
But for a moment Dirk had a sense of infinite loss and sadness that somewhere amongst the frenzy of information noise that daily rattled the lives of men he thought he might have heard a few notes that denoted the movements of gods.
As he turned north into Islington and began the long haul up past the pizza restaurants and estate agents, he felt almost frantic at the idea of what their lives must now be like.
18
* * *
Thin fingers of lightning spread out across the heavy underside of the great clouds which hung from the sky like a sagging stomach. A small crack of fretful thunder nagged at it and dragged from it a few mean drops of greasy drizzle.
Beneath the sky ranged a vast assortment of wild turrets, gnarled spires and pinnacles which prodded at it, goaded and inflamed it till it seemed it would burst and drown them in a flood of festering horrors.
High in the flickering darkness, silent figures stood guard behind long shields, dragons crouched gaping at the foul sky as Odin, father of the Gods of Asgard, approached the great iron portals through which led to his domain and on into the vaulted halls of Valhalla: The air was full of the noiseless howls of great winged dogs, welcoming their master to the seat of his rule. Lightning searched among the towers and turrets.
The great, ancient and immortal God of Asgard was returning to the current site of his domain in a manner that would have surprised even him centuries ago in the years of the prime of his life--for even the immortal gods have their primes, when their powers are rampant and they both nourish and hold sway over the world of men, the world whose needs give them birth--he was returning in a large, unmarked grey Mercedes van.
The van drew to a halt in a secluded area.
The cab door opened and there climbed down from it a dull, slow-faced man in an unmarked grey uniform. He was a man who was charged with the work he did in life because he was not one to ask questions--not so much on account of any natural quality of discretion as because he simply could never think of any questions to ask. Moving with a slow, rolling gait, like a paddle being pulled through porridge, he made his way to the rear of the van and opened the rear doors--an elaborate procedure involving the co-ordinated manipulation of many sliders and levers.
At length the doors swung open, and if Kate had been present she might for a moment have been jolted by the thought that perhaps the van was carrying Albanian electricity after all. A haze of light greeted Hillow--the man's. name was Hillow--but nothing about this struck him as odd. A haze of light was simply what he expected to see whenever he opened this door. The first time ever he had opened it he had simply thought to himself, "Oh. A haze of light. Oh well," and more or less Left it at that, on the strength of which he had guaranteed himself regular employment for as long as he cared to live.
The haze of light subsided and coalesced into the shape of an old, old man in a trolley bed attended by a short little figure whom Hillow would probably have thought was the most evil-looking person he had ever seen if he had had a mind to recall the other people he had seen in his life and run through them all one by one, making the comparison. That, however, was harder than Hillow wished to work. His only concern at present was to assist the small figure with the decanting of the old man's bed on to ground level.
This was fluently achieved. The legs and wheels of the bed were a miracle of smoothly operating stainless steel technology. They unlocked, rolled, swivelled, in elaborately interlocked movements which made the negotiating of steps or bumps all part of the same fluid, gliding motion.
To the right of this area lay a large ante-chamber panelled in finely carved wood with great marble torch holders standing proudly from the walls. This in turn led into the great vaulted hall itself. To the left, however, lay the entrance to the majestic inner chambers where Odin would go to prepare himself for the encounters of the night.
He hated all this. Hounded from his bed, he muttered to himself, though in truth he was bringing his bed with him. Made to listen once again to all kinds of self indulgent clap-trap from his bone-headed thunderous son who would not accept, could not accept, simply did not have the intelligence to accept the new realities of life. If he would not accept them then he must be extinguished, and tonight Asgard would see the extinction of an immortal god. It was all, thought Odin fractiously, too much for someone at his time of life, which was extremely advanced, but not in any particular direction.
He wanted merely to stay in his hospital, which he loved. The arrangement which had brought him to that place was of the sweetest kind and though it was not without its cost, it was a cost that simply had to be borne and that was all there was to it. There were new realities, and he had learned to embrace them. Those who did not would simply have to suffer the consequences. Nothing came of nothing, even for a god.
After tonight he could return to his life in the Woodshead indefinitely, and that would be good. He said as much to Hillow.
"Clean white sheets," he said to Hillow, who merely nodded, blankly. "Linen sheets. Every day, clean sheets."
Hillow manoeuvred the bed around and up a step.
"Being a god, Hillow," continued Odin, "being a god, well, it was unclean, you hear what I'm saying? There was no one who took care of the sheets. I mean really took care of them. Would you think that? In a situation like mine? Father of the Gods? There was no one, absolutely no one, who came in and said, 'Mr Odwin,'"--he chuckled to himself--"they call me Mr Odwin there, you know. They don't quite know who they're dealing with. I don't think they could handle it, do you, Hillow? But there was no one in all that time who came in and said, 'Mr Odwin, I have changed your bed and you have clean sheets.' No one. There was constant talk about hewing things
and ravaging things and splitting things asunder. Lots of big talk of things being mighty, and of things being riven, and of things being in thrall to other things, but very little attention given, as I now realise, to the laundry. Let me give you an example . . . "
His reminiscences were for a moment interrupted, however, by the arrival of his vehicle at a great doorway which was guarded by a great sweaty splodge of a being who stood swaying, arms akimbo, in their path. Toe Rag, who had been preserving an intense silence as he stalked along just ahead of the bed, hurried forward and had a quick word with the sweating creature, who had to bend, red-faced, to hear him. Then instantly the sweaty creature shrank back with glistening obsequiousness into its yellow lair, and the sacred trolley rolled forward into the great halls, chambers and corridors from which great gusty echoes roared and fetid odours blew.
"Let me give you an example, Hillow," continued Odin. "Take this place for example. Take Valhalla . . . "
19
* * *
Turning north was a manoeuvre which normally had the effect of restoring a sense of reason and sanity to things, but Dirk could not escape a sense of foreboding.
Furthermore it came on to rain a little, which should have helped, but it was such mean and wretched rain to come from such a heavy sky that it only increased the sense of claustrophobia and frustration which gripped the night. Dirk turned on the car wipers which grumbled because they didn't have quite enough rain to wipe away, so he turned them off again. Rain quickly speckled the windscreen.
He turned on the wipers again, but they still refused to feel that the exercise was worthwhile, and scraped and squeaked in protest. The streets turned treacherously slippery.
Dirk shook his head. He was being quite absurd, he told himself, in the worst possible way. He had allowed himself to become fanciful in a manner that he quite despised. He astounded himself at the wild fantasies he had built on the flimsiest amount of, well he would hardly call it evidence, mere conjecture.
An accident at an airport. Probably a simple explanation.
A man with a hammer. So what?
A grey van which Kate Schechter had seen at the hospital. Nothing unusual about that. Dirk had nearly collided with it, but again, that was a perfectly commonplace occurrence.
A Coca-Cola machine: he hadn't taken that into account.
Where did a Coca-Cola machine fit into these wild notions about ancient gods? The only idea he had about that was simply too ridiculous for words and he refused even to acknowledge it to himself.
At that point Dirk found himself driving past the house where, that very morning, he had encountered a client of his who had had his severed head placed on a revolving record turntable by a green-eyed devil-figure waving a scythe and a blood-signed contract who had then vanished into thin air.
He peered at it as he passed, and when a large dark-blue BMW pulled out from the kerb just ahead of him he ran straight into the back of it, and for the second time that day he had to leap out of his car, already shouting.
"For God's sake can't you look where you're going?" he exclaimed, in the hope of bagging his adversary's best lines from the outset. "Stupid people!" he continued, without pausing for breath. "Careering all over the place. Driving without due care and attention! Reckless assault!"Confuse your enemy, he thought. It was a little like phoning somebody up, and saying "Yes? Hello?" in a testy voice when they answered, which was one of Dirk's favourite methods of whiling away long, hot summer afternoons. He bent down and examined the palpable dent in the rear of the BMW, which was quite obviously, damn it, a brand new one. Blast and bugger it, thought Dirk.
"Look what you've done to my bumper!" he cried. "I hope you have a good lawyer!"
"I am a good lawyer," said a quiet voice which was followed by a quiet click. Dirk looked up in momentary apprehension. The quiet click was only the sound of the car door closing.
The man was wearing an Italian suit, which was also quiet. He had quiet glasses, quietly cut hair, and though a bow-tie is not, by its very nature, a quiet object, the particular bow-tie he wore was, nevertheless, a very quietly spotted example of the genre. He drew a slim wallet from his pocket and also a slim silver pencil. He walked without fuss to the rear of Dirk's Jaguar and made a note of the registration number.
"Do you have a card?" he enquired as he did so, without looking up. "Here's mine," he added, taking one from his wallet. He made a note on the back of it. "My registration number," he said, "and the name of my insurance company. Perhaps you would be good enough to let me have the name of yours. If you don't have it with you, I'll get my girl to call you."
Dirk sighed, and decided there was no point in putting up a fight on this one. He fished out his wallet and leafed through the various business cards that seemed to accumulate in it as if from nowhere. He toyed for a second with the idea of being Wesley Arlott, an ocean-going yacht navigation consultant from, apparently, Arkansas, but then thought better of it. The man had, after all, taken his registration number, and although Dirk had no particular recollection of paying an insurance premium of late, he also had no particular recollection of not paying one either, which was a reasonably promising sign. He handed over a bonafide card with a wince. The man looked at it.
"Mr Gently," he said. "Private investigator. I'm sorry, private holistic investigator. OK."
He put the card away, taking no further interest.
Dirk had never felt so patronised in his life. At that moment there was another quiet click from the other side of the car. Dirk looked across to see a woman with red spectacles standing there giving him a frozen half smile. She was the woman he had spoken with over Geoffrey Anstey's garden wall this morning, and the man, Dirk therefore supposed, was probably her husband. He wondered for a second whether he should wrestle the m to the ground and question them rigorously and violently, but he was suddenly feeling immensely tired and run down.
He acknowledged the woman in red spectacles with a minute inclination of his head.
"All done, Cynthia," said the man and flicked a smile on and off at her. "It's all taken care of."
She nodded faintly, and the two of them climbed back into their BMW and after a moment or two pulled away without fuss and disappeared away down the road. Dirk looked at the card in his hand. Clive Draycott. He was with a good firm of City solicitors. Dirk stuck the card away in his wallet, climbed despondently back into his car, and drove on back to his house, where he found a large golden eagle sitting patiently on his doorstep.
20
* * *
Kate rounded on her guest as soon as they were both inside her flat with the door closed and Kate could be reasonably certain that Neil wasn't going to sneak back out of his flat and lurk disapprovingly half way up the stairs. The continuing thumping of his bass was at least her guarantee of privacy.
"All right," she said fiercely, "so what is the deal with the eagle then? What is the deal with all the street lights? Huh?"
The Norse God of Thunder looked at her awkwardly. He had to remove his great horned helmet because it was banging against the ceiling and leaving scratch marks in the plaster. He tucked it under his arm.
"What is the deal," continued Kate, "with the Coca-Cola machine? What is the deal with the hammer? What, in short, is the big deal? Huh?"
Thor said nothing. He frowned for a second in arrogant irritation, then frowned in something that looked somewhat like embarrassment, and then simply stood there and bled at her.
For a few seconds she resisted the impending internal collapse of her attitude, and then realised it was just going to go to hell anyway so she might as well go with it.
"OK," she muttered, "let's get all that cleaned up. I'll find some antiseptic."
She went to rummage in the kitchen cupboard and returned with a bottle to find Thor saying "No" at her.
"No what?" she said crossly, putting the bottle down on the table with a bit of a bang.
"That," said Thor, and pushed the bottle back at her. "N
o."
"What's the matter with it?"
Thor just shrugged and stared moodily at a corner of the room. There was nothing that could be considered remotely interesting in that comer of the room, so he was clearly looking at it out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
"Look, buster," said Kate, "if I can call you buster, what--"
"Thor," said Thor, "God of--"
"Yes," said Kate, "you've told me all the things you're God of. I'm trying to clean up your arm."
"Sedra," said Thor, holding his bleeding arm out, but away from her. He peered at it anxiously.
"What?"
"Crushed leaves of sedra. Oil of the kernel of the apricot. Infusion of bitter orange blossom. Oil of almonds. Sage and comfrey. Not this."
He pushed the bottle of antiseptic off the table and sank into a mood.
"Right!" said Kate, picked up the bottle and hurled it at him. It rebounded off his cheekbone leaving an instant red mark. Thor lunged forward in a rage, but Kate simply stood her ground with a finger pointed at him.
"You stay right there, buster!" she said, and he stopped. "Anything special you need for that?"
Thor looked puzzled for a moment.
"That!" said Kate, pointing at the blossoming bruise on his cheek.
"Vengeance," said Thor.
"I'll have to see what I can do," said Kate. She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.
After about two minutes of unseen activity Kate returned to the room, trailed by wisps of steam.
"All right," she said, "come with me."
She led him into her bathroom. He followed her with a great show of reluctance, but he followed her. Kate had been trailed by wisps of steam because the bathroom was full of it. The bath itself was overflowing with bubbles and gunk.
There were some bottles and pots, mostly empty, lined up along a small shelf above the bath. Kate picked them up one by one and displayed them at him.