The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

  He overheard one remark to his companion that it was the left-handed three-fingered flat grip on the opponent's sternum that was all-important at the crucial moment of finally not quite falling over in a complete stupor, to which his companion responded with a benign "Oh ah."

  Dirk stopped, looked and backtracked.

  Sitting hunched in a thoughtful posture over his iron plate, and clad in heavily stained and matted furs and buckles which were, if anything, more rank and stinking than the ensemble Dirk had last encountered him in, was Dirk's companion from the concourse at King's Cross station.

  Dirk wondered how to approach him. A quick backslap and a "Hey! Good party. Lot of energy," was one strategy, but Dirk didn't think it was the right one.

  While he was wondering, an eagle suddenly swooped down from out of the air and, with a lot of beating and thrashing, landed on the table in front of the old man, folded its wings and advanced on him, demanding to be fed. Easily, the old man pulled a bit of meat off a bone and held it up to the great bird, which pecked it sharply but accurately out of his fingers.

  Dirk thought that this was the key to a friendly approach. He leant over the table and picked up a small hunk of meat and offered it in turn to the bird. The bird attacked him and went for his neck, forcing him to try and beat the savage creature off with his hat, but the introduction was made.

  "Oh ah," said the man, shooed the eagle away and shifted a couple of inches along the bench. Though it was not a fulsome invitation, it was at least an invitation. Dirk clambered over the bench and sat down.

  '"Thank you," said Dirk, puffing.

  "Oh ah."

  "If you remember, we--"

  At that moment the most tremendous reverberating thump sounded out across Valhalla. It was the sound of a drum being beaten, but it sounded like a drum of immense proportions, as it had to be to make itself heard over the tumult of noise with which the hall was filled. The drum sounded three times, in slow and massive beats, like the heartbeat of the hall itself.

  Dirk looked up to see where the sound might have come from. He noticed for the first time that at the south end of the hall, to which he had been heading, a great balcony or bridge extended across most of its width. There were some figures up there, dimly visible through the heat haze and the eagles, but Dirk had a sense that whoever was up there presided over whoever was down here.

  Odin, thought Dirk. Odin the All-Father must be up on the balcony.

  The sound of the revels died down quickly, though it was several seconds before the reverberations of the noise finally fell away.

  When all was quiet, but expectant, a great voice rang out from the balcony and through the hall.

  The voice said, '"The time of the Challenging Hour is nearly at an end. The Challenging Hour has been called by the God Thor. For the third time of asking, where is Thor?"

  A murmuring throughout the hall suggested that nobody knew where Thor was and why he had not come to make his challenge.

  The voice said, "This is a very grave affront to the dignity of the All-Father. If there is no challenge before the expiration of the hour, the penalty for Thor shall be correspondingly grave."

  The drum beat again three times, and the consternation in the hall increased. Where was Thor?

  "He's with some girl," said a voice above the rest, and there were loud shouts of laughter, and a return to the hubbub of before.

  "Yes." said Dirk, quietly, "I expect he probably is."

  "Oh ah."

  Dirk had supposed that he was talking to himself and was surprised to have elicited a response from the man, though not particularly surprised at the response that had been elicited.

  "Thor called this meeting tonight?" Dirk asked him.

  "Oh ah."

  "Bit rude not to turn up."

  "Oh ah."

  "I expect everyone's n bit upset."

  "Not as long as there's enough pigs to go round."

  "Pigs?"

  "Oh ah."

  Dirk didn't immediately know how to go on from here.

  "Oh ah," he said, resignedly.

  "It's only Thor as really cares, you see," said the old man. "Keeps on issuing his challenge, then not being able to prove it. Can't argue. Gets all confused and angry, does something stupid, can't sort it out and gets made to do a penance. Everybody else just turns up for the pigs."

  "Oh ah." Dirk was learning a whole new conversational technique and was astonished at how successful it was. He regarded the man with a new-found respect.

  "Do you know how many stones there are in Wales?" asked the man suddenly.

  "Oh ah," said Dirk warily. He didn't know this joke.

  "Nor do I. He won't tell anybody. Says count 'em yourself and goes off in a sulk."

  "Oh ah." He didn't think it was a very good one.

  "So this time he hasn't even turned up. Can't say I blame him. But I'm sorry, because I think he might be right."

  "Oh ah."

  The man lapsed into silence.

  Dirk waited.

  "Oh ah," he said again, hopefully.

  Nothing.

  "So, er," said Dirk, going for a cautious prompt, "you think he might be right, eh?"

  "Oh ah."

  "So. Old Thor might be right, eh? That's the story," said Dirk.

  "Oh ah."

  "In what way," said Dirk, running out of patience at last, "do you think he might be right?"

  "Oh, every way."

  "Oh ah," said Dirk, defeated.

  "It's no secret that the gods have fallen on hard times," said the old man, grimly. "That's clear for all to see, even for the ones who only care about the pigs, which is most of 'em. And when you feel you're not needed any more it can be hard to think beyond the next pig, even if you used to have the whole world there with you. Everyone just accepts it as inevitable. Everyone except Thor, that is. And now he's given up. Hasn't even bothered to turn up and break a pig with us. Given up his challenge. Oh ah."

  "Oh ah," said Dirk.

  "Oh ah."

  "So, er, Thor's challenge then," said Dirk tentatively.

  "Oh ah."

  "What was it?"

  "Oh ah."

  Dirk lost his patience entirely and rounded on the man.

  "What was Thor's challenge to Odin?" he insisted angrily.

  The man looked round at him in slow surprise, looked him up and down with his big sagging eyes.

  "You're a mortal, aren't you?"

  "Yes," said Dirk testily, "I'm a mortal. Of course I'm a mortal. What has being a mortal got to do with it?"

  "How did you get here?"

  "I followed you." He pulled the screwed up, empty cigarette packet out of his pocket and put it on the table. "Thanks," he said, "I owe you."

  It was a pretty feeble type of apology, he thought, but it was the best he could manage.

  "Oh ah." The man looked away.

  "What was Thor's challenge to Odin?" said Dirk, trying hard to keep the impatience out of his voice this time.

  "What does it matter to you?" the old immortal said bitterly. "You're a mortal. Why should you care? You've got what you want out of it, you and your kind, for what little it's now worth."

  "Got what we want out of what?"

  "The deal," said the old immortal. "The contract that Thor claims Odin has entered into."

  "Contract?" said Dirk. "What contract?"

  The man's face filled with an expression of slow anger. The bonfires of Valhalla danced deeply in his eyes as he looked at Dirk.

  "The sale," he said darkly, "of an immortal soul."

  "What?" said Dirk. He had already considered this idea and discounted it. "You mean a man has sold his soul to him? What man? It doesn't make sense."

  "No," said the man, "that wouldn't make sense at all. I said an immortal soul. Thor says that Odin has sold his soul to Man."

  Dirk stared at him with horror and then slowly raised his eyes to the balcony. Something was happening there. The great drum beat out again, an
d the hall of Valhalla began to hush itself once more. But a second or third drumbeat failed to come. Something unexpected seemed to have occurred, and the figures on the balcony were moving in some confusion. The Challenging Hour was just expiring, but a challenge of some kind seemed to have arrived.

  Dirk beat his palms to his forehead and swayed where he sat as all kinds of realisations finally dawned on him.

  "Not to Man," he said, "but to a man, and a woman. A lawyer and an advertiser. I said it was all her fault the moment I saw her. I didn't realise I might actually be right." He rounded on his companion urgently. "I have to get up there," he said, "for Gods' sake, help me."

  29

  * * *

  "O . . . dddddiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!"

  Thor let out a bellow of rage which made the sky shake. The heavy clouds let out a surprised grunt of thunder at the sheer volume of air that moved beneath them. Kate started back, white with fear and shock, with her ears ringing.

  "Toe Rag!!!!"

  He hurled his hammer to the ground right at his very feet with both hands. He hurled it this short distance with such astounding force that it hit and rebounded into the air up to about a hundred feet.

  "Ggggrrrrrraaaaaaaah!!!!!!" With an immense explosion of air from his lungs he hurled himself up into the air after it, caught it just as it was beginning to drop, and hurled it straight back down at the ground again, catching it again as it bounded back up, twisting violently round in mid-air and hurling it with all the force he could muster out to sea before falling to the ground himself on his back, and pounding the earth with his ankles, elbows and fists in an incredible tattoo of rage.

  The hammer shot out over the sea on a very low trajectory. The head went down into the water and planed through it at a constant depth of about six inches. A sharp ripple opened slowly but easily across its surface, extending eventually to about a mile as the hammer sliced its way through it like a surgeon's knife. The inner walls of the ripple deepened smoothly in its wake, falling away from the sheer force of the hammer, till a vast valley had opened in the face of the sea. The walls of the valley wobbled and swayed uncertainly, then folded up and crashed together in crazed and foaming tumult. The hammer lifted its head and swung up high into the air. Thor leapt to his feet and watched it, still pounding his feet on the ground like a boxer, but like a boxer who was perhaps about to precipitate a major earthquake. When the hammer reached the top of its trajectory, Thor hurled his fist downwards like a conductor, and the hammer hurtled down into the crashing mass of sea.

  That seemed to calm the sea for a moment in the same way that a smack in the face will calm a hysteric. The moment passed. An immense column of water erupted out of the smack, and seconds later the hammer exploded upwards out of its centre, pulling another huge column of water up from the middle of the first one.

  The hammer somersaulted at the top of its rise, turned, spun, and rushed back to its owner like a wildly over-excited puppy. Thor caught at it, but instead of stopping it he allowed it to carry him backwards, and together they tumbled back through the rocks for about a hundred yards and scuffled to a halt in some soft earth.

  Instantly, Thor was back on his feet again. He turned round and round, bounding from one leg to the other with strides of nearly ten feet, swinging the hammer round him at arm's length. When he released it again it raced out to sea once more, but this time it tore round the surface in a giant semicircle, causing the sea to rear up around its circumference to form for a moment a gigantic amphitheatre of water. When it fell forward it crashed like a tidal wave, ran forward and threw itself, enraged, against the short wall of the cliff.

  The hammer returned to Thor, who threw it off again instantly in a great overarm. It flew into a rock, hitting off a fat angry spark. It bounded off further and hit a spark off another rock, and another. Thor threw himself forward on to his knees, and with each rock the hammer hit he pounded the ground with his fist to make the rock rise to meet the hammer. Spark after spark erupted from the rocks. The hammer hit each successive one harder and harder, until one spark provoked a warning lick of lightning from the clouds.

  And then the sky began to move, slowly, like a great angry animal uncoiling in its lair. The pounding sparks flew faster and heavier from the hammer, more lightning licks arced down to meet them from the sky, and the whole earth was beginning to tremble in something very like fearful excitement.

  Thor hauled his elbows up above his head and then thrust them hard down with another ringing bellow at the sky.

  "O . . . ddddiiiiiiinnnnnn!!!!"

  The sky seemed about to crack open.

  "Toe Raaaaagggggggggg!!!!!!!!!"

  Thor threw himself into the ground, heaving aside about two skipsful of rocky earth. He shook with expanding rage. With a deep groan the whole of the side of the cliff began slowly to lean forward into the sea as he pushed and shook. In a few seconds more it tumbled heavily into the seething torment beneath it as Thor clambered back, seized a rock the size of a grand piano and held it above his head.

  Everything seemed still for a fleeting moment.

  Thor hurled the rock into the sea.

  He regained his hammer.

  "O . . . !" he bellowed.

  " . . . Ddddddddinnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!"

  His hammer cracked down.

  A torrent of water erupted from the ground, and the sky exploded. Lightning flickered down like a white wall of light for miles along the coast in either direction. Thunder roared like colliding worlds and the clouds vomited rain that shattered the ground. Thor stood exulting in the torrent.

  A few minutes later and the violence abated. A strong and steady rain continued to fall. The clouds were cleansing themselves and the weak rays of the early morning light began to find their way through the thinning cover.

  Thor trudged back up from where he had been standing, slapping and washing the mud from his hands. He caught at his hammer when it flew to him.

  He found Kate standing watching him, shivering with astonishment, fear and fury.

  "What was that all about?" she yelled at him.

  "I just needed to be able to lose my temper properly," he said. When this didn't seem to satisfy her he added, "A god can show off once in a while can't he?"

  The huddled figure of Tsuliwaensis came hurrying out through the rain towards them.

  "You're a noisy boy, Thor," she scolded, "a noisy boy."

  But Thor was gone. When they looked, they guessed that he must be the tiny speck hurtling northwards through the clearing sky.

  30

  * * *

  Cynthia Draycott peered over the balcony at the scene below them with distaste. Valhalla was back in full swing.

  "I hate this," she said, "I don't want this going on in my life."

  "You don't have to, my darling," said Clive Draycott quietly from behind her, with his hands on her shoulders. "It's all going to be taken care of right now, and it's going to work out just fine. Couldn't be better in fact. It's just what we wanted. You know, you look fantastic in those glasses? They really suit you. I mean really. They're very chic."

  "Clive, it was meant to have been taken care of originally. The whole point was that we weren't to be troubled, we could just do it, deal with it, and forget about it. That was the whole point. I've put up with enough shit in my life. I just wanted it to be good, 100 per cent. I don't want all this."

  "Exactly. And that's why this is so perfect for us. So perfect. Clear breach of contract. We get everything we wanted now, and we're released from all obligations. Perfecto. We come out of it smelling of roses, and we have a life that is just 100 per cent good. 100 per cent. And clean. Just exactly as you wanted it. Really, it couldn't be better for us. Trust me."

  Cynthia Draycott hugged herself irritably.

  "So what about this new . . . person? Something else we have to deal with."

  "It'll be so easy. So easy. Listen, this is nothing. We either cut him in to it, or we cut him right out. It'll be taken
care of before we leave here. We'll buy him something. A new coat. Maybe we'll have to buy him a new house. Know what that'll cost us?" He gave a charming laugh. "It's nothing. You won't ever even need to think about it. You won't ever even need to think about not thinking about it. It's . . . that . . . easy. OK?"

  "Hm."

  "OK. I'll be right back."

  He turned and headed back into the ante-chamber of the hall of the All-Father, smiling all the way.

  "So, Mr . . . " he made a show of looking at the card again " . . . Gently. You want to act for these people do you?"

  "These immortal gods," said Dirk.

  "OK, gods," said Draycott. "'That's fine. Perhaps you'll do a better job than the manic little hustler I had to deal with first time out. You know, he's really quite a little character, our Mr Rag, Mr Rag. You know, that guy was really quite amazing. He did everything he could, tried every oldest trick in the book to freak me out, and give me the run-around. You know how I deal with people like that? Simple. I ignore it. I just . . . ignore it. If he wants to play around and threaten and screech, and shovel in five hundred and seventeen subclauses that he thinks he's going to catch me out on, that's OK. He's just taking up time, but so what? I've got time. I've got plenty of time for people like Mr Rag. Because you know what the really crazy thing is? You know what's really crazy? The guy cannot draw up an actual contract to save his life. Really. To save . . . his . . . life. And I tell you something, that's fine by me. He can thrash around and spit all he likes--when he gets tired I just reel him in. Listen. I draw up contracts in the record business. These guys are just minnows by comparison. They're primitive savages. You've met them. You've dealt with them. They're primitive savages. Well, aren't they? Like the Red Indians. They don't even know what they've got. You know, these people are lucky they didn't meet some real shark. I mean it. You know what America cost? You know what the whole United States of America actually cost? You don't, and neither do I. And shall I tell you why? The sum is so negligible that someone could tell us what it was and two minutes later we would have forgotten. It would have gone clean out of our minds.

  "Now, compared with that, let me tell you, I am providing. I am really providing. A private suite in the Woodshead Hospital? Lavish attention, food, sensational quantities of linen. Sensational. You could practically buy the United States of America at today's prices for what that's all costing. But you know what? I said, if he wants the linen, let him have the linen. Just let him have it. It's fine. The guy's earned it. He can have all thelinen . . . he . . . wants. Just don't fuck with me is all.