Earth, Air, Fire and Custard Read online

  Whereupon he swung the sword high above his head, flipped a catch or pressed a button or something, and opened the sword out into a perfectly normal golf umbrella. Paul thanked him but the man walked away without looking back, and then the mist closed around him and he was gone.

  Never mind, it was better than getting wet. The engines sounded very close now, and Paul peered down the road to see. There was someone beside him, looking over his shoulder; she had long brown hair, slightly frizzy, with golden streaks in it so light that they were almost silver. ‘I’ll give you five to one on the Kawasaki,’ she said, and for some reason he shook his head and replied that it had to be the Norton, and it’d be outright theft to take her money. Then nine motorcycles roared past them, each rider waving as they went by (to the girl, not to Paul). He saw their hair floating in the slipstream as they passed, and the girl next to him pointed out that he owed her five pounds.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but I gave my last fiver to Uncle Ken.’

  ‘Oh.’ That seemed to be an acceptable reason for not paying.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ she said, ‘we’d best be getting back, before anybody notices we’ve gone.’ Paul hadn’t looked round at any point, so he hadn’t seen her face. It was rather important that he didn’t, in fact, and he felt vaguely proud of himself for resisting the temptation to peek. Her voice was cold and hard, which more than made up for the fact (he had no idea how he knew this) that she was very beautiful and had freckled shoulders to die for. Great, he told himself, the medicine works, wait till I tell Sophie—

  And there she was, right in front of him, her hair plastered to her head by the rain, looking small and thin and very, very wet. ‘For crying out loud, Paul,’ she said, very deliberately not noticing the redhead standing next to him. ‘Do you realise, we’re twenty minutes late? Now come on.’

  He followed her, up a steep hillside towards a ruined tower overlooking a misty grey creek where two small wooden ships lay at anchor. ‘This is the last time I come looking for you,’ she went on, as they dragged up a winding narrow stone staircase - the steps were worn and slippery, and the only light was a grey blur round the edges of arrow slits - ‘and I’m really, really tired of covering up for you, just because you’re too bloody idle to do your reading assignments.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Paul mumbled. ‘But every time I open the stupid book, it sends me straight to sleep.’

  She sighed. ‘You clown,’ she said. ‘It’s supposed to. Now pay attention—’

  Then it all burst around him like a flood: so many things he suddenly knew how to do, so many answers and explanations, everything that had been puzzling and bewildering him and driving him to distraction and despair since he’d first joined JWW, all those things that everybody else seemed to know except him, and he really hated that—It was like standing directly under a huge volcano as it burst into furious life, belching out fire and enlightenment and useful practical information, formulae, specifications, procedures, detailed recipes, easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions and a huge cloud of yellow ash that blotted out the sun, as though God had perched a bag of custard powder on top of the door of Infinity as a practical joke, and it had landed kersplat on top of his head. Meanwhile Sophie was yelling, ‘The crème fraiche, don’t forget the crème fraiche,’ and then Paul woke up.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Nine o’clock sharp - sharper, indeed, than the proverbial serpent’s tooth - and Paul was standing outside the front door of 70 St Mary Axe, waiting for the bolts to be shot back and the wards of the massive, church-door-type lock to be graunched round, so that he could slouch in and start another day. It was less than nine months since he’d stood on this very step, and a single round red eye had glared out at him through the letter box; he hadn’t known about goblins then. It seemed like another life.

  The door opened, and behind the front desk sat a bewilderingly lovely girl, skin the colour of coffee and eyes like deep, dark pools. He’d never seen her before, of course.

  ‘Morning, Paul,’ she called out. ‘You haven’t forgotten, have you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ He stopped, then shrugged. ‘All right, yes, I have. Forgotten what?’

  ‘Bastard. Rehearsal, six o’clock tonight. You promised you’d remember.’

  Mr Tanner’s mother - call me Rosie, she’d told him, but Paul knew it wasn’t her real name - was a thoroughbred goblin of impeccable ancestry, with her species’s unnerving ability to change shape at will, and an even more disturbing habit of developing serious crushes on human males, in particular tall, thin, weedy-looking, feckless specimens like himself. Subtle as an explosion in a fireworks factory, she’d been after him more or less since the day he’d joined the firm. Every day there was a completely different beautiful girl on reception, but they all had the same hungry grin. That aside, Paul minded Mr Tanner’s mum least of all the inhabitants of the office; and when he’d found out a few months ago that he was part goblin himself, she’d asked him, rather touchingly, to be the godfather to her latest offspring, who’d been born a fortnight ago. Now, apparently, she was dead set on holding him to his rash promise. He wasn’t looking forward to the experience, mostly because she’d been dropping all sorts of dark hints about what a goblin godfather had to do at the ceremony. All he’d been able to prise out of her so far was that it wasn’t as dangerous as it sounded.

  ‘Oh, and our Dennis wants to see you,’ she added, flashing him a smile which, under any other circumstances, would’ve turned his knees to jelly. ‘In his office, five minutes. Don’t ask me what it’s about.’

  Paul nodded glumly and trudged down the long, gloomy corridors to his dog-kennel office. He didn’t know why Dennis Tanner, the firm’s mining and mineral rights specialist, should want to see him first thing on a Monday morning, but he was sure it wouldn’t be about anything nice. At best, it’d mean a huge great batch of aerial photographs of seemingly identical patches of featureless desert, which he’d have to scry for bauxite deposits. It sounded impressive, but all it meant was running his fingertip across the surface of the picture until he felt a mild electric shock, and then ringing the precise spot with black marker pen. It was one of the few magical talents he’d so far manifested, and as far as unwanted gifts went it was up there in his all-time top ten, along with socks and the latest Martin Amis in hardback.

  Having sloughed his coat, he checked his desk for memos, yellow stickies, post and other hazards; just one today, a handwritten note from Professor Van Spee—

  From: TCVS

  To: PAC

  You have finally read the first chapter of the book I asked you to read three weeks ago; accordingly, you are now in a position to help me with the Macziejewski account.

  Dennis Tanner will want to see you at 9.05; you will be free again at 9.35. Kindly call at 16 Jowett Street (just off the Charing Cross Road) and collect a parcel for me. You will be back at the office at 11.15; please come and see me.

  Paul read the note twice, then shrugged. Ever since he’d first encountered Professor Van Spee, he’d made a conscious effort not to let this omniscience thing bother him. So far, he’d just about managed, but the strain was getting worse all the time. He was about to drop the note into the home-brew coal seam he called his filing tray when he noticed a postscript he’d missed earlier—

  PS: Leave now, or else you will be late for your appointment with Mr Tanner.

  According to Mr Tanner’s mum and various other goblins whose word he was prepared to take on the subject, Dennis Tanner was related to him, something like his fifth cousin thrice removed. The revelation had brought him no comfort whatsoever. Every time he saw Mr Tanner, his first instinct was to run and hide. This wasn’t anything to do with Mr Tanner being half-goblin; he looked mostly human, a bit like a freeze-dried child, with curly brown hair going slightly grey, big brown eyes and his mother’s horrible grin. It was rather more to do with Mr Tanner being an unmitigated bastard—

  ‘Come in,’ he heard through the chunky pa
nelled door. Mr Tanner was in his usual place behind the desk, wreathed in blue cigar smoke like a tiny, malevolent volcano. On the other side of the desk was someone Paul hadn’t seen before.

  Paul was on the tall, thin side himself; but he was an obese dwarf compared to the stranger, who was wearing a perfectly ordinary blue suit, shirt and tie but looked as though he’d been poked down the shirt collar like a pipe-cleaner and somehow got stuck. He had a long neck, like a turkey, and his head was absurdly too small for the rest of him. He had tiny round glasses and very short grey hair, like the bristles on a nail brush.

  ‘You’re here, then,’ Mr Tanner said. ‘Right, I’d like you to meet Frank Laertides. I’m delighted to be able to tell you, Frank’s agreed to join us as our new PR and media partner.’

  Paul immediately froze, and stared at the newcomer with undisguised trepidation. PR and media had been Judy di Castel Bianco’s department, and three months ago Paul had, after a desperate struggle, succeded in thwarting her attempt to subjugate the human race to her own people, the dream-inhabiting Fey. When last heard of, Countess Judy had been trapped on the Isle of Avalon, whence (Paul devoutly hoped) she could never return. The reason he was panicking now was that (according to Countess Judy) only the Fey had the innate abilities needed to perform the kinds of magic needed for PR and media work; in which case—

  ‘Relax.’ It was the newcomer speaking, but it was hard to believe that such a friendly, pleasant voice could’ve come from the strange creature sitting at Mr Tanner’s desk. ‘I know what happened a while back, and you needn’t worry, I’m not one of Judy’s mob.’ Mr Laertides smiled, and his whole appearance seemed to change. Instead of being a cartoon Frankenstein’s monster drawn by L. S. Lowry, he became just a nice man who happened to be rather tall. ‘So you’re Paul Carpenter,’ he went on, steepling his impossibly long fingers. ‘The chap who took on the Fey and won. Got to admit, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’

  The fear started to ebb away, but suspicion remained. At the time, Paul had been left in precious little doubt by the partners that the defeat of Countess Judy, though quite probably the salvation of the human race and civilised life as we know it, had been a nasty blow for the firm, and so far from being pleased with him, they’d only just managed to forgive him for depriving them of the staggering sums of money she’d brought in every year. This Mr Laertides, on the other hand, appeared to think he’d done something clever, and was pleased to meet him—(Well, quite, Paul told himself. If I hadn’t got rid of Countess Judy, Stick-Insect Guy wouldn’t have landed her old job. That’s got to be the reason—)

  Paul smiled awkardly, unable to think of anything appropriate to say. Mr Laertides nodded, then glanced back at Mr Tanner, who cleared his throat and looked down at his desk. If Paul hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he was embarrassed.

  ‘The other thing,’ Mr Tanner went on, in a rather strained voice, not like his usual cheerfully abrasive self, ‘is, we, my partners and I, we’ve been giving some thought to your, um, position in the firm. I take it,’ he added, in a strangled sort of voice, ‘you’re happy here at JWW?’

  It’d have been rude to laugh; and obviously Mr Tanner didn’t want to hear the truth, or he wouldn’t have asked the question. ‘Yes, rather,’ Paul heard himself say. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Excellent,’ muttered Mr Tanner. ‘Because we, my partners and I, we’re very pleased with the work you’ve been doing for us, we think you’ve settled in very nicely, and -’ here he paused, and maybe he closed his eyes just for a fraction of a second ‘- and so we’d like to, um, promote you, from junior clerk to assistant sorcerer, if you’re happy with that.’ Mr Tanner’s dribble of words finally dried up completely, like the last trickle from a Saharan explorer’s water bottle, and he buried his face in his hands for a moment. To his credit, he managed to pull himself together again in a matter of seconds. ‘It’ll mean more money, of course,’ he said grimly. ‘Plus extra holiday allowance—’ He paused. ‘How much holiday do you get at the moment?’

  ‘Um.’ Paul thought about it. ‘None.’

  ‘Ah, right. Well, from now on you can have seven days off a year. Just be sure to clear the dates with me first.’ It was as though some huge, invisible bird of prey was ripping the words out of Mr Tanner’s chest with its talons. ‘Also you get a company car, a proper one this time, and there’s other stuff too, but I won’t bore you with it now.’

  Oh, Paul thought. Oh well, never mind.

  ‘In return -’ Mr Tanner seemed to have cheered up just a bit ‘- we’ll be looking for that extra bit of effort and commitment on your part; I mean, it’s not going to be just a job any more, you’re joining the JWW family, if you want to look at it that way, and the way we look at things is, we all pull our weight and do our best and—’ Mr Tanner seemed to go all boneless, as though he simply couldn’t go on any further, no matter what anybody did to him. ‘That sort of thing,’ he concluded. ‘Look, do you want it or not?’

  If Paul had really had a genuine choice in the matter, it’d have been different. But he didn’t. He knew perfectly well that his parents had sold him to the firm just over a year ago. He even knew how much they’d got for him. Watching Mr Tanner suffer, on the other hand, was the most fun he’d had in ages. ‘Yes, please,’ he said quickly. ‘And thanks. This means a lot to me, it really does.’

  ‘Mm.’ Mr Tanner nodded. ‘I bet. Well, there you are, then, and I hope you’ll be really happy. Now, you’d better get out of here and go and pick up that parcel for Theo Van Spee, before he starts giving me attitude for keeping you.’ He shuddered, from his toes upwards, and looked away. The tall, thin bloke (Mr Laertides, Paul remembered) smiled pleasantly and nodded. ‘Glad to meet you, Paul,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop in your office later and we can have a chat.’

  ‘Um, right,’ Paul mumbled, and fled while he still had the use of his legs.

  He had to go and do Professor Van Spee’s shopping next; but instead, he went straight to the front office, where the lovely girl was lolling in her chair, sharpening her fingernails with a farrier’s rasp.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Paul said.

  She looked up, frowned a little. ‘Probably,’ she said. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘This promotion thing. You made Mr Ta—your son, you made him do it. The pay rise, the holiday—’ He stopped and looked at her. ‘It wasn’t you, then.’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she replied. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  For some reason, Paul felt distinctly uneasy. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. I mean,’ she went on, ‘if our Dennis has given you a raise, I’m really thrilled and of course you deserve it and all that crap. But it’s the first I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘So it wasn’t just you trying to—’ Paul stopped dead and turned beetroot. Mr Tanner’s mum giggled.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Yes, if I thought it’d do any good, and if I could’ve made our Dennis do it, that’s just the sort of thing I’d be capable of. But it doesn’t work like that. For one thing, Dennis can’t make decisions like that on his own, he’d have to clear it with the rest of the gang first. And if I asked him to do this one small favour for his dear old mum, he’d tell me to piss off and die in a ditch. If you’ve just got a promotion - well,’ she added, with a grin, ‘maybe it’s because they really like you and they think you’re an asset to the firm. Or there could be some other reason,’ she added blithely. ‘But it’s none of my doing. Hope you’re not too disappointed,’ she added, and her tone of voice had him out of the front office and halfway up the stairs before he realised he was going the wrong way.

  Annoying. 70 St Mary Axe had no back or side door; to get out onto the street, you had no choice but to go past the front desk, and Paul didn’t want to have to run the gauntlet of Mr Tanner’s mum’s industrial-grade heavy leering again. Trying to explain all that to Professor Van Spee was, of course, completely out of the question, as was failing to o
bey a direct order from the Great Man. He hesitated, like a rubber ball on top of a fountain, kept in place by the two opposing forces of fear and embarrassment—

  ‘They make the world go round, you know,’ said a voice behind him. He spun round so fast that he nearly lost his balance and toppled backwards through the banister rail, like an inept sniper in a Western. Mr Laertides, Stick-Insect Guy, had materialised on the step below, and so offensively excessive was his height that he still towered over Paul like the London Eye. Where he’d come from or how he’d got there, Paul didn’t even bother to wonder.

  ‘According to the songwriters,’ Mr Laertides went on, ‘it’s Love, but that’s just silly. Science would have you believe that it’s the gravitational pull of the sun, but bless them, they’ve got research grants to justify, so we’ll forgive them a little white lie or two. Seven large vodka martinis on an empty stomach will make the world go round for a while, but then you fall over and pass out, so it’s a temporary expedient at best.’

  Paul stared at him as though he’d just sprouted an extra head; although, after nine months at JWW, he might well have been able to take that in his stride. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t quite follow.’

  ‘Embarrassment and fear,’ said Mr Laertides. ‘You were just thinking about them.’ He smiled, and Paul’s bewilderment melted like grilled ice-cream. So what if he didn’t have a clue what Mr Laertides was talking about? It just confirmed that he was a whole lot smarter than Paul, and Paul knew that already. ‘The mainsprings of human motivation. You’re afraid of getting looked at sternly if you turn up for your appointment with Theo without the parcel, but the thought of facing Rosie Tanner turns your spine to jelly. What you need, therefore, is a third option. Right?’

  Paul felt his head bob up and down, though he couldn’t recall asking it to.

  ‘No problem.’ Mr Laertides inserted a splayed-octopus hand into the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a big, thick book that couldn’t possibly ever have fitted inside it. ‘Go on, take it,’ he said. ‘It won’t bite. You can have it, by the way. Plenty more where they came from.’