‘Shall we meet again tomorrow?’ She watched him with her head tilted slightly to one side, her eyes simultaneously cool and warm.
Eck shook his head gloomily. Bob would be home any minute. He would never allow Eck to have a friend.
‘Next day?’ she said.
The creature brightened. Perhaps Bob would have disappeared by the next day. Perhaps by the next day, the world as he knew it would have changed into something else. Everything might have altered, as it seemed to do with disconcerting frequency these days.
‘OK, then, next day,’ said the girl, and waved goodbye.
A friend, thought Eck. Of course she probably wanted something from him, but he didn’t mind. He couldn’t afford to be selective about friends, having had no other offers, and none likely in the foreseeable future. After which he would be dead.
Mr B stood at the window and watched her disappear into the drizzle. His brow was as creased as ever, but his eyes, uncharacteristically, shone.
28
‘Who is that girl?’ Mr B asked Bob.
‘Which girl?’
‘The one Eck’s taken a shine to.’
‘Oh, her. Miss Plainy-Pants. Her father’s that scary Mafioso guy. The one who’s going to –’ They both looked at Eck, who stood defiantly in the corner of the room, staring into the middle distance. ‘You know.’
Mr B nodded.
Only in the afternoons, when Estelle came to see him, did Eck perk up at all. The strain of living under a sentence of death bled his spirit.
They ate in silence. Eck had stopped begging at the table for scraps; even his insatiable hunger seemed to have waned. Hunger was just another pain he endured now as evidence that he was still alive – along with despair. If he starved, well, maybe it wasn’t the worst way to die.
‘And she’s the daughter?’
‘Who?’
‘Miss Plainy-Pants.’
Bob shrugged. ‘Eloise. Esmerelda. Weaselly thing.’
Mr B dissented silently. Not weaselly. With her long straight nose, pale skin and high forehead, the girl might have walked straight out of an early Renaissance painting. Not at all weaselly. She was slim and graceful; she moved without flapping or fuss.
Returning to work, Mr B flipped through his files of pleading humans, page after page, avoiding their eyes, trying to answer their prayers, his brain flitting back to … Esmerelda?
One file slithered out, an Indian child with serious brown eyes and a depth and complexity of expression. He had rabies, and the petition came from his father. Mr B stared down at the child’s face for some time. Untreated, he knew, the boy would develop a vast, unquenchable thirst as his throat and jaw muscles grew rigid with paralysis. Death would follow in a matter of hours.
Mr B rubbed his head. It wasn’t that he didn’t like to fix things. But every adjustment led to unexpected repercussions, a chain of reactions certain to render the original deed null and void. He’d had plenty of experiences like that: the sweet child saved from death, who grew up to be Vlad the Impaler.
Mr B felt like some sort of cursed accountant, with figures that eternally refused to add up.
But sometimes he had no choice. For himself, as much as for anyone. This time, just the slightest nudge, a tap, almost. Enough so that a visiting doctor from a UN special task force might slip over sideways, a mile or two off his intended path. Enough to cross paths with the boy’s father.
Of course these operations took time, were as technical as the isolation of a single grain of sand on an infinite stretch of beach. And who knew what else the nudge displaced? The tap that slipped the doctor sideways could slide a lorry into a crowd, topple a climber into a ravine, nudge a surgeon’s blade. And for what? To postpone a single incident of death or suffering because one face in ten billion had caught his eye?
Was he the only one who found this situation intolerable?
Moving the Indian boy’s file caused the whales to slither out of the heap and on to the floor at his feet. In his head, Mr B heard their desperate voices. Thirty-metre baleen whales had been sighted in unfeasibly warm seas, searching for krill that were searching for phytoplankton. Others turned up gasping on beaches, their sonar confused by hunger and illness and noise. The tiniest ecological shift had already begun to make life impossible for them, thanks to an elegant anomaly in their biology – for Mr B, a far more accomplished creator than Bob, had devised a food chain with just two short links. Plankton to whale. So beautifully simple. Until something went wrong with the plankton.
The whales did not plead with sad looks or sagging shoulders. Their huge, impassive faces expressed nothing but the eternal stoicism of their race. Mr B could face them in a way that he could not face the humans, who were, after all, created in the image of Bob, complete with all Bob’s tragic flaws and an infinite chocolate-box selection of tragic outcomes.
He couldn’t bear the thought of those plangent voices being silenced forever, but he knew that they would soon cease to ask for help, having despaired of it coming. He bent down slowly, with a grunt, and lifted the file up on to his desk.
I will help you, he said silently to the whales. For my own sake as well as for yours, I will help you.
He wondered that the cetaceans had remained loyal to him, that they knew they were different. They were the only species with the intelligence to contact him directly, bypassing not only human intervention, but also Bob, for they (quite sensibly) did not believe in him.
Their keen brains and their beauty touched him almost as deeply as their faith in his power to save them. He could not leave without knowing that his own creations (at the very least) had been saved from painful oblivion.
His thoughts strayed once more to Eck’s friend, as he jotted down a message, for immediate delivery.
I will help you.
29
Accompanied by the shuffling feet and muffled snorts of wild boars and oryx, Lucy swept water from the corridor with a wide brush. It was the perfect occupation; anything requiring more concentration would have been impossible.
Outside, the rain came down in vengeful sheets, slamming against the metal roof with a violence that suited her state of mind. Emotional overdrive had rendered her fantasies almost hallucinogenic: those lips, the slender fingers, the deeply shadowed, troubled eyes.
She felt skinless. Every thought in her head was of him.
CRR … AACK! Thunder seemed to emanate from inside the building, inside her head. She pressed both hands over her ears to shut it out.
Who could she talk to? Who would understand? Her body no longer seemed to belong to her; she was flotsam caught in a howling whirlpool … and Bob, Bob was the force.
‘Sleeping on the job?’
She jerked up, began sweeping the water again, vigorously. Luke. Of course. ‘Nearly finished here. Just stopped to catch my breath.’ She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice.
He looked at her. ‘No rush. Just checking to see if you needed help.’
Right. ‘Thanks. I’m fine.’
CRRR … ACK!
‘Christ!’ he said. ‘That was a bit close.’
She felt wary of him, and frightened. The way he looked at her was so critical. Did he suspect about the capybara, or was he just keeping an eye on her, watching for a slip-up?
Water had begun to run down the inside of one wall and Luke swore, then hesitated for a moment as if about to say something else.
Lucy steeled herself, but when she looked again there was something in his expression that stopped her. His face was neither critical nor contemptuous. More … puzzled. Concerned. And then he smiled at her, actually smiled, and she nearly looked over her shoulder because it seemed so unlikely. But before she could clarify the odd encounter he was gone, and she shook him out of her head. There was barely room for him in it anyway.
She needed to see Bob again, needed his arms round her to stop the buzzing anxiety in her
blood. What spell had he cast? Nothing existed in her life except his face, his hands, his eyes. Need tugged at her like the pull of the moon on the sea, exerting a force so great she thought she might die of it.
And then he was beside her.
She gasped. ‘Oh, Bob. I was just …’
‘Shhh.’ He put a finger to her lips, took her hands in his and kissed her mouth and eyes, burying his face in her hair.
‘My God,’ she sighed, face flushed, eyes half-shut.
Yes, he thought.
She clung to him.
‘I want to be with you. Properly,’ he murmured, and she nodded. Her compliance thrilled him.
They couldn’t stay here. He kissed her again, delighted by the feel and the smell and the taste of her. ‘Lucy,’ he said. ‘My darling. Can you meet me tonight? Now?’
‘I …’ She hesitated. ‘We’ve all volunteered to work late tonight. I’m not sure I can get out of it.’
He frowned. ‘Well, what if I came with you? I can help too.’ They could work side by side, almost like equals, and then afterwards …
She looked doubtful. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course.’ He set his face in an expression of confidence that faded to something uneasy. ‘Will I know what to do?’
She laughed. ‘Of course.’ Lucy imagined them working together, showing him off to her workmates. ‘You’ll be fine. It’ll be really useful to have another pair of hands.’
‘OK, then, let’s do it.’ He kissed her again.
‘Two minutes,’ she gasped, and pointed him in the direction of the staff offices.
Inside the low building, it felt crowded and humid. Sheet lightning illuminated the room at erratic intervals. Bob wrinkled his nose. Humans smelled stronger than he remembered.
Lucy was the last to arrive. She slipped her arm through Bob’s, took a deep breath and led him over to the group by the coffee machine, feeling unaccountably embarrassed when Luke introduced himself and offered his hand. Bob took hold of it, grasping it loosely at arm’s length without moving. To her mortification, he seemed to have forgotten how a handshake worked. Luke blinked, and withdrew carefully. He caught Lucy’s eye.
She looked away, blushing.
Well, well, well, thought Luke. What a strange one he is. If he were a dog, I’d give him a wide berth.
All the hay, straw and sawdust bedding had to be restacked on to piles of wooden pallets. Rain had already seeped through the corrugated iron roof and pooled on the floor. There were twelve volunteers in six teams of two. Lucy and Bob held hands, staking out their partnership, which left four others, including Luke, who paired up with the new girl from the ticket office.
Where on earth had Luke found her, Lucy wondered, checking out the girl’s vegan neo-hippy-eco-ethnic dress sense. Her black hair was cut short, with a single skinny plait down the back, and Lucy noticed that she treated Luke with easy familiarity, which was impressive. Even the staff who liked him kept a bit of a distance. Maybe she has lots of brothers, thought Lucy, trying to eavesdrop on the girl’s stream of babble.
‘I should be at home,’ Skype was saying, ‘like, revising? Which is, like, bullshit, obviously, when the world is, like, coming to an end?’
‘That’s not what you said last time. A few more weeks of bad weather, wasn’t it?’ Luke was all reproach.
‘A few weeks?’ She shrugged. ‘Or a few million years? Who knows?’
Luke again caught Lucy’s eye, this time with a little half-smile. Once more, the intimacy of the glance shook her.
‘C’mon, Luke, let’s go.’ Skype was tugging on his sleeve now. ‘Our team’s on, like, hay bales?’
He smiled, to himself this time, and followed her.
The bales were heavy and awkward to lift and it was exhausting work, but Bob and Lucy toiled stoically for the first half hour. To her surprise, Lucy discovered that she possessed more strength and stamina than her partner, for Bob began to flag well before tea break. Jollying him along with kisses and encouragement, Lucy found herself unaccountably irritated by the sound of Luke and Skype laughing as they worked. He seemed to enjoy having an adoring girl in tow. And what kind of stupid name was Skype, anyway?
At tea break, Lucy fetched two cups, returning to find Skype hunkered down on a bale talking to Bob. The combination made her flinch.
‘So, like, I didn’t have a job, and I went up to Luke and I was, like, OK, so why don’t you give me one? A job, I mean? And he did?’
Bob looked nonplussed.
Skype leaned in. ‘Don’t you think this is all just so UH-mazing? You know what I mean?’
Bob didn’t. He took a nervous step backwards.
‘Like the weather and all of us working together to, like, save the animals? I feel like Noah with the flood.’ Skype leapt to her feet and climbed nimbly to the top of the bales, suddenly raising her voice and punching the air for emphasis. ‘And God said, BEHOLD, I shall bring a flood of water upon the land, to destroy all flesh and EVERYTHING SHALL PERISH!’ She lowered her arms. ‘What a miserable old shit God must be.’
Eyes huge, Bob cast about desperately for Lucy, who had just arrived with the tea and a packet of biscuits.
Skype gave a little wave and scarpered back off to Luke.
‘What was that about?’ Lucy asked.
Bob stood unnaturally rigid.
‘Sorry I couldn’t save you.’ Lucy handed Bob his cup of tea. ‘Only another half hour, and then we’ll go.’ She’d had enough, more than enough. The sexy feeling of working beside Bob had worn off, leaving her tired and depressed. The rain had stopped briefly, but a rumbling thunderstorm seemed to be building again from some distance away. Through the high windows, lightning continued to flash.
‘It’s really tragic, all this peculiar weather,’ Lucy said as they left the zoo together. She stopped to stare at a ruined pushchair, overturned in a puddle. ‘So many lives messed up.’ They walked in silence for a moment. ‘I heard on the news that the death toll is in the thousands.’
Bob shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. ‘It’s not my fault,’ he muttered.
Lucy laughed a little quizzically and took his arm. ‘Of course it’s not.’
But Bob fidgeted, disgruntled and obscurely guilty, and she had to push the hair out of his eyes, make faces at him, tangle her feet in his, and nearly trip him up in the knee-deep water. What happened to the other Bob? she wondered. The one who can’t keep his hands off me?
‘Let’s go home,’ Lucy whispered in his ear, nuzzling his neck, and at last he broke off from his conundrums and complexities of thought. She drew her jacket tight, wishing Bob would put his arms round her. He was in his shirtsleeves. ‘Aren’t you cold?’
But he wasn’t. ‘I don’t feel the cold,’ he said, which was perfectly true.
They walked and walked. Great forks of lightning flashed on all sides; thunder crashed overhead. But the sky was clear, and no rain fell.
Bob seemed out of sorts and finally Lucy could take no more. She hauled him into a doorway and kissed him passionately, and at last he seemed to notice her. They kissed again; Bob wound her hair round his fingers and stroked her face. ‘That’s better,’ she murmured, her head pressed into the crease of his neck.
At her house, she fumbled with the door, and then they were inside, still kissing. Taking her face in his hands, he lifted the hair off her neck and dipped his head to kiss the exposed skin of her shoulder. Her skin tasted tangy and sweet. He took her arms and wrapped them round his waist, holding them there, nuzzling deep into the softness below her jawbone, kissing her ear, her eyelid, the corner of her mouth. She felt herself being drawn deeper and deeper into a dark place, spinning beyond time.
Another crash. Panic rose suddenly in Lucy, displacing passion. What? she thought wildly. What’s happening? Wrenching free, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped, startled. The girl staring back
at her had hair that hung loose in tangled pale ropes, burning cheeks, huge dilated pupils, bruised lips. She was wild with wanting, wild with fear, beyond control. Is that me? she wondered. Is that me?
Flash! Crash!
Panting, she turned to Bob and stared in wonder at the light flowing round his outline – dripping from his fingertips, his eyes, as if he were too full of light to contain it.
Lucy shivered and hugged herself. Who is he?
Blinking with confusion, she retreated to the kitchen. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Tea?’ The light around him flickered and died. Bob stared.
‘I have chamomile and builder’s.’ She tried to smile from behind the breakfast bar, but it was misery she felt. Misery, confusion and fear.
‘No.’ He ducked round the edge of the worktop to her and, frowning slightly, put his hands on her shoulders.
She spun away. ‘I’ll just put the kettle on. If you don’t mind.’
He looked on with a pained expression as she filled the kettle, checked her answerphone, stacked the mail neatly in a wooden box beside the toaster. He wanted to scream when she pulled out a sponge and began scrubbing at a spot of jam on the laminate worktop. And then she stopped.
‘Bob,’ she said carefully, not daring to look at him, ‘I think you’d better go.’
He came to her once more and pulled her close, earnest with need, but she slipped out of his arms. ‘Please. If we start again, I won’t be able to stop. I need …’ What did she need? Someone who wasn’t Bob? ‘I need … more time. A lot more time.’
‘Well, bravo for her, I say.’
‘A bit unnatural, though, don’t you think, darling?’ Mona frowned. Then brightened. ‘Still, it’s helpful.’ She consulted her list, which had begun to look battered. She hadn’t yet succeeded in making Bob a better God … or fixing the weather … and as for Lucy …
Mona sighed, and disappeared.
Mr B fervently hoped Bob’s courtship of Lucy would be successful. It seemed the only way to adjust the world’s meteorological problems without entering Bob’s Wonderful World of Sexual Dismay too quickly. The hour of hazy sunshine this afternoon had encouraged him. A few much-needed rainclouds had even materialized over central Africa. But the thunder was disturbing.