“Excuse me,” Danny asked, “but aren’t we going the wrong way?” The pilot leaned back and grinned reassuringly. Obviously he couldn’t her a word, what with the roar of the engines and the earphones he was wearing. But he was going the wrong way.
“You see,” Danny shouted, “we’re going inland, and we should be going out to sea.”
The pilot removed on earphone. “You what?” he shouted.
“Inland!” Danny shouted. The pilot nodded.
“Yes!” he shouted back.
“No!” Danny replied. “Wrong way. Should be going out to sea.”
The pilot shook his head firmly. “No,” he replied. “Inland. Much better. Right way.”
All right, Danny muttered under his breath, even if you’re hell-bent on going the wrong way there’s no need to talk like a Red Indian. He shook his own head equally firmly and shrieked back, “No.
He pointed at the English Channel but the pilot didn’t even bother to look. He had put his earphone back on and was busily flying the helicopter. Danny tapped him on the shoulder.
“What is it?” shouted the pilot, irritably, like a man who can take a joke if necessary but who’d really rather not have to prove it every five minutes. “You’ll have to speak up,” he added.
“We are going the wrong way,” Danny yelled slowly—it’s not easy yelling slowly, but Danny managed it somehow—“we should be going out to sea.”
Equally slowly, the pilot yelled back, “No we shouldn’t. Please sit down and stop talking.”
Then he leaned forward and switched on the wireless set; full volume, so that it would be audible above the ear-splitting noise.
“The Financial Times One Hundred Share index,” said the wireless, “closed at nine hundred and seventy-six point eight; that’s a slight fall of two points on yesterday’s close. Government stocks were also down on the day, following a late flurry of activity shortly before the close of trading. The Dow Jones…”
The pilot grunted happily, switched off the wireless and leaned back. For the first time, Danny noticed that he was wearing rather a natty lightweight grey suit and a shirt with a button-down collar under his flying jacket. “Now,” he said, “what were you saying?”
“Nothing,” Danny replied, “nothing at all.” He sat down, looked out of the window and tried to remember the little geography he had learned at school.
♦
Leigh Delamere service station is unquestionably the Xanadu of the M4. Bring us, it seems to say, your weary and oppressed, your travel-sick children, your knackered and your bored stiff, and we will make them a strong cup of tea and a plate of scrambled eggs. If only it had a cinema and some rudimentary form of democratic government, no-one with any sense would ever want to leave.
As she felt the vigour of the tea flowing through her bloodstream like fire, Jane began to take stock of her situation. It was all very well saying “I will arise and go now and deliver Vanderdecker’s message to Professor Montalban,” but there were imponderables. He might not be in. He might not wish to see her. She might not be able to find High Norton, let alone Greathead Manor. There might be danger, or at least profound embarrassment. In other words, she summed up, why am I doing this?
Good question, Jane girl, very good question indeed. As usual when faced with a thorny problem, Jane wondered what her mother would say. That was relatively easy to extrapolate; are you sure you’re eating properly, Jane dear? Jane finished the last mouthful of her jam doughnut, and her conscience was clear. Yes.
Unfortunately, that left the original good question largely unanswered. Why are you doing this, Jane dear, and is it really terribly sensible? What are your employers going to say? Do you still have employers? What will become of you, you reckless, feckless child?
I used to be a bored accountant, she said, until I discovered Bridport. Then I got caught up in the destiny of mankind, and I became a sort of knight-errant for the Sock. Quite by chance. I tracked down the wholly improbable person I was sent to find, and I offered him the deal I was sent to offer him. He turned it down. I should now report back to my superiors and get back to doing some accounts. Except that my superiors have turned out to be rather spooky people, and I’ve got myself into such a mess now that it doesn’t seem terribly prudent to go back. Don’t ask me how this happened; it was none of my doing, and I suspect that I’m not cut out for this sort of thing, but it wouldn’t do to think too closely about it for fear of suddenly going completely mad. Besides, I don’t really want to be an accountant any more.
I am therefore going to a place called High Norton to see a very old alchemist and give him a rude message. What then? If I do all right, and whatever Captain Vanderdecker has up his sleeve works out, what then? When I suddenly decided to be on Vanderdecker’s team, what was going on inside my silly little head?
