The Paradise War

Chapter 6 The Big Joke

I must have waited a good ten minutes-it seemed like as many hours-before I worked up nerve enough to go after Simon. I waited and listened, and every thirty seconds or so I'd call his name. I sat with my head near the hole, but I didn't hear a sound.

Tentatively, I pushed through the brush and stuck my head into the cairn. Pitch dark, as I expected. I could see nothing. Thinking that perhaps my eyes would get used to the darkness, I lay down and wriggled, kicking myself through the opening as I had seen Simon do.

As Simon bad indicated, the place was dry, and, to my surprise, a good deal warmer than the air outside. It smelled of must and mildew, like a cave. I sat hunched near the entrance and waited for my eyes to adjust. Even when they did, I could not see my hand in front of my face.

Still, I did not need to see to know that Simon was no longer there.

«Simon?» I called. My voice filled the stone beehive of the cairn. «Very funny, Simon! You can come out now. Simon?»

No answer.

I shouted louder. «I know you can hear me, Simon. Come out from wherever you are and let's go, okay? Come on, now. A joke's a joke, all right? Let's go.»

I heard nothing but the hollow ring of my own voice pinging off the stone walls.

My first impulse was to leave. But, on the off chance that he'd stumbled and hit his head on a rock, I crawled around the interior of the cairn to make sure he wasn't lying unconscious in the dirt. Starting at the entrance hole, through which a paltry light shone, I made a quick circuit, keeping my right hand on the wall. Then, just to make doubly certain I hadn't missed anything, I went back around the way I had come, and finished by crossing back and forth through the center of the cairn a few times on hands and knees.

On my last shuffle across the center, I did fmd something. I struck it with my knee and felt it spin against my hand. I picked it up: Simon's torch. I switched it on and swept the interior of the cairn with the small spot of light. Every inch.

There was no unconscious Simon, no crack in the ground he could have fallen through, no hidden passage through which he could have escaped to the outside. He was simply not there.

I collapsed against the rough stone side of the cairn. «Simon, you bastard, don't do this to me!» I cursed him and pounded my right hand impotently against the dry earth. «Don't you do this to me. Don't you dare do this to me!»

Anger, quick and sharp, seared me. «I'm leaving, Simon!» I yelled. «You hear me? I'm leaving! You can rot here, for all I care!»

With that I struggled back through the narrow passageway and into the outside world. Simon's jacket lay where he had left it. And his hat. I picked them up and stomped up to the car.

I unlocked the car door, threw the jacket and cap in the back, and slid in behind the wheel. I jammed the key in the ignition, fully intending to drive off. But I hesitated.

Damn! I couldn't just leave him there. I gazed out over the field towards the hidden glen, expecting to see Simon skipping back to me, shaking with laughter at his brilliant prank. I could almost hear him: «Really had you going there, Lewis! Ha! Ha! Ha!»

I pulled the key out and swivelled sideways in the driver's seat with the door open. I settled back to wait.

I woke at half-past two to find the late October sun diving low towards the hills. The wind had picked up, tossing the bare branches of the nearby trees. Simon had not showed up while I slept, and my patience had long since run out. «This nuts,» I muttered to myself. «Tough luck, Simon. I'm outta here.»

But, like a good Boy Scout, I decided to check one last tune to see if I could find any sign of Simon. Pulling on his jacket, I started down to the glen. Halfway across the field, I saw him-the man with the dogs.

Where he'd come from, I don't know; he seemed to rise up out of the ground. All at once, there he was, with his three gaunt white hounds straining on their leashes. The dogs saw me the same instant I saw them, and started barking wildly. My first impulse was to run back to the car and drive away But I stood my ground.

The man stopped a few yards ahead of me. He wore a dark coat and carried a long stick in one hand. In his other he held the leashes of the dogs. And what dogs! Easily the strangest-looking hounds I have ever seen: white, head to tail, but with bright-red ears. They were huge, rawboned beasts, thick through the chest, but long-legged and lean in the hindquarters. The animals appeared to be pulling the man along, and he restraining them, the leads taut in his hand.

«Hello there,» I called to him, bluffing friendliness.

He did not reply. I took a few steps closer. «I'm waiting for my friend,» I explained. The dogs went berserk. In the fading daylight, they seemed to glow, their pale white coats and blood-red ears shimmering in the twilight. Their long snouts flashed sharp teeth as they reared and jerked to get at me. Again I felt like high-tailing it back to the car, locking the doors, and driving away very fast. But I fought down the impulse.

The man watched me impassively, his face all creased and wrinkled like a monkey's, his eyes glittering hard and bright. He did not speak, but with the unholy racket the dogs were making I would not have heard him anyway.

We might have stood there all night long, if I had not made up my mind that, dogs or no dogs, I had to check the cairn one last time. Raising my hand in wary entreaty, I stepped hesitantly forward, «Look,» I shouted, «I'm just going to the cairn down there-« I pointed past him towards the glen and then turned towards the car, «and then I'm going to get in the car and leave-«

When I turned back, the man was stumping away across the field. I did not wait for an explanation, but legged it down the hill. The glen was almost as dark as the inside of the cairn, but once down I had no difficulty fmding the entrance hole in the side. I stuck my head in and hollered a few times and flicked the flashlight around inside. No answer. No sound. Nothing.

«All right, Simon, have it your way,» I hollered, my voice falling dead at my feet. «This time you've gone too far. You've got no one to blame but yourselfi You hear me, Simon? I'm leaving you here!»

I dug his wallet-bulging with cash, credit cards, various forms of identification-from the inner breast pocket of the jacket and pulled out a Barclaycard. I shoved the plastic credit card in a crack between two stones at the entrance to the cairn, where he would be sure to find it. «There you go,» I shouted, my voice loud in the silent glen. «You're a smart guy, Simon. Find your own way home!»

I turned my back on the cairn, climbed from the glen and returned immediately to the car. Halfway across the field, I saw a man in a long yellow coat hurrying along the road. At first, I thought of running to meet him and telling him what had happened. If he lived in the area, he would know about the cairn. Anyway, it seemed I should tell somebody.

And, as I got closer, the man slowed as if to meet me at the car, so we could speak. When I got within shouting distance, I even lifted a hand and called to him. But, at the sound of my voice, the man quickened his pace and hurried on. I reached the car just before he disappeared around a bend in the road, few dozen paces further on.

I shouted again. I know the man heard me, because he turned. Even in the twilight, I could make out his face-if face it was. His features were large, exaggerated, mask-like, With a long, hooked nose, a wide mouth, and absolutely enormous ears sticking out from under an uncombed mat of wild black hair. His eyes were wide and bulging, beneath the single dark arch of a furry brow.

I beheld this singular visage, and all desire to speak to the man fled. My throat seized up and the call froze on my tongue.

He glanced once over his shoulder, then turned away again. Upon reaching the bend, the man disappeared. I do not mean that the bend of the road took him from sight. Strange as it is to tell, he actually seemed to vanish.

I say this because the man's clothing glimmered as he passed from sight. Now it might have been a trick of the fading light. But I swear his coat shimmered, giving off a distinct flash as he departed. That, more than the sight of the man's hideous face, rooted me to the spot. I stood gaping after him, and the sound of the wind rising in the trees gave me such a chill I jumped into the car and drove away.

On the drive back to Oxford, I had a good long time to think things through and convince myself a dozen different ways that Simon deserved getting left behind for his idiot practical joke. I don't know how he managed it, but I knew Simon. If anyone could pull off a stunt like that, he could. Who else would have the talent and the resources to waste on such foolishness? He'd probably been months painstakingly setting up the whole thing behind my back. And it had surely cost him a bundle.

Well, funny joke, Simon. But I've got your car and your wallet, and you're freezing your beezer off in the gloaming. Who's laughing now?

I arrived in Oxford at six o'clock the following morning, red-eyed, exhausted, and quivering with fear lest anyone discover me driving Simon's car and raise the alarm. No one did. The garage where he kept the Jaguar was deserted; there was no one else around. Nevertheless, I retained his jacket and kept his hat pulled over my face as I parked the car and tugged the doors shut. Then I hurried through the gate and across the quad to our staircase.

The sight of Simon Rawnson skulking into college in the wee smalls was such a familiar pantomime, I reckoned, that even if I was seen, it would not raise alarm or comment-not that I cared one way or the other.

Exhausted, I flopped into bed without bothering to undress. I closed my eyes and fell asleep instantly, and would ave stayed asleep the rest of the day if not for the telephone.

The first time it rang, I ignored it. But it rang again a few minutes later and I knew that whoever was on the other end would keep on ringing until someone answered. Blear-eyed and foul tempered, I raised myself up, shuffled to the living room, and picked up the receiver.

«Hullo?»

«Susannah here,» chirped the voice down the wire. «Is that Lewis?»

«Oh, hello, Susannah. How's it going?»

«Fine, thank you. I'd like to speak to Simon.»

«Simon? Uh, he's not here at the moment.»

«Where is he?»

«Well, he's in Scotland, actually.»

«Really?»

«Yeah, thing is, we went up there and he decided to stay, sort of.»

I could hear the sprockets spinning in her head. «He decided to stay in Scotland,» she repeated, her voice oozing disbelief.

«That's right,» I insisted. «We went up Friday morning, you know-«

«I know he broke a lunch date with me,» she said tartly.

«It was the trip, see? We drove up there and, well, he just decided to stay on a few days.» I tried to make it sound like a spur-of-the-moment inspiration on Simon's part.

Susannah, of course, was not buying any of it. «Put Simon on this instant,» she ordered. «Wake up the lazy lizard and put him on, I must talk to him.»

«I would, Susannah, but I can't. He's really not here.»

«Whit's going on, Lewis?» Her tone was glacial.

«What?»

«You heard me. What's going on over there? What sneaky little game are you two playing?»

«Nothing's going on, Susannah. I'd let Simon tell you himself, but he just isn't here.»

«Let me get this straight,» she said. «You and Simon drove all the way to Scotland on Friday and he decided to stay-«

«Well, yeah, see-«

»-when he knew good and well that he had promised to go with me to early communion and then drive up to Milton Keynes for Sunday dinner with my parents?»

«Look, I know how this sounds, but it's the truth, Susannah. Really, I-«

Click! The line went dead.

I replaced the receiver and glanced at the clock. It was seven-thirty in the morning. I was beat. I disconnected the cord on the phone and stumbled back to bed.

It took longer to get to sleep this time. But just as I was snoozing soundly, I was awakened by a loud thumping on the door. «What have I done to deserve this?» I whined, dragging myself from my warm nest.

The door rattled again as I lurched towards it. «Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. Keep your shirt on.» I turned the key and opened the door. «Oh, Susannah, it's you. What a surprise.»

She burst into the room as if launched from a catapult. «You needn't bother pretending,» she stormed. I followed her to the door of Simon's room. She gave the room a quick once-over and whirled to confront me. «All right, where is he?»

«I already told you. He's not here.»

Susannah was a firebrand. A long-stemmed beauty with radiant auburn hair and a figure that could, and regularly did, stop traffic. Bright as needles and twice as sharp, she was two or three notches too good for Simon. Or anyone else, for that matter. I don't know why she put up with an unregenerate rogue like Simon, or what she possibly saw in him. Their relationship seemed to me one long ordeal by fire-a venture more on the order of a military exercise than two hearts beating as one.

«You'll have to ask Simon when he comes back,» I told her. «I really can't say.»

«Can't or won't?» She stared at me, her dark eyes bright with anger. She was either deciding to dismember me where I stood, or calculating how much my dressed carcass would bring on the open market. «Is this somebody's warped idea of a joke?»

«I think it may be,» I told her. And then I made the sad mistake of telling her about the aurochs in the newspaper, our hasty trip to Scotland, the cairn, and Simon's sudden disappearance. I tried to make it sound matter-of-fact, but succeeded only in making her more angry and suspicious with each word. «But I wouldn't worry,» I ended lamely, «I expect he'll be back soon enough.»

«When?» Susannah asked pointedly. Her usually exquisite features were scrunched up in an ugly scowl. I could see that she was only seconds away from pulling off my ears.

«Oh, he'll turn up in a day or two.»

«A day or two.» Extreme incredulity made her tone flat and husky.

«All right, a week or so-tops. But-«

«What you mean is, you don't really know when he'll turn up at all.»

«Not really,» I confessed. «But as soon as he realizes I'm not going to further this stupid practical joke of his, he's bound to come dragging home.»

«A practical joke? You expect me to believe that?» She regarded me with a wounded yet supremely defiant look. «Well, I have news for you, mister,» she said crisply. «I have had the brush-off before. But never like this. If Simon Rawnson does not wish to see me again, so be it. Why didn't he just say so-instead of sending his trained monkey along with some ludicrous story about going to Scotland to visit the Queen?»

«A cairn,» I corrected.

«Whatever!» She spun on her heel and started for the door.

«Wait, Susannah! You don't understand.»

«I understand perfectly!» she retorted. «Just you tell Simon that we are finished. I do not expect to see him again. And I am keeping the necklace!» She slammed the door so hard the walls shivered.

I hurried into the staircase after her. Susannah turned on me. She had reloaded both barrels and let fly. «And another thing! If I even so much as see Simon Rawnson in public again, I will cause the biggest stinking row he's ever seen. That man will wish he'd never been born. You tell him that, the creep!»

«Listen, Susannah,» I said, reaching a hand towards her arm. It was a clumsy move. I almost lost my fingers.

«Don't you dare touch me!» She slapped my hand away. «I'm going home and don't either of you ever try to call me.»

Feeling about as low as a garden slug, I watched her sail away, silk skirt streaming. Wrath had transformed her already considerable beauty into something magnificent and wild-a force of nature, like a hurricane or an electrical storm. Terrifying, but wonderful to behold.

I watched Susannah descend the stairs and then listened to the quick click of her heels on the flagstones as she crossed the quad and was gone. Then I turned and shuffled back to my room. I hated myself for deceiving her. But no, I hadn't deceived her, I had told her the truth. She had just assumed, for reasons of her own, that I was lying to her, and what could I do about that? Anyway, it was not my fault. It was all down to Simon-I had nothing to do with it.

Trained monkey, indeed!