Decay Inevitable

He’s still caught up in it, Vernon. In his eyes, when I called it a day, I could see him thinking I was a jammy sod. I could see him wishing for what I had done. He’s been at it a long time. Maybe that payment, those pebbles, maybe it was worth it for a while. But you get trapped, don’t you? If he stopped now, what would happen to him? All that time, that experience, all of it comes piling down on you, crushes you. It would kill him to give it up now. He knows that. He has to carry on. He has to keep giving, in order to receive. He’s the most generous man in the world, but he doesn’t have a say in the matter.

Kev said, “Vernon Lord was born in 1892.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: THE GRAND PANJANDRUM

WHEN IT BECAME apparent that Sadie wanted someone dead, there weren’t as many rushing for the exits as Will might have anticipated. Some volunteered. And if Will had realised what was lined up for him, he might well have done the same. There was plenty of genuflecting going on as she stepped down from the stage and walked among the punters, the utricle hanging off her side sloshing in time to the swing of her hips. The sad-looking, pickled thing within turned and turned, its ill-formed arms hugging itself. Will realised what it was in George and Alice that he had recognised. It was Sadie.

Brad Pitt was back on stage now, trying to calm everybody down. He minced around, patting down his oily hair and lifting his voice to compete with the hubbub as people threw themselves at locked doors or tried to break windows with chairs.

“This guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a double entendre. So the bartender gave him one. Now then! Hey?”

Nobody was listening. Will slipped over the bar and knelt among the beertaps and barsnacks. From his position he could look up at the splashback mirror that ran the length of the bar beneath the optics and watch as Sadie stalked among the audience, rating and discarding potential victims. It took a few seconds for him to realise that there was another man down here with him, cowering just a foot to his left.

“Hi,” Will said. The other regarded him as if he had just extracted a monkey from his ear.

“Do you know who this bitch is?” he asked.

“Yes,” Will said. “Her name is Sadie. I rescued her from a bunch of travellers a couple of weeks ago. She’s a real handful.”

Will was rewarded with a slow shaking of the head, from the moment he had begun to speak. The monkey had become a belly-dancing piglet wearing nipple-rings.

“That’s Sigourney Weaver,” the man hissed. “The piece of skirt that bosses this place.”

“The bar?”

“No. The entire place. Queen bitch.”

“Really? She’s just a spoilt brat, you know. More trouble than good.”

The man was looking in the mirror now, his eyes widening all the time. He reached up and loosened the knot in his tie. “Okay. Well if you know her so well, put her in her place.” With that, he launched himself away from the box of crisps he was hiding behind, vaulted the counter, and hurled himself through the window into the night. When Will returned his gaze to the mirror, Sadie was standing at the bar, regarding him coolly.

“Fix us both a drink, Will,” she said. “On the house.”

“ARE YOU GOING to sacrifice me?” he asked.

Sadie, halfway into a swallow, looked at him uncomprehendingly and burst into laughter, spraying some of her champagne on his shirt. “God no,” she said, when she had finally managed to compose herself. “My hero. My saviour. Why should I do that?”

“You were looking for sacrifices.”

“And I’ll have one,” she assured him. “But not you. Not Uncle Will. There’s better in store for you. A more noble role.”

“What happened to you and Elisabeth, when I left you?” he asked, steeling himself for some awful reportage of what the mountaineer had done to them after the crash.