Number 9 dream Page 0,112

were off gallivanting, I could have rustled something up—’

A man crashed through the impenetrable vegetation and sprawled at their feet. Mrs Comb squawked up the hard place in surprise, and Pithecanthropus bounded to position himself between Mrs Comb and the man. He seemed no threat, climbing to his feet, brushing the leaf mould off his tweed jacket with leather elbow pads, and readjusting his sticking-plaster-fixed horn-rimmed glasses. Nor did he register any surprise at meeting a highly sentient hen and a long-extinct ancestor of Homo sapiens in this primeval forest. ‘Have you seen them?’

Mrs Comb was mildly offended by his offhand manner. ‘Seen who?’

‘The word hounds.’

‘Not those brutish, slavering, talking dogs we saw out in the margins?’

‘That would be them.’ Afraid, he pressed a finger to his lips and looked at Pithecanthropus. ‘Hear anything?’ Beams of silence you could bang your head on. Pithecanthropus grunted a ‘No’. The writer slid out a long thorn from his crown. ‘Many years ago I wrote a successful novel. I never thought anyone would actually want to publish it, you see, but they did, it was snatched from me, and the more I wished every extant copy would explode like a puffball, the more copies the lamentable thing sold. Its errors, its posturing, its arrogance! Oh, I would sell my soul to pyre the entire run. But alas, Mephistopheles never returned my fax, and the words I unloosed have dogged me ever since.’

Mrs Comb resumed the audience from her tree-stump. ‘Why not retire?’

The writer rested against the rock. ‘If only it were that simple. I hid in schools of thought, in mixed metaphors, in airport lounges of unrecognized states, but sooner or later I hear a distant braying, and I know my words are hunting me down—’ His face changed from doleful weariness to suspicion. ‘But what, exactly, brings you this deep into the forest of moss?’

‘Our friend came gallivanting – have you seen him? Horns, a beard, hoofs?’

‘If he isn’t the Devil himself he must be a writer or a lunatic.’

‘A writer. How do you know?’

‘To be so deep in the forest he must be one of the three. Shhhhhhhhh!’ The writer’s eyes were wide with dread. ‘A baying! Don’t you hear that baying?’ Pithecanthropus grunted softly and shook his head. ‘Liars!’ hissed the writer. ‘Liars! You’re in league with the hounds! I know your game! They’re in the trees! They’re coming!’ And he tore off, crashing through the overgrowth. Mrs Comb and Pithecanthropus looked at one another. Pithecanthropus grunted. ‘Bonkers,’ agreed Mrs Comb, ‘as a balmy balaclava!’ Pithecanthropus examined the hole in the sheaves of leaves. He grunted. Beyond was a stream without sound.

‘Hurry, slowcoach!’ Mrs Comb fluttered from rock to rock, while Pithecanthropus waded against the tea-tinted current over the clattery dinner plates. So it was that Mrs Comb reached the sacred pool first. A second later she noticed Goatwriter’s respectable spectacles lying on the marble rock. Third, she saw the body of her best and dearest floating in the water. ‘Sir! Sir! Whatever’s to do!’ She flew forth across the pool without noticing the upwards waterfall or the glove of silence muffling. On her fifth flap she reached Goatwriter’s head. Pithecanthropus’s sixth sense told him that the sacred pool was death, and roared a warning – but no sound carried, and he could only watch in despair as his beloved slipped, dipped a tip of her wing and slapped lifeless into the water alongside Goatwriter. In seven bounds Pithecanthropus was atop the marble rock, where his body tore with eight howls of mute grief. He pounded the rock until his fists bled. And suddenly, our early ancestor was calm. He picked the sticky burrs from his hair, and climbed the rock face until the overhang browed. He counted to nine, which was as high as Goatwriter could teach him, and dived for the spot between the bodies of his friends. A beautiful dive, a perfect ten. No thought bothered his head as Pithecanthropus entered the sacred pool. Serenity was never a word he knew, but serenity was what he felt.

‘Good afternoon. Jupiter Café. Nagamimi here.’

Donkey. I think. ‘Uh, hello. Could I speak to Miss Imajo, please?’

‘Sorry, but she isn’t working today, see.’

‘Oh. Could you tell me when her next shift is, then, please?’

‘Sorry, but I can’t do that.’

‘Oh. For, uh, security reasons?’

Donkey hee-haws. ‘No, not that. Miss Imajo’s last shift was Sunday, see.’

‘Oh . . .’

‘She’s a music student, and her college term is starting again, so she had to