Valhalla, p.9
Valhalla, page 9
‘Sorry.’
Immediately the laughter stopped. ‘I’m your god, you see,’ Willard explained. ‘I can make you do most anything, it’s just other people I have a problem with. Other people, and things.’
‘Great,’ Kortright said bitterly. ‘And just how’s that going to help me rescue Carol?’
‘It won’t,’ Willard said apologetically. ‘Won’t do you any good at all. Excuse me saying this, but I really don’t know where you get this idea from that I’m here to help you.’
Kortright nearly hit a water hydrant. ‘Are you saying you aren’t?’
Willard shook his head. ‘’Fraid not,’ he replied. ‘And that’s a real shame because, basically, your Carol’s a good kid; she might have made something of her life if she’d had the chance.’
‘You aren’t here to help,’ Kortright said, bemused. ‘So what are you here for, then?’
Willard shrugged his thin, narrow shoulders. ‘Beats me,’ he said. ‘You’re the one who summoned me, remember. I took it for granted you had a reason.’
‘Well, are you capable of helping me? At all?’
‘I’m pretty good at filing,’ Willard said hopefully. ‘Show me a big pile of papers and a filing cabinet and I’ll show you some pretty neat god stuff. Divided into subject groups, alphabetical and date order within each group; I could make your office routines up to ten per cent more efficient. Wouldn’t that be a real help?’
‘No,’ Kortright answered sourly. ‘I got a really good system as it is. I just wait till the letters on the bottom of the pile have been there long enough to turn into coal, then sell the open-cast mining rights and take a week’s vacation.’
‘Shrewd stuff,’ Willard said in admiration. ‘You must be awfully clever to think up something like that.’
Kortright glanced down at the clock on the dashboard and swore. ‘This lousy traffic,’ he said. ‘I missed the damn plane already. Jeez, I got enough to worry about as it is. That’s my trouble, I spread myself too thin. They say to me, delegate, Lin, delegate; but this is a kinda personal-service, one-to-one business. What I really need is fifty more of me.’
Willard cleared his throat. ‘I’ll make a note of that,’ he said. ‘And maybe there’s other ways I can help, too.’
‘You think so?’ Kortright said, looking up hopefully.
‘Would you like me to try?’
Kortright nodded; and at that precise moment, his phone buzzed. ‘Kortright here. Yeah, just on my—Oh. But just a . . . Well, if you feel that way I guess there’s no more to be said. Yeah, and you too, asshole.’ He snapped the phone shut. ‘Can you believe it?’ he cried furiously. ‘That was that creep Knaussgarten in DC.’
‘The guy you’re on your way to see?’
‘Yeah,’ Kortright said. ‘He calls me and says, have I left yet? So I say no, and he says, that’s cool, he can save me a trip, because the deal’s off. No reason, just the deal’s off. How d’you like that?’
Willard nodded. ‘You see?’ he said. ‘I knew I’d be able to help.’
Kortright looked at him apprehensively. ‘What have you done?’ he demanded.
‘Well, you were worried about being late for your meeting,’ Willard explained. ‘I figured that if you didn’t have a meeting to go to, it’d save you a lot of harmful stress and worry. Now you can take the rest of the day off, maybe go and play golf or something.’
There was a long silence, as Kortright pulled over and stopped the engine. ‘You know how long I’ve been setting up this deal?’ he said. ‘Only five years. Five fucking years of my life, down the tubes because you figure I could use a day off. Tell me something, are you the kind of god it’s okay to crucify? ’
Willard blinked at him. ‘But surely,’ he said, ‘you can’t afford the time for that kind of thing right now. Shouldn’t you be concentrating on working out a plan for getting your daughter back? Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but maybe you should kind of, you know, take a step back from your life and prioritise. Just a thought,’ he added quietly. ‘My two cents’ worth, and all.’
Kortright turned the car through a hundred and eighty degrees, right under the wheels of an oncoming truck. But the truck driver managed to scream to a halt just in time, so that was all right. ‘Your two cents’ worth,’ Kortright repeated. ‘You just cost me five and a half million dollars.’
‘Money isn’t everything, though,’ Willard said cheerfully. ‘There’s more to your work than just making money, surely.’
‘You bet. Like in this deal, I was this close to placing this really talented, promising river goddess with a major delta, and it’d have been really cool, because so far she hasn’t got the breaks because she’s a Vietnamese disabled single parent.’ He sighed. ‘And now I guess she’ll have to go back to irrigating rice paddies. Life sucks, you know?’
‘I expect she’ll forgive you,’ Willard said reassuringly. ‘It’s what gods do best.’
‘Really?’ Kortright shrugged. ‘Is that so? In my experience, which is only the result of I don’t know how many thousand years of working closely with gods every day of my life so why should I know anything about it, what gods do best is tracking down guys who’ve offended them in some way and then dropping a skyful of white-hot, nail-studded horseshit on them from somewhere up above the ozone layer. I dunno, maybe we hang out with different types of gods.’
Willard shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘What you just described sounds to me like an integral part of the forgiveness process.’ He smiled; suddenly, unexpectedly, savagely. ‘That’s the part we gods call getting even first.’
‘This,’ gibbered a distraught Viking, pointing a trembling finger. ‘This! Is what, sake of God?’
Carol followed his line of sight. ‘You mean on the table there?’
‘Ja, ja. Loudly to be out crying, is damn well what?’
Carol smirked. ‘It’s a bunch of flowers. It looks nice. It makes the place look cheerful.’
The Viking whimpered, and made the sign of Thor’s hammer across his forehead. ‘If seeing that, our foes are thinking what? That we a consignment of—of elves?’
‘Nice try,’ Carol said, ‘but I think you meant “fairies”. And no, they won’t. And if they do, who cares? They’re nothing but a bunch of macho muscleheads anyhow.’
Little red spots of rage burned in the Viking’s eyes. ‘Our foes to insult, how dare you?’ he stuttered. ‘Sacred their honour is, for you not to be impugning. Headstrong wench, for shame!’ He looked like he had a lot more to say; but then he caught sight of something else and squeaked in horror. ‘The table! The table! Haunted!’
‘Haunted?’
‘Haunted! Draugr es i hus! Its face, there in the table to be seeing!’ He snatched a short-handled axe from his belt and raised it over his head, ready to strike.
Carol looked at the table. ‘You idiot,’ she said. ‘That’s your reflection. I cleaned all that crap off the table and polished it, and now you can see your reflection in it.’
Slowly he lowered the axe. ‘Clean?’
‘Yeah,’ Carol said with a sigh. ‘As in, centuries of grease and sticky dried ale and dust and dirt and shit scraped off. Took me hours. Calling this place a pigsty is demeaning to pigs.’
‘Fool wench,’ the Viking sobbed. ‘Is not dirt, is patina! Is to nourish and preserve of the wood the vital natural oils! Ruined it is, ruined!’
‘Bull. It was filthy. And talk about unhygienic.’
The Viking shook his head. ‘Here is of hygiene no need,’ he explained, tears welling up in his eyes. ‘To catch disease, to fall ill, to die, is so what? Tomorrow is to be reborn. But of genuine antique bench the thousand-year-old patina, if gone, is forever.’
‘Tough,’ Carol said, folding her arms. ‘Jesus, you people! And put that axe away before you do somebody an injury. No, wait, I got a better idea. Right, go to the kitchen—’
‘Kitchen? Is where?’
Carol furrowed her brows. ‘Say,’ she said, ‘how long you been here anyway?’
‘Me to search.’ The Viking shrugged. ‘A thousand year? Two?’
‘A thousand years, maybe two. And still you don’t know where the kitchen is? Per-lease!’
‘Not to be knowing!’ the Viking protested. ‘Is for warriors not the kitchen, for only wenches. There of a wench the place is. Of a warrior—oww!’ He looked at her, bewildered. ‘To be hitting me with wooden dish, why?’
‘Go in the kitchen,’ Carol repeated icily. ‘Take your goddamn axe with you. On the table you’ll find a chopping block and a big pile of onions.’
‘Fie! Fie! To be cooking? Is of wenches the—see, see, I go. The wooden dish, kindly to be lowering.’
‘Out! Shoo!’
The Viking retreated, walking backwards. ‘A warrior to be striking of good wenches the way is not. Not is fair, since back honourably warriors to be striking cannot. About you Odin to be telling!’
‘Go ahead, tell Odin,’ Carol replied with a shrug. ‘See if I care.’
‘Eeek!’ The Viking gave her one last incredulous stare, then bolted through the doorway. A little later, Carol heard the sound of an axehead being buried inches deep in an elm chopping block, accompanied by blood-curdling yells of Sla, sla! Odin! She smiled contentedly, then looked around for some other, equally aggravating things to do.
She looked up at the raised dais at the end of the hall, on which stood the high table and the great carved throne of the Lord of the Ravens. It was largely made out of bones: four substantial femurs for the legs, two tibias for the arms, a split ribcage for the back and so forth; the seat was rather cleverly made up of three thigh bones cut down and dovetailed together, bringing into Carol’s mind a charming image of a little old man in a brown apron with thick spectacles and a pencil tucked behind his ear, painstakingly filing, sanding and fitting, then dabbing a little French polish on to a soft cloth, while his mug of coffee went cold - quite probably the coffee mug had GRANDPA written on it, but her mind’s eye couldn’t quite manage that degree of resolution. Anyhow; she saw what she had to do, and the thought brought a big, wicked grin to her face.
It took a long time - there was a lot of work involved, and Carol hadn’t actually done anything like this since she was a little girl, and she’d hated it back then and hadn’t paid proper attention; but time didn’t work the same way here, probably for the same reason that New York subway passes aren’t valid on the Orient Express. In any event, she found the materials (amazing, the stuff that was hidden away in the huge chests and trunks tucked under the tables), set to work and, before she knew it, the job was done. She put it in place and stood back to admire her handiwork; at which point, another Viking strolled in from the battlefield, carrying his left hand in his right. He walked straight past her, stopped, and did a double take.
‘Is different, something,’ he said.
Carol nodded. ‘You bet,’ she said.
The Viking looked round carefully. ‘Definitely is different something. Is worse different.’
‘Matter of opinion. I think it’s cute.’
The Viking looked round a second time; then a third; then he saw it.
‘Aagh!’ he said. ‘Is doing this who?’
‘Me,’ Carol replied. ‘With my little hatchet. You like it?’
The Viking shivered and let his left hand drop to the floor with a thunk. ‘I hope you’re going to pick that up,’ Carol said sternly. ‘Where’s the point of me working myself half to death getting this joint tidy if you guys are just gonna come in here and leave bits of yourselves scattered all over the floor?’ The Viking wasn’t listening. He was staring, as if he was Macbeth and not only was Banquo’s ghost sitting in Macbeth’s favourite chair but also filling his spectral pockets with Macbeth’s best Havana cigars.
‘Is horrible,’ he muttered. ‘Is what?’
‘We call ’em loose covers,’ Carol replied. ‘Hey, get a load of that embroidery, will you?’
The Viking looked more closely and made a small, mournful queeping noise. ‘Is animals,’ he said.
‘You bet. Puppies and lambs and kittens and little cuddly fawns - did you ever see Bambi? No, guess not. Anyhow, it’s a good likeness, and all done from memory.’
‘Animals!’
‘Dear little fuzzy animals,’ Carol amended. ‘Unfortunately I ran out of pink, so some of the dear little baby bunnies had to be white instead; but I think they work okay. What do you think?’
‘Blasphemy,’ the Viking groaned. ‘On of Skyfather the throne, to be embroidering white rabbits. The thigh bones you scarcely can be seeing.’
‘You don’t think he’ll be pleased, then?’
The Viking spun round and gave her a look that would have curdled mercury. ‘Pleased is unlikely. Angry is likely. Angry to be trampling mountains and of the Earth the crust with his spear to be piercing entirely is possible.’
‘Great,’ Carol said. ‘Way to go. Wait till you see the matching table-napkins.’
The Viking went an alarming shade of green and started backing away from the chair. He backed so far, he fell off the dais. If he noticed, it was only on a subconscious level.
‘On of Skyfather the throne!’ he repeated. ‘Is it for trouble you are asking?’
‘Yes.’
‘Madness! Madness! Of this shall Odin be hearing!’ The Viking scrambled to his feet, grabbed his severed hand, tucked it hastily down the front of his mail shirt and groped his way to the door, knocking over a bench in the process. ‘Pink!’ he whispered, in a tone of voice that reminded Carol of the dying Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.
‘Tell him it was Carol Kortright; that’s Kortright with a K, and Carol is C-A-R-O-L. I hate it when people get my name wrong.’
When he’d gone, Carol set about finding her next project. All this stereotypical female domesticity grated on her at the quantum level, and the ease with which she’d part remembered, part assimilated needlework and embroidery alarmed her. She forced herself to think of her own apartment - it was hard, the mental picture was already fading to sepia, drifting into unreality and legend - and made herself conduct a virtual tour of inspection: the sink, full of unwashed mugs and plates, the kitchen floor, which crunched when you walked on it, the unhoovered carpet, the undusted surfaces, the single unplumped cushion that had been there when she arrived, the matter/antimatter clash of the dark green curtains with the duck-egg blue walls - no hint of domesticity there, no pandering to the ancient lie. The woman who had single-handedly built that monument to Not Giving A Damn—
—had a pretty similar outlook to these poor Vikings whose brains she was so mercilessly jangling. Dammit, polishing tables and making loose covers were the kind of things her mother would do. Query, she thought: is it really worth saving your life if it costs you your soul? It was, of course, the age-old dilemma of the soldier, the guerrilla, the freedom fighter: in order to win, you must lose the very thing you’re fighting for. If she cleaned and polished and tidied and decorated her way out of Valhalla, what sort of person would she have become if she ever really did get back home? Maybe - it was a scary thought, but she had to deal with it before it went septic and slowly poisoned everything - maybe she really did belong here, among the period equivalent of empty styrofoam pizza boxes and a floor covered with screwed-up balls of paper that had been shied at the bin but missed. There was a certain degree of logic to it; after all, if she’d been happy enough selling herself short in life, working as a waitress in a crummy bar when she could have been doing something worthwhile, then why shouldn’t she be equally content doing the same thing in death?
‘Oh yes.’ The voice snapped her out of it. ‘Oh, that’s a definite improvement.’ Odin was running his hand across the newly polished tabletop. ‘Just make sure you keep it that way, now you’ve got it looking so nice. Of course, that would mean spending Eternity on your hands and knees with a scrubbing-brush and a duster, doing menial chores like some dumb hausfrau; still, if that’s what you really want, you got it. It’d be in character.’
‘Shut up,’ she snapped.
‘Oh, and this is sensational,’ Odin went on, looking down at the embroidered covers on his throne. ‘You really did all this yourself? Quite the little nest-builder.’
Carol scowled at him. ‘You were the one who said it was my best chance of getting out of this lousy joint,’ she said.
‘Your interpretation,’ Odin replied, with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘I may have inadvertently dropped something that might be construed as a hint, but what you do with it’s your own affair. Just because you’ve got the wrong end of the stick doesn’t entitle you to go bashing me with it.’ He traced the outline of a particularly cuddly embroidered puppy with the tip of his index finger. ‘You’re going to have to tell me how you did this exquisite Florentine cross-stitch,’ he went on. ‘Whenever I try, it never seems to come out right.’
‘Just a damn minute,’ Carol interrupted. ‘You do embroidery? ’
Odin nodded, and the great bronze wings on his helmet cast sprawling shadows across the floor. ‘And why not?’ he said. ‘You see, I believe in making the most of my own potential, even if it leads me in unexpected directions. Tsk,’ he added, prodding at the table top. ‘You missed a bit.’
Howard had a dream. He dreamed that he’d died and gone to Heaven.
In this dream, he was sitting on a slightly rickety swivel chair in front of a desk, on top of which sat a VDU and a telephone. He wasn’t alone; the huge room he was sitting in was full of similar desks, computers and telephones, all being operated by remarkably similar people. Like him, the men were dressed in white C&A shirts, cheerful polyester ties and Marks & Spencer suits; the women showed a degree more variety, preferring variations on the standard modes offered by Primark and Richards. What they weren’t wearing, not a single one of them, was battledress, DPM camouflage or Kevlar body armour.
I was right, Howard said to himself. This is Heaven.
Nor were they trying to kill each other, not even a little bit. Instead, they spoke into the telephones and pressed keys on the keyboards in front of them, often at the same time. He strained his ears to overhear what they were saying, but the words were indistinct; all he could pick up were tantalising fragments, words and phrases like lunch and Saturday and So I said, and a strange, intoxicating subvocal noise that at first he didn’t recognise, until with a sharp pang of loss and regret he realised it was laughter.
