Grahame Coats laughed then, like a weasel with a sharp bone stuck in its throat. “Absatively not. Quite the reverse. In fact I believe,” he said, “that we now understand each other perfectly. Your job is safe and sound. Safe as houses. As long as you remain the model of circumspection and discretion you have been so far.”
“How safe are houses?” asked Fat Charlie.
“Extremely safe.”
“It’s just that I read somewhere that most accidents occur in the home.”
“Then,” said Grahame Coats, “I think it vitally important that you are encouraged to return to your own house with all celerity.” He handed Fat Charlie a piece of rectangular paper. “Here,” he said. “A small thank-you for two years of devoted service to the Grahame Coats Agency.” Then, because it was what he always said when he gave people money, “Don’t spend it all at once.”
Fat Charlie looked at the piece of paper. It was a check. “Two thousand pounds. Gosh. I mean, I won’t.”
Grahame Coats smiled at Fat Charlie. If there was triumph in that smile, Fat Charlie was too puzzled, too shaken, too bemused to see it.
“Go well,” said Grahame Coats.
Fat Charlie went back to his office.
Grahame Coats leaned around the door, casually, like a mongoose leaning idly against a snake-den. “An idle question. If, while you are off enjoying yourself and relaxing—a course of action I cannot press upon you strongly enough—if, during this time, I should need to access your files, could you let me know your password?”
“I think your password should get you anywhere in the system,” said Fat Charlie.
“Without doubt it will,” agreed Grahame Coats, blithely. “But just in case. You know computers, after all.”
“It’s mermaid,” said Fat Charlie. “M-E-R-M-A-I-D.”
“Excellent,” said Grahame Coats. “Excellent.” He didn’t rub his hands together, but he might as well have done.
Fat Charlie walked down the stairs with a check for two thousand pounds in his pocket, wondering how he could have so misjudged Grahame Coats for the last two years.
He walked around the corner to his bank, and deposited the check into his account.
Then he walked down to the Embankment, to breathe, and to think.
He was two thousand pounds richer. His headache of this morning had completely gone. He was feeling solid and prosperous. He wondered if he could talk Rosie into coming on a short holiday with him. It was short notice, but still…
And then he saw Spider and Rosie, walking hand in hand on the other side of the road. Rosie was finishing an ice cream. Then she stopped and dropped the remainder of the ice cream into a bin and pulled Spider toward her and, with an ice-creamy mouth, began to kiss him with enthusiasm and gusto.
Fat Charlie could feel his headache coming back. He felt paralyzed.
He watched them kissing. He was of the opinion that sooner or later they would have to come up for air, but they didn’t, so he walked in the other direction, feeling miserable, until he reached the tube.
And he went home.
By the time he got home, Fat Charlie felt pretty wretched, so he got onto a bed that still smelled faintly of Daisy, and he closed his eyes.
Time passed, and now Fat Charlie was walking along a sandy beach with his father. They were barefoot. He was a kid again, and his father was ageless.
So, his father was saying, how are you and Spider getting on?
This is a dream, pointed out Fat Charlie, and I don’t want to talk about it.
You boys, said his father, shaking his head. Listen. I’m going to tell you something important.
What?
But his father did not answer. Something on the edge of the waves had caught his eye, and he reached down and picked it up. Five pointed legs flexed languidly.
Starfish, said his father, musing. When you cut one in half, they just grow into two new starfish.