Then Tom was asleep and Doug soon followed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Bong!
Calvin C. Quartermain stirred in his sleep and slowly rose to an upright position.
Bong!
The great clock, striking midnight.
He felt himself, half–crippled, making it to the window and opening it wide to the sound of the great clock.
Bong!
‘It can’t be,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Not dead. Not dead. They fixed the damned thing. Call the others first thing in the morning. Maybe it’s over. Maybe it’s done. Anyway, the town’s running again the way it’s supposed to, and tomorrow I have to figure out what to do next.’
He reached up and found an odd thing on his mouth. A smile. He put his hand up to catch it, and, if possible, examine it.
Could be the weather, he thought. Could be the wind, it’s just right. Or maybe I had some sort of twisted dream – what was I dreaming? – and now that the clock is alive again … I’ve got to figure it out. The war is almost over. But how do I finish it? And how do I win?
Quartermain leaned out the window and gazed at the moon, a silver sliver in the midnight sky. The moon, the clock, his creaking bones. Quartermain recalled numberless nights spent looking out the window at the sleeping town, although in years past his back was not stooped, his joints not stiff; in years past, looking out this very window, he was young, fit as a fiddle, full of piss and vinegar, just like those boys …
Wait a minute! Whose birthday’s next? he wondered, trying to call up school record sheets in his mind. One of the monsters? What a chance that would be. I’ll kill them with kindness, change my spots, dress in a dog suit, hide the mean cat inside!
They won’t know what hit them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was such a day that all the doors stood open and all the window sashes had been up since dawn. No one could stay in, everyone was out, nobody would die, everyone would live forever. It was more spring than farewell summer, more Eden than Illinois. During the night a rain had come to quench the heat, and in the morning, with the clouds hastened off, each tree in all the yards gave off a separate and private rain if you shook it in passing.
Quartermain, out of bed and whirring through the house in hand–propelled trajectories, again found that odd thing, a smile, on his mouth.
He kicked the kitchen door wide and flung himself, eyes glittering, the smile pinned to his thin lips, into the presence of his servants and—
The cake.
‘Good morning, Mr Cal,’ said the cook.
The cake stood like a magnificent Alp upon the kitchen table. To the odors of morning were added the smells of snow upon a white mountain, the aroma of frosted blossoms and candied roses, of petal pink candles and translucent icing. There it was, like a distant hill in a dream of the future, the cake a
s white as noon clouds, the cake in the shape of collected years, each candle ready for the lighting and blowing out.
‘That,’ he whispered, ‘oh, my God, that will do it! Take it down to the ravine. Get.’
The housekeeper and the gardener picked up the white mountain. The cook led the way, opening the door.
They carried it out the door and down the porch and across the garden.
Who could resist a sweet thing like that, a dream? thought Quartermain.
‘Watch it!’
The housekeeper slipped on the dew–wet grass.
Quartermain shut his eyes.
‘No, God, no!’