The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul

Chapter 30

Cynthia Draycott peered over the balcony at the scene below them with distaste. Valhalla was back in full swing.

“I hate this,” she said, “I don't want this going on in my life.”

“You don't have to, my darling,” said Clive Draycott quietly from behind her, with his hands on her shoulders. “It's all going to be taken care of right now, and it's going to work out just fine. Couldn't be better in fact. It's just what we wanted. You know, you look fantastic in those glasses? They really suit you. I mean really. They're very chic.”

“Clive, it was meant to have been taken care of originally. The whole point was that we weren't to be troubled, we could just do it, deal with it, and forget about it. That was the whole point. I've put up with enough shit in my life. I just wanted it to be good, 100 per cent. I don't want all this.”

“Exactly. And that's why this is so perfect for us. So perfect. Clear breach of contract. We get everything we wanted now, and we're released from all obligations. Perfecto. We come out of it smelling of roses, and we have a life that is just 100 per cent good. 100 per cent. And clean. Just exactly as you wanted it. Really, it couldn't be better for us. Trust me.”

Cynthia Draycott hugged herself irritably.

“So what about this new...person? Something else we have to deal with.”

“It'll be so easy. So easy. Listen, this is nothing. We either cut him in to it, or we cut him right out. It'll be taken care of before we leave here. We'll buy him something. A new coat. Maybe we'll have to buy him a new house. Know what that'll cost us?” He gave a charming laugh. “It's nothing. You won't ever even need to think about it. You won't ever even need to think about not thinking about it. It's... that... easy. OK?”

“Hm.”

“OK. I'll be right back.”

He turned and headed back into the ante-chamber of the hall of the All-Father, smiling all the way.

“So, Mr...” he made a show of looking at the card again “...Gently. You want to act for these people do you?”

“These immortal gods,” said Dirk.

“OK, gods,” said Draycott. “That's fine. Perhaps you'll do a better job than the manic little hustler I had to deal with first time out. You know, he's really quite a little character, our Mr Rag, Mr Rag. You know, that guy was really quite amazing. He did everything he could, tried every oldest trick in the book to freak me out, and give me the run-around. You know how I deal with people like that? Simple. I ignore it. I just...ignore it. If he wants to play around and threaten and screech, and shovel in five hundred and seventeen subclauses that he thinks he's going to catch me out on, that's OK. He's just taking up time, but so what? I've got time. I've got plenty of time for people like Mr Rag. Because you know what the really crazy thing is? You know what's really crazy? The guy cannot draw up an actual contract to save his life. Really. To save...his...life. And I tell you something, that's fine by me. He can thrash around and spit all he likes — when he gets tired I just reel him in. Listen. I draw up contracts in the recond business. These guys are just minnows by comparison. They're primitive savages. You've met them. You've dealt with them. They're primitive savages. Well, aren't they? Like the Red Indians. They don't even know what they've got. You know, these people are lucky they didn't meet some real shark. I mean it. You know what America cost? You know what the whole United States of America actually cost? You don't, and neither do I. And shall I tell you why? The sum is so negligible that someone could tell us what it was and two minutes later we would have forgotten. It would have gone clean out of our minds.

“Now, compared with that, let me tell you, I am providing. I am really providing. A private suite in the Woodshead Hospital? Lavish attention, food, sensational quantities of linen. Sensational. You could practically buy the United States of America at today's prices for what that's all costing. But you know what? I said, if he wants the linen, let him have the linen. Just let him have it. It's fine. The guy's earned it. He can have all the linen...he...wants. Just don't fuck with me is all.

“Now let me tell you, this guy has a nice life. A nice life. And I think that's what we all want, isn't it. A nice life. This guy certainly did. And he didn't know how to have it. None of these guys did. They're just kind of helpless in the modern world. It's kind of tough for them and I'm just trying to help out. Let me tell you how naïve they are, and I mean naïve.

“My wife, Cynthia, you've met her, and let me tell you, she is the best. I tell you, my relationship with Cynthia is so good — ”

“I don't want to hear about your relationship with your wife.”

“OK. That's fine. That's absolutely fine. I just think maybe it's worth you getting to know a few things. But whatever you want is fine. OK. Cynthia's in advertising. You know that. She is a senior partner in a major agency. Major. They did some big campaign, really big, a few years back in which some actor is playing a god in this commercial. And he's endorsing something, I don't know, a soft drink, you know, tooth rot for kids.

And Odin at this time is just a down and out. He's living on the streets. He simply can't get anything together, because he's just not for this world. All that power, but he doesn't know how to make it work for him here, today. Now here's the crazy part.

“Odin sees this commercial on the television and he thinks to himself, ‘Hey, I could do that, I'm a god.’ He thinks maybe he could get paid for being in a commercial. And you know what that would be. Pays even less than the United States of America cost, you follow me? Think about it. Odin, the chief and fount of all the power of all of the Norse gods, thinks he might be able to get paid for being in a television commercial to sell soft drinks. "And this guy, this god, literally goes out and tries to find someone who'll let him in a TV commercial. Pathetically naïve. But also greedy — let's not forget greedy.

“Anyway, he happens to come to Cynthia's attention. She's just a lowly account executive at the time, doesn't pay any attention, thinks he's just a whacko, but then she gets kind of fascinated by how odd he is, and I get to see him. And you know what? It dawns on us he's for real. The guy is for real. A real actual god with the whole panoply of divine powers. And not only a god, but like, the main one. The one all the others depend on for their power. And he wants to be in a commercial. Let's just say the word again shall we? A commercial.

“The idea was dumbfounding. Didn't the guy know what he had? Didn't he realise what his power could get him?

“Apparently not. I have to tell you, this was the most astounding moment in our lives. A...stoun...ding. Let me tell you, Cynthia and I have always known that we were, well, special people, and that something special would happen to us, and here it was. Something special.

“But look. We're not greedy. We don't want all that power, all that wealth. And I mean, we're looking at the world here. The whole...fucking...world. We could own the world if we wanted to. But who wants to own the world? Think of the trouble. We don't even want huge wealth, all those lawyers accountants to deal with, and let me tell you I'm a layer. OK, so you can hire people to look after your lawyers and accountants for you, but who are those people going to be? Just more lawyers and accountants. And you know, we don't even want the responsibility for it all. It's too much.

“So then I have this idea. It's like you buy a big property, and then you sell on what you don't want. That way you get what you want, and a lot of other people get what they want, only they get it through you, and they feel a little obligated to you, and they remember who they got it through because they sign a piece of paper which says how obligated they feel to you. And money flows back to pay for our Mr Odin's very, very, very expensive private medical care.

“So we don't have much, Mr Gently. One or two modestly nice houses. One or two modestly nice cars. We have a very nice life. Very, very nice indeed. We don't need much because anything we need is always made available to us, it's taken care of. All we demanded, and it was a very reasonable demand in the circumstances, was that we didn't want to know any more about it. We take our modest requirements and we bow out. We want nothing more than absolute peace and absolute quiet, and a nice life because Cynthia's sometimes a little nervous. OK.

“And then what happens this morning? Right on our own doorstep. Pow. It's disgusting. I mean it is really a disgusting little number. And you know how it happened?

“Here's how it happened. It's our friend Mr Rag again, and he's tried to be a clever tricky little voodoo lawyer. It's so pathetic. He has fun trying to waste my time with all his little tricks and games and run-arounds, and then he tries to faze me by presenting me with a bill for his time. That's nothing. It's work creation. All lawyers do it. OK. So I say, I'll take your bill. I'll take it, I don't care what it is. You give me your bill and I'll see it's taken care of. It's OK. So he gives it to me.

“It's only later I see it's got this tricky kind of subtotal thing in it. So what? He's trying to be clever. He's given me a hot potato. Listen, the record business is full of hot potatoes. You just get them taken care of. There are always people happy to take care of things for you when they want to make their way up the ladder. If they're worthy of their place on the ladder, well, they'll get it taken care of in return. You get a hot potato, you pass it on. I passed it on. Listen, there were a lot of people who are very happy to get things taken care of for me. Hey, you know? It was really funny seeing how far and how fast that particular potato got passed on. That told me a lot about who was bright and who was not. But then it lands up in my back garden, and that's a penalty clause job I'm afraid. The Woodshead stuff is a very expensive little number, and I think your clients may have blown it on that particular score. We have the whip hand here. We can just cancel this whole thing. Believe me, I have everything I could possibly want now.

“But listen, Mr Gently. I think you understand my position. We've been pretty frank with each other and I've felt good about that. There are certain sensitivities involved, of course, and I'm also in a position to be able to make a lot of things happen. So perhaps we can come to any one of a number of possible accommodations. Anything you want, Mr Gently, it can be made to happen.”

“Just to see you dead, Mr Draycott,” said Dirk Gently, “just to see you dead.”

“Well fuck you, too.”

Dirk Gently turned and left the room and went to tell his new client that he thought they might have a problem.