The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul

"Ah yes," said Dirk, slapping the table and making the glasses jump, "your girl in the wheelchair - a perfect example. The idea that she is somehow receiving yesterday's stock market prices apparently out of thin air is merely impossible, and therefore must be the case, because the idea that she is maintaining an immensely complex and laborious hoax of no benefit to herself is hopelessly improbable. The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don't know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality."

"But you won't tell me what you think."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it sounds ridiculous. But I think you are in danger. I think you might be in horrible danger."

"Great. So what do you suggest I do about it?" said Kate taking a sip of her second drink, which otherwise had stayed almost untouched.

"I suggest," said Dirk seriously, "that you come back to London and spend the night in my house."

Kate hooted with laughter and then had to fish out a Kleenex to wipe tomato juice off herself.

"I'm sorry, what is so extraordinary about that?" demanded Dirk, rather taken aback.

"It's just the most wonderfully perfunctory pick-up line I've ever heard." She smiled at him. "I'm afraid the answer is a resounding `no'."

He was, she thought, interesting, entertaining in an eccentric kind of way, but also hideously unattractive to her.

Dirk felt very awkward. "I think there has been some appalling misunderstanding," he said. "Allow me to explain that - "

He was interrupted by the sudden arrival in their midst of the mechanic from the garage with news of Kate's car.

"Fixed it," he said. "In fact there were nothing to fix other than the bumper. Nothing new that is. The funny noise you mentioned were just the engine. But it'll go all right. You just have to rev her up, let in the ctutch, and then wait for a little bit longer than you might normally expect."

Kate thanked him a little stiffly for this advice and then insisted on atlowing Dirk to pay the 25 he was charging for it.

Outside, in the car park, Dirk repeated his urgent request that Kate should go with him, but she was adamant that all she needed was a good night's sleep and that everything would look bright and clear and easily capable of being coped with in the morning.

Dirk insisted that they should at least exchange phone numbers. Kate agreed to this on condition that Dirk found another route back to London and didn't sit on her tail.

"Be very careful," Dirk called to her as her car grumbled out on to the road.

"I will," shouted Kate, "and if anything impossible happens, I promise you'll be the first to know."

For a brief moment, the yellow undulations of the car gleamed dully in the light leaking from the pub windows and stood out against the heavily hunched greyness of the night sky which soon swallowed it up.

Dirk tried to follow her, but his car wouldn't start.

Chapter 15

The clouds sank more heavily over the land, clenching into huge sullen towers, as Dirk, in a sudden excess of alarm, had to call out the man from the garage once again. He was slower to arrive with his truck this time and bad-tempered with drink when at last he did.

He emitted a few intemperate barks of laughter at Dirk's predicament, then fumbled the bonnet of his car open and subjected him to all kinds of muttered talk about manifolds, pumps, alternators and starlings and resolutely would not be drawn on whether or not he was going to be able to get the thing to go again that night.

Dirk was unable to get a meaningful answer, or at least an answer that meant anything to him, as to what was causing the rumpus in the alternator, what ailed the fuel pump, in what way the operation of the starter motor was being disrupted and why the timing was off.

He did at last understand that the mechanic was also claiming that a family of starlings had at some time in the past made their nest in a sensitive part of the engine's workings and had subsequently perished horribly, taking sensitive parts of the engine with them, and at this point Dirk began to cast about himself desperatety for what to do.

He noticed that the mechanic's pick-up truck was standing nearby with its engine still running, and elected to make off with this instead. Being a slightly less slow and cumbersome runner than the mechanic he was able to put this plan into operation with a minimum of difficulty.