The Salmon of Doubt

This was the part of the story where Dirk usually had to struggle a little to sustain his audience’s patient attention, which he would, if successful, further strain by explaining that the Thunder God, Thor, had then thought better of his fit of temper and decided to put things right by returning the Tornado to its proper shape. Unfortunately, Thor, being a god, had had his mind on higher or at least other things, and hadn’t called up, as any mere mortal might have done, to check if this was a convenient moment. He had just decreed it done and it was done, bang.

Devastation.

And also the insurance problem from hell. The insurance companies involved had all claimed that this was, by any reasonable standards, an act of God. But, Dirk had argued, which god? Britain was constitutionally a Christian monotheistic state, and therefore any “act of God” defined in a legal document must refer to the Anglican chap in the stained glass and not to some polytheistic thug from Norway. And so on.

“Justin,” intoned the little voice. There was no answering response. Dirk tipped his unopened bank statements on to the kitchen table, and stared at them with loathing. It seemed to him for a moment that the envelopes were vibrating slightly, and even that the whole of space and time was beginning to revolve slowly around them and get sucked into their event horizon, but he was probably imagining it.

“Karl.” Nothing. “Karel. Keir.” Nothing. Nothing.

Dirk made some coffee, taking the long route round his kitchen, in order to avoid coming too close to his bank statements, now that he had put them down. Viewed in a certain light, the entire structure of his adult life could be seen as a means of avoiding opening his bank statements. Someone else’s bank statements—now that was a different matter. He was rarely happier than when poring over someone else’s bank statements: he always found them to be rich in colour and narrative drive, particularly if he’d had to steam them open. But the prospect of opening his own gave him the screaming heebie-jeebies.

“Keith,” said the voice, hopefully, nasally. Nothing.

“Kelvin.” No.

Dirk poured his coffee as slowly as he could, for he realised that the time had finally come. He had to open the statements and learn the worst. He selected the largest knife he could find and advanced on them, theateningly. “Kendall.” Silence.

In the end he did it almost nonchalantly, with a sadistic little flick-slit movement. He quite enjoyed it, in fact, and even felt fashionably vicious. In a few seconds the four envelopes—his financial history of the last four months—were open. Dirk laid their contents out before him. “Kendrick.” Nothing.

“Kennedy.” The tinny little voice was beginning to get on Dirk’s nerves. He glanced at the corner of the room. Two mournful eyes looked at him in silent bewilderment.

As Dirk at last looked at the figures at the bottom of the last sheet of paper, a kind of swimmy feeling assailed him. He gasped sharply. The table began to bend and sway. He felt as if the hands of fate had started kneading his shoulders. He had imagined it was bad, in fact for the last few weeks he had imagined little else other than how bad it might be, but even in his worst imaginings he had no idea it might be this bad.

Clammy things happened in his throat. He could not possibly, possibly be over .22,000 overdrawn. He pushed his chair back from the kitchen table, and for a few moments just sat there, throbbing. .22,000 . .

.

The word “Kenneth” floated mockingly through the room. As he rapidly cast his mind back over what he could remember of his expenditures over the last few weeks—an ill-considered shirt here, a reckless bun there, a wild weekend in the Isle of Wight—he realised that he must be right. He could not possibly be .22,000 overdrawn.

There it was again. .22,347.43.

There must be some mistake. Some terrible, terrible mistake. The chances were, of course, that he had made it, and as he stared, trembling, at the paper he realised, quite suddenly, that he had.

He had been looking for a negative number and had therefore assumed that that was what he was looking at. In fact his account stood at .22,347.43. In credit. Credit ...

He’d never known such a thing. Didn’t even know what it looked like. Hadn’t recognised it. Slowly, carefully, almost as if the figures might fall off the page and get lost on the floor, he sifted through the sheets one by one to try to find out where on earth all this money had come from. “Kenny,” “Kentigern,”

and “Kermit” slipped by unheard.

It was immediately clear that it was regular amounts that had been coming in, once a week. There had been seven of them—so far. The most recent one had come in the Friday before last, which was as far as these statements went. The odd thing was that though the amounts were regular, they were untidy amounts, similar each week, but not exactly the same. The previous Friday’s payment was .3,267.34.