CHAPTER 20

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“Ends weakly,” said Arthur, “leaves the audience crying ‘Yes, but what of it?’ Fine up till there, but needs a final sting before the credits.”

Fenchurch laughed and hugged her legs.

“It was just such a sudden revelation, years of almost unnoticed worry just dropping away, like taking off heavy weights, like black and white becoming colour, like a dry stick suddenly being watered. The sudden shift of perspective that says ‘Put away your worries, the world is a good and perfect place. It is in fact very easy.’ You probably thing I’m saying that because I’m going to say that I felt like that this afternoon or something, don’t you?”

“Well, I. . . ” said Arthur, his composure suddenly shattered.

“Well, it’s all right,” she said, “I did. That’s exactly what I felt. But you see, I’ve felt that before, even stronger. Incredibly strongly. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a one,” she said gazing off into the distance, “for sudden startling revelations.”

Arthur was at sea, could hardly speak, and felt it wiser, therefore, for the moment not to try.

“It was very odd,” she said, much as one of the pursuing Egyptians might have said that the behaviour of the Red Sea when Moses waved his rod at it was a little on the strange side.

“Very odd,” she repeated, “for days before, the strangest feeling had been building in me, as if I was going to give birth. No, it wasn’t like that in fact, it was more as if I was being connected into something, bit by bit. No, not even that; it was as if the whole of the Earth, through me, was going to. . . ”

“Does the number,” said Arthur gently, “forty-two mean anything to you at all?”

“What? No, what are you talking about?” exclaimed Fenchurch.

“Just a thought,” murmured Arthur.

“Arthur, I mean this, this is very real to me, this is serious.”

“I was being perfectly serious,” said Arthur. “It’s just the Universe I’m never quite sure about.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Tell me the rest of it,” he said. “Don’t worry if it sounds odd. Believe me, you are talking to someone who has seen a lot of stuff,” he added, “that is odd. And I don’t mean biscuits.”

She nodded, and seemed to believe him. Suddenly, she gripped his arm.

“It was so simple,” she said, “so wonderfully and extraordinarily simple, when it came.”

“What was it?” said Arthur quietly.

“Arthur, you see,” she said, “that’s what I no longer know. And the loss is unbearable. If I try to think back to it, it all goes flickery and jumpy, and if I try too hard, I get as far as the teacup and I just black out.”

“What?”

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