Valhalla, page 21
‘All right,’ Attila said, looking round the deserted building site. ‘How does this grab you? We have a fight and kill each other, then we both go to Valhalla together. Saves dragging anybody else in.’
Joan nodded her head. ‘Valid point,’ she said. ‘After all, if I picked a fight with a stranger I might make a mistake and kill him instead, and then wouldn’t I feel silly.’
‘Eliminate the variables, that’s what I always say,’ Attila agreed. ‘Any preferences about what we fight with?’
Joan picked up a plasterer’s hawk and let it fall. ‘I wouldn’t say we’re exactly spoilt for choice,’ she said. ‘There’s bricks, and my Fairy Liquid bottles - I suppose we could empty out a couple of those, fill them up with quick-drying cement; you’d have a couple of short, heavy bludgeons. Basically, though, it’s just variations of the blunt objects theme; and,’ she added, ‘to tell you the truth, I can’t say I care for the thought terribly much.’
‘Crude,’ Attila agreed. ‘Messy.’
‘No finesse. And, no offence, you’d have to stand on a ladder or something before you could reach any bit of me you could land a fatal blow on. All a bit hit-and-miss, really.’
Attila rubbed his beardless chin. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘If we shinned up that scaffolding over there and had a fight on that platform and fell off—’
‘We’d break our necks,’ Joan exclaimed joyfully. ‘Now that is a good idea.’
‘Have to be careful, though. If we don’t fall just right, we might survive.’
‘Eeek.’
‘Precisely.’
The scaffolding was rickety, to say the least, and Attila had to force himself to mount the first rung of the ladder that led to the top—
‘Problem?’ Joan called down.
‘I’m stuck,’ Attila replied, embarrassed.
‘In what way stuck?’
‘I can’t reach the next rung.’
That was one of the things he liked about Joanie; either she didn’t laugh at all or she kept it quiet so you didn’t hear her. ‘There’s a bucket on a rope at the top,’ she said. ‘When I get up there I’ll lower it down and haul you up, okay?’
‘Thanks, Joanie, you’re a pal.’
‘Hey, what are friends for?’
The significance of that remark hit Attila like a meteorite the size of Port Talbot; because his usual answer to that question had always been ‘Target practice?’, accompanied by a cynical sneer. In other words, he’d never had a friend, in roughly the same way and for more or less the same reason that hammer-head sharks have difficulty finding a good dentist. He’d had a father (King Ruga, murdered in AD 434) and an elder brother (King Bleda, put to death in AD 443; in the Hunnish royal family, being king was a hereditary illness and invariably fatal) and a pet wolf called Deathfang (died after snatching a sausage marinaded in belladonna from Attila’s plate just as he was about to bite into it, AD 444) and as far as warm, close relationships went, that was about it. Suddenly, after all this time, to discover that he had a friend—
Did he have a friend? He wasn’t sure, not having any comparative data. But friendship, according to something he’d read once on a scrap of papyrus clenched in the dead grip of a severed Roman hand he’d found in his left boot one morning after a rather rowdy party, was one of the great pleasures of life, one of the things that made our stay on Earth worthwhile. A bit daft, surely, to quit a life that apparently contained it before giving it a whirl and seeing if it lived up to the extravagant claims on the packet.
‘Hey,’ he called out, looking up just as the bucket whizzed down and hit him on the head. ‘What did you just say?’
‘I said, “Look out, here comes the bucket.”’
‘No, before that.’
‘I said, “What are friends for?”’
Attila took a deep breath. ‘Target practice,’ he said. This time it didn’t sound right, somehow. Nevertheless, Joanie laughed.
‘That’s a good one,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember that one. Provided having my brains splattered doesn’t garble my memory, of course.’
‘You liked my joke?’ Attila asked.
‘Yeah, not bad. Well, it’s better than a lot of the ones I hear.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Attila said. ‘You hear reruns of The Two Ronnies in your head sometimes.’
‘Close,’ Joanie replied. ‘Actually, it’s George and Mildred.’
‘Dear God. I can see why suicide holds such a magnetic attraction for you.’
Not knowing quite what to do, Attila clambered into the bucket and gripped the sides tight with both hands. ‘Careful!’ he yelled, as it lurched alarmingly and left the ground.
‘It’s all right, I’ve got you,’ Joanie called back. ‘I won’t let you fall.’
There was something in her tone of voice that reassured him completely. Trust, Attila realised, I’m trusting someone. Two new experiences in one day. This is remarkable. Admittedly, I’m putting my life in the hands of someone who thinks TV commercials are the voice of God, but everybody’s got to start somewhere. ‘That’s okay,’ he shouted. ‘Steady as he goes.’ And she laughed at my joke without having to be threatened with being pulled apart by wild horses first, he recalled. Three new experiences.
‘There we are,’ Joanie called out, hauling the bucket up to her level and tying off the rope while she helped Attila out of the basket. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
‘No,’ Attila admitted. ‘Still, I’m glad I don’t have to go back down again that way. It was a bit scary.’
‘You thought so?’ Joanie grinned. ‘Me too. I’d never admit this to anyone, but I’m terrified of heights.’
Attila looked at her. ‘You just admitted it to me,’ he said. ‘Did I? Oh, well, I suppose I did. But that’s different. I mean, you’re . . ..’
‘Yes?’
‘Well.’ Joanie’s face flushed slightly pink, putting Attila in mind of the waters of the river Arno ten minutes after he’d stained them red with the blood of countless slaughtered Romans. ‘It’s just different, that’s all. You see, I feel I can tell you things, because—’
‘Yes?’
‘Oh, just because, that’s all. There’s no need to make a big thing about it.’
He looked at her. Maybe she’s never had a friend before, either, he considered. In fact, it was more than likely. Virgin warriors whose heads reverberate with the sound of invisible voices telling them how to get their tough whites looking like new even without the boil wash probably have as much difficulty forming meaningful long-term relationships as, say, Scourges of God. Shared interests and common experiences, the raw materials from which compatibility is formed; it was only to be expected that someone like himself, a man out of the ordinary, a man in a hundred million, should have difficulty finding someone who shared those interests and experiences, but now that he had found such a person—
(He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.) —who also, by some extraordinary fluke fall of the dice, was a sensible height instead of being just another Tall Bastard, with birds nesting in her ears and snow on the top of her head all year round; was that Fate trying to tell him something?
‘Joanie,’ he said awkwardly.
‘Yes?’ she replied, not looking at him.
‘Maybe—’ It wasn’t going to come easily, he knew that. He’d far rather stand off single-handedly against a hundred heavy infantrymen of the Fifteenth legion, with one hand tied behind his back and nothing to defend himself with but a wilted leek; he didn’t, however, have that option. ‘Maybe,’ Attila the Hun said shyly, ‘we oughtn’t to fall off this tower. I mean, not just yet.’
‘No?’
‘No. Not until we’ve had a chance to—well, get to know each other a bit better.’
She looked up into his eyes. ‘Oh, Attila,’ she said, in a tone of voice that made him want to throw up, but in the nicest possible way. ‘I think so too.’
‘Gosh. You do?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Really really?’
‘Really really.’
‘Oh, Joanie!’
‘Oh, Att!’
Whereupon, of course, they fell into each other’s arms and embraced passionately; terribly sweet and heartwarming, but incredibly reckless on the top of a rickety scaffolding tower a very long way up from the ground—
‘Oh, Att,’ Joanie whispered. ‘I do feel funny. It’s as if the whole world’s swaying backwards and forwards.’
‘Isn’t that wonderful? That’s just how I feel too.’
‘Oh, Att!’
‘Oh, Jo—’
Thirty-two feet per second per second, straight down on to a stack of breeze-blocks.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘What do you mean,’ Howard asked, ‘the last woman in the world?’
Lisa From Internal Audit shrugged her broad shoulders. ‘See any others, can you? In fact, have you seen a single one apart from me the whole time you’ve been here? Well?’
Not far away a machine-gun opened up, pounding the air with sound waves like a boxer jabbing a punchbag. Howard waited patiently for the noise to stop. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘now you mention it, I don’t think I have. But I wouldn’t expect to, not in the middle of a battle.’
‘Really? You’re saying girls can’t fight, are you? You want to try that out?’
Since Lisa From Internal Audit looked like she could have thrown the discus for East Germany back in the good old days before the Wall came tumbling down, Howard side-stepped that one. ‘All right,’ he said, dodging without even having to look as a fist-sized chunk of shrapnel whizzed past. ‘Even if you really are the last woman in the world, how’d you know that? I mean, have you actually been round looking, or—?’
‘Get down!’
The shell-burst reduced the building they’d been standing in front of to a cloud of brick dust, and left a hole you could have converted into a yachting marina (just add water). ‘Thank you,’ Howard said, scrambling out of the foxhole she’d shoved him into. ‘You saved my life.’
‘My pleasure,’ replied Lisa From Internal Audit, smirking. ‘Though there isn’t really much point, is there?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Not,’ Lisa explained, standing up and picking inch-long slivers of broken glass out of her hair, ‘when you’re bound to get killed sooner or later today. I mean, it’s a nice thought, but why bother? A snowman in Africa’s got a better chance of getting life insurance than you have, don’t you think?’
‘Oh,’ Howard replied. ‘Well, it’s the thought that counts, I suppose. All right, if it’s so damn futile, why did you bother? You could have laddered a stocking, leaping around like that.’
Lisa shrugged. ‘Instinct, I s’pose. I mean, it’s human nature, isn’t it? Protecting small, helpless creatures who aren’t fit to take care of themselves.’
‘Thank you so much. Next time, don’t bother.’
‘Oh, don’t be like that,’ Lisa said cheerfully. ‘You got saved, didn’t you? What have you got to complain about?’
(That was another thing about Lisa From Internal Audit that had always got up his nose; her habit of talking in rhetorical questions. Five minutes chatting with her was like taking an exam.)
‘Sorry,’ Howard said, nevertheless. ‘And I was being careless back there. Honestly, after all the time I’ve been here you’d have thought I’d be able to hear incoming shells.’
She smiled at him. ‘Most of the time you do seem to manage,’ she said graciously. ‘Maybe you got distracted. I mean, coming across an old friend in the middle of all this lot; wouldn’t you say that was enough to take anybody’s mind off what they’re doing?’
There was something in the way she said that, taken together with the look in her eyes, that made Howard start to walk slowly backwards. But not for long—
‘Careful!’ This time, she floored him with a classic rugby tackle. ‘Landmines,’ she explained, scrambling up and sitting on his chest.
‘Oh.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ She picked up a chunk of brick and lobbed it through the air. It landed about twelve yards away and vanished in a ball of orange fire and dust. ‘They’re only little ones, but still, big enough to spoil your appetite, wouldn’t you say?’
Howard tried to shift a little, but he couldn’t move. ‘Thanks again,’ he said. ‘Twice in five minutes, and I thought you said there wasn’t any point.’
Lisa pulled a face. ‘Well, is there?’ she said.
‘Maybe there is,’ Howard said. ‘In the meantime, however, I’d be grateful if you could see your way clear to getting off me.’
Lisa pouted. ‘Why? Going somewhere, are you? Not so long ago, you’d have given anything—’
Another shell exploded nearby and the shock wave sent her spinning, saving Howard from a lethal dose of cringing. ‘Are you all right?’ he called out half-heartedly.
‘Fine,’ she replied, standing up and brushing plaster dust off her skirt. ‘Bright as a button. Well, actually I’ve chipped a nail, but not to worry.’ She bounded back towards him, but thanks to his battle-sharpened reflexes he was able to get to his feet before she reached him. ‘You’re going to be a full-time job, I can see that,’ she said.
‘Full-time—’ Howard’s jaw dropped. ‘Are you trying to say you’re here as a—well, some sort of bodyguard?’
She nodded. ‘I’d have preferred guardian angel, but bodyguard’ll do. Yes, why? Don’t you want your body guarded?’
Howard backed away again. ‘Like you were just saying,’ he said, ‘there doesn’t seem to be much point . . .’ He didn’t get to finish the sentence, because he backed into a shell crater and slid down the inside of the rim on his face.
‘Hang on, I’ll soon have you out of there.’
‘No, no, really,’ Howard assured her. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Up to your neck in mud in a bomb crater?’
‘I like it here,’ Howard said firmly. ‘And it’s, um, good cover.’
‘That’s true,’ Lisa said. ‘Hold on, I’ll join you.’ Whereupon she vaulted down after him, spraying him with more mud. ‘Actually,’ she went on, ‘the word you’re looking for is Valkyrie.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes. Not bodyguard.’ She crawled through the mud on her knees and leaned heavily on his shoulder. ‘Another word for Valkyrie,’ she said, ‘is wish-maiden. You know, as in your dearest wish. Or heart’s desire.’
‘Is that so?’ There was nowhere to back to in the bomb crater. ‘Look, it’s very kind of you, but shouldn’t you be getting back to work before Mr Gibson sees you’ve gone?’
‘I don’t work there any more. Never liked it anyway.’
‘Ah. Well, in that case, you really ought to be getting home. After all—’ He ransacked his brain for the name of her evil, psychotic husband. ‘Won’t Vern be worried if you aren’t there?’
‘I’ve left him,’ she replied crisply. ‘Told him I’d got a better offer.’
For some reason, the thought of a slighted Vern with a big knife was infinitely more scary than any form of death he’d experienced in Valhalla; and the fact that he was now a self-taught but nonetheless highly proficient expert in marksmanship, knife-fighting and unarmed combat didn’t seem the slightest bit relevant. Bullets and bombs might break his bones or even vaporise him completely, but Vern could do him a nasty injury. ‘Wasn’t that a bit sudden?’ he suggested. ‘I always thought you two got on like a house on fire.’
She shook her head. ‘It was over years ago really,’ she said. ‘We only stayed together out of habit. And when this job came along—’
‘As a Valkyrie, you mean?’
‘That’s right. I thought, being a Valkyrie, it’s the sort of job where I’d have space to grow, you know, as a person. Besides, it was a chance for us to get to know each other better.’
‘Really? Why would you want to do that?’
She laughed. ‘Oh come on,’ she said. ‘Don’t make me spell it out for you. Anybody whose idea of paradise is fighting all day, bashing people’s faces in and blowing stuff up with bombs; obviously my kind of guy. Honestly, if only I’d known earlier, we wouldn’t have had to wait so long before getting together.’
Wish-maiden, huh? How about if I wished she’d go away? Another shell ripped up an entire block of flats, showering them with fist-sized chunks of fast-flying plaster. Which was odd; the day’s teatime bombardment wasn’t due to start for at least another hour. This should have been the scheduled maintenance break, when whoever it was who did the actual bombing and shelling knocked off work for a breather and let the engineers crawl about with their oil cans and gauges. Could it be that his new bodyguard was actually attracting an increased level of shelling and bombing?
‘Now look,’ he said, as she put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I really don’t think this is the time or the place, they’ll be starting the late-afternoon shift soon, which means there’ll be bombs going off all round here.’
‘We’d better stay put here, then.’ Now the other hand. Grip like a vice.
‘And also,’ he said, ‘according to a bloke I killed earlier, it’s going to piss down with rain sometime around now. I really think I ought to be getting along.’
She shook her head. ‘Not if there’s going to be heavy shelling,’ she said firmly, undoing the top button of his battledress. ‘Bodyguard’s orders.’
A part of his mind was saying, Come on, is this really worse than getting blown to bits by three-inch mortars? But the reply had to be ‘Yes’, because still, even after all this time (how much time? He had no idea), he couldn’t quite believe that all the killing and getting killed was really real, whereas they didn’t get any more real than Lisa From Internal Audit. Especially those piercing blue eyes; find a way of focusing them down to a tight beam and you could use them to cut solid chrome.
‘Lisa . . .’ She was trying to bite his ear. In the middle of a battle? Suddenly he wasn’t convinced. ‘No, stop that, I want to ask you something.’
