A memo reached Carl May from the Divination Department: his PA thought it advisable to let this one through. The department was becoming an expensive joke, rumours of its existence having reached the media. The memo took it upon itself to warn Mr May fairly and squarely that the auspices for the day of the projected PR event in Wales were bad indeed. The common pack had produced the Ace of Spades 40 per cent above probability: the Tarot pack the Tower 90 per cent likewise; the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Oracles, that normally sedate and encouraging book, had come up with No.23 (Splitting Apart) four times running with mention of Tears of Blood; the prophetic dreamer had wakened screaming, the encephalic discs popping off of their own accord; so far undiagnosed telekinetic forces in the office had shredded the Welsh map, and the teacups came up repeatedly with coffins on the rim.
Carl May laughed aloud. ‘Gobbledygook,’ he said, and to the gratification of his PA dictated a memo back to Divination: ‘If you have foretold anything it is the death of your own department: the end of your payslips,’ and told his PA the Welsh PR event was now on and he himself would graciously participate.
A couple of days later, Hughie Scotland ran his finger down the M’s in his private address book, and once again got straight through to Carl May.
‘I take that back about you being a dry old stick,’ said Hughie Scotland. ‘I understand you mean to jump into a cooling pond to prove radiation’s safe. Young Bethany has certainly brought you back to life. I hope you’re grateful.’
‘Moderately,’ said Carl May, who sounded buoyant, almost happy. ‘It’s the TV producer’s idea. I must make a fool of myself, it seems, to bring the country to its senses.’
‘I jumped into a trout pond for the same reason,’ said Hughie Scotland, ‘to popularize freshwater fish. These days we men of power must make sacrifices.’
‘I thought you were drunk,’ said Carl May. ‘Bethany told me you did it because you were drunk.’
‘Bethany tells lies,’ said Scotland. ‘How is Bethany? You know my wife’s in Nigeria? Is Bethany jumping in the cooling pond, too?’
‘The TV man says yes,’ said Carl May. ‘We’re in his hands. And Bethany is looking forward to it.’
‘What is a cooling pond exactly?’ asked Scotland. ‘Is it safe?’
‘I wouldn’t be jumping into it if it weren’t,’ said Carl May. ‘It’s where they put the old spent fuel rods to cool off, lose any short-term radioactivity they might have picked up in the pile, before they’re carted off to Sellafield. No harm in them at all. The water’s filtered and purified, monitored daily, just to be on the safe side, to keep the local populace happy.’
‘I’d rather Bethany didn’t jump in it,’ said Hughie Scotland, ‘all the same. I find I’m very fond of Bethany. Does she ever talk about me?’
‘No,’ said Carl May, ‘and she is indeed jumping into the cooling pond with me. It can hardly be worse than into a trout pool with you. Personally I find freshwater fish unnatural. Our streams and rivers are a great deal more polluted than our seas, even the North Sea, and that’s saying something. Well, good to speak to you, Hughie. I take it your men will be there in force, cameras and all. If one’s going to do something like this, one might as well make as big a splash as possible.’
A joke too. Hughie Scotland winced.
‘As it happens,’ added Carl May, ‘Bethany and I are getting married.’ And he put the phone down. That last would stir up Scotland and his media troops.
Carl May told his secretary to confirm detailed arrangements with the NBI. He did not think he would marry Bethany, when it came to it, not even to annoy and upset Joanna. What he did not want, what he did not like, what upset him, was Bethany staying away of her own accord. But when she was there, he could do without her. He could never win in his own head, only in the outside world.
Bethany looked up briefly from her computer game.
‘I have the highest score ever,’ she said. ‘There’s this little figure you have to guide through rooms full of demons and ghosts. I’m really good at it. What was that about you marrying me?’
‘Only for the press,’ said Carl May. ‘We want them all there, not just the science boys. Why, do you want to marry me?’
‘Of course I do,’ said Bethany, but she wasn’t sure. It would take her too much out of circulation. You could never divorce Carl May, and if he divorced you you’d be lucky to be alive to collect your decree absolute. The Barbers of the Bath might sing you to death.
‘It was Hughie Scotland on the line,’ said Carl May, waiting to see how she’d respond.
‘That’s nothing to me,’ said Bethany, and for once she didn’t lie. She had a short emotional memory which, considering her life, was just as well.