Mr B found himself alone one minute and not the next. On a chair opposite him, Mona squeezed greyish water from the crocheted doily that comprised her dress.
‘Oh! Hello, my darling. What appalling weather. How on earth do you manage to survive on this dreary little planet?’
Mr B shivered, though not with the cold. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s been terrible.’ Increasingly terrible. Rain, storms at sea, thunder, gale-force winds – every violent nasty element you might expect to follow one of Bob’s tantrums. If he didn’t get together with Lucy soon, they’d all be blown away, struck by lightning or drowned.
And if he did? B sighed. It would probably be worse.
Mona examined his office. ‘So, this is where you’ve been hiding.’
‘Hiding, Mona?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘How very nice to see you again.’ Bob’s mother was living proof that self-centred fecklessness could be inherited, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to dislike her.
She peered at him. ‘Darling, you look tired. Are you working too hard?’
‘Of course not.’ Of course not? He smiled. ‘You, on the other hand, look lovely as ever.’
She exhaled deeply. ‘To be perfectly honest, I feel a bit down.’
‘Oh?’
‘Bob’s terribly cross with me for gambling away his pet.’
Mr B tried to look sympathetic while Eck, who had been standing under the desk, poked his head out a few centimetres and peered up. ‘Eck?’
He patted the little creature absently. ‘I thought you’d given up gambling.’
‘It was wrong, darling. I know that now.’
Mr B looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t think we can allow him to…’ He briefly mimed bringing a fork to his mouth.
‘No, no, of course not. I’ll figure something out. I’m certain Hed will be willing to compromise.’
Under the table, a gleam of hope lit Eck’s small black eyes, but what little Mr B knew of Emoto Hed made him think that Mona’s certainty was misplaced.
‘And even if he won’t, I’ve told Bob I’d get him another pet. Ten more. But he’s not having it. So unreasonable!’ She wrung her hands. ‘I know he’s my own son, darling, but I hope you’ll excuse my saying that he can be impossibly stubborn. It must be dreadful for you, sharing a life with him. And it’s all my fault.’ Mona appeared genuinely contrite. ‘But, you see, I was just trying to be a good mother.’
‘Of course, Mona.’
‘And any day now, Bob will rise to the challenge.’
It had been approximately ten thousand years. To Mr B, this seemed sufficient notice to rise to most occasions. He smiled, a little tightly. ‘Perhaps he will. But in the meantime I could very much do with some help.’
She brightened. ‘I am utterly at your service, my dear. Just say the word.’
Mr B said a great number of words. He told Mona about Bob and Lucy and the weather. He told her about the state of his nerves and the despair he felt for Bob’s creations. And then he took a deep breath, and told her that he had handed in his notice.
Mona’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, my heavens!’ she cried. ‘You’ve resigned? But you can’t resign! You can’t leave Bob to run the planet on his own.’
Mr B frowned. ‘He is God.’
She waved dismissively. ‘Yes, well, he may be God, but just between you and me, he’s not much of a God.’ She sighed. ‘He’s hopeless, in fact. You know it, and I know it, and all of his miserable little creations know it.’
Mr B examined the upper left-hand corner of the room.
‘You’re serious this time, aren’t you?’ Her eyes shimmered with tears.
He nodded.
‘But how will he manage alone, poor thing?’
‘If you’ll excuse my saying, Mona, it’s not Bob so much I’m worried about.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Mona’s eyes overflowed. ‘But you have to make allowances; the poor boy’s suffered terribly.’
Mr B raised an eyebrow.
She sniffed. ‘He’s nearly an orphan.’
As Mr B understood the word ‘orphan’, being nearly one was tantamount to not being one at all. And if (by chance) some question remained, Bob’s status as orphan seemed disadvantaged by his mother’s presence here today. As for his father…Mona might not know which of her many lovers he was, but chances were he was still alive and kicking.
‘Well,’ she said, pulling out a small notepad, ‘I shall certainly put my mind to the Bob problem. Just remind me what’s required? Let’s see. One: make Bob a better God. Two: get him to stop playing with mortals. Three: no more floods, rain, natural disasters, etc. etc. and four…’ She raised an eyebrow in the direction of the Eck. ‘No et-P-ay for inner-D-ay.’
Mr B blinked.
‘Right. Is that everything? Yes? Excellent. Now don’t you worry, my darling. Mona will take care of everything.’ And then she was gone.
Once more, he wondered what would happen next.
‘Eck.’ The noise from knee level was mournful. Mr B reached under the desk and patted Bob’s doomed pet. With a sigh, he opened a drawer and pulled out some ancient peanuts in a cellophane packet. Eck snaffled them up with his flexible nose and scuttled off into the corner to eat them. Mr B watched him.
Until the poker game, he had been quite a feisty little soul, falling upon food each time with a glorious bleat of joy. He was a different Eck now that his life had been truncated, and who could blame him? Each meal he ate was one closer to his last. This was not an easy concept to swallow. Being mortal, he would, of course, have died eventually, but now he knew exactly when, and why, and (to an unpleasant extent) how. Now, every tick of the clock brought him closer to oblivion.
Mr B felt depressed. Another doomed creature he couldn’t help.
When next he checked, the little beast was asleep, his empty peanut packet cradled in his arms like a baby.