“In a spaceship?”
“According to Mrs Bryant, yes.”
“Makes you think,” said John Omally.
“Makes you think what?”
“No, just makes you think. It’s a figure of speech.”
“Well, I think there should be a law against it,” said Old Pete. “If a woman can’t lie safely in her bed without some incubus claiming to be a space alien taking advantage of her. Where’s it all going to end?”
“Search me,” said Omally.
“Why?” asked Old Pete.
“No, it’s another figure of speech.”
“But you do think there should be a law against it?”
“Absolutely,” said John Omally. “There should be an Act of Parliament.”
“Then you actually believe all that old rubbish, do you, Omally?”
“Pardon me?”
“About space aliens and incubi. You actually believe all that’s true and there should be an Act of Parliament?”
“I do, as it happens, yes.”
“I see.” Old Pete finished his rum and placed the empty glass upon the bar counter. “Then what if I were to tell you that I personally witnessed the ‘incubus’ making his getaway down the drainpipe? In fact I even recognized him.”
Omally’s self-composure was a marvel to behold. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” said he.
“You wouldn’t?”
“Not at all, and if you were to tell me that this shape-shifting incubus had taken on the appearance of, well…” Omally glanced about the alehouse, as if in search of a suitable candidate. “Well, let’s say myself, for example. It wouldn’t surprise me one little bit.”
Old Pete ground his dentures. This was not the way he had planned things at all. The wind-up, followed by the sting, was the way he’d planned things. Good for at least a bottle of rum.
“Would you care for another drink?” asked Omally. “Perhaps a double this time? You look a bit shaky. Encounters with the supernatural can have that effect on people.”
Omally ordered the drinks.
Old Pete accepted his with a surly grunt. Omally pressed a five-pound note into his hand. “Why not get yourself a half-bottle for later on?” said he. “For medicinal purposes.”
“You’re a gentleman,” said Old Pete.
“I’m a scoundrel,” said Omally, “and so are you.”
The two men raised glasses and drank each other’s health.
“But I’ll tell you this,” said Omally. “Back in the old country we don’t make light of incubi and faerie folk and things of that nature.”
“Don’t you, though?” said Old Pete.
“We do not. There’s a strong belief in such things in Holy Ireland.”
“Is there?” said Old Pete.
“There is, and shall I tell you for why?”
“Please do,” said Old Pete.
“Souls,” said Omally. “The souls of the dead.”
“Go on.”
“It is popularly believed,” said Omally, “that the faerie folk are the souls of the dead, the soul being an exact facsimile of the human form, though far smaller and subject to an entirely different set of laws and principles. Now, fairies are notoriously mischievous, are they not?”
“So I’ve heard it said.” Old Pete swallowed rum.
“And this is because they are the earthbound souls of folk who were neither good enough to go to heaven nor bad enough to go to the other place.” Omally crossed himself. “The mirthmakers, the folk who could never take life seriously.”
“Folk such as yourself,” Old Pete suggested.
Omally ignored him. “Why do you think it is,” he asked, “that only certain folk are able to see the fairies?”
“Several answers spring immediately to mind,” said Old Pete. “It might be that there aren’t too many fairies about. Or that they employ an advanced form of camouflage. Or that they are for the most part invisible. Or, most likely, that those who claim to see them are in fact mentally disturbed.”
Omally shook his head. “It’s down to susceptibility,” he said. “Psychically speaking, of course.”
“Oh, of course.” Old Pete rolled his eyes.
“To perceive the faerie folk requires a certain type of mentality.”
“I think I gave that as one of my answers.”
“Hence the Irish.”
“Hence the Irish what? Or was that another figure of speech?”
“The greatest proliferation of faerie lore and belief in the entire world, Ireland. And you will admit that the Irish mentality differs somewhat from the accepted norm.”
“Willingly,” said Old Pete. “Of course, your theory might gain greater credibility were you able to offer me some convincing account of an encounter you yourself have personally had with the faerie folk.”
Omally grinned. “Well, I couldn’t do that now, could I?”
“Could you not? Well, that is a surprise.”
“Because,” said John, “the kind of mentality required to understand the whys and wherefores of the faerie folk is not the kind suited to their actual observation. I am too sophisticated, more’s the pity. A simple mind is required. A child-like mind.”
“Hm,” said Old Pete, regarding his now empty glass.
“So tell me, Pete,” said Omally, “have you ever seen a fairy?”
Old Pete peered over his glass at Omally’s tweedy form. Throughout the conversation he had watched the ring of hobgoblins that encircled the Irishman’s head, the bogles and boggarts that skipped to and fro around his feet singing songs about shoemending, the fat elf that sat upon his shoulder and the unruly pixie that nestled in his turn-up.
“Leave it out,” said Old Pete. “There ain’t no such things as fairies.”
And they all lived happily ever after.
1
If you ever had to describe Dr Steven Malone to someone who’d never met him, all you’d have to say was, “He’s the bloke who looks like Sherlock Holmes in the Sidney Paget drawings.” Of course, there will always be some people who will immediately say Sidney who? And there may even be a few who will say Sherlock who? And you can bet your life that there’s a whole lot of others who will say Doctor Who. But to them you need only say Doctor Steven Malone. (Eh?)
It wasn’t a curse to look like a Sidney Paget drawing of Sherlock Holmes, even if it did mean you were only in black and white and spent most of your life in profile, pointing at something off the page. It had never proved to be a big bird-puller, but it had served Dr Steven well at school for plays and suchlike, and it did mean that he looked dignified. Which very few people ever do, when you come to think about it.
He looked dignified now, as he stood upon the rostrum in the lecture theatre of the Royal College of Physicians at Henley-upon-Thames. And he was dignified. He had carriage, he had deportment, and he had a really splendid grey with white check Boleskine tweed three-piece suit. It had the double-breasted flat- bottomed waistcoat with the flap on the watch pocket and everything. Tinker used to wear one in Lovejoy, but his
