brushed leaf-mould off his trousers and lifted the flap of the letterbox.
“Doland,” he shouted, “you’re fired!” Then he got into the car and drove off.
As the receding-Mercedes noises faded away, the door opened again, just a crack.
“Has he gone?” said a small female voice.
“Yes,” Vanderdecker said.
“Really?”
“Really and truly.”
Vanderdecker closed the door. “But it beats me,” he said, “why you’re afraid of him. Them, come to that. Glorified, over-fed book-keepers.”
“I don’t know,” Jane replied. “Habit, probably. You know, I used to have these daydreams. The letter would come saying that my long-lost aunt in Australia had died leaving me a million pounds, and then I’d go into Mr Peters” office and say, “Peters, you’re a jerk, you can stick your job…” But even if she had…
“Who?”
“My aunt in Australia.”
“You have an aunt in Australia?”
“No.”
“Sorry,” Vanderdecker said, “forget it, carry on with what you were saying.”
“Even,” Jane said, “if I’d had one and she had, I still wouldn’t have.”
“Because of habit?”
“Habit of mind,” Jane replied. “Subservience, innate atavistic feudal mentality. You don’t go telling your liege- lord he can stick his job even if you’re leaving to join the Second Crusade. Purely theoretical, anyway.”
“Not now,” Vanderdecker said. “You are in exactly that position, thanks to my foresight in taking out life insurance all those years ago—my mother wouldn’t half be surprised, by the way, she always said I was a fool when it came to money—and yet you denied yourself a moment’s extreme pleasure because of habit of mind. Strange behaviour.”
“Oh, I’m just chicken,” Jane said. “Anyway, thanks for dealing with it for me. You did it very well.”
“Did I?” Vanderdecker said. “Call it beginner’s luck.”
They were standing in the hall. From the drawing-room came drinking noises. “Well, then…” Jane said.
“Well what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Julius…”
“Do you know,” Vanderdecker said. “I can’t get used to people calling me that again. That Bennett bloke keeps calling me Julius, and I don’t know what to make of it. Only person ever called me Julius was my mother. Dad called me son, my master when I was a prentice used to refer to me as “hey, you”, and then I was captain or skipper for the next four hundred odd years. Being Julius again is a bit unsettling, really. I never liked the name, anyway.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Do you have another name? A second name, or something?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Albert.”
That seemed to kill the conversation for a moment. Then Vanderdecker said, “You don’t like the name Albert, do you?”
“Well,” Jane said, “not really.”
“Nor me. Good old Dutch name, of course, been in my family for generations. I think it means Elf-beard, which is quite incredibly helpful. Well, too late to do anything about it now, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
There was nothing in particular keeping them in the hall, but neither of them moved. Eventually Jane asked: “So what are you going to do next?”
Vanderdecker raised an eyebrow. “Next?”
“Well, yes, I mean, you aren’t going to stay here drinking with Professor Montalban for the rest of time, now are you?”
Vanderdecker considered. “Probably not,” he said. “On the other hand, I feel like a bit of a holiday.”
“A holiday from what?”
“From whatever I’ve got to do next, I suppose.”
“Look,” Jane said sharply, “you haven’t got to do anything next. Or ever.” But Vanderdecker shook his head.
“It’s not as easy as that,” he said. “I really wish it was, but it isn’t. It’s them.” He nodded his head towards the drawing-room door. Jane stared at him for a moment.
“What, them?” she said. “Johannes and Antonius and Sebastian and…”
“I’m afraid so, yes.”
“But what have they got to do with it?”
Vanderdecker smiled, but not for the reasons that usually make people smile. “I’m their captain,” he said. “I’m responsible for them.”
Jane stared. “You’re joking,” she said. “I thought you couldn’t stand the sight of each other. I thought that after all those years cooped up on that little ship…”
“Yes,” Vanderdecker replied, “and no. Yes, we get on each other’s nerves to a quite extraordinary extent, and we can’t even relieve the tension with murder or other forms of violence. On the other hand, I’m their captain. I do all the thinking for them. I’ve had to, for the last four centuries. They’ve completely forgotten how to do it for themselves. So, okay, maybe we don’t have to go back on that boring bloody ship ever again; but I can’t leave them. It’d be impossible.”
“Why?”
Vanderdecker was silent for what seemed like an immensely long time, then turned to Jane, looked her in the eye and said, “Habit.”
“I see.”
“Set in our ways,” Vanderdecker amplified. “Old dogs and new tricks.”
“Fine,” Jane replied. “Well, it was very nice meeting you.”
“Likewise.”
“Perhaps we’ll bump into each other again one day.”
“Bound to,” Vanderdecker said. “Board meetings, that sort of thing. So what are you going to do now?”
Jane shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think I’ll have a holiday too. Only…” Only it won’t be the same, not now. You see, Mr Vanderdecker, this freedom you’ve given me is a fraud. Maybe now I’m free of Mr Gleeson and accountancy and all that horrible nonsense, but I can’t be free of you, not ever. Every man I see in the street, I’ll look twice at him to see if it’s you. But she smiled instead, and left the sentence unfinished.
“Actually,” Vanderdecker said, “I’d had this idea of getting a new ship.”
“What?”
“A new ship,” Vanderdecker repeated. “Only not called the
“You know best,” Jane said. “Well, I think that’s a splendid idea. I really do. Have you put it to them yet?”
“No, not yet. I thought I’d like your opinion first.”
“Yes, you do that,” Jane said. “And now let’s have a drink, shall we?”
They went into the drawing room. The first thing they saw was Professor Montalban, lying on the sofa fast asleep. Snoring.
“Had a drop too much,” Sebastian explained unnecessarily. “Not used to it.”
