Anansi Boys

“Bless,” said Daisy, quietly. And then, slightly louder, “Charlie? There’s something we need to talk about outside. Now.”

They went out into the hospital corridor, leaving Spider inside.

“What?” said Charlie.

“What what?” said Daisy.

“What have we got to talk about?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why are we out here? You heard her. She hates him. We shouldn’t have left them alone together. She’s probably killed him by now.”

Daisy looked up at him with the kind of expression that Jesus might have given someone who had just explained that he was probably allergic to bread and fishes, so could He possibly do him a quick chicken salad: there was pity in that expression, along with almost infinite compassion.

She touched a finger to her lips and pulled him back toward the door. He looked back into the hospital room: Rosie did not appear to be killing Spider. Quite the opposite, if anything. “Oh,” said Charlie.

They were kissing. Put like that, and you could be forgiven for presuming that this was a normal kiss, all lips and skin and possibly even a little tongue. You’d miss how he smiled, how his eyes glowed. And then, after the kiss was done, how he stood, like a man who had just discovered the art of standing and had figured out how to do it better than anyone else who would ever come along.

Charlie turned his attention back to the corridor to find Daisy in conversation with several doctors and the police officer they had encountered the previous evening.

“Well, we always had him figured as a bad man,” the police officer was saying to Daisy. “I mean, frankly, you only get this kind of behavior from foreigners. The local people, they simply wouldn’t do that kind of thing.”

“Obviously not,” said Daisy.

“Very. Very grateful,” said the police chief, patting her shoulder in a way that set Daisy’s teeth on edge. “This little lady saved that woman’s life,” he told Charlie, giving his shoulder a patronizing pat for good measure, before setting off with the doctors down the corridor.

“So what’s happening?” asked Charlie.

“Well, Grahame Coats is dead,” she said. “More or less. And they don’t hold out any hope for Rosie’s mum, either.”

“I see,” said Charlie. He thought about this. Then he finished thinking and came to a decision. Said, “Would you mind if I just chatted to my brother for a bit? I think he and I need to talk.”

“I’m going back to the hotel anyway. I’m going to check my e-mail. Probably going to have to say sorry on the phone a lot. Find out if I still have a career.”

“But you’re a hero, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think that’s what anyone was paying me for,” she said, a little wanly. “Come and find me at the hotel when you’re done.”

Spider and Charlie walked down the Williamstown high street in the morning sun.

“You know, that really is a good hat,” said Spider.

“You really think so?”

“Yeah. Can I try it on?”

Charlie gave Spider the green fedora. Spider put it on, looked at his reflection in a shop window. He made a face and gave Charlie the hat back. “Well,” he said, disappointed, “it looks good on you, anyway.”

Charlie pushed his fedora back onto his head. Some hats can only be worn if you’re willing to be jaunty, to set them at an angle and to walk beneath them with a spring in your stride as if you’re only a step away from dancing. They demand a lot of you. This hat was one of those, and Charlie was up to it. He said, “Rosie’s mum is dying.”

“Yeah.”

“I really, really never liked her.”

“I didn’t know her as well as you did. But given time, I’m sure I would have really, really disliked her too.”

Charlie said, “We have to try and save her life, don’t we?” He said it without enthusiasm, like someone pointing out it was time to visit the dentist.

“I don’t think we can do things like that.”

“Dad did something like it for mum. He got her better, for a while.”

“But that was him. I don’t know how we’d do that.”

Charlie said, “The place at the end of the world. With the caves.”

“Beginning of the world, not the end. What about it?”

“Can we just get there? Without all that candles-and-herbs malarkey?”

Spider was quiet. Then he nodded, “I think so.”

They turned together, turned in a direction that wasn’t usually there, and they walked away from the Williamstown high street.

Now the sun was rising, and Charlie and Spider walked across a beach littered with skulls. They were not proper human skulls, and they covered the beach like yellow pebbles. Charlie avoided them where he could, while Spider crunched his way through them. At the end of the beach they took a left turn that was left to absolutely everything, and the mountains at the beginning of the world towered above them and the cliffs fell away below.

Charlie remembered the last time he was here, and it seemed like a thousand years ago. “Where is everyone?” he said aloud, and his voice echoed against the rocks and came back to him. He said, loudly, “Hello?”