Moving Pictures

Victor and Ginger stiffened. Dibbler clambered up into the opposite seat, and leered encouragingly at them. Soll followed. There was a slam as the driver shut the carriage door.

‘We’ll stop for a meal when we’re halfway,’ said Dibbler, as they lurched forward. He hesitated, and then sniffed suspiciously.

‘What’s that smell?’ he said.

‘I’m afraid my dog is under your seat,’ said Victor.

‘Is it ill?’ said Dibbler.

‘I’m afraid it always smells like that.’

‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea to give it a bath?’

A mutter on the edge of hearing said: ‘Do you think it would be a good idea to have your feet bitten right orf?’

Meanwhile, over Holy Wood, the fog thickened …

The posters for Blown Away had been circulating in Ankh-Morpork for several days, and interest was running at fever pitch.

They’d even got as far as the University this time. The Librarian had one pinned up in the fetid, book-lined nest he called home,[24] and various others were surreptitiously circulating among the wizards themselves.

The artist had produced a masterpiece. Held in Victor’s arms, against the background of the flaming city, Ginger was portrayed as not only showing nearly all she had but quite a lot of what she had not, strictly speaking, got.

The effect on the wizards was everything that Dibbler could possibly have hoped for. In the Uncommon Room, the poster was passed from hand to shaking hand as if it might explode.

‘There’s a girl who’s got It,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. He was one of the fattest wizards, and so over-stuffed that he seemed to be living up to his title. He looked as though horsehair should be leaking from frayed patches. People felt an overpowering urge to rummage down the side of him for loose change.

‘What’s “It”, Chair?’ said another wizard.

‘Oh, you know. It. Oomph. The old way-hey-hey.’

They watched him politely and expectantly, like people awaiting the punch line.

‘Good grief, do I have to spell it out?’ he said.

‘He means sexual magnetism,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, happily. ‘The lure of wanton soft bosoms and huge pulsating thighs, and the forbidden fruits of desire which—’

A couple of wizards carefully moved their chairs away from him.

‘Ah, sex,’ said the Dean of Pentacles, interrupting the Lecturer in Recent Runes in mid-sigh. ‘Far too much of it these days, in my opinion.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. He looked wistful.

The noise woke up Windle Poons, who had been dozing in his wheelchair by the fire. There was always a roaring fire in the Uncommon Room, summer or winter.

‘Wassat?’ he said.

The Dean leaned towards an ear.

‘I was saying,’ he said loudly, ‘that we didn’t know the meaning of the word “sex” when we were young.’

‘That’s true. That’s very true,’ said Poons. He stared reflectively at the flames. ‘Did we ever, mm, find out, do you remember?’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Say what you like, she’s a fine figure of a young woman,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes defiantly.

‘Several young women,’ said the Dean.

Windle Poons focused unsteadily on the poster.

‘Who’s the young feller?’ he said.

‘What young feller?’ said several wizards.

‘He’s in the middle of the picture,’ said Poons. ‘He’s holding her in his arms.’

They looked again. ‘Oh, him,’ said the Chair, dismissively.

‘Seems to me I’ve, mm, seen him before,’ said Poons.

‘My dear Poons, I hope you haven’t been sneaking off to the moving pictures,’ said the Dean, grinning at the others. ‘You know it’s demeaning for a wizard to patronize the common entertainments. The Archchancellor would be very angry with us.’

‘Wassat?’ said Poons, cupping a hand to his ear.

‘He does look a bit familiar, now that you mention it,’ said the Dean, peering at the poster.

The Lecturer in Recent Runes put his head on one side.

‘It’s young Victor, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Eh?’ said Poons.

‘You know, you could be right,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘He had the same type of weedy moustache.’

‘Who’s this?’ said Poons.

‘But he was a student. He could have been a wizard,’ said the Dean. ‘Why would he want to go off and fondle young women?’

‘It’s a Victor all right, but not our Victor. Says here he’s “Victor Maraschino”,’ said the Chair.

‘Oh, that’s just a click name,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes airily. ‘They all have funny names like that. Delores De Syn and Blanche Languish and Rock Cliffe and so on …’ He realized that they were looking at him accusingly. ‘Or so I’m told,’ he added lamely. ‘By the porter. He goes to see a click nearly every night.’

‘What’re you on about?’ said Poons, waving his walking stick in the air.

‘The cook goes every night, too,’ said the Chair. ‘So do most of the kitchen staff. You just try getting so much as a ham sandwich after nine o’clock.’

‘Just about everyone goes,’ said the Lecturer. ‘Except us.’

One of the other wizards peered intently at the bottom of the poster.

‘It says here,’ he said, ‘ “A Sarger of Passione and Broad Staircases in Ankh-Morpork’s Turbelent Histry!”’