Foul Ole Ron put down his papers in a puddle and pulled a cold sausage from the depths of his hulking coat.
He broke it into three equal pieces.
William had dithered over that, but the Watch had supplied quite a good drawing and he felt right now that a little friendly gesture in that direction would be a good idea. If he found himself in deep trouble, head downwards, he’d need someone to pull him out.
He had rewritten the Patrician story, too, adding as much as he was certain of, and there wasn’t much of that. He was, frankly, stuck.
Sacharissa had penned a story about the opening of the Inquirer. William had hesitated about this, too. But it was news, after all. They couldn’t just ignore it, and it filled some space.
Besides, he liked the opening line, which began: ‘A would-be rival to Ankh-Morpork’s old-established newspaper, the Times, has opened in Gleam Street …’
‘You’re getting good at this,’ he said, looking across the desk.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I now know that if I see a naked man I should definitely get his name and address, because—’
William joined in the chorus: ‘—names sell newspapers.’
He sat back and drank the really horrible tea the dwarfs made. Just for a moment there was an unusual feeling of bliss. Strange word, he thought. It’s one of those words that described something that does not make a noise but if it did make a noise would sound just like that. Bliss. It’s like the sound of a soft meringue melting gently on a warm plate.
Here, and now, he was free. The paper was put to bed, tucked up, had its prayers listened to. It was finished. The crew were already filing back in for more copies, cursing and spitting; they’d commandeered a variety of old trolleys and prams to cart their papers out into the streets. Of course, in an hour or so the mouth of the press would be hungry again and he’d be back pushing the huge rock uphill, just like that character in mythology … what was his name …?
‘Who was that hero who was condemned to push a rock up a hill and every time he got it to the top it rolled down again?’{32} he said.
Sacharissa didn’t look up. ‘Someone who needed a wheelbarrow?’ she said, spiking a piece of paper with some force.
William recognized the voice of someone who still has an annoying job to do.
‘What are you working on?’ he said.
‘A report from the Ankh-Morpork Recovering Accordion Players Society,’ she said, scribbling fast.
‘Is there something wrong with it?’
‘Yes. The punctuation. There isn’t any. I think we might have to order an extra box of commas.’
‘Why are you bothering with it, then?’
‘Twenty-six people are mentioned by name.’
‘As accordionists?’
‘Yes.’
‘Won’t they complain?’
‘They didn’t have to play the accordion. Oh, and there was a big crash on Broad Way. A cart overturned and several tons of flour fell on to the road, causing a couple of horses to rear and upset their cartload of fresh eggs, and that caused another cart to shed thirty churns of milk … So what do you think of this as a headline?’
She held up a piece of paper on which she’d written:
CITY’S BIGGEST CAKE MIX-UP!!
William looked at it. Yes. Somehow it had everything. The sad attempt at humour was exactly right. It was just the sort of thing that would cause much mirth around Mrs Arcanum’s table.
‘Lose the second exclamation mark,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I think it’s perfect. How did you hear about it?’
‘Oh, Constable Fiddyment dropped in and told me,’ said Sacharissa. She looked down and shuffled papers unnecessarily. ‘I think he’s a bit sweet on me, to tell you the truth.’
A tiny, hitherto-unregarded bit of William’s ego instantly froze solid. An awful lot of young men seemed happy to tell Sacharissa things. He heard himself say: ‘Vimes doesn’t want any of his officers to speak to us.’
‘Yes, well, I don’t think telling me about a lot of smashed eggs counts, does it?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Anyway, I can’t help it if young men want to tell me things, can I?’
‘I suppose not, but—’
‘Anyway, that’s it for tonight.’ Sacharissa yawned. ‘I’m going home.’
William got up so quickly he skinned his knees on the desk. ‘I’ll walk you there,’ he said.
‘Good grief, it’s nearly a quarter to eight,’ said Sacharissa, putting on her coat. ‘Why do we keep on working?’
‘Because the press doesn’t go to sleep,’ said William.
As they stepped out into the silent street he wondered if Lord Vetinari had been right about the press. There was something … compelling about it. It was like a dog that stared at you until you fed it. A slightly dangerous dog. Dog bites man, he thought. But that’s not news. That’s olds.
Sacharissa let him walk her to the end of her street, where she made him stop.
‘It’ll embarrass Grandfather if you’re seen with me,’ she said. ‘I know it’s stupid, but … neighbours, you know? And all this Guild stuff …’
‘I know. Um.’
The air hung heavy for a moment as they looked at each other.
‘Er, I don’t know how to put this,’ said William, knowing that sooner or later it had to be said, ‘but I ought to say that, though you are a very attractive girl, you’re not my type.’
She gave him the oldest look he had ever seen, and then said: ‘That took a lot of saying, and I would like to thank you.’
‘I just thought that with me and you working together all the time—’
‘No, I’m glad one of us said it,’ she said. ‘And with smooth talk like that I bet you have the girls just lining up, right? See you tomorrow.’
He watched her walk down the street to her house. After a few seconds a lamp went on in an upper window.
By running very fast he arrived back at his lodgings just late enough for a Look from Mrs Arcanum, but not so late as to be barred from the table for impoliteness; serious latecomers had to eat their supper at the table in the kitchen.
It was curry tonight. And one of the strange things about eating at Mrs Arcanum’s was that you got more leftovers than you got original meals. That is, there were far more meals made up from what were traditionally considered the prudently usable remains of earlier meals — stews, bubble-and-squeak, curry — than there were meals at which those remains could have originated.
The curry was particularly strange, since Mrs Arcanum considered foreign parts only marginally less unspeakable than private parts and therefore added the curious yellow curry powder with a very small spoon, lest everyone should suddenly tear their clothes off and do foreign things. The main ingredients appeared to be swede and gritty rainwater-tasting sultanas and the remains of some cold mutton, although William couldn’t remember when they’d had the original mutton, at any temperature.
This was not a problem for the other lodgers. Mrs Arcanum provided big helpings, and they were men who measured culinary achievement by the amount you got on your plate. It might not taste astonishing, but you went to bed full and that was what mattered.
At the moment, the news of the day was being discussed. Mr Mackleduff had bought the Inquirer and both editions of the Times, in his role as keeper of the fire of communication.
It was generally agreed that the news in the Inquirer was more interesting, although Mrs Arcanum ruled that the whole subject of snakes was not one for the dinner table and papers ought not to be allowed to disturb people like this. Rains of insects and so on, though, fully confirmed everyone’s view of distant lands.