‘Lu-Tze,’ said the Master of Novices, ‘to be brief, we were unable to teach you. Remember?’
‘But then I found my Way,’ said Lu-Tze.
‘Will you teach him?’ said the abbot. ‘The boy needs to mmm brmmm find himself.’
‘Is it not written, “I have only one pair of hands”?’ said Lu-Tze.
Rinpo looked at the Master of Novices. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘None of us ever sees this stuff you quote.’
Still looking thoughtful, as if his mind were busy elsewhere, Lu-Tze said, ‘It could only be here and now. For it is written: “It never rains but it pours.”’
Rinpo looked puzzled, and then enlightenment dawned. ‘A jug,’ he said, looking pleased. ‘A jug never rains, but it pours!’
Lu-Tze shook his head sadly. ‘And the sound of one hand clapping is a “cl”,’ he said. ‘Very well, your reverence. I will help him to find a Way. Will there be anything else, reverend sirs?’
Tick
Lobsang stood up when Lu-Tze returned to the anteroom, but he did it hesitantly, embarrassed at appearing to show respect.
‘OK, here are the rules,’ said Lu-Tze, walking straight past. ‘Word one is, you don’t call me “master” and I don’t name you after some damn insect.{12} It’s not my job to discipline you, it’s yours. For it is written, “I can’t be having with that kind of thing.” Do what I tell you and we’ll get along fine. All right?’
‘What? You want me as an apprentice?’ said Lobsang, running to keep up.
‘No, I don’t want you as an apprentice, not at my age, but you’re going to be so we’d both better make the best of it, OK?’
‘And you will teach me everything?’
‘I don’t know about “everything”. I mean, I don’t know much forensic mineralogy. But I will teach you all that I know that is useful for you to know, yes.’
‘When?’
‘It’s getting late—’
‘At dawn tomorrow?’
‘Oh, before dawn. I’ll wake you.’
Tick
Some distance away from Madam Frout’s Academy, in Esoteric Street, were a number of gentlemen’s clubs. It would be far too cynical to say that here the term ‘gentleman’ was simply defined as ‘someone who can afford $500 a year’; they also had to be approved of by a great many other gentlemen who could afford the same fee.
And they didn’t much like the company of ladies. This was not to say that they were that kind of gentlemen, who had their own, rather better-decorated clubs in another part of town, where there was generally a lot more going on. These gentlemen were gentlemen of a class who were, on the whole, bullied by ladies from an early age. Their lives were steered by nurses, governesses, matrons, mothers and wives, and after four or five decades of that the average mild-mannered gentleman gave up and escaped as politely as possible to one of these clubs, where he could snooze the afternoon away in a leather armchair with the top button of his trousers undone.[7]
The most select of these clubs was Fidgett’s, and it operated like this: Susan didn’t need to make herself invisible, because she knew that the members of Fidgett’s would simply not see her, or believe that she really existed even if they did. Women weren’t allowed in the club at all except under Rule 34b, which grudgingly allowed for female members of the family or respectable married ladies over thirty to be entertained to tea in the Green Drawing Room between 3.15 and 4.30 p.m., provided at least one member of staff was present at all times. This had been the case for so long that many members now interpreted it as being the only seventy-five minutes in the day when women were actually allowed to exist and, therefore, any women seen in the club at any other time were a figment of their imagination.
In the case of Susan, in her rather strict black schoolteaching outfit and button boots that somehow appeared to have higher heels when she was being Death’s granddaughter, this might well have been true.
The boots echoed on the marble floor as she made her way to the library.
It was a mystery to her why Death had started using the place. Of course, he did have many of the qualities of a gentleman: he had a place in the country — a far, dark country — was unfailingly punctual, was courteous to all those he met — and sooner or later he met everyone — was well if soberly dressed, at home in any company and, proverbially, a good horseman.
The fact that he was the Grim Reaper was the only bit that didn’t quite fit.
Most of the overstuffed chairs in the library were occupied by contented lunchers dozing happily under tented copies of the Ankh-Morpork Times. Susan looked around until she found the copy from which projected the bottom half of a black robe and two bony feet. There was also a scythe leaning against the back of the armchair. She raised the paper.
GOOD AFTERNOON, said Death. HAVE YOU HAD LUNCH? IT WAS JAM ROLY-POLY.
‘Why do you do this, Grandfather? You know you don’t sleep.’
I FIND IT RESTFUL. ARE YOU WELL?
‘I was until the rat arrived.’
YOUR CAREER PROGRESSES? YOU KNOW I CARE FOR YOU.
‘Thank you,’ said Susan shortly. ‘Now, why did—’
WOULD A LITTLE SMALL TALK HURT?
Susan sighed. She knew what was behind that, and it wasn’t a happy thought. It was a small, sad and wobbly little thought, and it ran: each of them had no-one else but the other. There. It was a thought that sobbed into its own handkerchief, but it was true.
Oh, Death had his manservant, Albert, and of course there was the Death of Rats, if you could call that company.
And as far as Susan was concerned …
Well, she was partly immortal, and that was all there was to it. She could see things that were really there,[8] she could put time on and off like an overcoat. Rules that applied to everyone else, like gravity, applied to her only when she let them. And, however hard you tried, this sort of thing did tend to get in the way of relationships. It was hard to deal with people when a tiny part of you saw them as a temporary collection of atoms that would not be around in another few decades.
And there she met the tiny part of Death that found it hard to deal with people when it thought of them as real.
Not a day went past but she regretted her curious ancestry. And then she’d wonder what it could possibly be like to walk the world unaware at every step of the rocks beneath your feet and the stars overhead, to have a mere five senses, to be almost blind and nearly deaf …
THE CHILDREN ARE WELL? I LIKED THEIR PAINTINGS OF ME.
‘Yes. How is Albert?’
HE IS WELL.
… and not really have any small talk, Susan added to herself. There wasn’t room for small talk in a big universe.
THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END.
Well, that was big talk. ‘When?’
NEXT WEDNESDAY.
‘Why?’
THE AUDITORS ARE BACK, said Death.
‘Those evil little things?’
YES.
‘I hate them.’
I, OF COURSE, DO NOT HAVE ANY EMOTIONS, said Death, poker-faced as only a skull can be.
‘What are they up to this time?’
I CANNOT SAY.
‘I thought you could remember the future!’
YES. BUT SOMETHING HAS CHANGED. AFTER WEDNESDAY, THERE IS NO FUTURE.
‘There must be something, even if it’s only debris!’
NO. AFTER ONE O’CLOCK NEXT WEDNESDAY THERE IS NOTHING. JUST ONE O’CLOCK NEXT WEDNESDAY, FOR EVER AND EVER. NO-ONE WILL LIVE. NO-ONE WILL DIE. THAT IS WHAT I NOW SEE. THE FUTURE HAS CHANGED. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
7
One reason for this was the club food. At his club, a gentleman could find the kind of food he’d got used to at school, like spotted dick, jam roly-poly and that perennial favourite, stodge and custard. Vitamins are eaten by wives.