Anansi Boys

Grahame Coats picked up a pen from his desk, then he put it down again. “Ah,” he said. “Well, delightful though it is to chat, converse, spend time, and otherwise hobnob with you, Charles, I suspect that both of us have work we should be getting on with. Time and tide, after all, wait for no man. Procrastination is the thief of time.”

“Life is a rock,” suggested Spider, “but the radio rolled me.”

“Whatever.”

FAT CHARLIE WAS STARTING TO FEEL HUMAN AGAIN. HE WAS NO longer in pain; slow, intimate waves of nausea were no longer sweeping over him. While he was not yet convinced that the world was a fine and joyous place, he was no longer in the ninth circle of hangover hell, and this was a good thing.

Daisy had taken over the bathroom. He had listened to the taps running, and then to some contented splashes.

He knocked on the bathroom door.

“I’m in here,” said Daisy. “I’m in the bath.”

“I know,” said Fat Charlie. “I mean, I didn’t know, but I thought you probably were.”

“Yes?” said Daisy.

“I just wondered,” he said, through the door. “I wondered why you came back here. Last night.”

“Well,” she said. “You were a bit the worse for wear. And your brother looked like he needed a hand. I’m not working this morning, so. Voilà.”

“Voilà,” said Fat Charlie. On the one hand, she felt sorry for him. And on the other, she really liked Spider. Yes. He’d only had a brother for a little over a day, and already he felt there would be no surprises left in this new family relationship. Spider was the cool one; he was the other one.

She said, “You have a lovely voice.”

“What?”

“You were singing in the taxi, when we were going home. Unforgettable. It was lovely.”

He had somehow put the karaoke incident out of his mind, placed it in the dark places one disposes of inconvenient things. Now it came back, and he wished it hadn’t.

“You were great,” she said. “Will you sing to me later?”

Fat Charlie thought despera

tely, and then was saved from thinking desperately by the doorbell.

“Someone at the door,” he said.

He went downstairs and opened the door and things got worse. Rosie’s mother gave him a look that would have curdled milk. She said nothing. She was holding a large white envelope.

“Hello,” said Fat Charlie. “Mrs. Noah. Nice to see you. Um.”

She sniffed and held the envelope in front of her. “Oh,” she said. “You’re here. So. You going to invite me in?”

That’s right, thought Fat Charlie. Your kind always have to be invited. Just say no, and she’ll have to go away. “Of course, Mrs. Noah. Please, come in.” So that’s how vampires do it. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Don’t think you can get around me like that,” she said. “Because you can’t.”

“Er. Right.”

Up the narrow stairs and into the kitchen. Rosie’s mother looked around and made a face as if to indicate that it did not meet her standards of hygiene, containing, as it did, edible foodstuffs. “Coffee? Water?” Don’t say wax fruit. “Wax fruit?” Damn.

“I understand from Rosie that your father recently passed away,” she said.

“Yes. He did.”

“When Rosie’s father passed, they did a four-page obituary in Cooks and Cookery. They said he was solely responsible for the arrival of Caribbean fusion cuisine in this country.”