Terry Pratchett - Snuff

Vimes looked around at the pink and white faces contemplating a jump into the unknown and continued. ‘Of course, if you really want to stick with bonnets, then Sybil and I own a decent property in Old Cobblers, in the big city, which is standing empty. Used to be a tough area, but the upwardly mobile trolls and vampires are moving in right now, and the heavy dollar and the dark dollar are not to be sneezed at, especially because they’ll pay top dollar for what they want. Quite a sophisticated area, too. People actually put tables and chairs out on the pavement and they don’t always all get stolen . We could let you have it rent free for three months to see how you do and then maybe you’d have to learn the concept of rent, if only for your self-respect. Trust me, ladies, self-respect is what you get when you don’t have to spend your life waiting for some rich old lady to pop her clogs. Any takers?’

Vimes took as an optimistic sign the fact that the girls were staring at one another with what could only be called a wild surmise at the prospect of not being totally useless ornaments, and so he added, ‘And whatever you do, stop reading bloody silly romantic novels!’

There was, however, a pocket — or possibly purse — of resistance to the revolution. One girl was standing by the curate as if she owned him. She looked at Vimes defiantly and said, ‘Please don’t think me forward, commander, but I’d rather like to marry Jeremy and help him in his ministry.’

‘Very good, very good,’ said Vimes, ‘and you love him and he loves you? Speak up, the pair of you.’ They both nodded, red with embarrassment, with one eye on the girl’s mother, whose wide grin suggested that would be a definite plus. ‘Well then, I suggest you get yourselves sorted out, and you, young man, would be advised to find a better-paying job. Can’t help you with that, but there are loads of religions these days, and if I were you I’d impress some bishop somewhere with my common sense, which is what a clergyman needs above everything else … Well, nearly everything else, and remember there’s room at the top … Although in the case of religion, not right at the top, eh?’ Vimes thought for a moment and added, ‘But maybe the best idea, ladies, might be to take a look around a bit until you find some lad that’s got the makings of a successful man, noble or not, and if he suits then get behind him, support him as necessary, help him up when he’s down, and generally be around when he looks for you, and make certain that he’ll be around when you look for him. Well, if both of you put your backs into it then it might turn out to be something good. It has certainly worked once before, hasn’t it, Sybil?’

Sybil burst out laughing and the overwhelmed girls nodded dutifully as if they actually understood, but Vimes was gratified to feel a gentle little prod from Lady Sybil that offered hope that he was not going to pay too high a price for speaking his mind to these precious flowers.

He looked around as if seeking to tidy things up. ‘Well, that seems to be that, yes?’

‘Excuse me, commander?’ It took Vimes some time to see where the voice had come from; this daughter hadn’t spoken a word all afternoon, but had occasionally scribbled in a notebook. Now she gazed at him with a look somewhat brighter than those of her sisters.

‘Can I help you, miss? And perhaps you’ll tell me your name?’

‘Jane, commander. I am endeavouring to be a writer. May I ask if you have any views on that as an acceptable career for a young lady?’

Jane, thought Vimes, the strange one. And she was. She was just as demure as the other sisters, but somehow as he looked at her he got the impression that she was seeing right through him, thoughts and all.

Vimes leaned back in his chair, a little defensively, and said, ‘Well, it can’t be a difficult job, given that all the words have probably been invented already, so there’s a saving in time right there, considering that you simply have to put them together in a different order.’ That was about the limit of his expertise in the literary arts, but he added, ‘What sort of thing were you thinking of writing, Jane?’

The girl looked embarrassed. ‘Well, commander, at the moment I’m working on what might be considered a novel about the complexities of personal relationships, with all their hopes and dreams and misunderstandings.’ She coughed nervously, as if apologizing.

Vimes pursed his lips. ‘Yes. Sounds basically like a good idea, miss, but I can’t really help you on that — though if I was you, and this is me talking off the top of my head, I’d be putting in a lot of fighting, and dead bodies falling out of wardrobes … and maybe a war, perhaps, as a bit of background?’

Jane nodded uneasily. ‘A remarkable suggestion, commander, with much to recommend it, but possibly the relationships would be somewhat neglected?’

Vimes considered this input and said, ‘Well, you might be right.’ Then, out of nowhere, possibly some deep hole, a thought struck him, just as it had many times before, sometimes in nightmares. ‘I wonder if any author has thought about the relationship between the hunter and the hunted, the policeman and the mysterious killer, the lawman who must think like a criminal sometimes in order to do his job, and may be unpleasantly surprised at how good he is at such thinking, perhaps. Just an idea, you understand,’ he said lamely, and wondered where the hell it had come from. Maybe the strange Jane had pulled it out of him and even, perhaps, could resolve it.

‘Would anybody like more tea?’ said Ariadne brightly.

Lady Sybil was very quiet as their coach drove away, and so Vimes decided to bite the bullet now and get it over with. She was looking thoughtful, which was always worrying.

‘Am I in trouble, Sybil?’

His wife looked at him blankly for a moment and then said, ‘You mean for telling that bunch of precious blooms to stop yearning for a life and to get out there and make one? Good heavens, no! You did everything I would have expected of you, Sam. You always do. I told Ariadne that you wouldn’t let her down. She doesn’t have much of an income, and if you hadn’t given them the righteous word I think she would have eventually driven them out with a shovel. No, Sam, I just wonder what goes on in your head, that’s all. I mean, I’m sure some people think being a policeman is just a job, but you don’t, do you? I’m very proud of you, Sam, and wouldn’t have you any other way, but I do worry sometimes. Anyway, well done! I’ll look forward with interest to see what young Jane writes.’

Next day, Vimes took his little boy fishing, hampered somewhat by a total lack of knowledge of the art. Young Sam didn’t seem to mind. He had located a shrimping net among the largesse of the nursery and messed about in the shallows, chasing crayfish and sometimes going almost rigid in order to stare at things. Once he got over the shock, Vimes noticed that Young Sam did this quite happily, and on one occasion pointed out to his doting father things in the stream ‘like insects in the water with a coat made of little pebbles’, which Vimes had to investigate, to find that this was entirely true. This amazed Sam Vimes even more than it did his son, who in fact, he told his father as they strolled back for lunch, had been really looking to see if fish did a poo, a question that had never exercised Sam Vimes in his life, but appeared to be of great importance to his son. So much so that on the way home he had to be restrained from doubling back to the stream to see if they got out to do it because otherwise, er, yuck!

Sybil had promised Young Sam another trip around Home Farm in the afternoon, which left Sam Vimes to his own devices, or such devices as the policeman could find in the quiet lanes. Vimes was streetwise; he didn’t know what lanewise might entail, but possibly it would deal with things like throttling stoats and knowing whether whatever it was that had just said ‘moo’ was a cow or a bull without having to bend down to find out.