So long, and thanks for all the fish [28]
Rough drawings from memory were futile. He didn't even know how long it had been, beyond Ford Prefect's rough guess at the time that it was "a couple of million years" and he simply didn't have the maths.
Still, in the end he worked out a method which would at least produce a result. He decided not to mind the fact that with the extraordinary jumble of rules of thumb, wild approximations and arcane guesswork he was using he would be lucky to hit the right galaxy, he just went ahead and got a result.
He would call it the right result. Who would know?
As it happened, through the myriad and unfathomable chances of fate, he got it exactly right, though he of course would never know that. He just went up to London and knocked on the appropriate door.
"Oh. I thought you were going to phone me first."
Arthur gaped in astonishment.
"You can only come in for a few minutes," said Fenchurch. "I'm just going out."
Chapter 18
A summer's day in Islington, full of the mournful wail of antique-restoring machinery.
Fenchurch was unavoidably busy for the afternoon, so Arthur wandered in a blissed-out haze and looked at all the shops which, in Islington, are quite an useful bunch, as anyone who regularly needs old woodworking tools, Boer War helmets, drag, office furniture or fish will readily confirm.
The sun beat down over the roofgardens. It beat on architects and plumbers. It beat on barristers and burglars. It beat on pizzas. It beat on estate agent's particulars.
It beat on Arthur as he went into a restored furniture shop.
"It's an interesting building," said the proprietor, cheerfully. "There's a cellar with a secret passage which connects with a nearby pub. It was built for the Prince Regent apparently, so he could make his escape when he needed to."
"You mean, in case anybody might catch him buying stripped pine furniture," said Arthur
"No," said the proprietor, "not for that reason."
"You'll have to excuse me," said Arthur. "I'm terribly happy."
"I see."
He wandered hazily on and found himself outside the offices of Greenpeace. he remembered the contents of his file marked "Things to do — urgent!", which he hadn't opened again in the meantime. He marched in with a cheery smile and said he'd come to give them some money to help free the dolphins.
"Very funny," they told him, "go away."
This wasn't quite the response he had expected, so he tried again. This time they got quite angry with him, so he just left some money anyway and went back out into the sunshine.
Just after six he returned to Fenchurch's house in the alleyway, clutching a bottle of champagne.
"Hold this," she said, shoved a stout rope in his hand and disappeared inside through the large white wooden doors from which dangled a fat padlock off a black iron bar.
The house was a small converted stable in a light industrial alleyway behind the derelict Royal Agricultural Hall of Islington. As well as its large stable doors it also had a normal-looking front door of smartly glazed panelled wood with a black dolphin door knocker. The one odd thing about this door was its doorstep, which was nine feet high, since the door was set into the upper of the two floors and presumably had been originally used to haul in hay for hungry horses.
An old pulley jutted out of the brickwork above the doorway and it was over this that the rope Arthur was holding was slung. The other end of the rope held a suspended 'cello.
The door opened above his head.
"OK," said Fenchurch, "pull on the rope, steady the 'cello. Pass it up to me."
He pulled on the rope, he steadied the 'cello.
"I can't pull on the rope again," he said, "without letting go of the 'cello."
Fenchurch leant down.
"I'm steadying the 'cello," she said. "You pull on the rope."
The 'cello eased up level with the doorway, swinging slightly, and Fenchurch