So long, and thanks for all the fish [35]
Arthur had simply ceased to worry himself about the strange anomalies surrounding his return to his home world, or rather had consigned them to that part of his mind marked "Things to think about — Urgent." "Here is the world," he had told himself. "Here, for whatever reason, is the world, and here it stays. With me on it." But now it seemed to go swimmy around him, as it had that night in the car when Fenchurch's brother had told him the silly stories about the CIA agent in the reservoir. The trees went swimmy. The lake went swimmy, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be alarmed by because a grey goose had just landed on it. The geese were having a great relaxed time and had no major answers they wished to know the questions to.
"Anyway," said Fenchurch, suddenly and brightly and with a wide-eyed smile, "there is something wrong with part of me, and you've got to find out what it is. We'll go home."
Arthur shook his head.
"What's the matter?" she said.
Arthur had shaken his head, not to disagree with her suggestion which he thought was a truly excellent one, one of the world's great suggestions, but because he was just for a moment trying to free himself of the recurring impression he had that just when he was least expecting it the Universe would suddenly leap out from behind a door and go boo at him.
"I'm just trying to get this entirely clear in my mind," said Arthur, "you say you felt as if the Earth actually ... exploded ..."
"Yes. More than felt."
"Which is what everybody else says," he said hesitantly, "is hallucinations?"
"Yes, but Arthur that's ridiculous. People think that if you just say 'hallucinations' it explains anything you want it to explain and eventually whatever it is you can't understand will just go away. It's just a word, it doesn't explain anything. It doesn't explain why the dolphins disappeared."
"No," said Arthur. "No," he added thoughtfully. "No," he added again, even more thoughtfully. "What?" he said at last.
"Doesn't explain the dolphins disappearing."
"No," said Arthur, "I see that. Which dolphins do you mean?"
"What do you mean which dolphins? I'm talking about when all the dolphins disappeared."
She put her hand on his knee, which made him realize that the tingling going up and down his spine was not her gently stroking his back, and must instead be one of the nasty creepy feelings he so often got when people were trying to explain things to him.
"The dolphins?"
"Yes."
"All the dolphins," said Arthur, "disappeared?"
"Yes."
"The dolphins? You're saying the dolphins all disappeared? Is this," said Arthur, trying to be absolutely clear on this point, "what you're saying?"
"Arthur where have you been for heaven's sake? The dolphins all disappeared on the same day I ..."
She stared him intently in his startled eyes.
"What ...?"
"No dolphins. All gone. Vanished."
She searched his face.
"Did you really not know that?"
It was clear from his startled expression that he did not.
"Where did they go?" he asked.
"No one knows. That's what vanished means." She paused. "Well, there is one man who says he knows about it, but everyone says he lives in California," she said, "and is mad. I was thinking of going to see him because it seems the only lead I've got on what happened to me."
She shrugged, and then looked at him long and quietly. She lay her hand on the side of his face.
"I really would like to know where you've been," she said. "I think something terrible happened to you then as well. And that's why we recognized each other."
She glanced around the park, which was now being gathered into the clutches of dusk.
"Well," she said, "now you've got someone you can tell."
Arthur slowly let out a long year of a sigh.
"It is," he said, "a very long story."
Fenchurch leaned across him and drew over her canvas bag.
"Is it anything to do with this?" she said. The thing she took out of her bag was battered and travelworn