Moving Pictures

lucky, who knows? I might get to do the afternoon shift too.”
    “Look, I didn’t mean—”
    “It’s stew. Take it or leave it. Three customers this morning have done both.”
    “I’ll take it. Look, you won’t believe it, but I found this book in the hands of—”
    “I’m not allowed to dally with customers. This isn’t the best job in town, but you’re not losing it for me,” snapped Ginger. “Fish stew, right?”
    “Oh. Right. Sorry.”
    He flicked backward through the pages. Before Deccan there was Tento, who also chanted three times a day and also sometimes received gifts of fish and also went to the lavatory, although either he wasn’t so assiduous about it as Deccan or hadn’t thought it always worth writing down. Before that, someone called Meggelin had been the chanter. A whole string of people had lived on the beach, and then if you went back further there was a group of them, and further still the entries had a more official feel. It was hard to tell. They seemed to be written in code, line after line of little complex pictures…
    A bowl of primal soup was plonked down in front of him.
    “Look,” he said. “What time do you get off—”
    “Never,” said Ginger.
    “I just wondered if you might know where—”
    “No.”
    Victor stared at the murky surface of the broth. Borgle worked on the principle that if you find it in water, it’s a fish. There was something purple in there and it had at least ten legs.
    He ate it anyway. It was costing him thirty pence.
    Then, with Ginger resolutely busying herself at the counter with her back to him lighthouse-fashion, so that however he tried to attract her attention her back was still facing him without her apparently moving, he went to look for another job.
    Victor had never worked for anything in his life. In his experience, jobs were things that happened to other people.

    Bezam Planter adjusted the tray around his wife’s neck.
    “All right,” he said. “Got everything?”
    “The banged grains have gone soft,” she said. “And there’s no way to keep the sausages hot.”
    “It’ll be dark, love. No one’ll notice.” He tweaked the strap and stood back.
    “There,” he said. “Now, you know what to do. Halfway through I’ll stop showing the film and put up the card that says ‘Why not Try a Cool Refreshinge Drinke and Some Banged Grains?’ and then you come out of the door over there and walk up the aisle.”
    “You might as well mention cool refreshing sausages as well,” said Mrs. Planter.
    “And I reckon you should stop using a torch to show people to their seats,” said Bezam. “You’re starting too many fires.”
    “It’s the only way I can see in the dark,” she said.
    “Yes, but I had to let that dwarf have his money back last night. You know how sensitive they are about their beards. Tell you what, love, I’ll give you a salamander in a cage. They’ve been on the roof since dawn, they should be nice and ready.”
    They were. The creatures lay dozing in the bottom of their cages, their bodies vibrating gently as they absorbed the light. Bezam selected six of the ripest, climbed heavily back down to the projection room, and tipped them into the showing-box. He wound Throat Dibbler’s film onto a spool, and then peered out into the darkness.
    Oh, well. Might as well see if there was anyone outside.
    He shuffled to the front door, yawning.
    He reached up, and slid the bolt.
    He reached down, and slid the other bolt.
    He pulled open the doors.
    “All right, all right,” he grumbled. “Let’s be having you…”
    He woke up in the projection room, with Mrs. Planter fanning him desperately with her apron.
    “What happened?” he whispered, trying to put out of his mind the memories of trampling feet.
    “It’s a full house!” she said. “And they’re still queueing up outside! They’re all down the street! It’s them disgusting posters!”
    Bezam got up unsteadily but with determination.
    “Woman, shut up and get down to the kitchen and bang some more grains!” he shouted. “And then come and help me repaint the signs! If they’re queueing for the fivepenny seats, they’ll queue for tenpence!”
    He rolled up his sleeves and grasped the handle.
    In the front row the Librarian sat with a bag of peanuts in his lap. After a few minutes he stopped chewing and sat with his mouth open, staring and staring and staring at the flickering images.

    “Hold your horse, sir?