Текст книги "The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul"
Автор книги: Douglas Noel Adams
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 16 страниц)
Chapter 12
The large, serious-looking grey van moved smoothly down the driveway, emerged through the stone gates and dipped sedately as it turned off the gravel and on to the asphalt of the public road. The road was a windy country lane lined with the wintry silhouettes of leafless oaks and dead elms. Grey clouds were piled high as pillows in the sky. The van made its stately progress away down the lane and soon was lost among its further twists and turns.
A few minutes later the yellow Citroën made its less stately appearance between the gates. It turned its splayed wheels up on to the camber of the lane and set off at a slow but difficult rate in the same direction.
Kate was rattled.
The last few minutes had been rather unpleasant. Standish was clearly an oddly behaved man at the best of times, but after their encounter with the patient named Odwin, he had turned unequivocally hostile. It was the frightening hostility of one who was himself frightened – of what, Kate did not know.
Who was she? he had demanded to know. How had she wheedled a reference out of Alan Franklin, a respected man in the profession? What was she after? What – and this seemed to be the big one – had she done to arouse the disapprobation of Mr Odwin?
She held the car grimly to the road as it negotiated the bends with considerable difficulty and the straight sections with only slightly less. The car had landed her in court on one occasion when one of its front wheels had sailed off on a little expedition of its own and nearly caused an accident. The police witness in court had referred to her beloved Citroën as «the alleged car» and the name had subsequently stuck. She was particularly fond of the alleged car for many reasons. If one of its doors, for instance, fell off she could put it back on herself, which is more than you could say for a BMW.
She wondered if she looked as pale and wan as she felt, but the rear-view mirror was rattling around under the seat so she was spared the knowledge.
Standish himself had become quite white and shaky at the very idea of anybody crossing Mr Odwin and had dismissed out of hand Kate's attempts to deny that she knew anything of him at all. If that were the case, he had demanded of her, why then had Mr Odwin made it perfectly clear that he knew her? Was she accusing Mr Odwin of being a liar? If she was then she should have a care for herself.
Kate did not know. The encounter with Mr Odwin was completely inexplicable to her. But she could not deny to herself that the man packed some kind of punch. When he looked at you you stayed looked at. But beneath the disturbing quality of his steady gaze had lain some even more disturbing undercurrents. They were more disturbing because they were undercurrents of weakness and fear.
And as for the other creature.
Clearly he was the cause of the stories that had arisen recently in the more extremely abhorrent sectors of the tabloid press about there being «Something Nasty in the Woodshead». The stories had, of course, been offensive and callously insensitive and had largely been ignored by everybody in the country except for those very few millions who were keen on offensive and callously insensitive things.
The stories had claimed that people in the area had been «terrorised» by some repulsively deformed «goblin-like» creature who regularly broke out of the Woodshead and committed an impressively wide range of unspeakable acts.
Like most people, Kate had assumed, insofar as she had thought about it at all, that what had actually happened was that some poor bewildered mental patient had wandered out of the grounds and given a couple of passing old ladies a bit of a turn, and that the slavering hacks of Wapping had done the rest. Now she was a little more shaky and a little less sure.
He – it – had known her name.
What could she make of that?
What she made of it was a wrong turning. In her preoccupation she missed the turning that would take her on to the main road back to London, and then had to work out what to do about it. She could simply do a three-point turn and go back, but it was a long time since she had last put the car into reverse gear, and she was frankly a bit nervous about how it would take to it.
She tried taking the next two right turns to see if that would set her straight, but she had no great hopes of this actually working, and was right not to have. She drove on for two or three miles, knowing that she was on the wrong road but at least, judging from the position of the lighter grey smear in the grey clouds, going in the right direction.
After a while she settled down to this new route. A couple of signposts she passed made it clear to her that she was merely taking the B route back to London now, which she was perfectly happy to do. If she had thought about it in advance, she would probably have chosen to do so anyway in preference to the busy trunk road.
The trip had been a total failure, and she would have done far better simply to have stayed soaking in the bath all afternoon. The whole experience had been thoroughly disturbing, verging on the frightening, and she had drawn a complete blank as far as her actual objective was concerned. It was bad enough having an objective that she could hardly bring herself to admit to, without having it completely fall apart on her as well. A sense of stale futility gradually closed in on her along with the general greyness of the sky.
She wondered if she was going very slightly mad. Her life seemed to have drifted completely out of her control in the last few days, and it was distressing to realise just how fragile her grip was when it could so easily be shattered by a relatively minor thunderbolt or meteorite or whatever it was.
The word «thunderbolt» seemed to have arrived in the middle of that thought without warning and she didn't know what to make of it, so she just let it lie there at the bottom of her mind, like the towel lying on her bathroom floor that she hadn't been bothered to pick up.
She longed for some sun to break through. The miles ground along under her wheels, the clouds ground her down, and she found herself increasingly thinking of penguins. At last she felt she could stand it no more and decided that a few minutes' walk was what she needed to shake her out of her mood.
She stopped the car at the side of the road, and the elderly Jaguar which had been following her for the last seventeen miles ran straight into the back of her, which worked just as well.
Chapter 13
With a delicious shock of rage Kate leapt, invigorated, out of her car and ran to harangue the driver of the other car who was, in turn, leaping out of his in order to harangue her.
«Why don't you look where you're going?» she yelled at him. He was a rather overweight man who had been driving wearing a long leather coat and a rather ugly red hat, despite the discomfort this obviously involved. Kate warmed to him for it.
«Why don't I look where I'm going?» he replied heatedly. «Don't you look in your near-view mirror?»
«No,» said Kate, putting her fists on her hips.
«Oh,» said her adversary. «Why not?»
«Because it's under the seat.»
«I see,» he replied grimly. «Thank you for being so frank with me. Do you have a lawyer?»
«Yes I do, as a matter of fact,» said Kate. She said it with vim and hauteur.
«Is he any good?» said the man in the hat. «I'm going to need one. Mine's popped into prison for a while.»
«Well, you certainly can't have mine.»
«Why not?»
«Don't be absurd. It would be a clear conflict of interest.»
Her adversary folded his arms and leant back against the bonnet of his car. He took his time to survey the surroundings. The lane was growing dim as the early winter evening began to settle on the land. He then leant into his car to turn on his hazard warning indicators. The rear amber lights winked prettily on the scrubby grass of the roadside. The front lights were buried in the rear of Kate's Citroën and were in no fit state to wink.
He resumed his leaning posture and looked Kate up and down appraisingly.
«You are a driver,» he said, «and I use the word in the loosest possible sense, i.e. meaning merely somebody who occupies the driving seat of what I will for the moment call – but I use the term strictly without prejudice – a car while it is proceeding along the road, of stupendous, I would even say verging on the superhuman, lack of skill. Do you catch my drift?»
«No.»
«I mean you do not drive well. Do you know you've been all over the road for the last seventeen miles?»
«Seventeen miles!» exclaimed Kate. «Have you been following me?»
«Only up to a point,» said Dirk. «I've tried to stay on this side of the road.»
«I see. Well, thank you in turn for being so frank with me. This, I need hardly tell you, is an outrage. You'd better get yourself a damn good lawyer, because mine's going to stick red-hot skewers in him.»
«Perhaps I should get myself a kebab instead.»
«You look as if you've had quite enough kebabs. May I ask you why you were following me?»
«You looked as if you knew where you were going. To begin with at least. For the first hundred yards or so.».
«What the hell's it got to do with you where I was going?»
«Navigational technique of mine.»
Kate narrowed her eyes.
She was about to demand a full and instant explanation of this preposterous remark when a passing white Ford Sierra slowed down beside them.
The driver wound down the window and leant out. «Had a crash then?» he shouted at them.
«Yes.»
«Ha!» he said and drove on.
A second or two later a Peugeot stopped by them.
«Who was that just now?» the driver asked them, in reference to the previous driver who had just stopped.
«I don't know,» said Dirk.
«Oh,» said the driver. «You look as if you've bad a crash of some sort.»
«Yes,» said Dirk.
«Thought so,» said the driver and drove on.
«You don't get the same quality of passers-by these days, do you?» said Dirk to Kate.
«You get hit by some real dogs, too,» said Kate. «I still want to know why you were following me. You realise that it's hard for me not to see you in the role of an extremely sinister sort of a person.»
«That's easily explained,» said Dirk. «Usually I am. On this occasion, however, I simply got lost. I was forced to take evasive action by a large grey oncoming van which took a proprietorial view of the road. I only avoided it by nipping down a side lane in which I was then unable to reverse. A few turnings later and I was thoroughly lost. There is a school of thought which says that you should consult a map on these occasions, but to such people I merely say, „Ha! What if you have no map to consult? What if you have a map but it's of the Dordogne?“ My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it's going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be. So what do you say to that?»
«Piffle.»
«A robust response. I salute you.»
«l was going to say that I do the same thing myself sometimes, but I've decided not to admit that yet.»
«Very wise,» said Dirk. «You don't want to give away too much at this point. Play it enigmatic is my advice.»
«I don't want your advice. Where were you trying to get before suddenly deciding that driving seventeen miles in the opposite direction would help you get there?»
«A place called the Woodshead.»
«Ah, the mental hospital.»
«You know it?»
«I've been driving away from it for the last seventeen miles and I wish it was further. Which ward will you be in? I need to know where to send the repair bill.»
«They don't have wards,» said Dirk. «And I think they would be distressed to hear you call it a mental hospital.»
«Anything that distresses 'em is fine by me.»
Dirk looked about him.
«A fine evening,» he said.
«No it isn't.»
«I see,» said Dirk. «You have, if I may say so, the air of one to whom her day has not been a source of joy or spiritual enrichment.»
«Too damn right, it hasn't,» said Kate. «I've had the sort of day that would make St Francis of Assisi kick babies. Particularly if you include Tuesday in with today, which is the last time I was actually conscious. And now look. My beautiful car. The only thing I can say in favour of the whole shebang is that at least I'm not in Oslo.»
«I can see how that might cheer you.»
«I didn't say it cheered me. It just about stops me killing myself. I might as well save myself the bother anyway, with people like you so keen to do it for me.»
«You were my able assistant, Miss Schechter.» «Stop doing that!» «Stop doing what?»
«My name! Suddenly every stranger I meet knows my name. Would you guys please just quit knowing my name for one second? How can a girl be enigmatic under these conditions? The only person I met who didn't seem to know my name was the only one I actually introduced myself to. All right,» she said, pointing an accusing finger at Dirk, «you're not supernatural, so just tell me how you knew my name. I'm not letting go of your tie till you tell me.»
«You haven't got hold of» —
«I have now, buster.»
«Unhand me!»
«Why were you following me?» insisted Kate. «How do you know my name?»
«I was following you for exactly the reasons stated. As for your name, my dear lady, you practically told me yourself.»
«I did not.»
«I assure you, you did.»
«I'm still holding your tie.»
«If you are meant to be in Oslo but have been unconscious since Tuesday, then presumably you were at the incredible exploding check-in counter at Heathrow Terminal Two. It was widely reported in the press. I expect you missed it through being unconscious. I myself missed it through rampant apathy, but the events of today have rather forced it on my attention.»
Kate grudgingly let go of his tie, but continued to eye him with suspicion.
«Oh yeah?» she said. «What events?»
«Disturbing ones,» said Dirk, brushing himself down. «Even if what you had told me yourself had not been enough to identify you, then the fact of your having also been today to visit the Woodshead clinched it for me. I gather from your mood of belligerent despondency that the man you were seeking was not there.»
«What?»
«Please, have it,» said Dirk, rapidly pulling off his tie and handing it to her. «By chance I ran into a nurse from your hospital earlier today. My first encounter with her was one which, for various reasons, I was anxious to terminate abruptly. It was only while I was standing on the pavement a minute or two later, fending off the local wildlife, that one of the words I had heard her say struck me, I may say, somewhat like a thunderbolt. The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenuously bent to fit.
I returned to question her further, and she confirmed that a somewhat unusual patient had, in the early hours of the morning, been transferred from the hospital, apparently to the Woodshead.
She also confided to me that another patient had been almost indecently curious to find out what had become of him. That patient was a Miss Kate Schechter, and I think you will agree, Miss Schechter, that my methods of navigation have their advantages. I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.»
Chapter 14
After about half an hour a hefty man from the local garage arrived with a pick-up truck, a tow-rope and a son. Having looked at the situation he sent his son and the pick-up truck away to deal with another job, attached the tow-rope to Kate's now defunct car and pulled it away to the garage himself.
Kate was a little quiet about this for a minute or two, and then said, «He wouldn't have done that if I hadn't been an American.»
He had recommended to them a small local pub where he would come and look for them when he had made his diagnosis on the Citroën. Since Dirk's Jaguar had only lost its front right indicator light, and Dirk insisted that he hardly ever turned right anyway, they drove the short distance there. As Kate, with some reluctance, climbed into Dirk's car she found the Howard Bell book which Dirk had purloined from Sally Mills in the caf, and pounced on it. A few minutes later, walking into the pub, she was still trying to work out if it was one she had need or not.
The pub combined all the traditional English quatities of horse brasses, Formica and surliness. The sound of Michael Jackson in the other bar mingled with the mournful intermittence of the glass-cleaning machine in this one to create an aural ambience which perfectly matched the elderly paintwork in its dinginess.
Dirk bought himself and Kate a drink each, and then joined her at the small corner table she had found away from the fat, T-shirted hostility of the bar.
«I have read it,» she announced, having thumbed her way by now through most of Run Like the Devil. «At least, I started it and read the first couple of chapters. A couple of months ago, in fact. I don't know why I still read his books. It's perfectly clear that his editor doesn't.» She looked up at Dirk. «I wouldn't have thought it was your sort of thing. From what little I know of you.»
«It isn't,» said Dirk. «I, er, picked it up by mistake.»
«'That's what everyone says,» replied Kate. «He used to be quite good,» she added «if you liked that sort of thin. My brother's in publishing in New York, and he says Howard Bell's gone very strange nowadays. I get the feeling that they're all a little afraid of him and he quite likes that. Certainly no one seems to have the guts to tell him he should cut chapters ten to twenty-seven inclusive. And all the stuff about the goat. The theory is that the reason he sells so many millions of copies is that nobody ever does read them. If everyone who bought them actually read them they'd never bother to buy the next one and his career would be over.»
She pushed it away from her.
«Anyway,» she said, «you've very cleverly told me why I went to the Woodshead; you haven't told me why you were going there yourself.»
Dirk shrugged. «To see what it was like,» he said, non-commitally.
«Oh yes? Well, I'll save you the bother. The place is quite horrible.»
«Describe it. In fact start with the airport.»
Kate took a hefty swig at her Bloody Mary and brooded silently for a moment while the vodka marched around inside her.
«You want to hear about the airport as well?» she said at last.
«Yes.»
Kate drained the rest of her drink.
«I'll need another one, then,» she said and pushed the empty glass across at him.
Dirk braved the bug-eyedness of the batman and returned a minute or two later with a refill for Kate.
«OK,» said Kate. «I'll start with the cat.»
«What cat?»
«The cat I needed to ask the next-door neighbour to look after for me.»
«Which next-door neighbour?»
«The one that died.»
«I see,» said Dirk. «Tell you what, why don't I just shut up and let you tell me?»
«Yes,» said Kate, «that would be good.»
Kate recounted the events of the last few days, or at least, those she was conscious for, and then moved on to her impressions of the Woodshead.
Despite the distaste with which she described it, it sounded to Dirt like exactly the sort of place he would love to retire to, if possible tomorrow. It combined a dedication to the inexplicable, which was his own persistent vice (he could only think of it as such, and sometimes would rail against it with the fury of an addict), with a pampered self-indulgence which was a vice to which he would love to be able to aspire if he could ever but afford it.
At last Kate related her disturbing encounter with Mr Odwin and his repellent minion, and it was as a result of this that Dirk remained sunk in a frowning silence for a minute afterwards. A large part of this minute was in fact taken up with an internal struggle about whether or not he was going to cave in and have a cigarette. He had recently foresworn them and the struggle was a regular one and he lost it regularly, often without noticing.
He decided, with triumph, that he would not have one, and then took one out anyway. Fishing out his lighter from the capacious pocket of his coat involved first taking out the envelope he had removed from Geoffrey Aristey's bathroom. He put it on the table next to the book and lit his cigarette.
«The check-in girl at the airport…» he said at last.
«She drove me mad,» said Kate, instantly. «She just went through the motions of doing her job like some kind of blank machine. Wouldn't listen, wouldn't think. I don't know where they find people like that.»
«She used to be my secretary, in fact,» said Dirk. «They don't seem to know where to find her now, either.»
«Oh. I'm sorry,» said Kate immediately, and then reflected for a moment.
«I expect you're going to say that she wasn't like that really» she continued. «Well, that's possible. I expect she was just shielding herself from the frustrations of her job. It must drive you insensible working at an airport. I think I would have sympathised if I hadn't been so goddamn frustrated myself. I'm sorry, I didn't know. So that's what you're trying to find out about.»
Dirk gave a non-committal type of nod. «Amongst other things,» he said. Then he added, «I'm a private detective.»
«Oh?» said Kate in surprise, and then looked puzzled.
«Does that bother you?»
«It's just that I have a friend who plays the double bass.»
«I see,» said Dirk.
«Whenever people meet him and he's struggling around with it, they all say the same thing, and it drives him crazy. They all say, „I bet you wished you played the piccolo.“ Nobody ever works out that that's what everybody else says. I was just trying to work out if there was something that everybody would always say to a private detective, so that I could avoid saying it.»
«No. What happens is that everybody looks very shifty for a moment, and you got that very well.»
«I see.» Kate looked disappointed. «Well, do you have any clues – that is to say, any idea about what's happened to your secretary?»
«No,» said Dirk, «no idea. Just a vague image that I don't know what to make of.» He toyed thoughtfully with his cigarette, and then let his gaze wander over the table again and on to the book.
He picked it up and looked it over, wondering what impulse had made him pick it up in the first place.
«I don't really know anything about Howard Bell,» he said.
Kate was surprised at the way he suddenly changed the subject, but also a little relieved.
«I only know,» said Dirk, «that he sells a lot of books and that they all look pretty much like this. What should I know?»
«Well, there are some very strange stories about him.»
«Like what?»
«Like what he gets up to in hotel suites all across America. No one knows the details, of course, they just get the bills and pay them because they don't like to ask. They feel they're on safer ground if they don't know. Particularly about the chickens.»
«Chickens?» said Dirk. «What chickens?»
«Well apparently,» said Kate, lowering her voice and leaning forward a little, «he's always having live chickens delivered to his hotel room.»
Dirk frowned.
«What on earth for?» he said.
«Nobody knows. Nobody ever knows what happens to them. Nobody ever sees them again. Not,» she said, leaning even further forward, and dropping her voice still further, «a single feather.»
Dirk wondered if he was being hopelessly innocent and naïve.
«So what do people think he's doing with them?» he asked.
«Nobody,» Kate said, «has the faintest idea. They don't even want to have the faintest idea. They just don't know.»
She shrugged and picked the book up again herself.
«The other thing David – that's my brother – says about him is that he has the absolute perfect bestseller's name.»
«Really?» said Dirk. «In what way?»
«David says it's the first thing any publisher looks for in a new author. Not, „Is his stuff any good?“ or, „Is his stuff any good once you get rid of all the adjectives?“ but, „Is his last name nice and short and his first name just a bit longer?“ You see? The „Bell“ is done in huge silver letters, and the „Howard“ fits neatly across the top in slightly narrower ones. Instant trade mark. It's publishing magic. Once you've got a name like that then whether you can actually write or not is a minor matter. Which in Howard Bell's case is now a significant bonus. But it's a very ordinary name if you write it down in the normal way, like it is here you see.»
«What?» said Dirk.
«Here on this envelope of yours.»
«Where? Let me see.»
«That's his name there, isn't it? Crossed out.»
«Good heavens, you're right,» said Dirk, peering at the envelope. «I suppose I didn't recognise it without its trade mark shape.»
«Is this something to do with him, then?» asked Kate, picking it up and looking it over.
«I don't know what it is, exactly,» said Dirk. «It's something to do with a contract, and it may be something to do with a record.»
«I can see it might be to do with a record.»
«How can you see that?» asked Dirk, sharply.
«Well, this name here is Dennis Hutch, isn't it? See?»
«Oh yes. Yes, I do,» said Dirk, examining it for himself. «Er, should I know that name?»
«Well,» said Kate slowly, «it depends if you're alive or not, I suppose. He's the head of the Aries Rising Record Group. Less famous than the Pope, I grant you, but – you know of the Pope I take it?»
«Yes, yes,» said Dirk impatiently, «white-haired chap.»
«That's him. He seems to be about the only person of note this envelope hasn't been addressed to at some time. Here's Stan Dubcek, the head of Dubcek, Danton, Heidegger, Draycott. I know they handle the ARRGH! account.»
«The…?»
«ARRGH! Aries Rising Record Group Holdings. Getting that account made the agency's fortunes.»
She looked at Dirk.
«You have the air,» she stated, «of one who knows little of the record business or the advertising business.»
«I have that honour,» said Dirk, graciously inclining his head.
«So what are you doing with this?»
«When I manage to get it open, I'll know,» said Dirk. «Do you have a knife on you?»
Kate shook her head.
«Who's Geoffrey Anstey, then?» she asked. «He's the only name not crossed out. Friend of yours?»
Dirk paled a little and didn't immediately answer. Then he said, «This strange person you mentioned, this „Something Nasty in the Woodshead“ creature. Tell me again what he said to you.»
«He said, „I, too, have the advantage of you, Miss Schechter“.» Kate tried to shrug.
Dirk weighed his thoughts uncertainly for a moment.
«I think it is just possible,» he said at last, «that you may be in some kind of danger.»
«You mean it's possible that passing lunatics may crash into me in the road? That kind of danger?»
«Maybe even worse.»
«Oh yeah?»
«Yes.»
«And what makes you think that?»
«It's not entirely clear to me yet,» replied Dirk with a frown. «Most of the ideas I have at the moment have to do with things that are completely impossible, so I am wary about sharing them. They are, however, the only thoughts I have.»
«I'd get some different ones, then,» said Kate. «What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? „Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth“.»
«I reject that entirely,» said Dirk, sharply. «The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something which works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, „Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that“.»
«Well, it happened to me today, in fact,» replied Kate.
«Ah yes,» said Dirk, slapping the table and making the glasses jump, «your girl in the wheelchair – a perfect example. The idea that she is somehow receiving yesterday's stock market prices apparently out of thin air is merely impossible, and therefore must be the case, because the idea that she is maintaining an immensely complex and laborious hoax of no benefit to herself is hopelessly improbable. The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don't know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality.»
«But you won't tell me what you think.»
«No.»
«Why not?»
«Because it sounds ridiculous. But I think you are in danger. I think you might be in horrible danger.»
«Great. So what do you suggest I do about it?» said Kate taking a sip of her second drink, which otherwise had stayed almost untouched.
«I suggest,» said Dirk seriously, «that you come back to London and spend the night in my house.»
Kate hooted with laughter and then had to fish out a Kleenex to wipe tomato juice off herself.
«I'm sorry, what is so extraordinary about that?» demanded Dirk, rather taken aback.
«It's just the most wonderfully perfunctory pick-up line I've ever heard.» She smiled at him. «I'm afraid the answer is a resounding „no“.»
He was, she thought, interesting, entertaining in an eccentric kind of way, but also hideously unattractive to her.
Dirk felt very awkward. «I think there has been some appalling misunderstanding,» he said. «Allow me to explain that» —
He was interrupted by the sudden arrival in their midst of the mechanic from the garage with news of Kate's car.
«Fixed it,» he said. «In fact there were nothing to fix other than the bumper. Nothing new that is. The funny noise you mentioned were just the engine. But it'll go all right. You just have to rev her up, let in the clutch, and then wait for a little bit longer than you might normally expect.»
Kate thanked him a little stiffly for this advice and then insisted on allowing Dirk to pay the 25 he was charging for it.
Outside, in the car park, Dirk repeated his urgent request that Kate should go with him, but she was adamant that all she needed was a good night's sleep and that everything would look bright and clear and easily capable of being coped with in the morning.
