Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn

Author:Michael Frayn [Frayn, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: 100 Best, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780571212712
Publisher: Collins
Published: 1973-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

Charles draws another face in beer. The face is smiling a tiny smile.

“At least I don’t go round killing the poor buggers,” he says.

Howard looks up at him sharply.

“What do you mean?” he demands. “Killing them? Who’s killing them?”

“Well, you are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Killing people?”

“Well, I don’t know,” says Charles, “but I met this girl in television the other evening, and she said people are going to be dropping off your Matterhorn thing like fleas off a dog.”

For a moment Howard just gapes at him, unable to grasp the enormousness of the misunderstanding.

“According to this girl,” says Charles, “huge avalanches are going to come sliding down the mountains, burying people by the dozen.”

A great gasping laugh bursts out of Howard.

“This is fantastic!” he shouts. “No one’s going to go up the mountains! No one’s going to go near them! Why on earth should they want to? There’s nothing but snow and ice and rock up there!”

To soldier doggedly on in the right — and then to crown the campaign with such a clear-cut black-and-white knockdown victory in argument! A sense of exhilaration sweeps through him.

“Well,” says Charles, the lumpish one now, “that’s what this girl told me.”

A delicately ludicrous picture comes into Howard’s mind, of an enthusiastic little hiker with a rucksack on his back, trying to walk up the side of the Matterhorn, and tumbling back with an astonished look on his face.

Howard can’t stop himself from laughing. He hides his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s rude of me, but…”

But he has to behave a little badly. To be in the right — and right about it! It’s a pleasure too sweet to be enjoyed without a little sharpness in it.

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