Well, your team, as I say, have just won. The match. It means they retain the Ashes. You must be very pleased. I must say, I’m rather fond of cricket, though I wouldn’t like anyone outside this planet to hear me saying that. Oh dear no.
The apparition gave what looked as if it might have been a mischievous grin, but it was hard to tell because the sun was directly behind him, creating a blinding halo round his head and illuminating his silver hair and beard in a way which was awesome, dramatic and hard to reconcile with mischievous grins.
Still, he said, it’ll all be over in a couple of days, won’t it? Though as I said to you when we last met, I was very sorry about that. Still, whatever will have been, will have been.
Arthur tried to speak, but gave up the unequal struggle. He prodded Ford again.
I thought something terrible had happened, said Ford, but it’s just the end of the game. We ought to get out. Oh, hello, Slartibartfast, what are you doing here?
Oh, pottering, pottering, said the old man gravely.
That your ship? Can you give us a lift anywhere?
Patience, patience, the old man admonished.
OK, said Ford. It’s just that this planet’s going to be demolished pretty soon.
I know that, said Slartibartfast.
And, well, I just wanted to make that point, said Ford.
The point is taken.
And if you feel that you really want to hang around a cricket pitch at this point…
I do.
Then it’s your ship.
It is.
I suppose. Ford turned away sharply at this point.
Hello, Slartibartfast, said Arthur at last.
Hello, Earthman, said Slartibartfast.
After all, said Ford, we can only die once.
The old man ignored this and stared keenly on to the pitch, with eyes that seemed alive with expressions that had no apparent bearing on what was happening out there. What was happening was that the crowd was gathering itself into a wide circle round the centre of the pitch. What Slartibartfast saw in it, he alone knew.
Ford was humming something. It was just one note repeated at intervals. He was hoping that somebody would ask him what he was humming, but nobody did. If anybody had asked him he would have said he was humming the first line of a Noel Coward song called “Mad About the Boy” over and over again. It would then have been pointed out to him that he was only singing one note, to which he would have replied that for reasons which he hoped would be apparent, he was omitting the “about the boy” bit. He was annoyed that nobody asked.
It’s just, he burst out at last, that if we don’t go soon, we might get caught in the middle of it all again. And there’s nothing that depresses me more than seeing a planet being destroyed. Except possibly still being on it when it happens. Or, he added in an undertone, hanging around cricket matches.
Patience, said Slartibartfast again. Great things are afoot.
That’s what you said last time we met, said Arthur.
They were, said Slartibartfast.