Oh, hello, Arthur Dent here. Look, sorry I haven’t been in for six months but I’ve gone mad.
Oh, not to worry. Thought it was probably something like that. Happens here all the time. How soon can we expect you?
When do hedgehogs stop hibernating?
Sometime in spring I think.
I’ll be in shortly after that.
Rightyho.
He flipped through the Yellow Pages and made a short list of numbers to try.
Oh hello, is that the Old Elms Hospital? Yes, I was just phoning to see if I could have a word with Fenella, er… Fenella Good Lord, silly me, I’ll forget my own name next, er, Fenella isn’t this ridiculous? Patient of yours, dark haired girl, came in last night…
I’m afraid we don’t have any patients called Fenella.
Oh, don’t you? I mean Fiona of course, we just call her Fen…
I’m sorry, goodbye.
Click.
Six conversations along these lines began to take their toll on his mood of vigorous, dynamic optimism, and he decided that before it deserted him entirely he would take it down to the pub and parade it a little.
He had had the perfect idea for explaining away every inexplicable weirdness about himself at a stroke, and he whistled to himself as he pushed open the door which had so daunted him last night.
Arthur!!!!
He grinned cheerfully at the boggling eyes that stared at him from all corners of the pub, and told them all what a wonderful time he’d had in Southern California.
“哦，你好，我是阿瑟.邓特。呃，抱歉我六个月没在，而且我疯了。”
“哦，别担心。明白了，大概就是这么一回事。这儿总是发生这种事。我们什么时候能见到你回来？”
“刺猬什么时候停止冬眠？”
“春天吧，我想。”
“我在那之后很快就会回去。”
“啊哈。”
他翻着黄页，列出了一小张可以尝试的号码的单子。
“哦，你好，是老榆树医院吗？是的，我打来问问是不是能够查到一个叫芬妮拉的，呃……芬妮拉——老天啊——我真笨，我下次就该忘了自己的名字了，呃，芬妮拉——这是不是很荒谬？您的病人，深色头发的女孩，昨晚到的……”
“恐怕我们没有任何叫芬妮拉的病人。”
“哦，没有？当然，我指得是菲奥娜，我们只是叫她芬……”
“抱歉，再见。”
咔嗒。
六个相似的对话开始消磨掉了他的活力和乐观，他决定在那些东西消磨完之前先去趟酒吧并炫耀一下。
他有个完美的点子来把他身上的一切无法解释的诡异事情一劳永逸地糊弄过去。他一边吹着口哨一边打开了昨晚让他畏缩的那扇门。
“阿瑟！！！！”
他对着从酒馆各个角落里盯着他的踌躇眼神阳光地咧嘴笑着，并告诉那些人他在南加州度过的时光有多么美好。