There might be neither koalas nor Oompa Loompas to speak of, but obviously that hadn't stopped Arthur from finding the place brilliant. Douglas, on the other hand, had barely uttered a word since take-off, which was impressive given that Martin had spared no effort to get at least one of his customary jibes out of the First Officer.
Carolyn had never wanted to go in the first place, but she couldn't leave Martin to deal at once with a grumpy first officer and an overly excited steward, even by Arthur's own high standards; not when their client was a very important businessman, and he was flying his business partners to the Malaysian Grand Prix. Speaking of which, it had occurred to her that the blasted race might be just the thing to cheer up her – pilot, for she wasn't going to refer to him in any other way; loath as she always was to waste her virtually non-existent money on frivolous activities, she'd come to realise that if she wanted Arthur happy, then she needed to keep Douglas relatively happy as well – so Grand Prix it had to be, then.
She wasn't particularly surprised when she heard a knock at her door around midnight, and the man himself walked in without as much as a by-your-leave. "You promised you wouldn't tell him," he said, accusingly, and she shot him a withering glare in return.
"Of course I didn't tell him, you idiot," she retorted, though not as scathingly as she would have done only a few months before. "What do you take me for?"
"Care to explain this, then?" he very nearly hissed, producing a faded and somewhat crumpled slip of paper. It took her a moment to recognise it for what it was – the same piece of cheap hotel paper on which a young pilot had scribbled his phone number nearly three decades before, and that she had somehow failed to get rid of over the years. The only possible explanation was that Arthur must have found it whilst they cleared the house after the divorce, and had decided to keep it for reasons she couldn't quite imagine – nor did she want to, for all that matter.
"Are you trying to tell me that Arthur showed you this? Because I have to warn you that doesn't sound much like him, and I've known him longer than you."
The man seemed about to make a sarcastic comment, then apparently changed his mind and slumped into the nearest chair. "He didn't. He showed it to Martin, and Martin showed it to me. The difference being that our esteemed Captain actually recognised my handwriting, and looked very much like a goose caught in a plane's landing lights."
"Very funny, Douglas."
"I'm not trying to be, Carolyn."
She paused, considering. Douglas had probably realised that the slip of paper didn't prove anything, and that Arthur was the last person who would manage to draw the logical conclusion even if there had been one – which wasn't the case, as it happened. Still he looked more upset than the little incident would have granted, and that could only mean one thing.
"You think we should tell him," she enunciated at length, and it wasn't so much a question as it was a statement. "You think we should tell Arthur that you may or may not be his father, but we're not really sure either way."
"I – don't know," he muttered as someone who reluctantly had to admit defeat. "I just cannot afford to fail another of my children."
"Oh, what nonsense," she cut in, her alpha dog attitude firmly in place. "I've seen your daughters, Douglas; they both love you – as does Arthur, for that matter."
"Well, at least someone does," he replied somewhat wryly, and she rolled her eyes in an odd mixture of sympathy and irritation.
"Fine. You get to take the boy to see the Grand Prix tomorrow," she announced in a mock suffering tone, and it didn't quite matter that he could easily see through her pretence. "What you two choose to talk about while you're there is none of my business."
"Did you just offer me a ticket for the Grand Prix?" he smirked, pushing his luck as was his wont – much to her relief, if she had to be completely honest with herself.
"Go to sleep, you ridiculous pilot," she shut him up, though she didn't utter a word of protest when he took it as an invitation to join her rather than go back to his own room.