Something Rotten, Page 4

  At the doorway was a tall, red-faced woman wearing a brocade dress that had seen better days. Despite the rigours of a lengthy and damaging acquaintance with the bottle, there were the remains of great beauty and charm about her. She must have been dazzling in her youth.

  'Hello, Lady Hamilton,' I said, getting up to shake her hand, 'how's the husband?'

  'Still dead.'

  'Mine too.'

  'Bummer.'

  'Ah!' I exclaimed, wondering quite where Lady Hamilton picked up the word, although on reflection she probably knew a few worse. 'This is Hamlet.'

  'Emma Hamilton,' she cooed, casting an eye in the direction of the unquestionably handsome Dane and giving him her hand, 'Lady.'

  'Hamlet,' he replied, kissing her proffered hand, 'Prince.'

  Her eyelashes fluttered momentarily.

  'A prince? Of anywhere I'd know?'

  'Denmark, as it happens.'

  'My . . . late boyfriend bombarded Copenhagen quite mercilessly in 1801. He said the Danes put up a good fight.'

  'We Danes like a tussle, Lady Hamilton,' replied the prince with a great deal of charm, 'although I'm not from Copenhagen myself. A little town up the coast – Elsinore. We have a castle there. Not very large Barely sixty rooms and a garrison of under two hundred. A bit bleak in the winter.'

  'Haunted?'

  'One that I know of. What did your late boyfriend do when he wasn't bombarding Danes?'

  'Oh, nothing much,' she said offhandedly, 'fighting the French and the Spanish, leaving body parts around Europe – it was quite de rigueur at the time.'

  There was a pause as they stared at one another. Emma started to fan herself.

  'Goodness!' she murmured. 'All this talk of body parts has made me quite hot!'

  'Right!' said my mother, jumping to her feet. 'That's it! I'm not having this sort of smutty innuendo in my house!'

  Hamlet and Emma looked startled by her outburst but I managed to pull her aside and whispered:

  'Mother! Don't be so judgemental – after all, they're both single, and Hamlet's interest in Emma might take her mind off someone else.'

  'Someone . . . else?'

  You could almost hear the cogs going around in her head. After a long pause she took a deep breath, turned back to them and smiled broadly.

  'My dears, why don't you have a walk in the garden? There is a gentle cooling breeze and the niche d' amour in the rose garden is very attractive this time of year.'

  'A good time for a drink, perhaps?' asked Emma hopefully.

  'Perhaps,' replied my mother, who was obviously trying to keep Lady Hamilton away from the bottle.

  Emma didn't reply. She just offered her arm to Hamlet, who took it graciously and was going to steer her out of the open doors to the patio when Emma stopped him with a murmur of 'Not the French windows' and took him out by way of the kitchen.

  'As I was saying,' said my mother as she sat down, 'Emma's a lovely girl. Cake?'

  'Please.'

  'Here,' she said, handing me the knife, 'help yourself'

  'Tell me,' I began, as I cut the Battenberg carefully, 'did Landen come back?'

  'That's your eradicated husband, isn't it?' she replied kindly. 'No, I'm afraid he didn't.' She smiled encouragingly. 'You should come to one of my Eradications Anonymous evenings – we're meeting tomorrow night.'

  In common with my mother, I had a husband whose reality had been scrubbed from the here and now. Unlike my mother, whose husband still returned every now and then from the timestream, I had a husband, Landen, who only existed in my dreams and recollections. No one else had any memories or knowledge of him at all. Mum knew about Landen only because I'd told her. To anyone else, Landen's parents included, I was suffering some bizarre delusion. But Friday's father was Landen, despite his non-existence, just as my brothers and I had been born despite my father not existing. Time travel is like that. Full of unexplainable paradoxes.

  'I'll get him back,' I mumbled.

  'Who?'

  'Landen.'

  Joffy reappeared from the garden with Friday, who, in common with most toddlers, didn't see why adults couldn't give aeroplane rides all day. I gave him a slice of Battenberg, which he dropped in his eagerness to devour it. The usually torpid DH82 opened an eye, ate the cake and was asleep again in under three seconds.

  'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet!' Friday cried indignantly.

  'Yes, it was impressive, wasn't it?' I agreed. 'Bet you never saw Pickwick move that fast – even for a marshmallow.'

  'Nostrud laboris nisi et commodo consequat,' replied Friday with great indignation. 'Excepteur sint cupidatat non proident!'

  'Serves you right,' I told him. 'Here, have a cucumber sandwich.'

  'What did my grandson say?' asked my mother, staring at Friday, who was trying to eat the sandwich all in one go and making a nauseating spectacle of himself.

  'Oh, that's just him jabbering away in Lorem Ipsum. He speaks nothing else.'

  'Lorem . . . what?'

  'Lorem Ipsum. It's dummy text used by the printing and typesetting industry to demonstrate layout. I don't know where he picked it up. Comes from living inside books, I should imagine.'

  'I see,' said my mother, not seeing at all.

  'How are the cousins?' I asked.

  'Wilbur and Orville both run MycroTech these days,' answered Joffy as he passed me a cup of tea. 'They made a few mistakes while Uncle Mycroft was away, but I think he's got them on a short leash now.'

  Wilbur and Orville were my aunt and uncle's two sons. Despite having two of the most brilliant parents around, they were almost solid mahogany from the neck up.

  'Pass the sugar, would you? A few mistakes?'

  'Quite a lot actually. Remember Mycroft's memory erasure machine?'

  'Yes and no.'

  'Well, they opened a chain of high-street erasure centres called Mem-U-Gon. You could go in and have unpleasant memories removed.'

  'Lucrative, I should imagine.'

  'Extremely lucrative – right up to the moment they made their first mistake. Which was, considering those two, not an if but a when.'

  'Dare I ask what happened?'

  'I think that it was the equivalent of setting a vacuum cleaner to "blow" by accident. A certain Mrs Worthing went into the Swindon branch of Mem-U-Gon to remove every single recollection of her failed first marriage.'

  'And—?'

  'Well, she was accidentally uploaded with the unwanted memories of seventy-two one-night stands, numerous drunken arguments, fifteen wasted lives and almost a thousand episodes of Name That Fruit! She was going to sue but settled instead for the name and address of one of the men whose exploits are now lodged in her memory. As far as I know, they married.'

  'I like a story with a happy ending,' put in my mother.

  'In any event,' continued Joffy, 'Mycroft forbade them from using it again and gave them the Chameleocar to market. It should be in the showrooms quite soon – if Goliath haven't pinched the idea first.'

  'Ah!' I muttered, taking another bite of cake. 'And how is my least-favourite multinational?'

  Joffy rolled his eyes.

  'Up to no good as usual. They're attempting to switch to a faith-based corporate management system.'

  'Becoming a . . . religion?'

  'Announced only last month on the suggestion of their own corporate precog, Sister Bettina of Stroud. They aim to switch the corporate hierarchy to a multi-deity plan with their own gods, demigods, priests, places of worship and official prayerbook. In the new Goliath, employees will not be paid with anything as unspiritual as money, but faith — in the form of coupons which can be exchanged for goods and services at any Goliath-owned store. Anyone holding Goliath shares will have these exchanged on favourable terms with these "Coupons" and everyone gets to worship the Goliath upper echelons.'

  'And what do the "devotees" get in return?'

  'Well, a warm sense of belonging, protection from the world's evils and a reward in the afterlife �
� oh, and I think there's a T-shirt in it somewhere, too.'

  'That sounds very Goliath-like.'

  'Doesn't it just?' Joffy smiled. 'Worshipping in the hallowed halls of consumer-land. The more you spend, the closer to their "god" you become.'

  'Hideous!' I exclaimed. 'Is there any good news?'

  'Of course! The Swindon Mallets are going to beat the Reading Whackers to win the Superhoop this year.'

  'You've got to be kidding!'

  'Not at all. Swindon winning the 1988 Superhoop is the subject of the incomplete seventh Revealment of St Zvlkx. It goes like this: There will be a home win on the playing fields of Swindonne in nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and in consequence of . . . The rest is missing, but it's pretty unequivocal.'

  St Zvlkx was Swindon's very own saint, and no child educated here could fail to know about him, including me. His Revealments had been the subject of much conjecture over the years, for good reason – they were uncannily accurate. Even so, I was sceptical – especially if it meant the Swindon Mallets winning the Superhoop. The city's team, despite a surprise appearance at the Superhoop finals a few years back and the undeniable talents of team captain Roger Kapok, were probably the worst side in the country.

  'That's a bit of a long shot, isn't it? I mean, St Zvlkx vanished in, what – 1292?'

  But Joffy and my mother didn't think it very funny.

  'Yes,' said Joffy, 'but we can ask him to confirm it.'

  'You can? How?'

  'According to his sixth Revealment he's due for spontaneous resurrection at ten past nine the day after tomorrow.'

  'But that's remarkable!'

  'Remarkable but not unprecedented,' replied Joffy. 'Thirteenth-century seers have been popping up all over the place. Eighteen in the last six months. Zvlkx will be of interest to the faithful and us at the Friends, but the TV networks probably won't cover it. The ratings of Brother Velobius's second coming last week didn't even come close to beating Bonzo the Wonder Hound reruns on the other channel.'

  I thought about this for a moment in silence.

  'That's enough about Swindon,' said my mother, who had a nose for gossip – especially mine. 'What's been happening to you?'

  'How long have you got? What I've been getting up to would fill several books.'

  'Then . . . let's start with why you're back.'

  So I explained about the pressures of being the head of Jurisfiction, and just how annoying books could be sometimes, and Friday, and Landen, and Yorrick Kaine's fictional roots. On hearing this Joffy jumped.

  'Kaine is . . . fictional?'

  I nodded.

  'Why the interest? Last time I was here he was a washed-up ex-member of the Whig Party.'

  'He's not now. Which book is he from?'

  I shrugged.

  'I wish I knew. Why? What's going on?'

  Joffy and Mum exchanged nervous glances. When my mother gets interested in politics, it really means things are bad.

  'Something is rotten in the state of England,' murmured my mother.

  'And that something is the English Chancellor Yorrick Kaine,' added Joffy, 'but don't take our word for it. He's appearing on Toad News Network's Evade the Question Time here in Swindon at eight tonight. We'll go and see him for ourselves.'

  I told them more about Jurisfiction and Joffy, in return, cheerfully reported that attendance at the Global Standard Deity church was up since he had accepted sponsorship from the Toast Marketing Board, a company that seemed to have doubled in size and influence since I was here last. They had spread their net beyond hot bread and now included jams, croissants and pastries in their portfolio of holdings. My mother, not to be outdone, told me she received a little bit of sponsorship money herself from Mr Rudyard's cakes, although she privately admitted that the Battenberg she had served up was actually her own. She then told me in great detail about her aged friends' medical operations, which I can't say I was overjoyed to hear about, and as she drew breath in between Mrs Stripling's appendectomy and Mr Walsh's 'plumbing' problems, a tall and imposing figure walked into the room. He was dressed in a fine morning coat of eighteenth-century vintage, wore an impressive moustache that would have put Commander Bradshaw's to shame, and had an impenousness and sense of purpose that reminded me of Emperor Zhark. 'Thursday,' announced my mother in a breathless tone, 'this is the Prussian Chancellor, Herr Otto Bismarck – your father and I are trying to sort out the Schleswig-Holstein question of 1863-4; he's gone to fetch Bismarck's opposite number from Denmark so they can talk. Otto . . . I mean, Herr Bismarck, this is my daughter, Thursday.'

  Bismarck clicked his heels and kissed my hand in an icily polite manner.

  'Fräulein Next, the pleasure is all mine,' he intoned in a heavy German accent.

  My mother's curious and usually long-dead house guests should have surprised me, but they didn't. Not any more. Not since Alexander the Great turned up when I was nine. Nice enough fellow – but shocking table manners.

  'So, how are you enjoying 1988, Herr Bismarck?'

  'I am especially taken with the concept of dry cleaning,' replied the Prussian, 'and I see big things ahead for the gasoline engine.' He turned back to my mother. 'But I am most eager to speak to the Danish prime minister. Where might he be?'

  'I think we're having a teensy-weensy bit of trouble locating him,' replied my mother, waving the cake knife. 'Would you care for a slice of Battenberg instead?'

  'Ah!' replied Bismarck, his demeanour softening. He stepped delicately over DH82 to sit next to my mother. 'The finest Battenberg I have ever tasted!'

  'Oh, Herr B,' flustered my mother, 'you do flatter me so!'

  She made 'shooing' motions at us out of vision of Bismarck and, obedient children that we are, we withdrew from the living room.

  'Well!' said Joffy as we shut the door. 'How about that? Mum's after a bit of Teutonic slap and tickle!'

  I raised an eyebrow and stared at him.

  'I hardly think so, Joff. Dad doesn't turn up that often and intelligent male company can be hard to find.'

  Joffy chuckled.

  'Just good friends, eh? Okay. Here's the deal: I'll bet you a tenner Mum and the Iron Chancellor are doing the wild thing by this time next week.'

  'Done.'

  We shook hands and, with Emma, Hamlet, Bismarck and my mother thus engaged, I asked Joffy to look after Friday so I could slip out of the house to get some air.

  I turned left and wandered up Marlborough Road, looking about at the changes that two years' absence had wrought. I had walked this way to school for almost eight years, and every wall and tree and house was as familiar to me as an old friend. A new hotel had gone up on Piper's Way and a few shops in the Old Town had either changed hands or been updated. It all felt very familiar, and I wondered whether the feeling of wanting to belong somewhere would stay with me, or fade, like my fondness for Caversham Heights, the book in which I had made my home these past few years.

  I walked down Bath Road, took a right and found myself in the street where Landen and I had lived, before he was eradicated. I had returned home one afternoon to find his mother and father in residence. Since they hadn't known who I was and considered – not unreasonably – that I was dangerously insane, I decided to play it safe today and just walk past slowly on the other side of the street.

  Nothing looked very different. A tub of withered Tickia orologica was still on the porch next to an old pogo stick and the curtains in the windows were certainly his mother's. I walked on, then retraced my steps, my resolve to get him back mixed with a certain fatalism, a feeling that perhaps ultimately I wouldn't and I should prepare myself. After all, he had died when he was two years old, and I had no memories of how it had been, only of how things might have turned out had he lived.

  I shrugged my shoulders and chastised myself on the morbidity of my own thoughts, then walked towards the Goliath Twilight Homes where my gran was staying these days.

  Granny Next was in her room watching a nature documentar
y called Walking with Ducks when I was shown in by the nurse. Gran was wearing a blue gingham nightie, had wispy grey hair and looked all of her no years. She had got it into her head that she couldn't shuffle off this mortal coil until she had read the ten most boring books, but since 'boring' was about as impossible to quantify as 'not boring' it was difficult to know how to help.

  'Shhh!' she muttered as soon as I walked in. 'This programme's fascinating!' She was staring at the TV screen earnestly. 'Just think,' she went on, 'by analysing the bones of the extinct duck Anas platyrhynchos they can actually figure out how it walked.'

  I stared at the small screen, where an odd animated bird waddled strangely in a backward direction as the narrator explained just how they had managed to deduce such a thing.

  'How could they know that just by looking at a few old bones?' I asked doubtfully, having learned long ago that an 'expert' was usually anything but.

  'Scoff not, young Thursday,' replied Gran, 'a panel of expert avian palaeontologists have even deduced that a duck's call might have sounded something like this: "Quock, quock".'

  '"Quock?" Hardly seems likely.'

  'Perhaps you're right,' she replied, switching off the TV and tossing the remote aside. 'What do experts know?'

  Like me, Gran was able to jump inside fiction. I wasn't sure how either of us did it but I was very glad that she could – it was she who helped me to not forget my husband, something at one time I was in clear and real danger of doing thanks to Aornis, the mnemonomorph, of course. But Gran had left me about a year ago, announcing that I could fend for myself and she wouldn't waste any more time labouring for me hand and foot, which was a bit of cheek really, as I generally looked after her. But no matter. She was my gran and I loved her a great deal.

  'Goodness!' I said, looking at her soft and wrinkled skin, which put me oddly in mind of a baby echidna I had once seen in National Geographic.

  'What?' she asked sharply.

  'Nothing.'

  'Nothing? You were thinking of how old I was looking, weren't you?'

  It was hard to deny it. Every time I saw her I felt she couldn't look any older, but the next time, with startling regularity, she did.