The Fourth Bear

they were something closer to family. And besides, this was what they did. For Punch and Judy there was nothing else—just uncontrolled and pointless violence toward each other.

“Besides… what?”

“Nothing.” He took a cookie out of the tin and nibbled it.

“How was your day?”

She shrugged. “It was dandy until the Punches got home.” She thought for a moment and looked confused. “Jack, Punch said something odd.”

“He… did?” asked Jack warily.

“Yes. I asked him why they insisted on beating the crap out of each other, and he said that you’d understand because they’d beat each other up as long as you continued not eating fat.” Jack’s heart missed a beat, and he felt a hot flush rise within him that seemed to burn his cheeks.

“He was just having a joke,” he replied in an unconvincing voice.

“You’re hiding something from me,” she said. “I know when you’re lying, Jack, and you’re doing it now.”

“Because…” began Jack, unsure of how to put it. He had hidden it from her for so long that he wasn’t sure how she would react when he told her.

“Because what?”

“Because I’m Jack Spratt,” he said at last.

“I know that,” she replied, her voice dropping as she saw the pain in his face.

“Yes, but I’m not a Jack Spratt, I’m the Jack Spratt, as in ‘who could eat no fat.’'

She looked at him with a furrowed brow, unsure of what to say. “‘Whose wife could eat no lean’?”

Jack nodded, Madeleine’s eyes widening at the sudden acquisition of this new knowledge.

“Your first wife ate nothing but fat,” she said slowly. “That was what killed her.”

“I know.”

“You mean, You’re a… a…”

“Yes,” said Jack softly, laying a hand on her arm, “I’m actually a character from a nursery rhyme. I’m a PDR, sweetheart, and have been from the moment I was born.”

Madeleine looked at him unsteadily. She felt confused, hurt, uncertain. She pushed his hand off her arm.

“How long have you known?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Ever since I married for the first time and then started work at the NCD. DCI Horner said I was just the man for the job. I felt I belonged. It seemed too much of a coincidence.”

“And the beanstalk and all that giant killing?”

“I think it’s a question of economy.”

She leaned against the door frame, her mind whirling. She’d had no idea, no idea at all, yet now it all seemed so obvious.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she gasped at length.

Jack shrugged. “I didn’t want to lose you. I thought you might not marry me if you knew.”

She looked at him for a moment, then asked in a subdued tone, “Am I one?”

Jack smiled. “Of course not, darling.”

“How can you tell?”

“It was my first wife who ‘ate no lean’—you’ll eat anything put in front of you.”

“Why does it always have to be about you? Can’t I be a PDR in my own right?”

It was a good point.

“It’s not likely. In the nursery world, surnames nearly always make good rhymes. Horner/corner, Spratt/fat, Hubbard/cupboard. Your maiden name of ‘Usher’ doesn’t rhyme with much except ‘gusher’ and… ‘flusher.’'

She said nothing but stared at the ground, trying to make sense of this unexpected news. They had been married five years, and she had never suspected it for one moment. Not once. She felt betrayed—and angry. Angry that the man she loved and trusted had been hiding something so fundamental from her.

“Nothing’s changed, Madeleine,” said Jack soothingly. “I’m still the same Jack Spratt!”

“You might have told me you weren’t real!” she blurted out.

“I am real,” he implored. “In a collective-consciousness, postmodern, zeitgeisty sort of way.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

“I don’t know. But what I do know is that… I love you.”

“Do you?” she asked, tears of anger and hurt welling up inside her. “Do you really? Or maybe it’s only because you’re written that way.”

The barbed remark was like a dagger in Jack’s heart, but before he could comment further, Pandora chose that moment to walk into the kitchen with Prometheus. They were carrying a much-annotated seating plan for their upcoming wedding.

“Medusa has agreed to come with a pillowcase on her head after all,” she said. “Do you think it would be awkward to sit her next to Athena?”

Is he? mouthed Madeleine to Jack. Jack mouthed back, Kind of, and Madeleine left the room at a brisk trot. There was the distant bang of a door from upstairs, and Jack realized that this time it was going to take more than just careful words to undo the damage.

“Have you and Madeleine been having a row?” asked Pandora.

“Not really,” replied Jack unconvincingly, and went upstairs. The bedroom door was locked, and he rapped very gently on the frame.

“Go away,” came a voice from inside, so he went downstairs to look after Stevie, who had discovered the dusty delights of the coal scuttle.

“Hi, Dad!” said Ben, who had just walked in. “How’s it swoggling?”

“I think your brother wants to be a chimney sweep,” replied Jack, attempting to put a cheery face on matters. “How are things with Penelope?”

Ben was sixteen and awash in an almost toxic cocktail of hormones; the object of his unrequited love was Penelope Liddell, who played the harp in the school band. Despite his hard-worked best intentions, he had utterly failed to convince her he was worthy of a date.

“Not that good,” he replied. “About a month ago, I overheard her saying she always looked forward to Laurence Sterne, so I spent the next three weeks reading nothing but Tristram Shandy and then quoted several passages and made a few obscure jokes of a Shandean nature to try and impress her.”

“What happened?”

“She asked me what I was talking about. I told her, and she said, ‘Laurence Sterne? Who’s he?’ And there’s no real answer to that except to say that he was an eighteenth-century pastor who wrote very strange books. Then she said she didn’t see how pasta could write books, and any pasta that old would be inedible anyway and that Sterne couldn’t be half as strange as me, and walked off. It was only later I found out what she really meant was how she always looked forward to ‘Lawrence’s turn… to go to the shops,’ as he usually had a few extra bob in his pocket.”

Jack patted him on the arm. “This reminds me of the time when you heard her say she loved Keats—only to find out she wanted to have two—a boy and a girl.”

“Yes,” he replied mournfully. “Life is full of little misunderstandings. I’m now an expert on Sterne and Keats, when a small investment in a Snickers bar and a can of soda would have at least got me a cheery thank-you and a peck on the cheek.”

At that moment Pandora walked back into the living room in a state of high dudgeon.

“No, no and no,” she said. “We won’t be having any live animal sacrifices.”

“Oh, come on,” said Prometheus, who had entered after her.

“It’s traditional.”

“So was the Black Death,” she retorted, “but I’m not having it at my wedding.”