Lost in a Good Book

us. The imminent destruction of the world had been predicted almost every year since the dawn of man.

‘Which one is it this time?’ asked Bowden. ‘Plague of mice or the wrath of God?’

‘I’m not sure. I’ve got to be somewhere at five. Do us a favour, would you?’

I handed him the small evidence bag my father had given to me. Bowden stared at the goo inside.

‘What is it?’

‘Exactly. Will you have the labs analyse it?’

We bade each other goodbye and I trotted out of the building, bumping into John Smith, who was manoeuvring a wheelbarrow with a carrot the size of a vacuum cleaner in it. There was a big label attached to the oversized vegetable that read ‘evidence’. I held the door open for him.

‘Thanks,’ he panted.

I jumped in my car and pulled out of the carpark. My appointment at five was at the doctor’s, and I wasn’t going to miss it for anything.

6. Family

‘Landen Parke-Laine had been with me in the Crimea in ‘72. He lost a leg to a landmine and his best friend to a military blunder. His best friend was my brother, Anton—and Landen testified against him at the hearing that followed the disastrous “Charge of the Light Armoured Brigade”. My brother was blamed for the debacle, Landen was honourably discharged, I was awarded the Crimea Star for gallantry, I didn’t speak to him for ten years, and now we’re married. It’s funny how things turn out.’

THURSDAY NEXT. Crimean Reminiscences

‘Honey, I’m home!’ I yelled out. There was a scrabbling noise from the kitchen as Pickwick’s feet struggled to get a purchase on the tiles in his eagerness to greet me. I had engineered him myself when you could still buy home cloning kits over the counter. He was an early-version 1.2, which explained his lack of wings—they didn’t complete the sequence for two more years. He made excited plock-plock noises and bobbed his head in greeting, rummaged in the wastebasket for a gift and eventually brought me a discarded junk- mail flyer for Lorna Doone merchandising. I tickled him under the chin and he ran to the kitchen, stopped, looked at me and bobbed his head some more.

‘Hell-ooo!’ yelled Landen from his study. ‘Do you like surprises?’

‘When they’re nice ones!’ I yelled back.

Pickwick returned to my side, plock-plocked some more and tugged the leg of my jeans. He scuttled off into the kitchen again and waited for me at his basket. Intrigued, I followed. I could see the reason for his excitement. In the middle of the basket, amongst a large heap of shredded paper, was an egg.

‘Pickwick!’ I cried excitedly. ‘You’re a girl!’

Pickwick bobbed some more and nuzzled me affectionately. After a while she stopped and delicately stepped into her basket, ruffled her feathers, tapped the egg with her beak and then walked round it several times before gently placing herself over it. A hand rested on my shoulder. I touched Landen’s fingers and stood up. He kissed me on the neck and I wrapped my arms round his chest.

‘I thought Pickwick was a boy,’ he said.

‘So did I.’

‘Is it a sign?’

‘Pickers laying an egg and turning out to be a girl?’ I replied. ‘What do you mean—you’re going to have a baby, Land?’

‘No, silly, you know what I mean.’

‘I do?’ I asked, looking up at him with carefully engineered innocence.

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’ I stared into his bright, concerned face with what I thought was a blank expression. But I couldn’t hold it for long and was soon a bundle of girlish giggles and salty tears. He hugged me tightly and placed his hand gently on my tum.

‘In there? A baby?’

‘Yes. Small pink thing that makes a noise. Seven weeks. Probably appear Julyish.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘All right,’ I told him. ‘I felt a bit sick yesterday but that might have had nothing to do with it. I’ll work until I start waddling and then take leave. How are you feeling?’

‘Odd,’ said Landen, hugging me again. ‘Odd… yet elated.’ He grinned. ‘Who can I tell?’

‘No one quite yet. Probably just as well—your mum would knit herself to death!’

‘And what’s wrong with my mother’s knitting?’ asked Landen, feigning indignation.

‘Nothing.’ I giggled. ‘But there is a limit to storage space.’

‘At least it’s recognisable,’ he said. ‘That jumper your mum gave me for my birthday; what does she think I am, a squid?’

I burried my face in his collar and held him close. He rubbed my back gently and we stood together for several minutes without talking.

‘Did you have a good day?’ he asked at last.

‘Well,’ I began, ‘we found Cardenio, I was shot dead by an SO-14 marksman, became a vanishing hitch-hiker, saw Yorrick Kaine, suffered a few too many coincidences and knocked a Neanderthal unconscious.’

‘No puncture this time?’

‘Two, actually—at the same time.’

‘What was Kaine like?’

‘I don’t really know. He arrived at Volescamper’s as we were leaving—aren’t you even curious about the marksman?’

‘Yorrick Kaine is giving a talk tonight about the economical realities of a Welsh free-trade agreement —’

‘Landen,’ I said, ‘it’s my uncle’s party tonight. I promised Mum we’d be there.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Are you going to ask me about the incident with SO-14 now?’

Landen sighed. ‘All right. What was it like?’

‘Don’t ask.’

My Uncle Mycroft had announced his retirement. At the age of seventy-seven, and following the events of the Prose Portal and Polly’s imprisonment in ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’, they had both decided that enough was enough. The Goliath Corporation had been offering Mycroft not one but two blank cheques for him to resume work on a new Prose Portal, but Mycroft had steadfastly refused, maintaining that the Portal could not be replicated even if he had wanted it to be. We took my car up to Mum’s house and parked a little way up the road.

‘I never thought of Mycroft retiring,’ I said as we walked down the street.

‘Me neither,’ Landen agreed. ‘What do you suppose he’ll do?’

‘Watch Name That Fruit! most likely. He says that soaps and quiz shows are the ideal way to fade out.’

‘He’s not far wrong,’ added Landen. ‘After a few years of 65 Walrus Street, death might become something of a welcome distraction.’

We heaved open the garden gate and greeted the dodos, who all had a bright pink ribbon tied round their necks for the occasion. I offered them a few marshmallows and they pecked and plocked greedily at the proffered gifts.

‘Hello, Thursday!’ said the prematurely grey-haired man who answered the door.