Something rotten

'You can interview me,' said Hamlet, realising he was something of a celebrity out here.

'And who are you?' asked the reporter, mystified.

I stared at him and his face fell.

'I'm . . . I'm . . . her cousin Eddie.'

'Well, Cousin Eddie, can you tell us where Miss Next has been for the past two years?'

'No comment.'

And we walked up the garden path to the front door.

'Where have you been?' demanded my mother as we walked in the door.

'Sorry I'm late, Mum — how's the little chap?'

'Tiring. He says that his Aunt Mel is a gorilla who can peel bananas with her feet while hanging from the light fixtures.'

'He talked?'

Friday was using the time-honoured international child signal to be picked up — raising his arms in the air — and when I did so he gave me a wet kiss and started to chatter away unintelligibly.

'Well, he didn't exactly say as much,' admitted Mum, 'but he drew me a picture of Aunt Mel which is pretty conclusive.'

'Aunt Mel a gorilla?' I laughed, looking at the picture, which was unequivocally of . . . well, a gorilla. 'Quite an imagination, hasn't he?'

'I'd say. I found him standing on the sideboard ready to swing on the curtains. When I told him it wasn't allowed he pointed to the picture of Aunt Mel, which I took to mean that she used to let him.'

'Does she, now. I mean, did he, now.'

Pickwick walked in looking very disgruntled and wearing a bonnet made of card and held together with sticky tape.

'Pickwick's a very tolerant playmate,' said my mother, who was obviously not that skilled at reading dodo expressions.

'I really need to get him into a playgroup. Did you change his nappy?'

'Three times. It just goes straight through, doesn't it?'

I sniffed at the leg of his dungarees.

'Yup. Straight through.'

'Well, I've got my panel-beating group to attend to,' she said, putting on her hat and taking her handbag and welding goggles from the peg, 'but you'd better sort out some more reliable childcare, my dear. I can do the odd hour here and there but not whole days — and I certainly don't want to do any more nappies.'

'Do you think Lady Hamilton would look after him?'

'It's possible,' said my mother in the sort of voice that means the reverse, 'you could always ask.'

She opened the door and was plinked at angrily by Alan, who was in a bit of a strop and was pulling up flowers in the front garden. With unbelievable speed she grabbed him by the neck and with a lot of angry plinking and scrabbling deposited him unceremoniously inside the potting shed and locked the door.

'Miserable bird!' said my mother, giving me and Friday a kiss. 'Have I got my purse?'

'It's in your bag.'

'Am I wearing my hat?'

'Yes.'

She smiled, told me that Bismarck was not to be disturbed and that I mustn't buy anything from a door-to- door salesman unless it was truly a bargain, and was gone.

I changed Fnday, then let him toddle off to find something to do. I made a cup of tea for myself and Hamlet, who had switched on the TV and was watching MOLE-TV's Shakespeare channel. I sat on the sofa and stared out of the windows into the garden. It had been destroyed by a mammoth when I was last here and I noted that my mother had replanted it with plants that were not very palatable to the Proboscidea tongue — quite wise, considering the migrations. As I watched, Pickwick waddled past, possibly wondering where Alan had gone. In terms of the day's work I had done very little. I was still a Literary Detective but ?20,000 in debt and no nearer getting Landen back.

My mother returned at about eight and the first of her Eradications Anonymous friends began to appear at nine. There were ten of them, and they started to chatter about what they described as their 'lost ones' as soon as they got through the door. Emma Hamilton and I weren't alone in having husbands with an existence problem. But although it seemed my Landen and Emma's Horatio were strong in our memories, many people were not so lucky. Some had only vague feelings about someone who they felt should be there but wasn't. To be honest I really didn't want to be there, but I had promised my mother and I was living in her house, so that was the end of it.

'Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,' said my mother, clapping her hands, 'and if you'd all like to take a seat we can allow this meeting to begin.'

Everyone sat down, tea and Battenberg cake in hand, and looked expectant.

'Firstly I would like to welcome a new member to the group. As you know, my daughter has been away for a couple of years — not in prison, I'd like to make that clear!'

'Thank you, Mother,' I murmured under my breath as there was polite laughter from the group, who instantly assumed that's exactly where I had been.

'And she has kindly agreed to join our group and say a few words. Thursday?'

I took a deep breath, stood up and said quickly:

'Hello, everyone. My name's Thursday Next and my husband doesn't exist.'

There was applause at this and someone said: 'Way to go, Thursday,' but I couldn't think of anything to add, nor wanted to, so sat down again. There was silence as everyone stared at me, politely waiting for me to carry on.

'That's it. End of story.'

'I'll drink to that!' said Emma, gazing forlornly at the locked drinks cabinet.

'You're very brave,' said Mrs Beatty, who was sitting next to me. She patted my hand in a kindly manner. 'What was his name?'

'Landen. Landen Parke-Laine. He was murdered by the ChronoGuard in 1947. I'm going to the Goliath Apologarium tomorrow to try to get his eradication reversed.'

There was a murmuring.

'What's the matter?'

'You must understand,' said a tall and painfully thin man who up until now had remained silent, 'that for you to progress in this group you must begin to accept that this is a problem of the memory — there is no Landen; you just think there is.'

'It's very dry in here, isn't it?' muttered Emma unsubtly, still staring at the drinks cabinet.

'I was like you once,' said Mrs Beatty, who had stopped patting my hand and returned to her knitting. 'I had a wonderful life with Edgar and then, one morning, I wake up in a different house with Gerald lying next to me. He didn't believe me when I explained the problem, and I was on medication for ten years until I came here. It is only now, in the company of your good selves, that I am coming to the realisation that it is only a malady of the head.'

I was horrified.

'Mother?'

'It's something that we must try and face, my dear.'

'But Dad visits you, doesn't he?'

'Well, I believe he does,' she said, thinking hard, 'but of course when he's gone it's only a memory. There isn't any real proof that he ever existed.'

'What about me? And Joffy? Or even Anton? How were we born without Dad?'

She shrugged at the impossibility of the paradox.