Something rotten

the text on the page. Because every reader's experiences are different, each book is unique for each reader.'

'So,' replied the Dane, thinking hard, 'what you're saying is that the more complex and apparently contradictory the character, the greater the possible interpretations?'

'Yes. In fact, I'd argue that every time a book is read by the same person it is different again — because the reader's experiences are changed, or they are in a different frame of mind.'

'Well, that explains why no one can figure me out. After four hundred years nobody's quite decided what, exactly, my inner motivations are.' He paused for a moment and sighed mournfully. 'Including me. You'd have thought I was religious, wouldn't you, with all that not wanting to kill Uncle Claudius when at prayer and suchlike?'

'Of course.'

'I thought so too. So why do I use the atheistic line there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so? What's that all about?'

'You mean you don't know?'

'Listen, I'm as confused as anyone.'

I stared at Hamlet and he shrugged. I had been hoping to get some answers from him regarding the inconsistencies within his play, but now I wasn't so sure.

'Perhaps,' I said thoughtfully, 'that's why we like it. To each our own Hamlet.'

'Well,' snorted the Dane unhappily, 'it's a mystery to me. Do you think therapy would help?'

'I'm not sure. Listen, we're almost home. Remember: to anyone but family you're . . . who are you?'

'Cousin Eddie.'

'Good. Come on.'

Mum's house was a detached property of good proportions in the south of the town but of no great charm other than that which my long association had conferred upon it. I had spent the first eighteen years of my life growing up here, and everything about the old house was familiar. From the tree I had fallen out of, cracking a collar bone, to the garden path where I had learned to ride my bicycle. I hadn't really noticed it before but empathy for the familiar grows stronger with age. The old house felt warmer to me now than it ever had before.

I took a deep breath, picked up my suitcase and trundled the pushchair across the road. My pet dodo Pickwick followed with her unruly son Alan padding grumpily after her.

I rang Mum's doorbell and after about a minute a slightly overweight vicar with short brown hair and spectacles answered the door.

'Is that Doofus—?' he said when he saw me, suddenly breaking into a broad grin. 'By the GSD, it is Doofus!'

'Hi, Joffy. Long time no see.'

Joffy was my brother. He was a minister of the Global Standard Deity religion, and although we had had differences in the past, they were long forgotten. I was pleased to see him, and he me.

'Whoa!' he said. 'What's that?'

'That's Friday,' I explained. 'Your nephew.'

'Wow!' replied Joffy, undoing Friday's harness and lifting him out. 'Does his hair always stick up like that?'

'Probably leftovers from breakfast.'

Friday stared at Joffy for a moment, took his fingers out of his mouth, rubbed them on his face, put them in again and offered Joffy his polar bear, Poley.

'Kind of cute, isn't he?' said Joffy, jiggling Friday up and down and letting him tug at his nose. 'But a bit, well, sticky. Does he talk?'

'Not a lot. Thinks a great deal, though.'

'Like Mycroft. What happened to your head?'

'You mean my haircut?'

'So that's what it was!' murmured Joffy. 'I thought you'd had your ears lowered or something. Bit, er . . . bit extreme, isn't it?'

'I had to stand in for Joan of Arc. It's always tricky to find a replacement.'

'I can see why,' exclaimed Joffy, still staring incredulously at my pudding-bowl haircut. 'Why don't you just have the whole lot off and start again?'

'This is Hamlet,' I said, introducing him before he began to feel awkward, 'but he's here incognito so I'm telling everyone he's my cousin Eddie.'

'Joffy,' said Joffy, 'brother of Thursday.'

'Hamlet,' said Hamlet, 'Prince of Denmark.'

'Danish?' said Joffy with a start. 'I shouldn't spread that around if I were you.'

'Why?'

'Darling!' said my mother, appearing behind Joffy. 'You're back! Goodness! Your hair!'

'It's a Joan of Arc thing,' explained Joffy, 'very fashionable right now. Martyrs are big on the catwalk, y'know — remember the Edith Cavell/Tolpuddle look in last month's Femole?'

'He's talking rubbish again, isn't he?'

'Yes,' said Joffy and I in unison.

'Hello, Mum,' I said, giving her a hug, 'remember your grandson?'

She picked him up and remarked how much he had grown. It was unlikely in the extreme that he had shrunk but I smiled dutifully nonetheless. I tried to visit the real world as often as I could but hadn't been able to manage it for at least six months. When she had nearly fainted by hyperventilating with 'Ooohs' and 'Aaaahs' and Friday had stopped looking at her dubiously, she invited us indoors.

'You stay out here,' I said to Pickwick, 'and don't let Alan misbehave himself

It was too late. Alan, small size notwithstanding, had already terrorised Mordecai and the other dodos into submission. They all shivered in fright beneath the hydrangeas.

'Are you staying for long?' enquired my mother. 'Your room is just how you left it.'

This meant just how I left it when I was nineteen, but I thought it rude to say so. I explained that I'd like to stay at least until I got an apartment sorted out, introduced Hamlet and asked whether he could stay for a few days too.

'Of course! Lady Hamilton's in the spare room and that nice Mr Bismarck is in the attic, so he can have the boxroom.'

My mother grasped Hamlet's hand and shook it heartily.

'How are you, Mr Hamlet? Where did you say you were the prince of again?'

'Denmark.'

'Ah! No visitors after seven p.m. and breakfast stops at nine a.m. prompt. I do expect guests to make their own bed and if you need washing done you can put it in the wicker basket on the landing Pleased to meet you. I'm Mrs Next, Thursday's mother.'

'I have a mother,' replied Hamlet gloomily as he bowed politely and kissed my mother's hand. 'She shares my uncle's bed.'

'They should buy another one in that case,' my mother replied, practical as ever. 'They do a very good deal at IKEA, I'm told. Don't use it myself because I don't like all that self-assembly — I mean, what's the point of paying for something you have to build yourself? But it's popular with men for exactly that same reason. Do you like Battenberg?'

'Wittenberg?'

'No, no. Battenberg.'

'On the River Eder?' asked Hamlet, confused over my mother's conversational leap from self-assembly furniture to cake.

'No, silly, on a doily — covered with marzipan.'

Hamlet leaned closer to me.

'I think your mother may be insane — and I should know.'

'You'll get the hang of what she's talking about,' I said, giving him a reassuring pat on the arm.

We walked through the hall to the living room where, after managing to extract Friday's fingers from Mum's