Mort

Ysabell nodded. 'On the other hand, my ears don't look like something growing on a dead tree. What does juugly mean?'

'You know, eggs like Albert does them.'

'With the white all sticky and runny and full of slimy bits?'

'Yes.'

'A good word,' she conceded thoughtfully. 'But my hair, I put it to you, doesn't look like something you clean a privy with.'

'Certainly, but neither does mine look like a wet hedgehog.'

'Pray note that my chest does not appear to be a toast rack in a wet paper bag.'

Mort glanced sideways at the top of Ysabell's dress, which contained enough puppy fat for two litters of Rotweilers, and forbore to comment.

'My eyebrows don't look like a pair of mating caterpillars,' he hazarded.

True. But my legs, I suggest, could at least stop a pig in a passageway.'

'Sorry —?'

'They're not bandy,' she explained.

'Ah.'

They strolled through the lily beds, temporarily lost for words. Eventually Ysabell confronted Mort and stuck out her hand. He shook it in thankful silence.

'Enough?' she said.

'Just about.'

'Good. Obviously we shouldn't get married, if only for the sake of the children.'

Mort nodded.

They sat down on a stone seat between some neatly clipped box hedges. Death had made a pond in this corner of the garden, fed by an icy spring that appeared to be vomited into the pool by a stone lion. Fat white carp lurked in the depths, or nosed on the surface among the velvety black water lilies.

'We should have brought some breadcrumbs,' said Mort gallantly, opting for a totally non- controversial subject.

'He never comes out here, you know,' said Ysabell, watching the fish. 'He made it to keep me amused.'

'It didn't work?'

'It's not real,' she said. 'Nothing's real here. Not really real. He just likes to act like a human being. He's trying really hard at the moment, have you noticed. I think you're having an effect on him. Did you know he tried to learn the banjo once?'

'I see him as more the organ type.'

'He couldn't get the hang of it,' said Ysabell, ignoring him. 'He can't create, you see.'

'You said he created this pool.'

'It's a copy of one he saw somewhere. Everything's a copy.'

Mort shifted uneasily. Some small insect had crawled up his leg.

'It's rather sad,' he said, hoping that this was approximately the right tone to adopt.