Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

‘Walking to the other end of town?’ he asked.

Aurora said we were, and the stranger said he’d join us, as there was ‘safety in numbers’.

He introduced himself as Jim Treacle, bondsman and part-time Consul. He was a youngish man with dark hair, and delicate features. He coughed twice, smiled, and then clasped my outstretched hand to pull me into the Winter embrace. He smelled of mouldy string, liquorice and ink.

‘Welcome to the Douzey,’ said Treacle with a weak laugh, ‘where leaving is the best part of visiting, and staying is the worst part of anything.’

He coughed again, a deep, rattly death-knell of a cough. I’d heard it from winsomniacs, but never for very long.

‘Have you been overwintering long, Mr Treacle?’ I asked as we walked on.

‘Twelve years,’ he said, ‘but only in this godforsaken hole for four. I’d underwritten some bad Debts and took a bribe – it was a tiny one, actually, blown all out of proportion – and, well, it was here or prison. I chose prison, obviously, but the judge overruled me. Said prison wasn’t harsh enough.’

‘This is more harsh than prison?’

‘The food’s better, I grant you, but it’s the fringe unbenefits that make this place so hideous. I’ve experienced almost every terror in the last four years. A run-in with Lucky Ned’s gang, near-starvation, frostbite, irate debtors, Toccata in a rage, and a massed nightwalker attack.’

‘That’s only frightening in a languid sort of way, you big baby,’ put in Aurora. ‘They don’t move so fast, and if they’re well fed, not dangerous at all.’

‘It’s the look they give you,’ he said, with a shiver, ‘full of vacant malevolence.’

‘I heard you have a wager going with Laura,’ I said.

‘Yes indeed,’ he replied with an unpleasant smirk, ‘on the existence of the Gronk.’

‘The wager is as good as won,’ said Aurora. ‘There is no Gronk; the Wintervolk are merely myths – stories for children and idiots.’

‘I think something weird is going on,’ I said, as I’d heard a few Gronk stories over the years. ‘Six years ago on the line just south of the Torpantu, a four-man maintenance crew were taken on a moonless night without a button or a zip being undone. No one saw hide nor hair of them again. Their underclothes, shirts, belts and fleeces were still inside their overalls – and folded.’

‘The clothes in my bureau are folded,’ said Treacle. ‘It doesn’t mean the Gronk lives in the utilities.’

They’d been taken, the story went, because they were unworthy . All four had been found guilty of physical trespass and were freeworking until prison at Springrise.

‘I heard,’ I said, ‘the Gronk teases the shame from you, and then, right at the moment when you realise the crushing enormity of your actions and how nothing could ever be right again, she draws out your soul. They say that when you expire your shame and guilt are expunged and the burden of your sins is removed. You go to your maker forgiven, and pure.’

‘What a load of old tosh,’ said Treacle.

‘I concur,’ said Aurora with a laugh. ‘You shouldn’t waste your thoughts on spooks and ghoulies, Charlie.’

I suddenly felt slightly foolish, but there was no TV at the Pool, and stories had made up a fair proportion of our entertainment.

‘You must give the legend some credence, Mr Treacle,’ I said, ‘or why stop at fifty thousand for your wager? Why not a million?’

‘Because any wager has to be able to be met by both sides.’

Aurora and I exchanged glances. Laura didn’t look like she had anything near that sort of cash.

‘Jim,’ said Aurora, suddenly intrigued, ‘what actually was her side of the bet?’

‘Her secondborn in the fullness of womanhood.’

There was a sudden shocked silence.

‘For God’s sake, Jim,’ said Aurora, ‘she’s only sixteen . That makes you less of a bondsman and something closer to a trafficker, doesn’t it?’

‘I forgive you your gross impudence,’ replied Treacle in an even tone, ‘but she instigated the wager. Pleaded with me to take it. It’s all perfectly legal. You’d not bat an eyelid if she brokered her reproductive futures through Wackford’s for some upfront cash.’

This was quite possibly true and we trudged on in silence, the still air illuminated by the warm orange glow of the gas lamps. We passed the Talgarth Pleasure Gardens and boating lake, the beds and borders invisible beneath the drifts. Beyond the wrought-iron gates I could see the statue of Gwendolyn VII and a fountain which had frozen solid while still running, so was now simply a misshapen chrysanthemum of ice.

‘See the lump in the snow under the statue?’ said Aurora. ‘Roscoe Smalls. Took the Cold Way Out over that viral dream nonsense. Did you learn anything new from Fodder?’

‘Not much.’

‘I liked Roscoe,’ said Jim Treacle, ‘and Suzy too, although Moody could be, well, moody . Luckily, none of them were insured, so no loss to the company.’

Jim Treacle didn’t just offer loans, it seemed.

Behind the statue of Gwendolyn VII and the freeze-paused fountain was a large building of dark, rain-streaked stone. The entranceway was framed by four massive Doric columns stretching down from a triangular tympanum, and above and behind this was a copper-sheathed dome, dark green with verdigris. The building was dark and silent, already locked in the icy grip of Winter.

‘That’s the regional museum,’ said Aurora. ‘It’s very good. There’s Bob Beamish’s running shoes, the gown Sylvia Syms wore for the 1959 Academy Awards, lots of Don Hector memorabilia, and the remains of the first bicycle to go twice the speed of horse. Lots of stamps, too, including the “Anglesey” 2d Lloyd-George Mauve. [43] The 2d Lloyd-George was only valuable because it carries an Anglesey cancellation, one of only three so stamped during the Beaumaris Post Office’s contractual one day in 1921 and delivered three letters before being abandoned due to ice sheet encroachment. It’s the only one in the world. You can see the funfair just beyond.’

She was right. Just visible in the gathering gloom was a helter-skelter, a parachute drop and a roller coaster, the heavy wooden lattice covered by a thick blanket of snow.

We moved on and immediately on our right, once past a frozen stream, was the first of the Dormitoria. It was set back from the road and difficult to see in any detail other than that it was circular, made of stone and had a steeply pitched conical slate roof. It must have been about sixteen storeys – diminutive by modern standards – and the only sign of life was a single porter’s oil lamp outside the main entrance.

‘The Geraldus Cambrensis ,’ said Aurora. ‘Built in 1236, it’s the oldest continuously-occupied Dormitorium in Wales. Worth a visit to the area on its own.’

We continued up the hill.

‘Do you get much mischief out here in the Winter?’ I asked.

‘Skirmishes with Villains are the most dramatic,’ said Jim Treacle. ‘Lucky Ned operates in the area but prefers quiet thievery rather than frontal assault – there’s a truce, apparently, brokered by Toccata. They’ve been doing some kidnapping, but not from the Sector, as per the terms of the truce.’

‘For ransom or domestic service?’ I asked, recalling Dai Powell’s experience.

‘Domestic service. Cooking and cleaning and housework and so forth. We also have pseudo-hibernatory sneak thieves,’ continued Treacle, ‘never less than two stowaways and Snuffling and Puffling is not unknown. There’s a serial roomsneaker who’s been dubbed “The Llanigon Puddler” and usually a motley collection of winsomniacs and nightwalkers, but other than that, not much.’