Jasper Fforde - Early Riser

I tried to swallow, but found I couldn’t.

‘Right,’ I croaked, ‘good tip, thank you.’

‘No problem. By the way, did you see Hugo Foulnap again?’

‘No, but then I’ve been asleep.’

‘Of course. Well, keep an eye out and if you see him, talk to me first. Oh, and give Toccata a message from me: “Queen’s knight takes bishop, hope you are devoured by slime in your sleep”. Got it?’

‘Queen’s knight takes bishop… and the other stuff. Yes, got it.’

She smiled, and quite without warning leaned forward, placed a soft hand around my neck and kissed me full on the mouth. I was taken aback, but before I could say or do anything she was up and out of the door. I looked around the lounge to see if anyone had observed us and saw ShamBob cleaning some coffee cups in an indiscreet manner.

I touched my lips where Aurora had kissed me. It hadn’t been a misplaced peck; she had parted her lips slightly upon contact and I’d tasted her warm mouth on mine. She smelled of clean laundry, Aveda conditioner and Ludlow scent, and her shirt had been only loosely buttoned. When she leaned forward I had seen the top of her left breast, and clearly visible amidst the soft down of her wintercoat, there was a birthmark the shape of Guernsey.

Shamanic Bob walked over and sat down opposite me.

‘What are you doing back so soon?’

‘I’ve not been away.’

‘Undercover?’ he said in a conspiratorial tone.

‘Under the covers ,’ I said, ‘over at the Siddons . I overslept.’

‘I shouldn’t spread that around,’ he said with a smile, ‘but the first Winter up can sure be a dog. So tell me about Aurora: have you known her long?’

Gossip is thin on the ground during Slumbertime. To souls bored by the tedium of the Winter it can become a commodity of value, fourth only to protein, warmth and loyalty. But it struck me that an association with Aurora might actually help me, given that most people seemed to be frightened of her.

‘Four weeks,’ I said, truthfully enough.

‘O-kay,’ said ShamBob slowly, ‘and what – if I might be so bold – does Chief Toccata say about it?’

‘Is that relevant?’ I asked.

ShamBob’s mouth actually dropped open. I wasn’t sure why but he was either shocked, or impressed, or outraged, or a mixture of all three.

I was going to leave, but then I remembered about the last time we’d met. He’d said something about Morphenox being a fluke, and I asked him what he meant by that.

He smiled. Winsomniacs liked conspiracy theories almost as much as they liked undersleeping on someone else’s dollar.

‘Morphenox was originally plain old “F-652”,’ he began, ‘developed as a powerful Dreamblocker, devised so there could be a non-dreaming control group during trials of a cancelled project named Dreamspace , where Don Hector was trying to make us dream not less, but better. But then someone noticed the dreamless group were losing significantly less weight during hibernation, and that was the turning point: up until that point, no one realised just how much energy dreams were burning. Block them and go to sleep lighter. It’s that simple.’

This took a moment to sink in.

‘You’re kidding?’

‘I’m not.’

‘A revolution in Hibernetics,’ I said slowly, ‘wealth, power, influence and the current geopolitical landscape, based on the unexpected results of a control group?’

He grinned.

‘Quite something, eh? Trouble is, they can never seem to manufacture enough of it to go around. If I was a cynical man, I’d think there was a degree of social control regarding its limited distribution.’

Maisie Rogers had said the same thing. The lines were fairly clear – along wealth and class, mostly. The global hibernating village, equal in sleep, equal in dignity, was a myth.

‘And,’ he continued, ‘any news of an improved Morphenox with full distribution benefits should be met with caution. HiberTech cares more for dosh than dozing.’

‘We’re not having this conversation,’ I said. ‘Tell me about Project Dreamspace . What do you mean: “wanting to make us dream not less, but better”?’

But I might have been talking to myself. Shamanic Bob, exhausted by the efforts of conversation, had fallen fast asleep on the table and was snoring loudly.

The three nightwalkers tethered to the back of the command vehicle were rocking gently back and forth as a precursor to Torpor, but Aurora herself was nowhere to be seen. I released Birgitta and fed her two flapjacks.

‘I love you, Charlie,’ she said.

‘Don’t,’ I replied in a quiet voice, ‘it really doesn’t help.’

‘Kiki needs the cylinder,’ she added.

‘And neither does that. Which Kiki? RealSleep’s Kiki or another one?’

She didn’t answer, and we walked back to the Siddons in relative silence, my mind coming to terms with the fact that my dream had been moulded retrospectively. I tried to see if there were elements in the Birgitta dream that might refute this hypothesis, but there was nothing. Everything that had occurred in the dream was my narcosis-befuddled mind filling in my memory cracks like so much builder’s plaster. I trudged quietly through the snow-packed streets holding Birgitta’s hand, something that, while purely one-sided, did feel oddly comforting.

Jonesy was already waiting for me outside the Siddons, next to a red-and-white Consulate Sno-Trac, the engine almost completely silenced, the only sound the faint rattle of the rain-trap on top of the exhaust stack. It was parked next to a telephone box that was half buried in a snowdrift, and Jonesy was reading an ancient copy of Wonder Woman & the Wintervolk Kid , and chuckling occasionally. Next to her was a tartan travel rug folded neatly atop a picnic set. She was taking the ‘long-partnered’ game seriously.

‘Caught one already?’ she asked as soon as she saw us. ‘Quick work. Goodness, isn’t that Birgitta?’

‘Legally-speaking, it’s just something she used to walk around in.’

‘We sang together in the choir,’ said Jonesy. ‘Did a very passable Pirate Queen in last year’s Pirates of Penzance . Nice enough girl, if a little prickly. She turned down a five-figure two-child deal from a team scouting for Wackford & Co.’

‘She’d have had very beautiful children.’

‘Hence the five-figure deal. She could have bought herself out of the Douzey on the Wackford deal and moved to somewhere less lugubrious – no one figured out why she didn’t.’

I think I knew the reason. She told me she’d married, but the whole thing seemed secretive. Possibly a union de l’amour – committed personally to one another, but not recognised in law.

‘Does Baggy do any tricks?’ she asked.

‘She used to be into cannibalism and now she’s into Snickers, mumbling and shortbread.’

‘More of a reason for immediate retirement than a trick, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I suppose, yes.’

Jonesy looked at her watch.

‘Toccata isn’t back yet, but we need to be ready to move when she is. Do you want me to retire her for you?’

I looked across at Birgitta, who seemed utterly unconcerned by everything. I weighed the matter carefully. Disposing of Birgitta – even if she herself was long gone – just didn’t feel right. And not just because I had liked her, but for the simple fact that I was, in some small way, responsible for her current status. I had given her the Morphenox, after all.