Jasper Fforde - First Among Sequels

“Happy birthday, by the way,” said my mother. “I got you something-look.”

She handed me the most hideous sweater you could possibly imagine.

“I don’t know what to say, Mum, and I really mean that-a short-sleeved lime green sweater with a hood and mock-antler buttons.”

“Do you like it?”

“One’s attention is drawn to it instantly.”

“Good! Then you’ll wear it straightaway?”

“I wouldn’t want to ruin it,” I replied hastily. “I’m just off to work.”

“Ooh!” said Polly. “I’ve only now remembered.” She handed me a CD in a plain sleeve. “This is a preproduction copy of Hosing the Dolly. ”

“It’s what?”

“ Please try to keep up with the times, darling. Hosing the Dolly. The new album by Strontium Goat. It won’t be out until November. I thought Friday might like it.”

“It’s really totally out there, man,” put in my mother. “Whatever that means. There’s a solo guitar riff on the second track that reminded me of Friday’s playing and was so good it made my toes tingle-although that might just have been a pinched nerve. Wayne Skunk’s granny is Mrs. Arbuthnot-you know, the funny old lady with the large wart on her nose and the elbows that bend both ways. He sent it to her.”

I looked at the CD. Friday would like it, I was certain of that.

“And,” added Polly, leaning closer and with a conspiratorial wink, “you don’t have to tell him it was from us-I know what teenagers are like, and a bit of parental kudos counts for a lot.”

“Thank you,” I said, and meant it. It was more than a CD-it was currency.

“Good!” said my mother. “Have you got time for a cup of tea and a slice of Battenberg?”

“No, thank you-I’m going to pick something up from Mycroft’s workshop, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“How about some Battenberg to go, then?”

“I’ve just had breakfast.”

The doorbell rang.

“Ooooh!” said Polly, peering furtively out the window. “What fun. It looks like a market researcher!”

“Right,” said my mother in a very military tone. “Let’s see how long we can keep him before he runs out screaming. I’ll pretend to have mild dementia, and you can complain about your sciatica in German. We’ll try to beat our personal Market-Researcher Containment record of two hours and twelve minutes.”

I shook my head sadly. “I wish you two would grow up.”

“You are so judgmental, daughter dear,” scolded my mother. “When you reach our age and level of physical decrepitude, you’ll take your entertainment wherever you can find it. Now, be off with you.”

And they shooed me into the kitchen while I mumbled something about how remedial basket weaving, whist drives or daytime soaps would probably suit them better. Mind you, inflicting mental torture on market researchers kept them busy, I suppose.

I walked out the back door, crossed the back garden and quietly entered the wooden out house that was my uncle Mycroft’s laboratory. I switched on the light and walked to my Porsche, which was looking a little forlorn under a dust sheet. It was still unrepaired from the accident five years before. The damage hadn’t been that severe, but 356 parts were getting pricey these days, and we couldn’t spare the cash. I reached into the cockpit, pulled the release and opened the hood. It was here that I kept a tote bag containing twenty thousand Welsh tocyns. On this side of the border pretty worthless, but enough to buy a three-bedroom house in Merthyr. I wasn’t planning to move to the Welsh Socialist Republic, of course-I needed the cash for a Welsh cheese deal I had cooking that evening. I checked that the cash was all still there and was just replacing the sheet on the car when a noise made me turn. Standing at the workbench in the half-light was my uncle Mycroft. An undeniable genius, with his keen mind he had pushed the frontiers in a range of disciplines that included genetics, fusion power, abstract geometry, perpetual motion and romantic fiction. It was he who had ushered in the home-cloning revolution, he who may have developed a memory-erasure machine and he who had invented the Prose Portal that had catapulted me into fiction. He was dressed in his trademark wool three-piece suit but without the jacket, his shirtsleeves were rolled up, and he was in what we all called his “inventing mode.” He seemed to be concentrating on a delicate mechanism, the function of which was impossible to guess. As I watched him in silence and with a growing sense of wonder, he suddenly noticed me.

“Ah!” he said with a smile. “Thursday! Haven’t seen you for a while-all well?”

“Yes,” I replied a bit uncertainly, “I think so.”

“Splendid! I just had an idea for a cheap form of power: by bringing pasta and antipasta together, we could be looking at the utter annihilation of ravioli and the liberation of vast quantities of energy. I safely predict that an average-size cannelloni would be able to power Swindon for over a year. Mind you, I could be wrong.”

“You’re not often wrong,” I said quietly.

“I think I was wrong to start inventing in the first place,” he replied after a moment’s reflection. “Just because I can do it, it doesn’t follow that I should. If scientists stopped to think about their creations more, the world might be a better-”

He broke off talking and looked at me in a quizzical manner.

“You’re staring at me in a strange way,” he said, with uncharacteristic astuteness.

“Well, yes,” I replied, trying to frame my words carefully. “You see…I think…that is to say…I’m very surprised to see you.”

“Really?” he said, putting down the device he was working on. “Why?”

“Well,” I replied with greater firmness, “I’m surprised to see you because…you died six years ago!”

“I did?” inquired Mycroft with genuine concern. “Why does no one tell me these things?”

I shrugged, as there was really no good answer to this.

“Are you sure?” he asked, patting himself on the chest and stomach and then taking his pulse to try to convince himself I might be mistaken. “I know I’m a bit forgetful, but I’m certain I would have remembered that. ”

“Yes, quite sure,” I replied. “I was there.”

“Well, goodness,” murmured Mycroft thoughtfully, “if what you say is correct and I am dead, it’s entirely possible that this isn’t me at all, but a variable-response holographic recording of some sort. Let’s have a look for a projector.”

And so saying, he began to ferret through the piles of dusty machinery in his lab. And with nothing better to do and faintly curious, I joined in.

We searched for a good five minutes, but after finding nothing even vaguely resembling a holographic projector, Mycroft and I sat down on a packing case and didn’t speak for some moments.

“Dead,” muttered Mycroft with a resigned air. “Never been that before. Not even once. Are you quite sure?”

“Quite sure,” I replied. “You were eighty-seven. It was expected.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, as though some dim memory were stirring. “And Polly?” he added, suddenly remembering his wife. “How is she?”

“She’s very well,” I told him. “She and Mum are up to their old tricks.”

“Annoying market researchers?”

“Among other things. But she’s missing you dreadfully.”

“And I her.” He looked nervous for a moment. “Has she got a boyfriend yet?”

“At ninety-two?”

“Damn good-looking woman-smart, too.”

“Well, she hasn’t.”

“Hmm. Well, If you see someone suitable, O favorite niece, push him her way, won’t you? I don’t want her to be lonely.”