The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [183]
I stopped abruptly halfway up the garden path. For some reason Landen had taken the opportunity to change all the curtains. I walked on more slowly, a feeling of unease rising within me. I stopped at the front door. The footscraper had gone. But it hadn’t been taken recently—the hole had been concreted over long ago. There were other changes, too. A tub of withered Tickia orologica had appeared in the porch next to a rusty pogo stick and a broken bicycle. The dustbins were all plastic rather than steel, and a copy of Landen’s least favorite paper, The Mole, was resting in the newspaper holder. I felt a hot flush rise in my cheeks as I fumbled in vain to find my door key—not that it would have mattered if I had found it, because the lock I used that morning had been painted over years ago.
I must have been making a fair amount of noise, because all of a sudden the door opened to reveal an elderly version of Landen complete with paunch, bifocals and a shiny bald pate.
“Yes?” he inquired in a slow Parke-Laine sort of baritone.
Filbert Snood’s time aggregation sprang instantly—and unpleasantly—to mind.
“Oh my God. Landen? Is that you?”
The elderly man seemed almost as stunned as I was.
“Me? Good heavens, no!” he snapped and started to close the door. “No one of that name lives here!”
I jammed my foot against the closing door. I’d seen it done in cop movies but the reality is somewhat different. I had forgotten I was wearing trainers and the weatherboard squashed my big toe. I yelped in pain, withdrew my foot and the door slammed shut.
“Buggeration!” I yelled as I hopped up and down. I pressed the doorbell long and hard but received only a muffled “Clear off!” for my troubles. I was just about to bang on the door when I heard a familiar voice ring out behind. I turned to find Landen’s mum staring at me.
“Houson!” I cried. “Thank goodness! There’s someone in our house and they won’t answer, and . . . Houson?”
She was looking at me without a flicker of recognition.
“Houson?” I said again, taking a step towards her. “It’s me, Thursday!”
She hurriedly took a pace backwards and corrected me sharply: “That’s Mrs. Parke-Laine to you. What do you want?”
I heard the door open behind me. The elderly Landen-that-wasn’t had returned.
“She’s been ringing the doorbell,” explained the man to Landen’s mother. “She won’t go away.” He thought for a moment and then added in a quieter voice, “She’s been asking about Landen.”
“Landen?” replied Houson sharply, her glare becoming more baleful by the second. “How is Landen any business of yours?”
“He’s my husband.”
There was a pause as she mulled this over.
“Your sense of humor is severely lacking, Miss whoever-you-are,” she retorted angrily, pointing towards the garden gate. “I suggest you leave.”
“Wait a minute!” I exclaimed, almost wanting to laugh at the situation. “If I didn’t marry Landen, then who gave me this wedding ring?”
I held up my left hand for them to see, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. A quick glance told me why. I didn’t have a wedding ring.
“Shit—!” I mumbled, looking around in a perplexed manner. “I must have dropped it somewhere—”
“You’re very confused,” said Houson more with pity than anger. She could see I wasn’t dangerous—just positively, and irretrievably, insane. “Is there anyone we can call?”
“I’m not crazy,” I declared, trying to get a grip on the situation. “This morning, no, less than two hours ago, Landen and I lived in this very house—”
I stopped. Houson had moved to the side of the man at the door. As they stood together in a manner bred of long association, I knew exactly who he was; it was Landen’s father. Landen’s dead father.
“You’re Billden,” I murmured. “You died when you tried to rescue . . .”
My