The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [603]
The tired old woman smiled again. “You don’t have Aornis in one’s head without learning a few tricks, my dear. My time with you has not been wasted. Our husband would not have survived without it, and Aornis could have erased everything when we were living in Caversham Heights. Where is he, by the way?”
“He’s looking after the boy Friday outside.”
“Ah!”
She looked into my eyes for a moment, then said, “Will you tell him I love him?”
“Of course.”
“Well, now that you know who I am, I think it’s time to go. I did find the ten most boring classics—and I’ve almost finished the last.”
“I thought you had to have an ‘epiphanic moment’ before you departed? A last exciting resolution to your life?”
“This is it, young Thursday. But it’s not mine, it’s ours. Now, pick up that copy of Faerie Queen. I am one hundred and ten, and it is well past my out time.”
I looked across at the table and picked up the book. I had never read the end—nor even past page 40. It was that dull.
“Don’t you have to read it?” I asked.
“Me, you, what’s the difference?” She giggled, something that turned into a weak cough that wouldn’t stop until I had leaned her gently upright.
“Thank you, my dear!” she gasped when the fit had passed. “There is only a paragraph to go. The page is marked.”
I opened the book but didn’t want to read the text. My eyes filled with tears, and I looked at the old woman, only to be met by a soft smile.
“It is time,” she said simply, “but I envy you—you have so many wonderful years ahead of you! Read, please.”
I wiped away my tears and had a sudden thought.
“But if I read this now,” I began slowly, “then when I am one hundred and ten years old, I will already have read it, and then I’d be—you know—just before the last sentence before I . . . that is, the younger me . . .” I paused, thinking about the seemingly impossible paradox.
“Dear Thursday!” said the old woman kindly, “always so linear! It does work, believe me. Things are just so much weirder than we can know. You’ll find out in due course, as I did.”
She smiled benignly, and I opened the book.
“Is there anything you need to tell me?”
She smiled again.
“No, my dear. Some things are best left unsaid. You and Landen will have a wonderful time together, mark my words. Read on, young Thursday!”
There was a ripple, and my father was standing on the other side of the bed.
“Dad!” said the old woman. “Thank you for coming!”
“I wouldn’t miss it, oh, daughter-my-daughter,” he said softly, bending down to kiss her on the forehead and hold her hand. “I’ve brought a few people with me.”
And there he was, the young man whom I had seen with Lavoisier at my wedding party. He laid a hand on hers and kissed her.
“Friday!” said the old woman. “How old are your children at the moment?”
“Here, Mum. Ask them yourself!”
And there they were, next to Friday’s wife, whom he had yet to meet. She was a one-year-old somewhere, with no idea of her future either. There were two children with her. Two grandchildren of mine, who had yet to be even thought of, let alone born. I continued reading Faerie Queen, slowly pacing myself as more people rippled in to see the old woman before she left.
“Tuesday!” said the old woman as another person appeared. It was my daughter. We’d vaguely talked about her, but that was all—and here she was, a sprightly sixty-year-old. She had brought her children, too, and one of them had brought hers.
In all, I think I saw twenty-eight descendants of mine that afternoon, all of them somber and only one of them yet born. When they had said their good-byes and rippled from sight, other visitors appeared to see her. There was Emperor and Empress Zhark, and Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw, who were never to age at all. The Cheshire Cat came, too, and several Miss Havishams, as well as a delegation of lobsters from the distant future, a large man smoking a cigar and several other people who rippled in and out in a polite manner. I carried on reading, holding her other hand as the fire of life slowly faded from