The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [611]
As soon as I had closed the door behind me I heard him flop back. It didn’t matter. He was awake, and his father could do the rest.
“I expect he’s raring to go?” suggested Landen when I came downstairs. “Had to lock him in his room to curb his enthusiasm?”
“Champing at the bit,” I replied wearily. “We’d get a more dynamic response from a vapid slug on tranquilizers.”
“I wasn’t so dreary when I was a kid,” said Landen thoughtfully, handing me my tea. “I wonder where he gets it from?”
“Modern living, but don’t worry. He’s only sixteen—he’ll snap out of it.”
“I hope so.”
And that was the problem. This wasn’t just the usual worries of concerned parents with grunty and unintelligible teenagers; he had to snap out of it. I’d met the future Friday several times in the past, and he’d risen to the lofty heights of ChronoGuard director-general with absolute power over the Standard History Eventline, a job of awesome responsibilities. He was instrumental in saving my life, his own—and the planet from destruction no fewer than 756 times. By his fortieth birthday, he would be known as “Apocalypse” Next. But that hadn’t happened yet. And with Friday’s chief interest in life at present being Strontium Goat, sleeping, Che Guevara, Hendrix and more sleeping, we were beginning to wonder how it ever would.
Landen looked at his watch.
“Isn’t it time you were off to work, wifey darling? The good folk of Swindon would be utterly lost and confused without you to take the burden of floor-covering decision making from them.”
He was right. I was already ten minutes late, and I kissed him several times, just in case something unexpected occurred that might separate us for longer than planned. By “unexpected” I was thinking of the time he was eradicated for two years by the Goliath Corporation. Although the vast multinational was back in business after many years in the financial and political doldrums, they had not yet attempted any of the monkey business that had marked our relationship in the past. I hoped they’d learned their lesson, but I’d never quite freed myself of the idea that a further fracas with them might be just around the corner, so I always made quite sure that I’d told Landen everything I needed to tell him.
“Busy day ahead?” he asked as he saw me to the garden gate.
“A large carpet to install for a new company in the financial center—bespoke executive pile, plus the usual quotes. I think Spike and I have a stair carpet to do in an old Tudor house with uneven treads, so one of those nightmare jobs.”
He paused and sucked his lower lip for a moment.
“Good, so…no…no…SpecOps stuff or anything?”
“Sweetheart!” I said, giving him a hug. “That’s all past history. I do carpets these days—it’s a lot less stressful, believe me. Why?”
“No reason. It’s just that what with Diatrymas being seen as far north as Salisbury, people are saying that the old SpecOps personnel might be recalled into ser vice.”
“Six-foot-tall carnivorous birds from the late Paleocene would be SO-13 business if they were real, which I doubt,” I pointed out. “I was SO-27. The Literary Detectives. When copies of Tristram Shandy are threatening old ladies in dark alleys, I just might be asked for my opinion. Besides, no one’s reading books much anymore, so I’m fairly redundant.”
“That’s true,” said Landen. “Perhaps being an author isn’t such a great move after all.”
“Then write your magnum opus for me,” I told him tenderly. “I’ll be your audience, wife, fan club, sex kitten and critic all rolled into one. It’s me picking up Tuesday from school, right?”
“Right.”
“And you’ll pick up Jenny?”
“I won’t forget. What shall I do if Pickwick starts shivering in that hopelessly pathetic way that she does?”
“Pop her in the airing cupboard—I’ll try and get her cozy finished at work.”
“Not so busy, then?”
I kissed him again and departed.
2.
Mum and Polly and Mycroft
My mother’s main aim in life was to get from the cradle to the grave with the minimum of fuss and bother and the maximum of tea and Battenberg. Along the way she brought up three children,