The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [719]
“We pretend there is a Jenny to minimize the onset of an attack,” said Landen. “It’s why we keep her bedroom as it is and why you’ll find her stuff all around the house—so when you’re alone, you don’t go into a missing-daughter panic.”
“The evil little cow!” I muttered, rubbing my face. “But now that I know, we can do something about it, right?”
“It’s not as easy as that, sweetheart,” said Landen with a note of sadness in his voice. “Aornis is truly vindictive—in a few minutes you won’t remember any of this and you’ll again believe that you have a daughter named Jenny.”
“You mean,” I said slowly, “I’ve done this before?”
We pulled up outside the house, and Landen turned off the engine. There was silence in the car.
“Sometimes you can go weeks without an attack,” said Landen quietly. “At other times you can have two or three an hour.”
“Is that why you work from home?”
“Yeah. We can’t have you going to school every day expecting to pick up a daughter who isn’t there.”
“So…you’ve explained all this to me before?”
“Many times, darling.”
I sighed deeply. “I feel like a complete twit,” I said in a soft voice. “Is this my first attack today?”
“It’s the third,” said Landen. “It’s been a bad week.”
I looked at them all in turn, and they were all staring back at me with such a sense of loving concern for my well-being that I burst into tears.
“It’s all right, Mum,” said Tuesday, holding my hand. “We’ll look after you.”
“You are the best, most loving, supportive family anyone could ever have,” I said through my sobs. “I’m so sorry if I’m a burden.”
They all told me not to be so bloody silly, I told them not to swear, and Landen gave me his handkerchief for my tears.
“So,” I said, wiping my eyes, “how does it work? How do I stop remembering the fact that there’s no Jenny?”
“We have our ways. Jenny’s at a sleepover with Ingrid. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He leaned across and kissed me, smiled and said to the kids, “Right, team, do your stuff.”
Friday poked Tuesday hard in the ribs, and she squealed, “What was that for!?”
“For being a geek!”
“I’d rather be a geek than a duh-brain. And what’s more, Strontium Goat is rubbish and Wayne Skunk couldn’t play a guitar if his life depended on it!”
“Say that again!”
“Will you two cut it out!” I said crossly. “Honestly, I think Friday’s proved he’s no duh-brain over the Short Now thing, so just pack it in. Right. I know your gran gave us some food, but does anybody want anything proper to eat?”
“There’s some pizza in the freezer,” said Landen. “We can have that.”
We all got out of the car and walked up to the house with Friday and Tuesday bickering.
“Geek.”
“Duh-brain.”
“Geek.”
“Duh-brain.”
“I said cut it out.” I suddenly thought of something. “Land, where’s Jenny?”
“At a sleepover with Ingrid.”
“Oh, yeah. Again?”
“Thick as thieves, those two.”
“Yeah,” I said with a frown, “thick as thieves, those two.”
Bowden called during dinner. This was unusual for him, but not totally unexpected. Spike and I had crept away from Acme like naughty schoolkids, as we didn’t want to get into trouble over the cost of Major Pickles’s carpet, not to mention that it had taken us both all day and we’d done nothing else.
“It’s not great, is it?” said Bowden in the overserious tone he used when he was annoyed, upset or angry. To be honest, I had the most shares in Acme, but he was the managing director, so day-to-day operations were up to him.
“I don’t think it’s all that bad,” I said, going on the defensive.
“Are you insane?” replied Bowden. “It’s a disaster!”
“We’ve had bigger problems,” I said, beginning to get annoyed. “I think it’s best to keep a sense of proportion, don’t you?”
“Well, yes,” he replied, “but if we let this sort of thing take a hold, you never know where it might end up.”
I was pissed off now.
“Bowden,” I said, “just cool it. Spike got stuck to the ceiling by Raum, and if Pickles hadn’t given the demi-devil the cold steel, we’d both be pushing up daisies.”
There was silence