Lost in a Good Book

'But viewed from the side it looks like an oblong. What Nextian geometry does – in very simple terms – is bring the plane of a solid from the horizontal to the vertical but without altering the vertices of the solid in space Admittedly it only works with Nextian dough, which doesn't rise so well and tastes like denture paste, but we're working on that.'

  'It seems impossible, Uncle.'

  'We didn't know the nature of lightning or rainbows for three and a half million years, pet. Don't reject it just because it seems impossible. If we closed our minds there would never be the Gravitube, antimatter, Prose Portals, Thermos flasks—'

  'Wait!' I interrupted 'How does a Thermos fit in with that little lot?'

  'Because, my dear girl, no one has the least idea why they work.' He stared at me for a moment and continued: 'You will agree that a vacuum flask keeps hot things hot in the winter and cold things cold in the summer?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, how does it know? I've studied vacuum flasks for many years and not one of them gave any clues as to their inherent seasonal cognitive ability. It's a mystery to me, I can tell you.'

  'Okay, okay, Uncle – how about applications for Nextian geometry?'

  'Hundreds. Packaging and space management will be revolutionised overnight. I can pack Ping-Pong balls in a cardboard box without any gaps, punch steel bottle tops with no waste, drill a square hole, tunnel to the moon, divide cake more efficiently, and also – and this is the most exciting part – collapse matter.'

  'Isn't that dangerous?'

  'Not at all,' replied Mycroft airily. 'You accept that all matter is mainly empty space? The void between the nucleus and the electrons? Well, by applying Nextian geometry to the subatomic level. I can collapse matter to a fraction of its former size. I will be able to reduce almost anything to the microscopic!'

  'Are you going to market this idea?'

  It was a good question. Most of Mycroft's ideas were far too dangerous to even think about, much less let loose on a world unprepared for hyper-radical thought.

  'Miniaturisation is a technology that needs to be utilised,' explained Mycroft. 'Can you imagine tiny nanomachines barely bigger than a cell building, say, food protein out of nothing more than garbage? Banoffee pie from landfills, ships from scrap iron—! It's a fantastic notion. Consolidated Useful Stuff are financing some R&D with me as we speak.'

  'It's very impressive, Uncle, but what do you know about coincidences?'

  'Well,' said Mycroft thoughtfully, 'it is my considered opinion that most coincidences are simply quirks of chance – if you extrapolate the bell curve of probability you will find statistical abnormalities that seem unusual but are, in actual fact, quite likely given the number of people on the planet and the number of different things we do in our lives.'

  'I see,' I replied slowly. 'That explains things on a minor coincidental level, but what about the bigger coincidences? How high would you rate seven people in a Skyrail shuttle all called Irma Cohen and the answers to crossword clues reading out "meddlesome Thursday goodbye" just before someone tried to kill me?'

  Mycroft gave a low whistle.

  'That's quite a coincidence. More than a coincidence, I think.' He took a deep breath. 'Thursday, think for a moment about the fact that the universe always moves from an ordered state to a disordered one; that a glass may fall to the ground and shatter yet you never see a broken glass reassemble itself and then jump back on to the table.'

  'I accept that.'

  'But why doesn't it?'

  'Search me.'

  'Every atom of that glass that shattered would contravene no laws of physics if they were to rejoin – on a subatomic level all particle interactions are reversible. Down there we can't tell which event precedes which. It's only out here that we can see things age and define a strict direction in which time travels.'

  'So what are you saying, Uncle?'

  'That these things don't happen is because of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that disorder in the universe always increases; the amount of this disorder is a quantity known as entropy.'

  'So how does this relate to coincidences?'

  'I'm getting to that; imagine a box with a partition – the left side is filled with gas, the right a vacuum. Remove the partition and the gas will expand into the other side of the box – yes?'

  I nodded.

  'And you wouldn't expect the gas to cramp itself up in the left-hand side again, would you?'

  'No'

  'Ah!' replied Mycroft with a smile 'Not quite right. You see, since every interaction of gas atoms is reversible, some time, sooner or later, the gas must cramp itself back into the left-hand side!'

  'It must?'

  'Yes, the key here is how much later. Since even a small box of gas might contain 1020 atoms, the time taken for them to try all possible combinations would be far greater than the age of the universe, a decrease in entropy strong enough to allow gas to separate, a shattered glass to re-form or the statue of St Zvlkx outside to get down and walk to the pub is not, I think, against any physical laws but just fantastically unlikely.'

  'So what you are saying is that really, really weird coincidences are caused by a drop in entropy?'

  'Exactly so. But it's only a theory. Why entropy might spontaneously decrease and how one might conduct experiments into localised entropic field decreasement. I have only a few untried notions that I won't trouble you with here, but look, take this – it could save your life.'

  He passed me a sealed jam jar, the contents of which were half rice and half lentils.

  'I'm not hungry, thanks,' I told him.

  'No, no I call this device an entroposcope. Shake it for me.'

  I shook the jamjar and the rice and lentils settled together in that sort of random clumping way that chance usually dictates.

  'So?' I asked.

  'Entirely usual,' replied Mycroft. 'Standard clumping, entropy levels normal. Shake it every now and then. You'll know when a decrease in entropy occurs as the rice and lentils will separate into more ordered patterns – and that's the time to watch out for ludicrously unlikely coincidences.'

  Polly entered the workshop and gave her husband a hug.

  'Hello, you two,' she said. 'Having fun?'

  'I'm showing Thursday what I've been up to, my dear,' replied Mycroft graciously.

  'Did you show her your memory erasure device, Crofty?'

  'No, he didn't,' I said.

  'Yes I did,' replied Mycroft with a smile, adding: 'You're going to have to leave me, pet – I've work to do. I retire in fifty-six minutes precisely.'

  My father didn't turn up that evening, much to my mother's disappointment. At five minutes to ten Mycroft, true to his word, and with Polly behind him, emerged from his laboratory to join us for dinner. Next family dinners are always noisy affairs and tonight was no different. Landen sat next to Orville and did a very good impression of someone who was trying not to be bored. Joffy, who was next to Wilbur, thought his new job was utter crap and Wilbur, who had been needled by Joffy for at least three decades, replied that he thought the Global Standard Deity faith was the biggest load of phoney codswallop he had ever come across.

  'Ah,' replied Joffy loftily, 'wait until you meet the Brotherhood of Unconstrained Verbosity.'

  Gloria and Charlotte always sat next to one another, Gloria to talk about something trivial and Charlotte to agree with her. Mum and Polly talked about the Women's Federation and I sat next to Mycroft.

  'What will you do in your retirement, Uncle?'

  'I don't know, pet. I have some books I've been wanting to write for some time.'

  'About your work?'

  'Much too dull. Can I try an idea out on you?'

  'Sure.'

  He smiled, looked around, lowered his voice and leaned closer.

  'Okay, here it is: brilliant young surgeon Dexter Colt starts work at the highly efficient yet underfunded children's hospital doing pioneering work on relieving the suffering of orphaned amputees.
The chief nurse is the headstrong yet beautiful Tiffany Lampe. Tiffany has only recently recovered from her shattered love affair with anaesthetist Dr Burns and—'

  '—they fall in love?' I ventured.

  Mycroft's face fell.

  'You've heard it, then?'

  'The bit about the orphaned amputees is good,' I added, trying not to dishearten him. 'What are you going to call it?'

  'I thought of Love among the Orphans. What do you think?'

  By the end of the meal Mycroft had outlined several of his books to me, each one with a plot more lurid than the last. At the same time Joffy and Wilbur had come to blows in the garden, discussing the sanctity of peace and forgiveness amid the thud of fists and the crunch of broken noses.

  At midnight Mycroft took Polly in his arms and thanked us all for coming.

  'I have spent my entire life in pursuit of scientific truth and enlightenment,' he announced grandly, 'answers to conundrums and unifying theories of everything. Perhaps I should have spent the time going out more. In fifty-four years neither Polly nor myself has ever taken a holiday, so that is where we're off to now.'

  We walked into the garden, the family wishing Mycroft and Polly well on their travels. Outside the door of the workshop they stopped and looked at one another, then at all of us.

  'Well, thanks for the party,' said Mycroft. 'Pear soup followed by pear stew with pear sauce and finishing with bombs surprise – which was pear – was quite a treat. Unusual, but quite a treat. Look after MycroTech while I'm away, Wilbur, and thanks for all the meals, Wednesday. Right, that's it,' concluded Mycroft. 'We're off Toodle-oo.'

  'Enjoy yourselves,' I said.

  'Oh, we will!' he said, bidding us all goodbye again and disappearing into the workshop. Polly kissed us all, waved farewell and followed him, closing the door behind her.

  'It won't be the same without him and his daft projects, will it?' said Landen

  'No,' I replied. 'It's—'

  I felt a strong tingling sensation as a noiseless white light erupted from within the workshop and shone in pencil-thin beams from every crack and rivet hole, each speck of grime showing up on the dirty windows, every crack in the glass suddenly alive with a rainbow of colours. We winced and shielded our eyes, but no sooner had the light started than it had gone again, faded to nothing in a crackle of electricity. Landen and I exchanged looks and stepped forward. The door opened easily and we stood there, staring into the large and now very empty workshop. Every single piece of equipment had gone. Not a screw, not a bolt, not a washer.

  'He isn't just going to write romantic novels in his retirement,' observed Joffy.

  'Most probably he just took it all so no one else would carry on with his work. Mycroft's scruples were the equal of his intellect.'

  My mother was sitting on an upturned wheelbarrow, her dodos clustered around her on the off-chance of a marshmallow.

  'They're not coming back,' said my mother sadly. 'You know that, don't you?'

  'Yes,' I said, 'I know.'

  7

  White Horse, Uffington, picnics for the use of

  * * *

  'We decided that "Parke-Laine-Next" was a bit of a mouthful, so I kept my surname and he kept his. I called myself "Ms" instead of "Miss", but nothing else changed. I liked being called his wife in the same way I liked calling Landen my husband. It felt sort of tingly. I had the same feeling when I stared at my wedding ring. They say you get used to it but I hoped that they were wrong. Marriage, like spinach and opera, was something I had never thought I would like. I changed my mind about opera when I was nine years old. My father took me to the first night of Madame Butterfly at Brescia in 1904. After the performance Dad cooked while Puccini regaled me with hilarious stories and signed my autograph book – from that day on I was a devoted fan. In the same way, it took being in love with Landen to make me change my mind about marriage. I found it exciting and exhilarating, two people, together, as one. It was where I was meant to be. I was happy, I was contented, I was fulfilled.

  And spinach? Well, I'm still waiting

  THURSDAY NEXT – private diaries

  'What do you think they'll do?' asked Landen as we lay in bed, he with one hand resting gently on my stomach and the other wrapped tightly around me. The bedclothes had been thrown off and we had only just regained our breath.

  'Who?'

  'SO-1 this afternoon. About you punching the Neanderthal.'

  'Oh, that. I don't know. Technically speaking I really haven't done anything wrong at all. I think they'll let me off, considering all the good PR work I've done – looks a bit daft to arrest their star operative, don't you think?'

  'That's always assuming they think logically like you or I.'

  'It does, doesn't it?'

  I sighed.

  'People have been busted for less. SO-1 like to make an example from time to time.'

  'You don't have to work, you know.'

  I looked across at him but he was too close to focus on, which was sort of nice, in its way.

  'I know,' I replied, 'but I'd like to keep it up. I don't really see myself as a mumsy sort of person.'

  'Your cooking might tend to support that fact.'

  'Mother's cooking is terrible, too – I think it's hereditary. My SO-1 hearing is at four. Want to go and see the mammoth migration?'

  'Sure.'

  The doorbell rang.

  'Who could that be?'

  'It's a little early to tell,' quipped Landen. 'I understand the "go and see" technique sometimes works.'

  'Very funny.'

  I pulled on some clothes and went downstairs. There was a gaunt man with lugubrious features standing on the doorstep. He looked as close to a bloodhound as one can get without actually having a tail and barking.

  'Yes?'

  He raised his hat and gave me a somnolent smile.

  'The name is Hopkins,' he explained. 'I'm a reporter for The Owl. I was wondering if I could interview you about your time within the pages of Jane Eyre?'

  'You'll have to go through Cordelia Flakk at SpecOps, I'm afraid. I'm not really at liberty—'

  'I know you were inside the book; in the first and original ending Jane goes to India, yet in your ending she stays and marries Rochester. How did you engineer this?'

  'You really have to get clearance from Flakk, Mr Hopkins.'

  He sighed.

  'Okay, I will. Just one thing. Did you prefer the new ending, your new ending?'

  'Of course. Didn't you?'

  Mr Hopkins scribbled in a notepad and smiled again.

  'Thank you, Miss Next. I'm very much in your debt. Good day!'

  He raised his hat again and was gone.

  'What was all that about?' asked Landen as he handed me a cup of coffee.

  'Pressman.'

  'What did you tell him?'

  'Nothing. He has to go through Flakk.'

  Uffington was busy that morning. The mammoth population in England, Wales and Scotland amounted to 249 individuals in nine groups, all of whom migrated north to south around late autumn and back again in the spring. The routes followed the same pattern every year with staggering accuracy. Inhabited areas were mostly avoided – except Devizes, where the high street was shuttered up and deserted twice a year as the plodding elephantines crashed and trumpeted their way through the centre of the town, cheerfully following the ancient call of their forebears. No one in Devizes could get any sleep or proboscidea damage insurance cover, but the extra cash from tourism generally made up for it.

  But there weren't just mammoth twitchers, walkers, Druids and a Neanderthal 'right to hunt' protest up the hill that morning, a dark blue automobile was waiting for us, and when somebody is waiting for you in a place you hadn't planned on being, then you take notice. There were three of them standing next to the car, all dressed in dark suits with a blue enamelled Goliath badge on their lapels. The only one I recognised was Schitt-Hawse; they all hastily hid their ice creams as we approached.

&nbsp
; 'Mr Schitt-Hawse,' I said, 'what a surprise! Have you met my husband?'

  Schitt-Hawse offered his hand but Landen didn't take it. The Goliath agent grimaced for a moment, then gave a bemused grin.

  'Saw you on the telly, Ms Next. It was a fascinating talk about dodos, I must say.'

  'I'd like to expand my subjects next time,' I replied evenly. 'Might even try and include something about Goliath's malignant stranglehold on the nation.'

  Schitt-Hawse shook his head sadly.

  'Unwise, Next, unwise. What you singularly fail to grasp is that Goliath is all you'll ever need. All anyone will ever need. We manufacture everything from cots to coffins and employ over eight million people in our six thousand or so subsidiary companies. Everything from the womb to the wooden overcoat.'

  'And how much profit do you expect to scavenge as you massage us from hatched to dispatched?'

  'You can't put a price on human happiness, Next. Political and economic uncertainty are the two biggest forms of stress. You'll be pleased to know that the Goliath Cheerfulness Index has reached a four-year high this morning at 9.13.'

  'Out of a hundred?' asked Landen sarcastically.

  'Out of ten, Mr Parke-Laine,' Schitt-Hawse replied testily. 'The nation has grown beyond all measure under our guidance.'

  'Growth purely for its own sake is the philosophy of cancer, Schitt-Hawse.'

  His face dropped and he stared at us for a moment, doubtless wondering how best to continue.

  'So,' I said politely, 'out to watch the mammoths?'

  'Goliath don't watch mammoths, Next. There's no profit in it. Have you met my associates Mr Chalk and Mr Cheese?'

  I looked at his two gorilla-like lackeys. They were immaculately dressed, had impeccably trimmed goatees, and stared at me through impenetrable dark glasses.

  'Which is which?' I asked

  'I'm Cheese,' said Cheese

  'I'm Chalk,' said Chalk.

  'When is he going to ask you about Jack Schitt?' asked Landen in an unsubtly loud whisper.

  'Pretty soon,' I replied.

  Schitt-Hawse shook his head sadly. He opened the briefcase Mr Chalk was holding and inside, nestled in the carefully cut foam innards, lay a copy of The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.