“You remember everything?”
“Of course. I remember every single word you have said to me. Where you said it, and when, and what would have been showing on TV at the time.”
“That must make lying very difficult.”
“On the contrary, it makes it very easy. Since I can recall every lie I tell, I repeat the lie in every context in which it is required. Humans are such poor liars because they have poor memories. The strange thing is that everybody knows everyone else is lying, and nothing much is done about it.”
“You’re right about that,” said Mary, gazing up at the sable blackness above them. “Which is your star?”
“That one there,” said Ashley, pointing in the vague direction of Cassiopeia. “No, hang on. Over there. No… goodness,” he said at last. “They all look so similar from here.”
And they both fell silent for a while, staring at the sky, deep in thought, with Mary resting her head on Ashley’s shoulder, his thoughts and memories seeping into her like a warming stew on a cold day. She saw a green sky with a moon hanging low and dominant in the heavens, and small houses like igloos dotted about a rocky landscape.
“Do you ever think about going home?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Reading’s my home,” he replied.
They returned only ten minutes after setting out, before Mary’s exhaled carbon dioxide had time to make itself known. Ashley piloted the small craft back to the same estate in Pangbourne, where, after knocking over the birdbath and hitting the sides of the garage several times, he finally managed to park.
“That was amazing,” said Mary, giggling like a schoolgirl.
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“We’ve got a problem. I think the birdbath damaged a thermal exhaust port… or something. Quick!”
He grasped her hand, and they jumped out of the pliable skin of the globe onto the dusty floor of the garage, then outside, where they got as far as the other side of the street when there was a whoomp noise and they were knocked over by a blue ring of light that shot out in all directions as the globe exploded.
“Oh, dear,” said Ashley, picking himself up and walking back to his parents’ house, which had been badly shaken by the concussion. The walls had cracked, and the roof had lost several dozen tiles. The garage itself had ceased to exist—except for a few tattered walls. Of the globe there was nothing. Isolated fires had been set alight on the lawn, which helpful neighbors were already stamping out.
“Was that you, Ashley?” asked Roger, who was standing at the off-kilter doorway of the house, wig askew and one slipper blown off.
“I cannot tell a lie, Father—Mary was driving. She wanted to have a go, so I let her, but her binary is a bit rusty, and… well, there you have it.”
“Is this true?” asked Roger, staring at Mary.
“No,” said Ashley before Mary could answer. “And I think I broke your birdhouse, too.”
Ashley’s father turned a paler blue. “You’re banished, young man,” he said sternly, jabbing the remains of his pipe in Ashley’s direction. “I think you’d better take Miss Mary home and not return for at least a week.”
Ashley bowed low. “I take my punishment with good grace. Thank you, Father.”
He looked at his Datsun, which had been blown onto its side.
“I think we’d better take the bus.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mary, picking her way across the wreckage to the front door and inside, where Abigail was staring sadly at the plaster ducks, now in several pieces. “Thank you for dinner, Mrs. 1001111001000100111011100100. It was most enjoyable.”
“Oh!” said Abigail happily. “Well, you must come again. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”
“Yes, indeed,” added Roger kindly. “Our house is your house. Sorry about Ashley. He’s always been a bit difficult.”
“The last one out of the egg sac,” added Abigail with a sigh, by way of explanation.
“…saw the first launch of the Proteus…” muttered Uncle Colin, speaking from beneath the print of The Hay Wain, which had fallen on top of him.
“What did she call you?” whispered Roger as they stood at the front door and waved good-bye.
“I’m not sure,” Abigail whispered back. “Something about how her prawns have asthma.”
“So,” said Mary as they walked away from the smoldering ruin of his parents’ house, “where are you going to stay tonight?”
“I’ll sneak back and sleep in the potting shed,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “It’s relatively undamaged.”
“I’ve a spare ceiling,” said Mary. “You can stick yourself to that if you want.”
“Well, o-o-kay,” said Ashley a bit suspiciously. “But if you’re trying to invite me home for sex on a first date, I don’t have a penis, so you might be a bit disappointed. Then again, you haven’t got a 1010111010101, so I might be, too.”
Mary hid a smile. “I’ll try and resist the temptation to jump you, Ash.”
But then he saw the funny side and relaxed, and made several of those squeaky-toy-being-sat-upon laughs.
“Your offer is very generous,” he replied, and went several different shades of blue in rapid succession, “I accept.”
“You know what?” asked Mary as they walked toward the main road and the bus stop.
“What?”
“That was the best date I’ve ever had.”
“All of it?” asked Ashley in surprise. “Even my dopey parents? And the wig and the Binary Scrabble and exploding Travelator and stuff?”
“All of it.”
“I’m very glad,” he said at last. “Do you want to come on another date sometime? Somewhere better and classier and more fun?”
“I’d like that a lot,” replied Mary. “Where are we going? The moon? Venus?”
“Somewhere much better,” replied Ashley happily. “Some of the original members of the Stylistics are re-forming, and my dopey sister reckons she can get tickets.”
30. The Punches Make Peace
Most successful tooth fairy: The most active fairy ever in the Berkshire regional milk-tooth-harvesting department was Grundle Arturo Pipsqueak VIII (license number 6382/6Y), who collected a grand total of 6,732 milk teeth during 1996, at a total cost of £2,201.36p (less expenses), an average unit cost of 32.7p. The record remains unlikely to be beaten due to (1) the declining demand for maracas, the chief end-use product of milk teeth, and (2) stiff competition from Far Eastern tooth fairies, who can procure the same quantity for almost one-fiftieth the cost.
The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition
Before Jack had even had a chance to recover from the blow with the rolling pin, the back door opened again and Madeleine came out, her face crimson with anger.
“You miserable, unreal piece of crap!” she screamed at the top of her voice, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I trusted you!”
Jack tried to say something, but she cut him short.
“Don’t try to explain yourself. If I were you, I’d start looking for a good divorce lawyer!” She went back inside and banged the door shut after her.
“Phew!” said Caliban as he hopped down from the trash can.
“Kind of serves you right. I mean, swapping Madeleine for Agatha Diesel? You must be nuts.”
“I didn’t.”
“What the sodding hell is going on out there?” said Mr. Punch, who had just come out of his house. “Judy and I can barely hear ourselves shout.”
“Nothing,” said Jack.
“He screwed the boss’s wife,” piped up Caliban.
“I did no such thing—and who asked you?”
“Hang on,” said Punch, “I’m coming around.”
In a couple of minutes, he had reappeared, dressed in pajamas and a nightcap and still grinning crazily with his varnished leer, which Jack thought even more galling in the present situation.
“Well,” he said, “infidelity, Mr. Sprat? That doesn’
t sound like you at all.”
“It’s not me. And it’s none of your business. And it’s two t’s in Spratt, not one.”
“But it is my business,” retorted Punch. “I’m your neighbor, and we PDRs have to stick together.”
“Huzzah!” said Caliban in enthusiastic agreement.
“You’re a Person of Dubious Reality?” asked Jack of the little ape. “From where?”
“The Tempest,” replied Caliban with a twinge of pride, adding,
“You know, Shakespeare?” when Jack didn’t seem to understand.
“Oh,” he said, “right.”
“Your problem is our problem,” said Punch kindly.
But Jack was still angry.
“What makes you think Punch and Judy—of all people—are qualified to give advice on marriage?” sneered Jack.
“Nothing really,” explained Punch in a calm and patient voice,
“but we’ve been married three hundred and twenty-eight years next Wednesday, and not a single day goes by without us arguing and fighting. But despite all that, we find it in our hearts to forgive, because the bottom line is that we love each other dearly, and it is that love which binds our relationship together, regardless of the violence and the quarreling.”
Jack sat on the garden wall. He ran a hand through his hair. His head was tender where Madeleine had hit him and was starting to come up in a bump. He looked at Punch and Caliban, who were staring at him with quiet concern.
“Madeleine found out I was a nursery-rhyme character,” said Jack at last, sighing deeply.
“You never told her?” asked Punch. “How can you keep that a secret from her?”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to lose her. Perhaps it was because I want to be a real person.”
“I’m told it’s overrated,” replied Punch. “Think you could do what you do and help the people you help if you were real? You’d never have found out who killed Humpty Dumpty, and Bluebeard would still be killing his brides. And what about Red Riding-Hood and her gran?”
“Yeah—what about them?” Jack retorted.
“Okay,” Punch conceded, “that was a bad example. But you see what I mean. You’re good at this weird NCD shit precisely because you’re not real. Besides, what’s so great about ‘real’ these days anyway?”
“It’s all right for you,” said Jack after a pause. “At least you’ve got a long, performance-based traditional backing to your existence.”
“More of a curse than a blessing,” replied Punch with a sigh.
“We’d love to retire back home to Italy, but they keep on updating the act and dragging us out again. We bought a house in Tuscany a few years ago, when we thought political correctness would end the show, but it didn’t. The Punchinistas think they’re doing us a favor, restoring the tradition, but they’re not.”
“Tuscany,” mused Jack, who had never been out of Berkshire in his life, “that could be nice.”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Punch dreamily. “Judy and I were going to spend our twilight years beating each other senseless under the the warm Mediterranean sun. We’d sip Chianti through broken teeth and grapple at one another’s throats as the orange orb of the sun set on another perfect day. Then, after a truly excellent spaghetti alle vongole, I would jam my thumb in her eye and she would kick me hard in the gonads—and we would go to bed, tired, but happy.”
They all fell wistfully silent for a while until Jack said, “Yes, but that doesn’t help me right now.”
“Perhaps not,” replied Punch, “but we can probably do something. Who was this woman you slept with?”
“I didn’t,” insisted Jack. “Briggs’s wife has had her eye on me since a fling about twenty-five years ago.”
“Agatha Diesel?” asked Punch.
“You know her?”
He didn’t answer and instead knocked on the back door. It was opened by Prometheus.
“Hello, Punchy,” said the Titan cheerfully. “How’s it cooking?”
“Madeleine needs to come out and speak to Jack.”
Prometheus looked at Jack and then back to Punch. “I don’t think she really wants to.”
“Please? It’s important.”
The door closed, and Punch winked at Jack while dialing a number on his cell phone.
“Who’s your phone provider?” he asked Jack. “I get a hundred free min—Agatha? It’s Punch…. I know your next appointment isn’t until Tuesday, but I’ve just heard about the regrettable incident with Mr. Spratt.”
There was a pause as Punch listened to a tearful babble of Agatha’s woes.
“I disagree,” he said as soon as he could get a word in. “The whole situation is a long way from irredeemable. You’re to tell your husband everything when he gets home, but for now I need you to talk to Mrs. Spratt and tell her precisely what happened—or didn’t happen—between you and Jack.”
There was another pause.
“It’s the right thing to do, Agatha. You’ll feel a lot better for it…. Here she is.”
Madeleine had appeared at the door and glared at Jack. She reluctantly took the proffered phone and went back inside.
“Now what?” asked Jack.
“Agatha will sort it out—unless you really did screw her, in which case you’re in such deep shit even I can’t help you.”
“I didn’t. How do you know Agatha?”
Judy and I run a marriage-guidance center. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs have been seeing us for several years now. It’s bad. Separate-beds bad.”
The door reopened a few minutes later, and Madeleine came out, wiped a tear from her eye, handed the phone back to Punch and hugged her husband.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He held her tightly. “And I’m sorry I never told you I wasn’t real. People don’t change just because you know more about them. I’m still the same Jack Spratt that you knew yesterday, and I’ll be the same Jack Spratt tomorrow and the day after. You can hold this against me if you want, but it doesn’t alter anything that I’ve ever said to you or taken any of the happiness out of the times we’ve spent together. I’m just an ordinary guy trying to support his family in the only way he can. I may not ever make superintendent, but I’ll always be standing beside you.”
She kissed him and said, “That was a really crap speech, sweetheart, but thank you. Did the rolling pin hurt?”
“It’s only painful when I think.”
“If you hadn’t made me love you so much, I wouldn’t have hit you so hard.”
“I had a feeling it might be my fault.”
She laughed, and they rested their heads on each other’s shoulders and rocked gently from side to side.
“That’s the way to do it,” said Punch with the air of job well done.
“Hey, shitface!” said Judy, popping her head over the garden fence and punctuating the romance of the moment in a most disagreeable fashion. “Are you going to jabber all night or give me a good ******** like you promised?”
“Hold your tongue, viper!” yelled Punch.
“You’re dead meat, you stinking heap of trash!” she screamed back. “I’ll—”
But then she suddenly noticed Jack and Madeleine embracing under the yellow glow of the outdoor light.
“What’s going on?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“A misunderstanding, sweetness—but it’s all right now.”
“Ahhhhh!” she murmured, watching them both and holding out her hand toward Mr. Punch, who took it and caressed it gently.
“I like an argument with a happy ending. Actually, I just like an argument.” Then she looked at her husband with a coquettish smile and said, “It’s still early. Why don’t you and I get all togged up and have a meal, an excellent bottle of wine and then a stand-up row and a punch-up down at the Green Parrot?”
He reached over and kissed her affectionately. “That sounds like a beautiful idea, Pookums. Can it be a really serious punch-up? Like we used to have in the good o
ld days?”
“You’re just a sweet romantic at heart, aren’t you?” she replied tenderly. “I’ll ring up the Green Parrot for a reservation, book a couple of beds at the hospital and alert the finest emergency trauma team in Berkshire—and it’s my treat.”
Jack and Madeleine went back inside and upstairs to bed, shooing Caliban out the door when he tried to follow them. They were both fast asleep a half hour later, the best and deepest sleep for them both in many weeks. And as they slept, Mr. and Mrs. Punch donned their evening dress and knuckle-dusters, Agatha had a heart-to-heart with her husband, and below on the street outside, a single rust bubble popped up on the paintwork of the otherwise pristine Allegro.
31. The Truth Is Out There
Largest flying boat ever: In 1934 the Soviet Union decided to enter the global-travel world with the mighty Ilyushin-95. With a wingspan of 520 feet and weighing in at almost two hundred tons, this monstrous behemoth of the skies was powered by no fewer than sixty-eight Vokspod-87 290-horsepower radial engines. The first and only attempt to fly it was on June 15, 1934, when it was tugged out into the Caspian Sea, filled with fuel and the pilot and crew told not to return until they “had brought glory on the motherland.” With all engines roaring, the flying boat vanished over the horizon and into legend. Nobody knows what became of it, but it is thought that after failing to get airborne it made landfall in Turkey, where the crew, too worried about the repercussions of failure, quietly sold it for scrap.
The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition
Jack woke with a start at 5:30 A.M. He and Madeleine were still entwined, and he carefully unraveled her sleeping form from his before donning a dressing gown and walking into the bathroom. He examined the bruise on his chin where Briggs had thumped him and the one on his head from the rolling pin. He swallowed a couple of Tylenol, relieved himself and went downstairs.
Jack sighed deeply. He had told Briggs he was on a three-month rest, although in reality he was anything but. There were at least two murderers loose in Reading, a mother of all conspiracies was unfolding unseen in front of him, and if what he thought was true, the geopolitical future of the world was very much in the balance. Perhaps. He made some coffee and tapped in to toad-news.com to see if the Gingerbreadman had been caught or shot. He hadn’t.
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