‘I know,’ I replied. ‘Worrying, isn’t it?’
Analogy and Cable looked at one another. They had made the points they wanted to make: I was welcome here, they were keen to avenge Crometty’s death, and they didn’t like Jack Schitt. They wished me a pleasant evening, donned their hats and coats and were gone.
The jazz number came to an end. I joined in the applause as Holroyd got shakily to his feet and waved at the crowd before leaving. The bar thinned out rapidly once the music had finished, leaving me almost alone. I looked to my right, where two Miltons were busy making eyes at one another, and then at the bar, where several suited business reps were drinking as much as they could on their overnight allowance. I walked over to the piano and sat down. I struck a few chords, testing my arm at first, then becoming more adventurous as I played the lower half of a duet I remembered. I looked at the barman to order another drink but he was busy drying a glass. As the intro for the top part of the duet came round for the third time, a man’s hand reached in and played the first note of the upper part exactly on time. I closed my eyes; I knew who it was instantly, but I wasn’t going to look up. I could smell his aftershave and noticed the scar on his left hand. The hair on the back of my neck bristled slightly and I felt a flush rise within me. I instinctively moved to the left and let him sit down. His fingers drifted across the keys with mine, the two of us playing together almost flawlessly. The barman looked on approvingly, and even the suited salesmen stopped talking and looked around to see who was playing. Still I did not look up. As my hands grew more accustomed to that long-unplayed tune I grew confident and played faster. My unwatched partner kept up the tempo to match me.
We played like this for perhaps ten minutes, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I knew that if I did I would smile and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted him to know I was still pissed off. Then he could charm me. When the piece finally came to an end I continued to stare ahead. The man next to me didn’t move.
‘Hello, Landen,’ I said finally.
‘Hello, Thursday.’
I played a couple of notes absently but still didn’t look up.
‘It’s been a long time,’ I said.
‘A lot of water under the bridge,’ he replied. ‘Ten years’ worth.’
His voice sounded the same. The warmth and sensitivity I had once known so well were still there. I looked up at him, caught his gaze and looked away quickly. I had felt my eyes moisten. I was embarrassed by my feelings and scratched my nose nervously. He had gone slightly grey but he wore his hair in much the same manner. There were slight wrinkles around his eyes, but they might just as easily have been from laughing as from age. He was thirty when I walked out; I had been twenty-six. I wondered whether I had aged as well as he had. Was I too old to still hold a grudge? After all, getting into a strop with Landen wasn’t going to bring Anton back. I felt an urge to ask him if it was too late to try again, but as I opened my mouth the world juddered to a halt. The D sharp I had just pressed kept on sounding and Landen stared at me, his eyes frozen in mid-blink. Dad’s timing could not have been worse.
‘Hello, Sweetpea!’ he said, walking up to me out of the shadows. ‘Am I disturbing anything?’
‘Most definitely—yes.’
‘I won’t be long, then. What do you make of this?’
He handed me a yellow curved thing about the size of a large carrot.
‘What is it?’ I asked, smelling it cautiously.
‘It’s the fruit of a new plant designed completely from scratch seventy years from now. Look—‘
He peeled the skin off and let me taste it.
‘Good, eh? You can pick it well before ripe, transport it thousands of miles if necessary and it will keep fresh in its own hermetically sealed biodegradable packaging. Nutritious and tasty, too. It was sequenced by a brilliant engineer named Anna Bannon. We’re a bit lost as to what to call it. Any ideas?’
‘I’m sure you’ll think of something. What are you going to do with it?’
‘I thought I’d introduce it somewhere in the tenth millennium before the present one and see how it goes—food for mankind, that sort of thing. Well, time waits for no man, as we say. I’ll let you get back to Landen.’
The world flickered and started up again. Landen opened his eyes and stared at me.
‘Banana,’ I said, suddenly realising what it was that my father had shown me.
‘Pardon?’
‘Banana. They named it after the designer.’
‘Thursday, you’re making no sense at all,’ said Landen with a bemused grin.
‘My dad was just here.’
‘Ah. Is he still of all time?’
‘Still the same. Listen, I’m sorry about what happened.’
‘Me too,’ replied Landen, then lapsed into silence. I wanted to touch his face but I said instead:
‘I missed you.’
It was the wrong thing to say and I cursed myself; too much, too soon. Landen shuffled uneasily.
‘You should take aim more carefully. I missed you a lot, too. The first year was the worst.’
Landen paused for a moment. He played a few notes on the piano and then said: ‘I have a life and I like it here. Sometimes I think that Thursday Next was just a character from one of my novels, someone I made up in the image of the woman I wanted to love. Now… well, I’m over it.’
It wasn’t really what I was hoping to hear, but after all that had happened I couldn’t blame him.
‘But you came to find me.’
Landen smiled at me. ‘You’re in my town, Thurs. When a friend comes in from out of town, you look them up. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?’
‘And you buy them flowers? Does Colonel Phelps get roses too?’
‘No, he gets lilies. Old habits die hard.’
‘I see. You’ve been doing well for yourself
‘Thanks,’ he replied. ‘You never answered my letters.’
‘I never read your letters.’
‘Are you married?’
‘I can’t see that’s any of your business.’
‘I’ll take that as a no.’
The conversation had taken a turn for the worse. It was time to bale out. ‘Listen, I’m bushed, Landen. I have a very big day ahead of me.’
I got up. Landen limped after me. He had lost a leg in the Crimea but he was well used to it by now. He caught up with me at the bar.
‘Dinner one night?’
I turned to face him. ‘Sure.’
‘Tuesday?’
‘Why not?’
‘Good,’ said Landen, rubbing his hands. ‘We could get the old unit back together—‘
This wasn’t what I had in mind. ‘Hang on. Tuesday’s not very good after all.’
‘Why not? It was fine three seconds ago. Has your dad been round again?’
‘No, I just have a lot of things that I have to do and Pickwick needs kennelling and I have to pick him up at the station as airships make him nervous. You remember the time we took him up to Mull and he vomited all over the steward?’
I checked myself. I was starting to blabber like an idiot.
‘And don’t tell me,’ added Landen, ‘you have to wash your hair?’
‘Very funny.’
‘What work are you doing in Swindon anyway?’ asked Landen.
‘I wash up at SmileyBurger.’
‘Sure you do. SpecOps?’
I nodded my head. ‘I joined Swindon’s LiteraTec unit.’
‘Permanently?’ he asked. ‘I mean, you’ve come back to Swindon for good?’
‘I don’t know.’
I placed my hand on his. I wanted to hug him and burst into tears and tell him I loved him and would always love him like some huge emotional dumb girlie, but time wasn’t quite right, as my father would say. I decided to get on the question offensive instead so I asked:
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘Never thought about it?’