Among Others

“Boston. It’s usually America. Goodness knows when we’ll ever have one in Britain again. But there are British cons. There’s one at Easter in Glasgow. They don’t have all the American writers, of course. But it’s not just the writers. It’s the fans as well. You wouldn’t believe the conversations I had in Brighton.”

“Are you going to Glasgow?”

“I’m already saving up for it. I went to Brighton on my bike, and slept in a tent, but I’ll need money for at least a share of a hotel room in Glasgow at Easter, and it would be nicer to go on the train.” He looked eager and animated.

“A hotel room. Trainfare. And how much is the ticket?”

“They call it membership,” he reproved me. “I’ve already bought mine. It was five pounds.”

“I wonder if Daniel would pay all that. I wonder if he’d agree to me going. I wonder if I could persuade him to go too. He’d enjoy it.”

“Who’s Daniel?” he asked, shifting away from me without getting out of the chair. “Your boyfriend?”

“My father,” I said. “He reads SF. He met Greg and Janine and Pete on Sunday, and we all talked about books the whole time. He’d enjoy a convention, I’m sure he would.” I was much less sure his sisters would let him go. It wasn’t the kind of thing they’d want at all, doing something he wanted to away from them. They probably wouldn’t approve it for me either, not if they wanted me to be Nice Niece. I’d have to find some way of getting round them.

“You’re so lucky,” Wim said, surprisingly.

“Lucky? Why?” I blinked. I am not in the habit of thinking I am lucky, even when my leg isn’t strapped to a rack.

“Having a rich father who reads SF. Mine thinks it’s childish. He was okay with it when I was twelve, but he thinks reading at all is sissy and reading kid stuff is babyish. He roars at me whenever he catches me reading. My mother reads what she calls nice romances, sometimes, Catherine Cookson and that sort of thing, but only when he isn’t in the house. She doesn’t understand at all. There are no books in our house. I’d give anything for parents who read.”

“I only met Daniel this summer,” I said. “My parents are divorced, and I was brought up mostly by my grandparents. They didn’t have any money, but they did read, and encouraged us to read. And Daniel isn’t exactly rich. His sisters are, and they give him money but they keep him on a tight rein. They’re paying for me to go to Arlinghurst so they can get rid of me, I think. I don’t know if they’d let him have enough money to go to Glasgow, because they wouldn’t want him to go. They might let me go.”

“Where’s your mum?” It was a natural question, but he asked it with an elaborate casualness that seemed rehearsed.

“She’s in South Wales. She’s—” I hesitated, because I didn’t want to say either that she’s a witch, or that she’s mad, though both of those things are true. There isn’t a word that means both, really, and there should be. “She’s insane.”

“You told the girls in school she’s a witch,” Wim said, tossing his hair back from his face.

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve got a girlfriend who works in the laundry, and she told me.”

My heart sank at the news he had a girlfriend. He was two years older than I was, he couldn’t possibly be interested in me and I knew that, even if he had come to see me and seemed to be paying a lot of attention to me. I knew at once that his girlfriend must be the girl I’d seen at the end of term wearily bundling uniform shirts into the washing machine. In a way, it was gratifying that he’d asked her about me.

“Let them hate me as long as they fear me,” I quoted. “It’s what Tiberius—”

“I’ve read I, Claudius,” he said. “You told them your mother’s a witch so the girls would be afraid of you?”

“They’re awful bullies,” I explained. “They all knew each other and I didn’t know anyone, and my voice isn’t like theirs, and it seemed like a good strategy. It’s mostly worked, too, though it is a little lonely.”

“She’s not a witch then?” He sounded oddly disappointed.

“Well—actually, she is. A mad witch. An evil witch like in stories.” I didn’t want to talk about her, I didn’t want to tell him what she’s like. It’s hard to describe her anyway.

He leaned forward and looked into my eyes. His eyes are very blue, as blue as the sky almost. “Can you read minds?”

“What?” I was startled.

“You know, like in Dying Inside.” He stayed where he was, just inches from me, looking into my eyes intensely. As far as breathless goes, it’s amazing I didn’t suffocate, even knowing he does have a girlfriend.

“No! I don’t think anyone can do that,” I said in an odd sort of squeak.