The Bone Clocks

“LOVELY SHOT, THAT.” There’s a framed photograph on a shelf behind Holly showing her as a young mum, with a small toothy Aoife dressed as the Cowardly Lion with freckles on her nose, and Ed Brubeck, younger than I remember, all smiling in a small back garden in the sun with pink and yellow tulips. “When was it taken?”

“2004. Aoife’s theatrical debut in The Wizard of Oz.” Holly sips her mint tea. “Ed and I mapped out The Radio Peoplearound then. The book was his idea, you know. We’d been in Brighton that weekend, for Sharon’s wedding, and he’d always been Mr. There Has to Be a Logical Explanation.”

“But after the room-number thing, he started believing?”

Holly makes an equivocal face. “He stopped disbelieving.”

“Did Ed ever know what a monster The Radio Peopleturned into?”

Holly shakes her head. “I wrote the Gravesend bits quite quickly, but then I got promoted at the center. What with that, and raising Aoife, and Ed being away, I never got it finished until …” she chooses words with practiced care, “… Ed’s luck ran out in Syria.”

Now I’m appalled by my own self-pity about Zoл and Carmen. “You’re a bit of a hero, our Holly. Heroine, rather.”

“You soldier on. Aoife was ten. Falling to pieces wasn’t an option. My family’d lost Jacko so …” a sad little laugh, “… the Sykes clan does mourning and loss really bloody well. Taking up The Radio Peopleand actually finishing it was therapy, sort of. I never imagined for a minute that anyone outside our family’d want to read it. Interviewers never believe me when I say that, but it’s the truth. The TV Book Club, the Prudence Hanson endorsement, the whole ‘The Psychic with the Childhood Scar’ thing, I wasn’t prepared for any of it, or the websites, the loonies, the begging letters, the people you lost touch with years ago for very good reasons. My first boyfriend—who really did notleave me with fond memories—got in touch to say he’s now Porsche’s main man in West London, and how about a test drive now my ship had come in? Uh, no. Then after the U.S. auction for The Radio Peoplebecame a news item, all the fake Jackos crawled out from under the floorboards. My agent set the first one up via Skype. He was the right age, looked sort oflike Jacko might look, and stared out of the screen, whispering, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God … It’s you.’ ”

I feel like smoking, but I munch a carrot stick instead. “How did he account for the three missing decades?”

“He said he was kidnapped by Soviet sailors who needed a cabin boy, then taken to Irkutsk to avoid a Cold War incident. Yeah, I know. Brendan’s bullshit detector was buzzing, so he shuftied me over and asked, ‘Recognize me, Jacko?’ The guy hesitated, then burst out, ‘Daddy!’ End of call. The last ‘Jacko’ we interviewed was Bangladeshi, but the imperialists at the British embassy in Dhaka refused to believe he was my brother. Would I send ten thousand pounds and sponsor his visa application? We called it a day after that. IfJacko’s alive, ifhe reads the book, ifhe wants to locate us, he’ll find a way.”

“Were you still working at the homeless center all this time?”

“I quit before I went to Cartagena. A shame—I loved the job, and I think I was good at it—but if you’re chairing a fund-raising meeting the same day a six-figure royalty payment slips into your bank account, you can’t pretend nothing’s changed. More ‘Jackos’ were trying their luck at the office, and my phone was hacked. I’m still involved with homeless charities at a patron level, but I had to get Aoife out of London to a nice sleepy backwater like Rye. So I thought. Did I ever tell you about the Great Illuminati Brawl?”

“You tell me less about your life than you think. The Illuminati: as in the lizard aliens who enslave humanity via beta-blocking mind waves beamed from their secret moonbase?”

“That’s them. One fine April morning, two groups of conspiracy theorists hide in my shrubbery. Christ knows how it started—a stray remark on Twitter, probably. So, the two groups realize they’re not alone, each group convinces itself that the other group are the Illuminati’s agents. With me so far? Stop smirking; they kicked the crap out of each other. The police were up in a jiffy. After that I had to put up a security fence and CCTV. Me, f’Chrissakes, holed up like an investment banker! But what choice did I have? Next time the loonies might not be hell-bent on defendingme but attacking me. So while the contractor was in, I went out to Australia, which was when Aoife and I met you on Rottnest.” She pads over to draw the curtain on the night harbor. “Beware of asking people to question what’s real and what isn’t. They may reach conclusions you didn’t see coming.”

In the street two dogs bark furiously, then stop.

“If you don’t publish again, the loonies’ll move on.”

“This is true,” says Holly, looking evasive.

“ Areyou working on another book?”

Now she looks cornered. “Only a few stories.”