The Woman Who Died a Lot

“I beg to differ, wifey darling,” he replied emphatically, “but it’s not. You can change it. The Standard History Eventline’s not fixed. If we’ve learned anything over the past two decades, it’s precisely that. Yes, it follows a general course that remains the same, but detail can be changed. We’ve all altered the future— and the past, on occasion—and so can he.”

“I could,” replied Friday, “but I have this strange feeling that I won’t. That I’ll let it go ahead.”

There was a pause.

“Do you know who you’re going to murder on Friday?”

“Yes. It’s . . . Gavin Watkins.”

“Gavin Watkins?”

“Do you know him?” Lande asked me.

“A boy in Tuesday’s year,” I replied, “not very pleasant. He paid fifty p to see her boobs.”

“I might have to kill him myself,” said Landen. “Does that have something to do with it?” he asked Friday.

“I don’t think so,” said Friday with a shrug, “but I’m amazed she didn’t hold out for at least a pound.”

“Market forces,” I observed. “We’ve already established that the boob-flashing market isn’t what it used to be. But we can warn the Watkinses. Have him taken into protective custody or something.”

“I’ve got four days,” said Friday, “so we might learn some more before it happens. Who else did you say sent their regards to me?”

“ Jimmy-G at TJ-Maxx,” I replied. “He’s setting up a Destiny Aware Support Group for those who have been summarized, and he wanted to know if you would attend. Eight P.M. at the sports center tomorrow.”

“I’m not really into support groups,” Friday grumbled. “Are we going to get this table set or not?”

So we did, and chatted of lighter things, such as Friday’s part-time job at B&Q and whether his fellow workers actively pursued a policy of looking busy when customers needed assistance.

“It’s the first thing we learn,” he said. “But you have to remember that most customers are as dumb as pig shit and couldn’t find the floor if they fell on it, so there’s a sound reason behind it.”

Once the table was set, Friday went off to tinker with his motorbike, and Landen and I managed to have a few words in the kitchen together. Friday’s future looked bleak, but he was right— we’d changed the timeline before and could do it again.

“What do you think Gavin Watkins will do to make Friday murder him, just supposing he does?” asked Landen.

“What could a sixteen-year-old do?” I replied.

We thought for a moment.

“Do we intervene?” said Landen.

“We can try,” I said, “but the eventline can be a tricksy beast. Push it too hard and it will push back—and almost guarantee that you complete the event you were trying to avoid.”

“It’s annoying,” said Landen.

“What is?”

“I thought we’d seen the back of all this time-travel nonsense.”

“Even when it’s not there,” I murmured, “it still is.”

“Like forgotten dreams,” said Landen.

9. Monday: The Madeupion

Thursday’s father was a retired ChronoGuard operative whose nebulous state of semiexistence was finally resolved when the time engines at Kemble were disabled. As part of the downstream erasure of the fact that there had ever been a time industry, his career had been replaced with something immeasurably more mundane. He was, and now had always been, a plumber. Only one with no name, which made paying by check somewhat tiffy and word-of-mouth recommendations almost impossible. But despite his new past, he also kept the old one. Few of us are so lucky as to draw experience from two lives.

Millon de Floss,

Thursday Next: A Biography

As it turned out, we were eight for dinner. Landen and myself, obviously, and Friday and Tuesday, equally obviously. My brother Joffy and his partner, Miles, also made it, as did my dad. Mum and Polly, more inseparable as the years went by, were going to listen to the live studio taping of Avoid the Question Time. The Wing Commander would always sit down to talk, but he never ate as he didn’t need to, being fictional. Jenny would have been there—for the starters at any rate—but still had the flu and so was confined to her room.

But Friday was right. My father did want to talk about matters ChronoGuard.

“Get your future in the post?” he asked, sitting down next to his grandson.

“Last week.”

“Any good?”

“It’ll be . . . challenging.”