Something Rotten (Thursday Next 4)

'Hello, young Thursday!' said Gran, waving at me weakly. She took off the oxygen mask, was roundly scolded by the nurse, and put it back on again.

'You're not my gran, are you?' I said slowly, sitting on the side of the bed.

She smiled benevolently and placed her small, pink, wrinkled hand on mine.

'I am Granny Next,' she replied, just not yours. When did you find out?'

'I got my sentencing from the Gryphon just now.'

Now that I knew, she seemed more familiar to me than ever before. I even noticed the small scar on her chin from the charge of the Armoured Brigade way back in '72, and the well-healed scar above her eye.

'Why did I never realise?' I asked her in confusion. 'My real grandmothers are both dead - and I always knew that.'

The tired old woman smiled again.

'You don't have Aornis in your head without learning a few tricks, my dear. My time with you has not been wasted. Our husband would not have survived without it and Aornis could have erased everything when we were living in Caversham Heights. Where is he, by the way?'

'He's looking after the boy Friday outside.'

'Ah!'

She looked into my eyes for a moment, then said:

'Will you tell him I love him?'

'Of course.'

'Well, now that you know who I am, I think it's time to go. I did find the ten most boring classics - and I've almost finished the last.'

'I thought you had to have an "epiphanic moment" before you departed? A last exciting resolution to your life?'

'This is it, young Thursday. But it's not mine, it's ours. Now, pick up that copy of The Faerie Queene. I am one hundred and ten and it is well past my out-time.'

I looked across at the table and picked up the book. I had never read the end - nor even past page forty. It was that dull.

'Don't you have to read it?' I asked.

'Me, you, what's the difference?' She giggled, something that turned into a weak cough that wouldn't stop until I had leaned her gently upright.

'Thank you, my dear!' she gasped when the fit had passed. 'There is only a paragraph to go. The page is marked.'

I opened the book but didn't want to read the text. My eyes filled with tears and I looked at the old woman, only to be met by a soft smile.

'It is time,' she said simply, 'but I envy you — you have so many wonderful years ahead of you! Read, please.'

I wiped away my tears and had a sudden thought.

'But if I read this now,' I began slowly, 'then when I am one hundred and ten years old I will already have read it, and then I'd be - you know - just before the last sentence before I - that is, the younger me—' I paused, thinking about the seemingly impossible paradox.

'Dear Thursday!' said the old woman kindly. 'Always so linearl It does work, believe me. Things are just so much weirder than we can know. You'll find out in due course, as I did.'

She smiled benignly and I opened the book.

'Is there anything you need to tell me?'

She smiled again.