‘There!’ she exclaimed.

‘Thank you,’ I murmured, somewhat daunted.

‘I have an old college friend who was working for Apple a while ago,’ she idly volunteered, slipping her clog back on, getting up and going to tear off the bent and browning flowerhead of a white, scented phlox in a nearby flower bed.

‘The computer people?’

I stared down at the newspaper article.

‘Yes. She was the sister of my first serious boyfriend. The one who ran off with the Sudanese, remember? The one who broke my heart. She introduced us to each other, in fact. We were the only two girls taking engineering at our university. She was a couple of years older. We’ve stayed in touch over the years. She lives and works just south of San Francisco in a place they call Silicon Valley. Her husband helped to get ARPANET up and operational … Have you heard of ARPANET, Miss Hahn?’

I shook my head.

‘They were one of the world’s first packet-switching networks …’

I looked blank.

‘Packet-switching is the dominant basis for all modern data communications, worldwide. In fact I was just thinking about him earlier when you rang the bell. Watching the bees moving out from the hive, into the garden and then back again … Thinking about the mites – the re-infection … Her husband actually worked on the team that helped crack the so-called “Creeper” virus …’

She fell silent, still watching the bees.

‘Mr Huff is back from his pilgrimage,’ I said.

‘Really?’ Her focus rapidly shifted. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘And he seems to have sustained a small injury on his travels …’

‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘Nothing too serious, I hope?’

‘His … his …’ I felt a now all-too-familiar tightening at both corners of my mouth, ‘his buttocks sealed together.’

‘Really?’

She looked horrified.

‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’

I watched closely for any signs of levity on Mrs Meadows’s part. But there was nothing. Nothing. Not a trace. Not so much as even the tiniest, little glimmer of anything.

39

Mr Clifford Bickerton

I was driving the van along the Sea Road, not really … you know … when there was suddenly some kind of a … a problem with the clutch … it just … it just stopped catching … and so I … I pulled in … I pulled in to the side of the road and I climbed out of the van and I slammed … and I slammed … and I walked around to the front of … and I opened up the bonnet to …

… had turned into quite a fine day, overall, with a soft, warm breeze-eeze-eeze … (eh?!) … breeze-eeze-eeze … (what the …?!) … and … and I heard the hap … hap … sounds of laughter and … and singing …? Music? On the beach? So I glanced over, towards the sea wall, and I found that I could see the top of what looked like … like … like ban … ban … banners flying and my … (what’s that word?) … curi … my inquisiti … it … it got the better of me. So I …