'To teach you,' yelled Lola, wagging a finger at him, 'that you can't say whatever you want, to whoever you want!'

And she walked out.

'What did I say?' said Randolph in an exasperated tone. 'Did you see that? She did that for no reason at all!'

'I think you got off lightly,' I told him. 'I'd go and apologise if I were you.'

He thought about this for a few seconds, lowered his shoulders and went off to find Lola, who I could hear sobbing somewhere near the stern of the flying boat.

'Young love!' said a voice behind me. 'Eighteen years of emotions packed into a single week – it can't be easy, now, can it?'

'Gran!' I said, whirling round. 'When did you get back?'

'Just now,' she replied, removing her gingham hat and gloves and passing me some cash.

'What's this?'

'D-3 Generics are annoyingly literal but it can pay dividends – I asked the cabbie to drive backwards all the way here and by the end of the trip he owed me money. How are things?'

I sighed. 'Well, it's like having a couple of teenagers in the house.'

'Look upon it as training for having your own children,' said Gran, sitting down on a chair and sipping my coffee.

'Gran?'

'Yes?'

'How did you get here? I mean, you are here, aren't you? You're not just a memory, or something?'

'Oh, I'm real, all right.' She laughed. 'You just need a bit of looking after until we sort out Aornis.'

'Aornis?' I queried.

'Yes.' Gran sighed. 'Think carefully for a moment.'

I mulled the name in my mind, and, sure enough, Aornis came out of the murk like a ship in fog. But the fog was deep, and there were other things hidden within – I could feel it.

'Oh yes,' I murmured, 'her. What else was I meant to remember?'

'Landen.'

He came out of the fog, too. The man in the sketch. I sat down and put my head in my hands. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten him.

'I'd regard it a bit like measles,' said Gran, patting my back. 'We'll cure you of her, never fear.'

'But then I have to go and battle with her again, in the real world?'

'Mnemonomorphs are always easier to contain on the physical plane,' she observed. 'Once you have beaten her in your mind, the rest should be easy.'

I looked up at her.

'Tell me again about Landen.'

And she did, for the next hour – until it was time for me to stand in for Mary Jones again.

*     *     *

I drove into Reading in Mary's car, past red Minis, blue Morris Marinas and the ubiquitous Spongg Footcare trucks. I had visited the real Reading on many occasions in my life and although the Heights Reading was a fair impression, the town was lacking in detail. A lot of roads were missing, the library was a supermarket, the Caversham district was a lot more like Beverly Hills than I remember, and there was a very grotty downtown which was more like New York in the seventies. I think I could guess where the author got his inspiration; I suppose it was artistic licence – something to increase the drama.