'The nominations are: The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.'

I waited until the applause had stopped and then opened the envelope.

'And the winner is …' I announced. '… Brideshead Revisited!'

There was thunderous applause and I smiled dutifully as the MC bent closer to the microphone.

'Wonderful!' he said enthusiastically as the applause subsided. 'Let's hear the winning paragraph, shall we?'

He placed the short section of writing into the ImaginoTransference device that had been installed on the stage. But this wasn't a recording ITRD like the ones they used to create books in the Well it was a transmitter. The words of Waugh's story were read by the machine and projected directly into the audience's imagination.

'I have been here before,' I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian more than twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were creamy with meadowsweet and the air heavy with the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendour, and although I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest …

There was more applause from the guests, and when finally it stopped the MC announced:

'Mr Waugh can't be with us tonight so I would like to ask Sebastian to accept the award on his behalf.'

There was a drum roll and a brief alarum of music as Sebastian walked from his table up the steps to the podium, and after kissing me on the cheek he shook the MC warmly by the hand.

'Goodness!' he said, taking a swig from the glass he had brought with him. 'It's a great honour to accept the award on behalf of Mr Waugh. I know he would want me to thank Charles, from whose mouth all the words spring, and also Lord Marchmain for his excellent death scene, my mother, of course, and Julia, Cords—'

'What about me?' said a small voice from the Brideshead table.

'I was getting to you, Aloysius.'

He cleared his throat and took another swig.

'Of course, I would also like to say that we in Brideshead could not have done it all on our own. I'd like to thank all the other characters in previous works who have done so much to lay the groundwork. I'd particularly like to mention Captain Grimes, Margot Metroland, and Lord Copper. In addition …'

He droned on like this for almost twenty minutes, thanking everyone he could think of before finally taking the 'Bookie' statuette and returning to his table. I was thanked by the MC and walked off the stage feeling really quite relieved, the voice of the MC echoing behind me: