I am a Good Correspondent
This chapter is dedicated, with the greatest respect and admiration, to Gene Wolfe

Dear Mum and Dad,

It was good to see both of you looking so well last Sunday. I am back at work now – working jolly hard too. Don't worry about me, even if you can't help it. I just know that everything is going to turn out for the best in the end.

Your loving son,

Peter

P.S. You'll pass on the enclosed letter to Tom, won't you?

Dear Tom,

I'm sorry to stick this letter in with Mum and Dad's but it saves a stamp.

What I want to say is this, I suppose. I don't think it can be all that easy being my younger brother. I came first, after all, and I don't think parents, however hard they try, can help treating their first one differently. It must really piss you off when they call you by my name. I know I'd hate it if they did that to me (except they do!).

You're the age now that I was then – when things first started to go strange for me – or a bit older, so I thought I'd tell you a little about it. It might help you understand why I must seem to be acting oddly and worrying the old mater and pater.

You must have heard me mention the Professor I used to see in Oxford; the one who died, and I've talked about the gyptians too. The thing is, when I met the Prof I fell in love with her. Go on, laugh. Even then, I wasn't so stupid as to think it was the real thing, of course. I'd heard about schoolboy crushes and all that and she was thirty years older than me. Then we had some adventures together that I can't tell you about yet – sorry – but they were the kind of thing you don't forget. You've seen some of my treasures, what I call my twonkies. They come from that time.

You must remember the awful dreams I used to have. They were horrible – so horrible I can't bear to think of them. They stopped when the Prof died, but I don't think that she was the reason I had them. It must have been something else. They were foul, disgusting things, those dreams, like having someone hurting Viola and not being able to do anything about it. I still dream about the dreams, sometimes. That's horrible too.

Now Master James has died and I've got to carry on the business for him, and Mistress and Emily. It's only fair. The trouble is, it means that I can't come home all that often. Everyone's depending on me, you see.

Tom, I promise I'll tell you everything that happens as soon as I think I honestly can.

All the best,

Peter

Dear Jim,

Sorry I wasn't able to come over and help you with the car last Sunday. I thought it was about time I went home instead. The aged ones were getting a bit upset about me leaving Moore's so I thought I'd go and reassure them, even though it turned out to be a waste of time. Do parents ever listen to their children? No, don't answer that.

While I remember, I've got that half-inch bar stock you wanted for the Ridgeworth. There was a spare foot length tucked away at the back of the shop. Heaven knows what Master James was keeping it for. Perhaps he thought it'd come in handy if he had to mend the Great Clock in the Rotunda. It's no use for anything else, so I'll bring it along next time I come. Next Sunday all right? Around eleven?

Things haven't changed much here. I got back about seven and found Mistress still writing letters in the office. Emily was listening to the wireless – some kind of secular music she likes – and Elias C. wasn't around, of course. I have to say he's giving me the creeps more and more. "Creepy Cholmondley!" Ha! I keep on bumping into him around the place. There's always a good reason, like he's gone to the kitchen, or the privy, or he's taking an important piece of paper, like an invoice, to the office, but it's off-putting just the same. In the old days he stayed in the shop, except for mid-day closing.

I'm sure he's up to something, but I don't know what. He'd stick a knife in me if he thought he'd get away with it – I know that.

Not to worry. I'll drop you another line if I can't come round on Sunday. All the best 'til then. Give Carrie one for me,

Cheers,

Peter

I sealed the envelope and wrote Jim's address on the front. There weren't any penny stamps in my writing-case, but I knew I had a couple in my top drawer, so I opened it up and had a look. They should have been in tucked away in Mister Hurst's wallet but, for a moment, I couldn't find it. Oh, but there it was, jammed up against the back of the drawer. That was funny – I was sure I'd put it at the front. I opened the wallet, checked that all the money was still inside it (it was) and dug out the two stamps I needed. I'd have to pick up some more at the post office tomorrow lunchtime.

Not worth worrying about. It was probably Emily tidying up, and I decided to forget it. Time for bed. I put on my pyjamas, got under the covers, took out my copy of The Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky, and began to read:

The Young-Old-Young Woman And Her Death

There was once a boy who, because he was the seventh son of a seventh son, had no family inheritance to look forward to. In its place he possessed a gift, both terrible and wonderful, for he was a prophet.

It was said that his prophecies were so uncannily accurate that, rather than have him be proved wrong, the Universe would change its shape to match his predictions. Now, there came a day in this boy's nineteenth year when a woman, who was both old and young, dark-haired and grey, smooth-skinned and wrinkled with age, came to him, where he sat in the shade of the courtyard of his father's house, and put to him a question. That question was, 'When will I die?'

The boy had heard this question many times already in his life, young though he was, and he always gave the same answer to it: 'Madam,' he said. 'You will die when you find your Death, and he finds you.'

'Then I shall never die, for I have locked my Death away in a dark place far below the surface of the Urth. He will not be able to find me, and so I shall live forever and not die.'

'Does your Death have hands?'

'Yes, he does.'

'Then he will be able to scratch his way through the rock and gravel and soil and grass until he reaches the surface, and then he will be able to find you.'

'He will not, for I have buried him many thousands of leagues away, in a grotto underneath the sea-bed.'

'Does your Death have feet?'

'Yes he does.'

'Then he will be able to kick his way though the sea-water until he reaches the surface, as the divers do who compete in the Great Thracian Games, and then he will be able to find you.'

'But I shall still not die.'

'Why so?'

'Because, before I buried my Death in a cavern deep below the bed of the Peaceable Ocean, I blinded him with a bar of red-hot bronze. He will not be able to see me, and so I shall live forever and not die.'

'Did you remember to seal up his nostrils?'

'Yes, I did. I also blocked his ears with spermaceti wax. He will not be able to see, hear or smell me, and so he will not be able to find me, and so I shall live forever and not die.'

The boy sat and considered the young-old-young woman for a minute or two. Then, 'Wait here,' he said and stood up and walked over to the door of his father's house. The woman heard a terrific crashing and banging inside the house, and the sound of store-cupboard doors opening and closing. Eventually, the prophet emerged, covered with dust and carrying a hessian sack over his shoulder. 'I have brought you the things you need,' he said.

'But I did not ask you to bring me anything. I do not want you to bring me anything.'

'Nevertheless, I have brought you the things you need. Behold!' And the boy emptied the sack onto the ground in front of the young-old-young woman with a loud clattering sound.

She stared in astonishment. 'What are these things?' Scattered across the flagstones of the courtyard lay a pair of antique iron-shod leather sandals, a spade of tempered steel and some aëronaut's goggles.

'They are what you need. You have buried your Death a very long way off, so you will need these hard-wearing shoes to carry you there. He lies many fathoms below the waves, so you will need these goggles to help you navigate your way through the water. And you have buried him deep under the sea-bed, so you will need this spade to dig your way down to his grave so that you may find him. For, my lady,' and the boy fixed the young-old-young woman with his emerald-facetted gaze, 'most assuredly the time will come when the thing which you desire most above all things will be to find and embrace your Death, for he was made for you and you were made for him. When that time comes, I should not wish to come between you, nor be the cause of any undue delay in your union. Now go! And take that stuff with you. It is blocking the path.'

The young-old-young woman replaced the sandals and the spade and the goggles in the sack, and threw it over her shoulder, and went out of the courtyard and into the street, to her home and her husband and her children. She put the things that the prophet had given her on display in her house, and when anybody asked her why she had done so, she replied 'As a momento mori.' And it was said in the later days that she was a woman who knew how to die well, and that she had made a good death for herself.

'Peter!' I knew that voice, so I turned round. It was Jane Phipps, standing behind me in the Post Office queue. (Have you noticed, by the way, how the queue you join is always the slowest? And how when you think you're just about to be served they put up the hatch and you have to start again at another one, and everybody else in the post office sniggers at you. And how this always happens when you're short of time? There must be a better way to organise the queuing system. I'll have a think about it sometime when I'm not so busy.)

'Jane! Hello! How are you? You look well.' I almost said, you've lost weight. It's said to be the right thing to say to a girl you've not seen for a while.

'I didn't know you were back in Oxford.'

'Yes, I've been here for almost two months now.'

'You never said.'

'I didn't know I was staying. You're not still at MJ's, are you?'

'No, I left Madam Jeanette's nearly a year ago. I've set up a little business with Julie.'

Julie. Julie. Oh, yes. 'I remember. Big nose, crooked teeth, brown hair sometimes curly, sometimes straight.'

Jane glared at me. 'Yes, if you insist.'

'Where are you?'

'Here. Now.'

'No! I mean, where's your shop?'

'We don't have a shop. We create exclusive models and fashions in ladies' own homes. What're you doing?'

'I'm back in Shoe Lane.'

'Still the apprentice?'

'No.' I gritted my teeth. 'Master James passed on. It's just me there now.'

'Oh yes,' Jane said coolly. The queue shuffled forward. ' I read something about it in the paper. Big funeral?'

'Big enough. Excuse me.' I had reached the window. 'Six penny stamps please, Miss.'

I took my stamps, handed over a sixpenny piece and turned to leave.

'Bye, Jane. See you.'

'Bye, Peter.'

Viola and I blinked in the sunlight outside the post office. 'Peter!' she said. 'What on earth were you doing in there?'

'Please, Viola. Can you lay off the heavy daemon act for a while? I'm feeling bad enough as it is.'

'You… oh, very well. Let's go home.'

So we did, and that afternoon we sold the Bijou Vienna Regulator that I'd been making to a very posh lady from Headingley who signed herself Laura Sunninghill. She paid sixty-five pounds for it. Sixty-five pounds! That was another month's repayments to the Bank. Another whole month; and some money left over. Mistress James permitted herself a smile, Emily burst into tears and we shut the shop and treated ourselves to Welch Rarebit and a bottle of Amber Ale each (except for Emily, who had lemonade) in the saloon bar of the Talbot Inn.

'We can't do this every time we make a sale, mind,' said Mistress James, taking care not to get mustard on her mourning dress.

'Let's have buns for tea as well!' said Emily and we all laughed, even Elias Cholmondley. Even he.