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'That sounds very Goliath-like.'
'Doesn't it just?' Joffy smiled. 'Worshipping in the hallowed halls of consumer-land. The more you spend, the closer to their "god" you become.'
'Hideous!' I exclaimed. 'Is there any good news?'
'Of course! The Swindon Mallets are going to beat the Reading Whackers to win the Superhoop this year.'
'You've got to be kidding!'
'Not at all. Swindon winning the 1988 Superhoop is the subject of the incomplete seventh Revealment of St Zvlkx. It goes like this: There will be a home win on the playing fields of Swindonne in nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and in consequence of . . . The rest is missing, but it's pretty unequivocal.'
St Zvlkx was Swindon's very own saint, and no child educated here could fail to know about him, including me. His Revealments had been the subject of much conjecture over the years, for good reason – they were uncannily accurate. Even so, I was sceptical – especially if it meant the Swindon Mallets winning the Superhoop. The city's team, despite a surprise appearance at the Superhoop finals a few years back and the undeniable talents of team captain Roger Kapok, were probably the worst side in the country.
'That's a bit of a long shot, isn't it? I mean, St Zvlkx vanished in, what – 1292?'
But Joffy and my mother didn't think it very funny.
'Yes,' said Joffy, 'but we can ask him to confirm it.'
'You can? How?'
'According to his sixth Revealment he's due for spontaneous resurrection at ten past nine the day after tomorrow.'
'But that's remarkable!'
'Remarkable but not unprecedented,' replied Joffy. 'Thirteenth-century seers have been popping up all over the place. Eighteen in the last six months. Zvlkx will be of interest to the faithful and us at the Friends, but the TV networks probably won't cover it. The ratings of Brother Velobius's second coming last week didn't even come close to beating Bonzo the Wonder Hound reruns on the other channel.'
I thought about this for a moment in silence.
'That's enough about Swindon,' said my mother, who had a nose for gossip – especially mine. 'What's been happening to you?'
'How long have you got? What I've been getting up to would fill several books.'
'Then . . . let's start with why you're back.'
So I explained about the pressures of being the head of Jurisfiction, and just how annoying books could be sometimes, and Friday, and Landen, and Yorrick Kaine's fictional roots. On hearing this Joffy jumped.
'Kaine is . . . fictional?'
I nodded.
'Why the interest? Last time I was here he was a washed-up ex-member of the Whig Party.'
'He's not now. Which book is he from?'
I shrugged.
'I wish I knew. Why? What's going on?'
Joffy and Mum exchanged nervous glances. When my mother gets interested in politics, it really means things are bad.
'Something is rotten in the state of England,' murmured my mother.
'And that something is the English Chancellor Yorrick Kaine,' added Joffy, 'but don't take our word for it. He's appearing on Toad News Network's Evade the Question Time here in Swindon at eight tonight. We'll go and see him for ourselves.'
I told them more about Jurisfiction and Joffy, in return, cheerfully reported that attendance at the Global Standard Deity church was up since he had accepted sponsorship from the Toast Marketing Board, a company that seemed to have doubled in size and influence since I was here last. They had spread their net beyond hot bread and now included jams, croissants and pastries in their portfolio of holdings. My mother, not to be outdone, told me she received a little bit of sponsorship money herself from Mr Rudyard's cakes, although she privately admitted that the Battenberg she had served up was actually her own. She then told me in great detail about her aged friends' medical operations, which I can't say I was overjoyed to hear about, and as she drew breath in between Mrs Stripling's appendectomy and Mr Walsh's 'plumbing' problems, a tall and imposing figure walked into the room. He was dressed in a fine morning coat of eighteenth-century vintage, wore an impressive moustache that would have put Commander Bradshaw's to shame, and had an impenousness and sense of purpose that reminded me of Emperor Zhark. 'Thursday,' announced my mother in a breathless tone, 'this is the Prussian Chancellor, Herr Otto Bismarck – your father and I are trying to sort out the Schleswig-Holstein question of 1863-4; he's gone to fetch Bismarck's opposite number from Denmark so they can talk. Otto . . . I mean, Herr Bismarck, this is my daughter, Thursday.'
Bismarck clicked his heels and kissed my hand in an icily polite manner.
