Untied Kingdom by James Lovegrove

Author:James Lovegrove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

“‘...TURNED JUST IN time to see Charles Buck pedal off with a valedictory trill on his handlebar bell, disappearing into the mists that seethed and swirled along the Banbury Road.’”

Roy Potts looked up from the book.

“There we go. End of chapter seven. More, Fen? Or have you had enough?”

Fen refrained from saying what he wanted to say – that if he had to listen to another word of A Charmed Life he would probably scream. Potts possessed an air of hard-won and undependable enthusiasm, the kind that was like a confection of spun sugar, liable to crumble to pieces unless handled with the utmost delicacy. To hurt the feelings of this slouchy, insecure little man, tempting through it was, would have been ungrateful. No, worse than that. Would have been uncharitable.

“As a matter of fact, I am quite tired,” Fen said, and stifled a bogus yawn.

Potts closed A Charmed Life, having marked his place by dog-earing the page corner. “We’ll carry on later.”

He didn’t leave, however. He continued to sit where he was, on the edge of the bed adjacent to Fen’s, hunch-shouldered and hopeful, as if anticipating some reward.

“Thank you for reading to me,” Fen said, but this, it seemed, was not what Potts was after.

“Do you see it yet?” he asked.

“See what?”

“What the Master is getting at.”

“The Master?”

Potts held up the paperback and underlined Salter’s name on the cover with his index finger.

Somewhere deep inside Fen, there was a sudden heavy click of comprehension. He felt both relieved and irritated, the way you do when you realise you and another person have been talking at cross purposes for a while. All at once the fundamental misconception becomes obvious, and you wonder, exasperated, why neither of you spotted it sooner.

When Potts had knocked on the door a couple of hours earlier, introducing himself and saying he had come to help keep Fen amused, it had seemed reasonable to assume that the book he brought along for this purpose had been chosen by Miriam – a fresh attempt by her to kindle in Fen a love for the work of Jeremy Salter. All right, Fen had thought, let’s give A Charmed Life another crack. On the whole, when someone proselytised as vehemently about an author as Miriam was doing, that author had to have something to recommend them.

Now he understood that Roy Potts was a Salter fan as well. More than that. “The Master”. A passionate admirer.

And...

Oh God. Surely not. Surely it wasn’t possible.

“Roy?”

“Yes, Fen?”

“‘The Master’.”

“Yes, Fen?”

“I don’t know quite how to put this, but...”

“Yes, Fen?”

“Well, there’s a group of you here, right? At Netherholm College?”

“That’s correct.”

“How many in all?”

“About fifty.”

“Fifty. And all fifty of you live here, have established a community here, because...”

“Yes, Fen?”

Fen gestured at A Charmed Life. “Because of him. Am I right?”

“You are, Fen.”

“Because you really like what he writes.”

“Yes, Fen.”

“It... it speaks to you in some way.”

“Very much so.” Potts’s eyes gleamed. He leaned forward on the bed, narrowing the gap between him and Fen. He was clasping the novel between his palms as ardently as a priest with his psalter.

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