Free Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood Page B

of the screen, right into the eyes of Gavin.
    “Maybe some old boyfriend?” says the Klingon.
    “Oh, no,” says Constance. “More like a politician. Milzreth is very political. But I did put one of my old boyfriends into Alphinland. He’s in there right now. Only you can’t see him.”
    “Go on, tell us,” says the Borg Queen, smiling fit to kill.
    Constance turns coy. “It’s a secret,” she says. She looks behind her, fearfully, as if she suspects there’s a spy. “I can’t tell you where he is. I wouldn’t want to disturb, you know. The balance. That would be very dangerous for us all!”
    Is this getting out of hand? Is she, perhaps, a little crazy? The Borg Queen must think so because she’s cutting this off right now. “It’s been such a privilege, such an honour, thank you so much!” she says. “Boys and girls, a big hand for C. W. Starr!” There’s applause. Constance looks bewildered. The Klingon takes her arm.
    His golden Constance. She’s gone astray. She’s lost. Lost and wandering.
    Blackout.
    “Wasn’t that great? She’s so amazing,” says Naveena. “So, I thought maybe you could give me some idea … I mean, shepractically said she wrote you into Alphinland, and it would be really a big thing for me – for my work – if I could figure out which character. I’ve narrowed it down to six, I’ve made a list with their different features and their special powers and their symbols and coats of arms. I think you must be the Thomas the Rhymer character because he’s the only poet in the series. Though maybe he’s more of a prophet – he has the second sight as his special power.”
    “Thomas the what?” says Gavin coldly.
    “The Rhymer,” says Naveena, faltering. “He’s in a ballad, it’s well known. You can find it in Childe. The one that was stolen away by the queen of Fairyland, and rode through red blood to the knee, and wasn’t seen on earth for seven years, and then when he came back he was called True Thomas because he could foretell the future. Only that isn’t his name in the series, of course: he’s Kluvosz of the Crystal Eye.”
    “Do I look like someone with a crystal eye?” says Gavin, straight-faced. He’s going to make her sweat.
    “No, but …”
    “Definitely not me,” says Gavin. “Kluvosz of the Crystal Eye is Al Purdy.” This is the most delectable lie he can think of. Big Al with his poems about carpentry and working in a dried blood factory, being stolen away by the queen of Fairyland! If only Naveena will put that into her thesis he will be forever grateful to her. She’ll work the dried blood into it, she’ll make it all fit. He keeps his mouth still: he must not laugh.
    “How do you know it’s Al Purdy?” says Reynolds suspiciously. “Gavvy’s a liar, you do realize that,” she says to Naveena. “He falsifies his own biography. He thinks it’s funny.”
    Gavin bypasses her. “Constance told me herself. How else?” he says. “She often discussed her characters with me.”
    “But Kluvosz of the Crystal Eye didn’t come into the seriesuntil Book Three,” says Naveena. “
The Wraith Returns
. That was way after … I mean, there aren’t any documents, and you didn’t know Constance any more by then.”
    “We used to meet secretly,” he says. “For years and years. In nightclub washrooms. It was a fatal attraction. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”
    “You never told me about that,” says Reynolds.
    “Baby,” he says. “There’s so much I never told you.” She doesn’t believe a word of this, but she can’t prove he’s fabricating.
    “That would change everything,” says Naveena. “I’d have to rewrite … I’d have to rethink my central premise. This is so … so crucial! But if you aren’t Kluvosz, who are you?”
    “Who, indeed?” he says. “I often wonder. Maybe I’m not in Alphinland at all. Maybe Constance blotted me out.”
    “She told me you were in it,” says Naveena.