Chapter Twenty Eight

1-27. I have reached 50k now but there'll be a couple more chapters to round it off...

Bracken was confused.

One minute she was having yet another cryptic conversation with Esmeralda, the next she was onstage in front of a crowd of strangers baying for her blood. It was almost as if time had skipped a beat somehow. Maybe she’d fallen asleep for a couple of minutes and been moved here? Or more likely, Esmeralda had employed some kind of sneaky trick.

She looked about, blinking a lot and trying to smooth out her appearance a little. Al was there, she noticed, and the guy who sometimes gave Adric a ride home from the library on his motorbike. There was also a dog, and a suited gent who looked the spitting image of a daytime television presenter whose name she couldn’t place.

“Ricky something,” she wondered aloud, stretching her head. As she did so she became aware that she had the mother of all headaches. “No, that’s not right.”

“Welcome to the show, Bracken,” the man was saying. “How are you today?”

“Confused,” she replied truthfully. “I’ve had a lot going on lately.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, apparently sympathetically, “what sort of thing? Work, studies and so on?”

“Well up to a point,” she agreed hesitantly, “but also my flat burned down and my Uncle and baby went missing so that’s been quite stressful.”

“Your child went missing,” he responded slowly and thoughtfully, “so you stopped looking for him to come on here and build up a career as a Z-List celebrity?”

“Well no, that’s not – “

“Wanted to get a book deal, did you? Sell the story to all the papers and ladies magazines?”

“What?”

“I know your type. You sicken me. I might literally be sick just from looking at you and your sickening face.”

“Hey,” Al butted in, “that’s pretty unfair. You don’t even know her.”

“Oh but I do,” the Kylienator responded with a shark like grin, “I know her better than she knows herself.”

“Sake,” Bracken muttered, “you’re worse than Esmeralda.”

“My name isn’t Esmeralda,” announced the woman who up until a couple of moments ago we had thought was Esmeralda. “It’s Magenta.”

“Magenta?” Al spluttered incredulously, “as in Esmeralda’s long lost sister Magenta? The evil one who tried to kill her?”

“I think she may have succeeded on that front,” Bracken informed him.

“Sorry, what’s going on?” Jeremy asked, having lost the thread somewhat. “I’ve been employing you for over a year now, Esmeralda, and now you turn round and say you’re actually Magenta?”

“Yes. It’s not that much of a struggle, we’re identical twins. The only adjustment you need to make is to the first name you call me by.”

“Identical twins, huh,” Tim mused. “That’s the sort of thing that always happens in crappy romance fiction, or daytime telly like Diagnosis Murder. It never happens in real life. And I should know, I spend half of my real life dealing with the mythical and/or inexplicable.”

“So did the memory switch take place or not?” Bracken asked.

“Partially. I took on much of Esmeralda’s academic knowledge, but none of her… emotional baggage,” she enunciated with the smallest of nods in Al’s direction.

“What memory switch? What are you two talking about?” chorused Al and Tim. The audience were long gone, and most were engaged in a competition to see who could count how many hairs were on Brian to the nearest hair. How they would check and verify a final result was yet to be determined.

“Why don’t you tell them that, Jeremy,” suggested Magenta/Esmeralda with a toothy grin. “You did commission a lot of this work, after all.”

Jeremy Kyle’s lip wobbled. He looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. And not in a good way.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” he ventured, in a foolhardy way. Of course she was going to call his bluff, she had nothing much to lose, except the albatross of a dead twin around her neck.

“The work I’ve been doing to condition the perfect guests for your show,” she replied cheerfully. “You know, implanting false memories in groups of people who look right for the parts you create for them. So Bracken, here, was chosen to be a single mum. Nicky was to be her eccentric uncle. The baby used was created in a lab, and one of my guards was used as a surrogate.”

“That’s preposterous,” Kyle blustered, “why would I bother?”

“Because you’re afraid,” the artist who was previously known as Esmeralda explained, enjoying herself immensely. “You’re worried that your show will be a failure, because your guests are always the same. You have the same people back for two or three follow up show a year and they’re always still stuck in the same pathetic rut they were in when you met them for the first time.”

“Bibble,” Jeremy Kyle offered in his defense. It didn’t wash.

“You got wind of the work I was doing in South America, under my sainted sister’s name because my own is cursed in the world of science. And you hired me, no questions asked, to create contestants for your shows that would turn out to have hidden depths. I got the money to support my research, you got the perfect blend of daytime television.”

“Not true,” Kyle said, aware that he was fighting a losing battle but encouraged by the fact that his studio audience didn’t seem to have noticed.

“I can’t believe you’re Magenta,” said Al, rather slow to react. “What did you do to Esmeralda, exactly?”

“Oh, you don’t want all the gory details,” she smiled sanguinely. “But she’s been dead a long long time.”

“That was you, when I thought it was her, returning from her travels.”

“Yes.”

“Explains a lot,” he admitted.

“Yes, it does. The fact I didn’t know where anything was unless it related directly to science. The lack of emotional memory or attachment. The point that I suddenly loved sun dried tomatoes, whereas previously I loathed them to the point that even just seeing a jar made me want to hurl.”

“Es didn’t hate sun dried tomatoes that much,” Al said vaguely, although if he was honest he couldn’t really remember.

After all, she must have been dead for a number of years now.

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

“For science,” came the reply.

“I don’t mean the brain stuff,” he frowned, “I mean killing your twin.”

“So do I,” she countered. “I killed her for science. And partly out of jealously, I suppose.”

“Don’t even think about trying to escape,” Al turned to Jezza, “or you’ll be sorry.”

The man himself blushed and stopped his embarrassing attempt to scale the studio wall. It would have crumpled his fine Italian suit, anyway, he told himself.

“So hold up and rewind a bit,” Bracken said, “you conditioned me and Nicky to think that we were related, but we’re not?” She looked around her. “Speaking of which, where is Nicky?”

“Here,” came a weak voice from the front row. Nicky was curled up in a cluster of middle aged women, to whom he was deeply allergic.

“I’m not even going to ask how you got there,” Bracken decided, it’s just been that sort of a day.

“It’s true,” Magenta admitted, “you two are not actually related. But Nicky is at least related to the wean.”

“Sorry?”

“Oh, that’s the results of the DNA test,” she said. “Although I knew already because I oversaw the procedure. Nicky provided the egg that created the wean.”

“The egg?” Bracken exclaimed, “surely you mean the sp-the other stuff?”

“No,” Magenta said definitely, “I know what I mean and I mean the egg.”

“But that’d mean Nicky was a… I don’t even know. A hermaphrodite?”

“More than that even,” Magenta explained. “Nicky is actually a woman.”

Chapter Twenty Seven

Full chapter list here.

Morning had officially broken over The Facility.

“Tim and Al are here today to talk about their quest for a magic amulet,” Jeremy Kyle announced to camera.

Almost immediately upon his arrival and ages before they had time to object, he had led them through a maze of twisting corridors to a room that turned out to be the set of his popular daytime television talk show. They were now seated on uncomfortable chairs in front of an audience of ragamuffins and ne’er do wells, none of whom had anything of interest or value to say. They were totally loyal to Jeremy Kyle, and would defend him to the death if the need ever arose. He rewarded their devotion with signed photographs and free plastic tumblers of weak tea on the regular occasions when the heating broke.

“OooOooOoo,” the audience trilled in unison, which was a little unnerving.

“Why don’t you start us off, Tim?” Sir Jez suggested. “Tell us a bit about the amulet and what you want it for.”

“Oh, I don’t want it for my own personal use,” Tim said hastily, “I was trying to get hold of it before it fell into the hands of evil doers who would use its power for- well, for evil. And actually, I’m not even sure whether it’s me who was chosen to do it.”

“The prophecy is quite vague,” Al interjected helpfully, “it could just as easily be about me, or about that guy over there.” He pointed to a youngish man sitting a few rows back, who was of moderate good looks and possessed a full head of fair hair.

“It’s definitely not me,” the young man squeaked defensively, “I done quest duty last year. Fought a Lesser Spotted Snodrog and everything.”

“OooOooOoo,” the audience chorused obediently, although nary a one of them had the first idea what a Lesser Spotted Snodrog was.

“Really,” Tim said, “a fully grown one?”

“Not quite,” the audience member admitted, “it was a three quarter length one. But I sorted it right out.”

“Well good for you,” Tim said in what he hoped was an encouraging way rather than a patronizing one.

“Cheers mate.”

“Alright,” Jeremy shouted across them all, “alright, calm down, it is MY SHOW you know everyone, it’s called the JEREMY KYLE show, the name’s written on the wall and everything.”

“Yeah but in Comic Sans though Jez,” an overly familiar runner spoke up in an apparently temporary fit of madness.

“What did you say?” he fumed, his face turning the vibrant reddy colour of juice in a beetroot jar.

“Nothing,” the techie replied, “what? Did you say somefink Mr Kyle? Only I couldn’t hear you if you did….”

“You were making snidey comments about my font choice again, weren’t you?”

“No Mr Kyle,” he replied, “indeed I was not! The very idea is repellant to me!”

“Comic Sans,” Jeremy explained through gritted teeth, “enables me to appear young and fun, rather than the greying ball buster that TV sometimes makes me out to be. Comic Sans is the most empathetic font that there is.”

“Yes sir, Mr Jeremy, Lord Kyle, sir,” said a waitress, who shouldn’t even have been there. His anger was such that it made even innocent bystanders feel compelled to apologise for behaviour they hadn’t engaged in.

“That’s alright,” he told her condescendingly, “I’ll let you off. This time.”

“Thank you sir, you’re very kind sir,” she curtsied mimsily, backing away – although how she managed to do both of these things from her position of seated in the back row of the studio crematorium was a mystery, and would remain so for a long time.

“Anyhoo,” Kyle coughed, remembering the matter at hand as though it were a first idea goldmine. “This amulet. Where is it now?”

“Inside that dog,” Al said innocently, pointing at the dog.

Tim rolled his eyes.

“Way to announce it on national telly,” he said without moving his lips. “Now everyone and his great auntie Nellie knows where the bloody thing is. If that mutt makes it out of this place alive it’ll be a bloody miracle.”

Brian the dog whined mournfully. He was unable to link to everyone in the room telepathically, it would have been too much mental effort and he was very tired from the effort of holding in the amulet till he got to his masters.

“And what does it do?” Jeremy inquired, as if he hadn’t been keeping up with other parts of the story at all.

“We are not at liberty to discuss that information,” Al said in an attempt to redeem himself after his earlier faux pas.

“This is a talk show,” Jeremy Kyle said impatiently, “therefore people are expected to talk.”

“Well you never gave us the option of not being on your stupid show,” Al pointed out, “you offered to help us out and then brought us down here, to the cold and wet of your terrible studio.”

Jezza was incensed.

“How dare you call the program stupid?” He raged, “how dare you? It’s as intelligent and empathetic as a show can be.”

“In what way?”

“I try to help people!”

“You’re about as helpful to people as Bargain Hunt.”

Kyle thought about this for a second. He decided it was impossible to gauge what that meant. Different things to different people, most likely.

“Why don’t you stick to what you’re good at,” Al suggested, his hackles aroused. “Shout at some schemey single mums or something.”

“What a good idea,” Jeremy said with a sly grin. “Who wants to meet one of the worst mums they’ve ever seen?” He turned to the audience to enquire.

There was a cacophonous roar of applause, which he took as an encouraging sign.

“Great,” he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, “right. Please welcome to the stage… Bracken Lee McCracken!”

Chapter Twenty Six

47882 words. Aw yeah. Chronological chapter times here.

Tim and Adric arrived at the facility whilst Nicky and Bracken were chatting in the mysterious room the guards referred to as The Chamber.

Through the blind fold Time could make out that it was some sort of building with more than one floor. Not the highest vantage point he’d ever had, but it was something. There’s nothing worse than having your blindfold removed in a dingy room and discovering on your escape that you’re on a boat, or in the middle of a volcano. Sometimes, just knowing you’re in a normal building which will contain some stairs and possibly a lift, puts you in a position of great mental strength.

Tim didn’t have much time to enjoy this inner calm, though, because the heavies had parked in their allotted spaces in The Facility’s car park and were roughly manhandling him and Adric out onto the concrete.

“Alright,” he said cheerfully, “I’m going.”

He pretended to stumble so that El Nombre’s companions wouldn’t realize he could see where he was going, and stole a quick look at Adric. He was still completely out of it, his gangly frame propped up by the guy who was preoccupied with sausages.

They formed a convoy and entered the building, each balaclava-wearing figure stopping to have his or her retinas scanned and fingerprints checked. In actual fact, none of this information was relayed anywhere, or even backed up onto a floppy disc (remember them) or pen drive. It was all set up to create the illusion that The Facility was a fortress, with unbreachable security. ‘Nobody ever gets out or in without our say-so,’ the scans seemed to imply. But if you wanted to, you probably could, Tim suspected. He wondered whether El Nombre knew, and was merely playing the game.

Once inside, Adric was whisked away to a cell a couple of doors down from Nicky's and put to bed by the nurse with the scarred face. Being the kindest of the guards, and the only one with actual nurse’s training, she was required to deal with all the new arrivals.

Meanwhile, El Nombre secured Tim in a basement room. Well, that was what he told his colleagues. In actual fact, he only walked Tim down to the basement. No securing occurred, as such. He merely removed the blindfold and said

"I dunno which cell they'll have put him in to sleep off the effects of the sedative, but all those rooms are on the second floor."

Tim nodded his thanks. El must have known the whole time that the guy they were kidnapping was the guy he wanted to rescue.

"Want to chum me on this one, for old time's sake?" he asked hopefully.

"I can't," El replied regretfully, "I'm busting out of this joint, right now. It's time to do what I set out to when I became a mercenary."

"Pack it all in for a life of leisure?" Tim joked, like the jokey joke-maker he often was in times of stress.

"Find and destroy Wizard Chinnigan," El Nombre explained, missing the humour like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies.

"If you'd only hold on a couple of hours for me to rescue my friend, I could come with you," Tim offered, partly for old time’s sake and partly to repay the debt he had accrued by getting El to bring him here.

El shook his head no.

"This is something you need to do alone, huh?"

"It is."

"What if you get yourself killed? He's tricksy, that wizard."

"Tim, I know his ways better than no one. No, wait. Nobody knows the ways of that wizard better than I. You know this to be the case.”

Tim nodded reluctantly, feeling his hair swoosh against the back of his neck. It was getting too long.

“However, if anything in the way of mortality does happen up in my grill, I will expect you to avenge my death.”

“In the usual way?”

“In the usual way,” he agreed solemnly. “Death by cupcakes.”

Tim blinked.

“That isn’t the traditional – oh, I see. El, I do believe that you just cracked a joke.”

El smiled, and his perfectly white teeth dazzled out of the darkness of his balaclava till Tim was nearly blinded.

“I have been practicing, since that first quest. It was funny, yes?”

“Oh yes, very funny. Although death by cupcakes is too good for that old goat.”

“It is,” El agreed. “But in actuality I suspect that it will not be the way the wizard will go.”

They hugged awkwardly, in the manner of men who became close under extenuating circumstances, lost touch for a couple of years, then met up again just briefly, only to be parted once more by further potentially life threatening circumstances. There were a lot of complicated emotions at work in that hug, and it was a beautiful and touching thing.

“Give me a ten minute head start,” El muttered into the hug, “then head for the second floor. You will find your young man there.”

“Thanks, El, I will. Good luck with finding and murdering Chinnigan.”

“It sounds so distasteful when you put it that way,” El realized, pulling out of the hug. “And yet, it is what it is, and what it is must be done. The badger must kill the fox before it can truly find peace.”

“Is that an old Chilean saying?”

“No, I saw it on Autumnwatch.”

And with that, El bounded off up the stairs, wearing two balaclavas, never to be seen again. Probably.

Tim leaned against the wall and looked around him.

It wasn’t one of those interesting cellars that you hear about in some books, like ‘The Kid in the Cellar’ or ‘Get Me Another Chianti’. It had never been used as a dungeon, or a gym, or a place to keep wine. In fact, it was all but forgotten about by the people who owned the building, truth be told, even though it wasn’t plagued by damp or rats or unusual smells. It just sat there, quite a nice space, albeit a bit on the dark side, almost entirely empty apart from an old wheelchair with a broken seat and only one wheel; and several enormous piles of dust.

“Passing ten minutes in this place is probably going to be my biggest challenge yet,” Tim told himself with a chuckle. A mouse inside the wall rolled its eyes, and proclaimed him a goner. The mice had the run of the building, and knew how the owners perceived intruders, adventurers, and people who thought they were funny when they weren’t. It didn’t look good for someone who ticked all three of those boxes.

He heard footsteps above and to his right, and moved towards the tiny, grimy window to peek outside.

Dawn had broken, bathing the outside world in a pinky blue hue that would have made quite a nice colour for something that would look good in pinky blue. Tim enjoyed it for a moment, before remembering the footstep situation.

There were iron bars on the outside of the window which were totally in the way, but he was pretty sure he could make out the figure of Aloysius advancing towards the door of the building along with some sort of animal. Tim wasn’t all that great with nature, but was moderately sure that this one was a sheep dog of some sort.

“What is he doing,” he groaned, watching as Al strode purposefully towards the front door, “they’re gonna get him! And apparently, they’re gonna get his little dog, too!”

Tim grabbed the wheelchair and pulled it over to the window, intending to try and force his way out or at least attract Al’s attention so that he would not pursue this hideous course of action.

Unfortunately he wasn’t quick enough, and from his precarious position atop the rickety frame all he saw was the door closing behind Al as he entered the building.

Tim jumped down with a ker-thunk.

“That’s probably been ten minutes anyway,” he reasoned aloud, one assumes for the benefit of the mouse as there was nobody else present to hear him.

He bounded up the well-worn steps and out of the cellar as El had done some moments before, pulling the door open with a careful yet enthusiastic creak. Once out in the relative brightness of the corridor he made to travel back in the direction he had come, which wasn’t too difficult as he’d had years of practice at going back the way he had come.

To begin with he pressed himself against the wall like people do in action films, but then he decided there was little point, as there was nothing to shield him if someone did come the other way. He stuck out like a sore thumb against the holographic underwater scene they had used to decorate the place. It was an interior design nightmare, he thought to himself, not even a child would find this appealing and their taste in décor is bizarre.

Up ahead there was an archway, which he remembered led to a lobby area at the front of the building. Now at least he could hide behind something if the need arose, he thought with a satisfied nod.

He could hear voices a little way further, and recognized one to belong to Al, but the other was unfamiliar.

“If you’ve got to go,” Al was saying sympathetically as Tim drew nearer to the sound of their jibber jabber, “then you have to go, that’s all I’m saying.”

“I can’t go here,” the other voice said, “there’ll be hell to pay.”

Tim risked a look-see around a pillar that conveniently stood by the archway.

Al was the only person there, and his only companion was the dog from outside. That breed was called a collie, Tim remembered now. They got their name due to something about only eating cauliflower.

‘Talking animals, eh,’ he thought to himself. ‘The plot thickens.’

“I’m not talking,” the dog said patiently, looking in Tim’s direction as if waiting for him to come out of his hiding place. “I’ve set up a telepathic link between myself and anything living within a half mile radius. Heard you coming before we even got here, your thoughts are that loud.”

“Sorry,” Tim said, not really sure whether an apology was required but deciding to err on the side of politeness.

“It’s eaten the amulet, before you say anything about me mucking up the quest,” Aloysius told him defensively.

“I wasn’t going to slag you,” Tim replied, “I’m sure you did your best.”

“But my best wasn’t good enough.”

“Well, we’ll see. This thing isn’t over yet, there are four days left in November after all.”

Al looked confused, but didn’t say anything for fear of humiliating himself further.

“I’m not an it,” the dog said suddenly, “I’m a he. My name is Brian, actually.”

“Nice to meet you Brian,” breezed Tim, “I’m Tim Mahogany-Barnes, and this here is Aloysius Hunkington Smythe.”

“Tim Mahogany-Barnes,” Brian said, or thought, if you want to be pedantic (in which case, why are you here? Go and do something less first draft-y.) “why do I know your name?”

“Not sure,” Tim reported, scratching his nose.

“You’re not a relation of Cassius Mahogany-Barnes, by any chance?”

“Why yes,” said Tim, “he’s my uncle. Do you know him?”

“Know him? He was my owner, till I was dognapped a couple of years ago. Best old man I ever knew.”

“You’re the dog that went missing? Well that’s great, I’ll tweet him and say you’ve been found! He’s never given up the search, you know.”

“I know,” Brian said with a mixture of pride and sadness, “I saw the reports on Crimewatch. But he’ll never take me back now.”

“Whyever not?” Tim puzzled, “he misses you dreadfully. Never got another dog after you were taken from him.”

Brian’s lip trembled, which for those of you who’ve never seen a sad dog, was simultaneously the most adorable and the most heart wrenching thing you are ever likely to see.

“Because I’ve been a bad dog,” he moaned mournfully.

“I’m sure he’d forgive you,” Tim replied dutifully, although he wasn’t really sure. He didn’t know Cassius brilliantly well, as he was an eccentric old chap who liked to keep himself to himself.

“No,” Brain asserted with his tail between his legs. “Ever since the clan of the cape recruited me… Well I don’t want to go into it, really. But it’s been dark times.”

“Well how about you redeem yourself now, by giving us the amulet instead of letting the clan of the cape take it?”

This was Al speaking, using his famous logic to manipulate an animal into doing what he wanted. How like a human.

“I can’t,” Brian quaked, conflicted like a girl choosing between the sexy bad boy and the safe, dependable husband type. “They’ll kill me if I do. Or worse.”

“So the clan of the cape have a penchant for inflicting fates worse than death, eh,” said Tim, stroking his chin as if this information had in some way made him think. It hadn’t. “That’s no good at all. We must stop them, Aloysius.”

“How are we going to do that?” Al asked, logic to the forefront once more. “We know literally nothing about them, other than they want that magic amulet, and they have a base here. We don’t know how many there are, we don’t know whether this is their main HQ or just a holding place, we don’t know whether they’re sanctioned by any authorities in this country…. We’d be going in totally blind, with no weapons, and no idea whether they want to kill, maim, or let us go.”

“Well, I think it’s about time someone got you guys that information,” pealed a tiresome voice from one of the doorways.

“And as usual, that someone is probably me.”

And that was how Tim and Al were introduced to Jeremy Kyle.

Chapter Twenty Four

I would like to point out that all the characters in this book are fictional, and any resemblance they bear to real people is totally coincidental... Read the story so far via my other blog, here.

Jeremy Kyle hurled his phone at the wall, incandescent with apoplectic rage.

He had just had some most irritating news, and he was pissed off about it. Later on he would pick up the smithereens of keypad and sim card and admit to himself that he may have overreacted a little bit.

Jeremy decided to find a slightly less destructive mode of venting his frustration, and took to pacing up and down his enormous living room, trying to work out simultaneously how he was going to save the show and exact his revenge.

"Daddy," one of his bleary eyed daughters poked her head around the open door, "is everything alright?"

"Yes," he lied to his innocent child in the way that parents do sometimes for their own good, "everything's peachy keen, jelly bean. Go back to bed now, there's a good girl."

Convinced that something utteryly terrible had happened, she shuffled off back to the bed she shared with an enormous furry crocodile called Cameron.

"Either mummy and daddy are getting divorced," she lisped adorably to her toy friend, "or something's gone wrong with his show and he doesn't know what to do about it."

"Heads will roll if it's the latter," Cameron intoned sagely, taking off his slippers and throwing them at the ceiling, as was his wont.

"Ain't that the twoof," the little girl replied with a vigorous nod. Her speech impediment worsened in times of stress as part of a little known condition called Orphan Complex whereby a child unconsciously tries to make itself cuter so that if something goes wrong in the parent department, they will be sure to be adopted, or in some cases kept on by the better parent whilst the sibling gets stuck with the other parent.

However, Jeremy Kyle and his wife were doing perfectly fine, so his daughter and her crocodile had nothing to fear at all. If only they could know. But they didn’t, so they played jenga to cheer themselves up. The next morning they would awake in amongst a nest of those wooden bricks, with strange markings on their faces where the blocks had imprinted on their skin.

Meanwhile back in the living room in the present, Jezza had glanced out of the window to see a cocaine addled hooker tottering by on red patent stilettos. She was too skinny for her own good, living as she did on a diet of irn bru and very few solids, and she looked a good fifteen years older than her actual age of thirty six.

He opened the window, then almost shut it again as the rush of cold air gave him goosebumps. But he was a stronger figure than that.

"OI, LOVE!" he bellowed at the top of his voice.

She turned around in surprise at hearing his familiar voice in such close proximity, wondering whether someone was watching repeats of the show in one of these houses. She squinted unattractively in his direction, wondering whether it was time to go and get a long overdue eye test at last.

"WOT?" she yelled back indignantly, for yelling is the first defense of the short sighted and squiffy, "I'm not doing anyfink wrong. I've finished work."

"Wanka," she added under her breath.

"I heard that," he shouted. "You need to SORT YOUR LIFE OUT!"

He slammed the window closed triumphantly.

"That's right," he muttered insanely, "it's MY show."

"Jez," his wife said, appearing in a salmon pink smoking jacket and cravat, "what's going on?"

"Nothing, it's nothing,” he lied, rubbing the back of his neck so hard that the friction caused sparks to fly onto the Persian rug. “Make us a cup of tea would you?" he added, stamping on the rug to stop it from catching fire.

He followed her through to their moben designed kitchen, as fitted by Laurence Llewellyn Bowen. As always, he paused to admire the black granite worktops with flecks of unicorn horn run through. A strong kitchen makes a strong man, that’s what he always said under his breath when nobody was listening.

"It's not nothing," his wife said, continuing the conversation and switching on the kettle like the multitasking female type she was, "you've broken the phone and you'll probably get an asbo for shouting abuse at that off duty hooker."

"I think if anyone gets an asbo it’ll be her," he said archly, taking the milk out of the fridge. "She'll be known to the law."

"So are you though," his wife pointed out. "Everyone knows who you are. You're a public figure."

He picked at some leftover chicken in the fridge, then spat it out when it turned out to be fish.

“Fair point,” he acknowledged.

“Anyway,” she pressed on, handing him a milky brew with four sugars, “what’s gone wrong with the show to put you in such a foul temper?”

He sipped his beverage and gave a long sigh to indicate his pleasure at consuming the lovely drink.

“Just had one of the researchers on the blower,” he said, in gangster speak, “the one who’s been at that top secret facility finding out about some weird stuff that’ll make my show respected like Panorama or Dispatches or something like that.”

“The one you reckon’ll get you a BAFTA?”

“The very same. Anyway, thing is, right, what goes on in that place… well…”

“Well what?” she challenged, eyebrows raised higher than a post op facelift. “Your ‘serious documentary’ spiel is just a cover for the fact that you run the entire operation, churning out people with weird and wonderful life stories to jazz up the show?”

He looked at her in shock. His jaw dropped and everything.

“How did you know that?”

“I’m not an idiot, Jez. And you’re not very good at keeping secrets. I gather you have some sort of unhinged young woman from South America who hypnotises people or lobotomises them or something of that nature?”

“There are no lobotomies involved,” he said sharply, “that’s outdated and ridiculous. You’ve got no proof.”

“Alright,” she said, “touchy. Whatever you say.”

“AND,” he interrupted, “she’s not from South America, that’s just where she developed some of her less orthodox techniques.”

“Fine,” she allowed, “she’s not from South America. Great. What’s gone wrong? Has she developed a conscience?”

“No,” he sulked, “I could solve that by throwing more money at her. No, she’s decided in the name of science to tell them all what’s been done to them, and see whether that reverses the procedure or not.”

“Which would ruin the show.”

“Well yeah,” he complained, “you can’t do a big reveal when everyone involved knows everything already and has had a few days to come to terms with it. And it makes the whole scenario far too complicated to explain to our target audience.”

“So what are you going to do?” she asked, picking imaginary bits of fluff off her pashmina.

“The only thing I can do,” he said, draining his mug. “I’m going round there to sort it out.”

“Do you want me to come with?”

“What about the kids?”

“Oh they’re fine, we’ve got the live-in nanny after all.”

“Should we tell her we’re leaving?”

“I’ll stick a post-it note on the fridge door.”

“Right then,” said Jeremy Kyle, putting on his second best suit jacket. “Lets go sort some lives out.”

Chapter Two

Bracken flounced down the road at speed, her head and elbows dizzy in a whirl of complex feminine emotions and that. How could he, a library assistant, make the same kind of negative appearance bases assumptions as ignorant old ladies with net curtains and cyanide hearts? He worked in an information service for crying out loud! And, she thought wistfully, he had seemed so liberal...

She snorted then, hit across the eyes by a stark moment of self-awareness. Why had she thought he was liberal? Because of his appearance. Slightly too long hair, an alliterative smattering of stubble, jeans frayed at the bottoms, intelligent nose…

"How ironic," she gently told the baby, and some of the anger went out of her then.

"He might be a judgmental arse, but I’m guilty as him... Judging on appearance indeed. Since when did I start doing that again? I’m just as bad as he is."

"Bibble," said the baby, drooling slightly.

"You're right, that does sound like a cop out. But resent the implication that I’m renouncing my feminist principles. Sure, the conclusion he jumped to was worse than mine. But I have to consider both sides and make a reasoned argument, or I'm no better than he is."

The baby snored gently.

She gazed at it kindly.

"Never mind sleepybaws, we're almost home."

Bracken lived in an unattractive block of council owned flats, out of necessity rather than choice. The sad little patch of grass outside it was littered with rubbish – beer cans, broken glass, an old nappy, and the remains of a bonfire.

'Why do we never have neighbourhood clean ups anymore,' she wondered to herself like a talking head in a local authority sanctioned publicity video. 'We used to do stuff like that all the time. It was good for the community, giving us all a sense of ownership and reducing the amount of vandalism significantly.’

Little did she know that the main organiser of these sorts of operations, a forthright woman in her late forties who went by the name of Mary-Doll Mahoney, had been kidnapped on holiday by Bulgarian terrorists. They were demanding a ransom of £809 to pay a few outstanding bills, but they hadn’t done their research properly and were asking for money from the wrong channels.

The family of a totally different Mary Mahoney had initially been perplexed by the many phone calls demanding cash for the safe release of the bed bound OAP asleep in the next room. Her daughter wondered whether mother had some sort of secret past that was finally catching up with her, whilst the son in law thought it might be the work of old army mates. After a while they had got angry about it, then bored, then angry again. Now it was getting to be a bit of a running joke.

The whole mess had been going on for about 18 months without anybody informing police in either country, and the real Mary-Doll had engaged herself in persuading the terrorists to work on various Bulgarian community projects. Most of them were enjoying the new found sense of purpose so much that they had forgotten all about the ransom, and indeed one had come into a bit of cash and had actually paid it off. Only the newest recruit, Timothy Kojack, kept up the threatening phone calls. They had been part of his initiation to the group, which he had never really finished properly on account of all the fundraising car washes and litter picking events.

Anyway, Bracken knew none of this, which was just as well because she was a nice soul and would have worried unnecessarily for Mary-Doll's welfare.

She picked her way across the severed limbs of a barbie doll, pausing on the way to extricate an arm from the wheel of the buggy. It looked like it had been chewed off, although she didn’t like to speculate what by.

A sign hastily scrawled in felt tip informed her that the lift was still out of order, and she sighed as she removed the baby from the buggy, put him over her shoulder, and embarked upon the climb to her top floor flat, bumping the buggy up behind her with one hand.

'Bet that library guy doesn't have to put up with this sort of thing every day,' she thought to herself. 'Born with a silver spoon in every orifice judging by that plummy voice of his. Probably got a stair lift so he doesn't have to use his sanctimonious legs too much.'

As it happened, Aloysius did not have a stair lift, because he too lived in a poky flat – albeit a rather nicer one than Bracken’s, and situated on the ground floor. But this was by the by.

“Uncle Nicky,” she called, opening the front door with some difficulty as the baby chose that moment to be slightly sick, “I’m home!”

There was no response.

“Nicky! I need you to look after the wean for a few hoors while ah’m at work!”

She was met once more with silence.

“Sake.”

Bracken strapped the baby back in to the buggy, promising it was only for a minute, and banged on her uncle’s bedroom door. It swung open with a well-oiled creak.

“Nicky come on, you said you’d look after him and I’m already late as it is-”

But the room was empty.

“Weird… Come on Nicky, I’m really in a hurry!”

Although he was slightly eccentric, her uncle was usually pretty reliable, so she was just about to start panicking when,

“ARETHEYGONEYET?” bellowed a voice from behind her, making her jump and pee a little bit at the same time (these things can happen after you’ve had a bairn, not that anyone tells you that till it’s too late).

She turned to see her uncle emerging fearfully from the airing cupboard in the hall, and took a moment to wonder how he’d possibly managed to fold himself small enough to fit inside it. He was wearing two of his patented tinfoil hats, designed to protect him from aliens, microwaves and, so he claimed, werewolves. Nobody had ever been able to convince him of the silver bullet argument.

“There’s nobody here,” she told him patiently, “you’re safe. I need you to look after the wee one for a couple of hours while I go to work.”

“Can we not come with you?”

“Nah but.”

“Whyyyy?”

“Because it looks like rain, and I don’t want you getting a cold,” she replied, mentally adding, ‘and because I’ve been telt that if I let you come wi me again they’ll find someone else.’

Just like that Uncle Nicky snapped out of teenage mode as quickly as was his wont, removing one of the tin foil hats as he did so.

“OK,” he said, we’ll do painting till you come back.”

“Don’t you think he’s a bit wee for painting?”

“Nope, we’ll use our hands. It’ll be fun. Extra sensory activity is good for your child’s cognitive development.”

He puffed out his chest proudly.

“I read that in a pamphlet that I got at the library.”

“Ugh,” she said, stomping into her room to get ready.

“What’s her beef, junior?”

But asking the baby questions about other people was pointless. It was very self involved, concerned only with where its next meal was coming from, and merely burped in reply.

Meanwhile Bracken surveyed herself in the mirror, critically, like a TV style guru would do. She wasn’t bad looking, she thought. Sometimes she had been accused of wearing too much make-up, but at least she generally remembered to blend it down past the chin. And she wasn’t a heef or anything.

Surely it wasn’t it the tracksuit that had made him judge her a benefit-cheating child mum? It was her best one! Although to be fair, she had seen working mums collecting kids after school who dressed only in pinstripe for their jobs. They probably even wore formal pinstripe undies, not nice diamante thongs like Bracken had. But she didn’t need to look all dapper for work, she had a uniform.

She now pulled this out of the wardrobe. The fluorescent yellow gleamed provocatively at her, ready to protect her from the elements whilst simultaneously making her visible to oncoming traffic in the dark. Pulling it on, she noticed the colour reflected under her chin, like when you put a buttercup there to determine whether people prefer butter or margarine.

“You look jaundiced,” Uncle Nicky pronounced helpfully from the doorway. “Yeh’ll never get a felly wearin’ that. And you’d better get your skates on or you’ll be late.”

Swearing loudly, she charged past him and down the many flights of stairs.

It was just as well she didn’t smoke, she thought, the amount of times her daily commute ended in a mad dash along the road. Couldnae dae that in pinstriped flummery.

Fortunately, her work wasn’t too far from the flats.

“Afternoon, Jean,” she whispered breathlessly as she stuck her head round the door of reception.

“Bracken,” the secretary nodded coolly, with a cacophonous clunk of her Pat Butcher earrings. “Cutting it a bit fine today are we not?”

“Aye, sorry… family stuff.”

“And the rest. It’s always something with you, isn’t it.”

“I don’t have time for this Jean, the bell’s away to go,” she said, tightening her pole.

Jean sniffed in acquiescence, which Bracken took as a sign she was free to go back out into the rain to wait by the side of the road.

“I hate Mondays,” she muttered to herself.

It wasn’t long before a car appeared, slowing down when it saw her. The driver, a teenage boy, leered suggestively. She rolled her eyes at him.

“I’m too tall for this stupid game,” said a voice, followed by a thump on her lollipop.

Turning, she saw it belonged to a disgruntled ten year old, who didn’t have to jump up to hit her lollipop like all the other kids did.

“You don’t have to play it, pal,” she pointed out to him.

“Yeah I do.”

“Why?”

“Everyone else does it. If I stop I’ll look like a tramp.”

“That’s peer pressure,” she notified him.

“Ah what do you know about it?”

“Mair than you by the sounds of it. I was your age once, y’know.”

“Yeah like fifty years ago. And now you’re just a lollipop lady.”

“What do you mean, ‘just’ a lollipop lady? It’s thanks to me none of you lot gets killed crossing this road before and after school!”

“It’s not though, is it,” he said with all the annoying self-assurance of a kid that age, right before puberty comes along and totally screws them up. “It’s like, the quietest road in the actual world. Like right now, we’re standing right in the middle of it and having this big long conversation, and it’s not because you’re holding that lollipop, is it? No. It’s because there are no cars.”

She looked about her. The kid was right.

“Aye, well,” she said, searching her mind for a comeback, “your maw.”

“Fit aboot his maw?” a voice boomed from the other side of the road. It appeared to be coming from an angry swarm of pitbulls, but on closer inspection there was a small, heavily tattooed man amidst the throng.

“Hi dad,” said the boy, “what are you doing here?”

“Dug walkin,” the man replied, “it’s ma new joab.”

“Minted.”

The boy made to leave with his terrifying owner, just as a fleet of three black cars with tinted windows pulled up.

“Ha, in your face!” Bracken shouted after the boy, “get back here and let me help you cross the road safely!”

“Nah mate,” he called back.

“When we first saw her she was shouting abuse at a kid on the street,” said a woman in a pinstripe suit as she got out of the first car.

“Great stuff,” said a reedy young man with a clipboard, scribbling notes, “Jez’ll love that. She’s probably drunk too.”

“OI,” Bracken said, indignant.

“Ach, calm yer spam,” the woman replied.

She was about to retort in a none-too-polite sort of a way, when a third body appeared from a the second car and wordlessly presented her with a velveteen cushion, upon which there lay a scroll wrapped in scarlet ribbon.

“You can read, I take it?” This was from the pinstripe woman.

“Get lost,” Bracken replied, too surprised to curse.

Apparently taking this as a no, the woman removed the scroll, opened it, and read,

“You are officially summoned to appear on The Jeremy Kyle show at the end of this month of November 2010. Should you fail to do so, Lord Kyle reserves the right to say anything he likes about you on national television, to the detriment of your character, which is probably not even as clean as his sister’s uncle’s girlfriend’s junkie neighbour who he met once and was disgusted by. If you comply, you will discover the paternity of your child with a free DNA test.”

“I ken who the dad is,” Bracken said.

“Do you?”

“Well aye, it’s…”

She stopped, puzzled.

“I’ve only ever slept wi one felly,” she said, confused. “But… who was it?”

“Nah mate,” pinstripe countered, “that’s lies. Look at you. See you on the 29^th.”

With that she thrust the scroll into Bracken’s hands, and they all hoofed it into their fleet of fancy cars and vanished. She gazed after them, befuddled. How could she not remember who the father of her child was? He had been such an important part of her life, and now his face was a blank. No wonder people thought badly of her, she thought, it didn’t sound great…

‘Oh well,’ she thought, ‘at least the fit but annoyingly conservative library assistant didn’t see any of that.’

At which point she turned, to see Aloysius Hunkington-Smythe silhouetted in the door of the bakery. He must have seen and heard everything.

Bracken turned on her heel, and ran home.