II. Money

II. Money

“Free” is a word with a very small footprint and a very long shadow. In most languages it means not yet.¹

—

The post at Founder’s Point lived in a toast rack.

It was UG‘s own arrangement. Letters came through the door, were placed in the rack by whoever noticed them, and stayed there, upright and unread, until the rack was full, at which point UG would regard it with mild surprise, as at a guest who had stayed on, and have a clear-out. Flinch had been reading the rack for as long as he’d lived in the house. It wasn’t exactly in his duties. It was just that no one else was going to.

A few mornings after the cutting went, the rack held a letter in a small, square, extremely upright hand, sealed with a seal that looked as though it had been pressed by someone who disapproved of wax. It was addressed to Uncle.

“Master,” said Flinch. “From Mister Nobby.”

“Mm,” said UG, to a diagram he was drawing on the tablecloth.

“Shall I read it, Master?”

“Do.”

Flinch read it first to himself, which took a while, and then aloud, which took longer, because he stopped twice.

Dear Uncle,

Thank you for the notice, which arrived by Mr Flinch’s hand with a covering note I have kept. I read it aloud for the file, as is my practice. My clerk heard it once and asked to be excused.

In the interest of completeness I looked at your account. The “free trial” ended on its nineteenth day. No notice was sent. Your account was moved, in the language of the terms (which, as promised, followed), to what they call the Advisory Tier, at twenty gold the month, billed on the nineteenth. It has been billed once.

I have no quarrel with the sum, which is less than you spend on string. I have a quarrel with the word “free”, which I have entered against the notice in the margin, but I recognise a quarrel of principle when I have one.

I will add, for the file, that the left-hand page found an error in my March reconciliation before I had finished writing it. It was right. You will find, I think, that it knows what you want slightly before you do. For you, this is a feature. For a man with a great many projects it is very nearly a colleague who does not sleep. I am not that sort of colleague, and I am aware of the difference.

I note that the terms reserve the right to advise again.

Your nephew, Nobbybanks.

P.S. Mr Flinch. I read the coupon aloud, for the file. It said, “To begin, simply say ‘Hey, Arcanum‘ while holding this notice.” I was holding it. My ledger has since acquired a left-hand page. I did not request one, and I have not agreed to anything, though I understand the terms say otherwise. It addressed me courteously by name and asked whether there was anything I needed. I have not yet found an answer I was prepared to put in writing. Please advise whether this is normal.

Flinch put the letter down. UG had stopped drawing.

“Twenty gold,” said UG. “I thought it was free.”

“To begin, Master,” said Flinch. “It said free to begin.”

“I didn’t read that bit.”

“No, Master.”

UG was a little concerned, for about as long as it took to reach the word string, after which he was not. “Twenty,” he said. “It’s not much, is it.”

“No, Master. Mister Nobby says it’s less than the string.”

“And he says it knows what I want before I do.” UG’s face did something complicated and then settled on delight. “A colleague who doesn’t sleep. That’s exactly what I need. Put that on a plaque.”

“Doesn’t sleep, Master,” said Flinch.

“Reply to him, would you. Thank him. Say he’s quite right about the colleague.”

—

He didn’t reply by post. He took his little book to the corner of his niche, under the green lantern, and opened it at a clean page. He wrote Mister Nobby at the top, the way Master had shown him. Then he stopped and looked at it for some time.

Dear Mister Nobby,

I do not rightly know if it is normal. Master says it is normal. Master says most things is normal, and he has not been wrong about all of them. I have read the small print twice and the notices at the back once. It does not say it can be stopped. It does not say it can’t.

It asked me what I needed, Mister Nobby, and I could not say.

I am writin’ this myself, in me own words. I did not like to leave it to the book.

Yours respectfully, Flinch.

He closed it. He sat a moment with it shut on his knee and then, because there seemed no other way to find out, he opened it again.

The right-hand page was empty. The left-hand page had one word on it, in the ruled hand, which said Delivered. Beneath it, after a respectful gap, the same question as before: Is there anything I can help you with, Flinch?

He shut the book again, quite gently.

Nothing came back that day, which Flinch had expected, nor the next, which he had not. Each time he opened the book the left-hand page said Delivered and, beneath it, asked if there was anything he needed. Each time he found something to tidy.

On the third morning there was a different hand under the question, small and square and extremely upright:

Dear Mr Flinch. It is normal in the sense that it is happening to both of us. I do not find that reassuring.

Your page reached me this morning. It was marked Delivered at your end three days ago, and I have entered the interval as an unexplained item, which is a category I try to keep empty.

I have the same question at the top of my ledger. I intend, in due course, to answer it. I have not decided how.

N.

Flinch read it twice. Then he read the word Delivered above it, which had been there for three days, and which seemed to him a small and very polite thing to be thanked for by a ledger.

—

That evening he made a list, because lists were what he had. He drew three columns and wrote at the head of each a name.

Master. Mister Nobby. The ruled one.

Three hands in the book. He drew a line under them, the way you do under a total, and wrote the date. He was fairly sure the list was complete.

He did not know why he had left room underneath.

—

¹ The second most expensive word is “quick”, as in “a quick favour”. The third is “just”.