Among Others

table.
    “I’ve read most of these,” I said.
    He raised his eyebrows.
    “There is nothing else at all to do in here,” I said.
    “Looks pretty grim,” he agreed. “How’s the food?”
    “Awful.”
    He laughed. “My mother’s one of the cooks here.”
    “I’m sure her food at home is much better,” I said.
    “No it isn’t,” he said. “She’s not much of a cook. Though she says herself the food here is appalling, so it must be really bad. That’s why I was asking.”
    “It’s not all that different from school food,” I said.
    “I’d have thought they’d have fed you well at Arlinghurst, from what they’re charging,” he said.
    “So would I, but it’s all awful. Spam and custard.”
    “I’ve brought you some NASA astronaut ice cream,” he said, and produced a packet from his pocket.
    I held it up where I could see it properly. It was black with a picture of a rocket ship and it did claim to be astronaut ice cream, just like that eaten on the Apollo missions. I looked at Wim in awe. “Everyone else brought grapes. Where did you get this?”
    He looked a bit shy, if such a thing is possible. “My cousin brought some back from Florida. He brought quite a few packets, this is the last one. It isn’t that nice, it’s more the idea. I was saving it for an appropriate occasion.”
    I stopped turning the packet over and looked right at him. “You have a cousin who went to America?”
    He smiled at me, and I got that breathless feeling again. “America’s real, you know, it’s not just in science fiction. Greg’s been there. He went to a Worldcon in Phoenix. He met Harlan Ellison!”
    “What’s a Worldcon?”
    “A world science fiction convention. It’s five days where people get together and talk about SF. Last year it was in Brighton and I went. It was brill. It was beyond brill. You can’t imagine.”
    I thought I could imagine. “Like book club multiplied?”
    “Multiplied geometrically. Robert Silverberg was there. I talked to him! And Vonda McIntyre!”
    I could hardly believe I was sitting in the same room as someone who had talked to Robert Silverberg. “Where is it this year?”
    “Boston. It’s usually America. Goodness knows when we’ll ever have one in Britain again. But there are British cons. There’s one at Easter in Glasgow. They don’t have all the American writers, of course. But it’s not just the writers. It’s the fans as well. You wouldn’t believe the conversations I had in Brighton.”
    “Are you going to Glasgow?”
    “I’m already saving up for it. I went to Brighton on my bike, and slept in a tent, but I’ll need money for at least a share of a hotel room in Glasgow at Easter, and it would be nicer to go on the train.” He looked eager and animated.
    “A hotel room. Trainfare. And how much is the ticket?”
    “They call it membership,” he reproved me. “I’ve already bought mine. It was five pounds.”
    “I wonder if Daniel would pay all that. I wonder if he’d agree to me going. I wonder if I could persuade him to go too. He’d enjoy it.”
    “Who’s Daniel?” he asked, shifting away from me without getting out of the chair. “Your boyfriend?”
    “My father,” I said. “He reads SF. He met Greg and Janine and Pete on Sunday, and we all talked about books the whole time. He’d enjoy a convention, I’m sure he would.” I was much less sure his sisters would let him go. It wasn’t the kind of thing they’d want at all, doing something he wanted to away from them. They probably wouldn’t approve it for me either, not if they wanted me to be Nice Niece. I’d have to find some way of getting round them.
    “You’re so lucky,” Wim said, surprisingly.
    “Lucky? Why?” I blinked. I am not in the habit of thinking I am lucky, even when my leg isn’t strapped to a rack.
    “Having a rich father who reads SF. Mine thinks it’s childish. He was okay with it when I was twelve, but he thinks reading at all is sissy and reading kid stuff is babyish. He roars at me whenever he catches me reading. My mother reads what she calls nice romances, sometimes, Catherine Cookson and that sort of thing, but only when he isn’t in the house. She doesn’t understand at all. There are no books in our house. I’d give anything for parents who read.”
    “I only met Daniel this summer,” I said. “My parents are divorced, and I was brought up mostly by my grandparents. They didn’t have any money, but they did read, and