‘Consider the Bonacon,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘What’s that?’ said Joe.
‘The creature that passes by at the highmost of the sun.’
‘You mean Noony? She’s an engine; a train. It’s how I tell the time.’
‘How does a train, an engine, go?’
‘On wheels, of course. How the heck else?’
‘And how do the wheels run?’
‘On rails.’
‘My cart has wheels,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘It runs by crinkum-crankums, crooks and straights. Yet if I were to set it upon rails, as Bonacon, it would be by straights alone, or off the causeway into the ditch.’
‘Noony’s got a doings on the side of her wheels to keep her on the rails,’ said Joe. ‘Your cart hasn’t.’
‘The doings holds. It turns, yet does not move,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘Bonacon needs both, for without the one the other is lost. Am I right?’
‘Oh, you and your mithering. Give over.’
‘Iron Bonacon or wooden cart?’ said Treacle Walker. ‘Which is the merrier ride? And tell me. Whither and whence the Bonacon? Where does it go to? Where is it come from?’
‘I dunno. It just – goes.’
‘And at each noon it travels the same path.’
‘Yes.’
‘How does it return?’
‘I’ve never thought,’ said Joe.
‘Does it run nidgetwise, as the sun?’
‘Search me.’
‘And do other Bonacons pass by, in either way?’
‘No. Else I couldn’t tell the time, could I?’
‘And what is your time?’
‘When Noony comes I know it’s now.’
‘“Now”? How can there be Now?’
‘That’s a daft question,’ said Joe.
‘But is it?’ said Treacle Walker. ‘For at the very moment you have Now, it flees. It is gone. It is, on the instant, Then. Surely.’
‘You make no sense,’ said Joe.
‘Bonacon sees where Bonacon is and will be, and knows where it has been. And that is all. You, you know the moment and tell the time. But that is the doings, not the travel; not the wonder, not the sight.’
‘Lay off. I said.’
‘You ask for help. I give it.’
‘You bloody don’t!’
‘Then be the doings, Joseph Coppock. And let crinkum-crankums run their ways.’
‘Oh, forget it,’ said Joe. ‘What about you? Why are you here? Where are you from?’
‘Here on this Middle-Yard is good moundland enough,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘But my home is the Country of the Summer Stars.’
‘Why’ve you come? What do you want?’
‘Ragbone,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘That is my trade.’
At the door, the iron ring grated, the latch lifted, and the door opened. There was a footstep in the house.