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Uncle, yes. Just a touch of King’s Evil, that’s all.’ ‘I’ve a root that will cure that.’
    ‘I’m sure that you have.’
    ‘Am I missing something?’ I asked.
    The uncle shook his little bald head. ‘I think Charlie has a girlfriend,’ he said. ‘And is eager to practise upon her the skills he has learned from the lady librarian.’
    The Doveston sniffed and shuffled his feet.
    I made the ‘eli?’ face again.
    ‘The Great Work,’ said the uncle, striking a dignified pose. ‘The work that will earn for me a place in the history books. But
they
know that I stand poised upon the threshold and that is why they watch my every move.
    ‘The secret policemen?’
    ‘The secret police. They have powerful telescopes trained upon us even now. Which is why I keep my boys behind the curtain. The secret police want to know about my work and steal it for their masters at Mornington Crescent. But they won’t, oh my word no.
    ‘I’m very pleased to hear that.’
    ‘What I’m doing here’, said the uncle, ‘is for all mankind. Not just a favoured few. What I am doing here will bring about world peace. You asked why I chose to cultivate these particular varieties of plant, didn’t you?’
    I nodded that I did.
    ‘It is because of the drugs that can be distilled from them. Powerful hallucinogens, which, when blended correctly and taken in careful doses, allow me to enter an altered state of consciousness. Whilst in this state it is possible for me to communicate directly with the vegetable kingdom. As Dr Doolittle talked to the animals, so I can talk to the trees.’
    I glanced across at the Doveston, who made a pained expression.
    ‘What do the trees have to say?’ I asked.
    ‘Too much,’ said the uncle, ‘too much. They witter like dowagers. Moaning about the squirrels and the sparrows, the traffic and the noise. If I hear that old oak by the Seamen’s Mission go on one more time about how civilized the world used to be, I’m sure I’ll lose my mind.’
    I ignored the Doveston’s rolling eyes. ‘Do all trees talk?’ I asked.
    ‘As far as I know,’ said the uncle. ‘Although of course I can only understand the English ones. I’ve no idea what the Dutch elms and Spanish firs are saying.’
    ‘Perhaps you could take a language course.
    ‘I’ve no time for that, I’m afraid.’
    I nodded moistly and plucked once more at my groin. ‘So the secret police want to talk to trees too, do they?’ I asked.
    ‘Their masters do. You can imagine the potential for espionage.’
    I couldn’t really, so I said as much.
    The uncle waved his hands about. ‘For spying. You wouldn’t need to risk human spies, if plants could do it for you. Just think what the potted plants in the Russian embassy have overheard. They’d be prepared to tell you, if you asked them nicely.’
    ‘I see,’ I said, and I did. ‘But you’d have to learn how to speak Russian.’
    ‘Yes, yes, but you get the point?’
    ‘I
do
get the point,’ I said. ‘So
that
is the Great Work.’
    ‘It’s a part of it.’
    ‘You mean there’s more?’
    ‘Much more.’ The uncle preened at his lapels. ‘Communicating with plants was only the first part. You see I wanted to know just what it was that plants wanted out of life and so I asked them. The ones in this conservatory grow so well because they tell me what they want and I give it to them. How much heat, how much light and so on. But there’s one thing that all plants really want, and do you know what that is?’
    ‘Love?’ I said.
    ‘Love?’
said the Doveston.
    ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Not love then?’
    ‘They want to get about,’ said the uncle. ‘Move about like people do. They get really fed up spending all their lives stuck in one place in the ground. They want to uproot and get on the move.
    ‘And that’s why you’ve bred the chimeras.’
    ‘Exactly. They are the first of a new species. The plant/animal hybrid. My beautiful boys are a different order of