“What’s it like,” Jane demanded, “being a genie?”

They were digesting a leisurely picnic, a hundred feet or so up in the air directly above a spectacularly active volcano in the back lots of Hawaii. The venue had been Kiss’s suggestion; it would save them having to take the empty fruit-juice cartons and boiled-egg shells home with them, he’d argued, if they could simply drop them into the most spectacular waste-disposal system on the planet. They were sitting on Kiss’s own personal flying carpet (a three-ply Wilton Sportster with Hydra-Shock jute backing and a go-faster Paisley recurring motif) and Jane had just finished off the cold chicken.

“Dodgy,” Kiss replied, after some thought. “You never really know where you are. I mean,” he continued, jettisoning an empty Perrier bottle, which liquefied twelve feet above the meniscus of the lava, “potentially it’s a really great lifestyle, if you can hack it and stay out of trouble. You’ve got eternal life and eternal youth, there’s practically nothing this side of Ursa Major that can attack you without coming a very poor second, you can fly, you can materialise pretty well anything you like so long as it actually exists somewhere in the cosmos, and best of all you have absolutely no moral constraints whatsoever. I guess the nearest you could come in human terms would be a seven-foot-tall, extremely muscular movie star with a good agent and an even better lawyer. That’s when the times are good, of course,” he added.

“And when they’re not?”

Kiss shook his head. “Bottles,” he said. “Also lamps. Very bad news, both of them. I knew a genie once, in fact, got mixed up with one of those raffia-covered Chianti bottles made into a lamp. Poor bugger didn’t know whether he was coming or going.”

“Confusing?”

“Just plain nasty,” Kiss replied. “Take another mate of mine, Big Nick. I told him at the time — this was some years ago, mind — Nick, I said, stripping the lead off the Vatican roof is going to land you in very real grief, you mark my words. He didn’t, of course, and look at him now.”

Jane squinted. “I’ve heard of him, have I?”

Kiss nodded gloomily. “I expect so. Big chap, white beard, red dressing-gown, reindeer, sack — thought you’d probably come across him.”

Jane’s eyes widened. “He’s a genie?”

“There’s more of us about,” Kiss said, “than people realise.”

“And it’s a punishment? All the delivering presents and happy smiling faces…”

“You try it and see how you enjoy it. I’m telling you, twelve thousand years in an oil-lamp would be paradise in comparison.” Kiss shuddered reflexively. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, the other three hundred and sixty-four days each year it’s not just a bottle the poor sod’s banged up in, it’s one of those paperweights; you know, the sort you shake and it snows? I think you’d have to have a pretty warped mind to come up with something like that.”

Jane agreed.

“And it’s getting worse, you know,” Kiss went on. “Generally, that is. In the business. Admittedly in my young days there were more of the bad guys about — sorcerers and mages and the like — but at least they hadn’t invented the unbreakable plastic bottle or the child-proof bottle-top. Makes my blood run cold, that does.”

Jane tried to imagine what it was like, being a genie, and found that she couldn’t. Hardly surprising, she decided, but a trifle disappointing nevertheless. She dropped a paper plate over the side and watched it drift down and blossom, first into fire, then fine white ash, then nothing at all.

“And what about you?” Kiss said. “Since we’re obviously into a heavyweight experience-swapping trip, how about you telling me why the suicide thing? I have this feeling that it’s something I ought to know, purely on a business level.”

Jane sighed. “Why not?” she said. “I expect you could find out if you wanted to.”

“No problem,” Kiss agreed. “I could read your thoughts, for a start.”

“Could you?”

The genie nodded. “It’s frowned upon, of course,” he added. “Not quite the done thing and so forth, especially within the parameters of the model genie/mortal relationship. But entirely feasible.”

“Hang on,” Jane objected. “What happened to no moral constraints whatsoever?”

“It’s not moral constraints, just peer group machismo. And we’re drifting away from the subject rather, aren’t we?”

“I suppose we are. Go on, then. Guess.”

“Guess why you wanted to kill yourself?”

“Mphm.”

Kiss frowned, and changed himself into a tree. Trees, as is well known, spend their entire lives trying to decide what they’re going to do next, and therefore possess tremendous powers of concentration. It’s only the lack of an effective central nervous system that keeps them from sweeping the board at chess tournaments.

“Unrequited love,” he said. “Close?”

Jane scowled. “Spot on,” she replied. “Is it that obvious?”

“No,” replied the genie, with a hint of smugness. “In fact, you’ve concealed it terribly well. I have the advantage, however, of superhuman intelligence. Not,” he added, “that I use it much. Gives me a headache.”

“Me too.”

Kiss changed back into his customary shape: a nine-foot-tall clown, complete with red nose and a woolly ginger wig. “Tell me about it,” he said.

“Nothing to tell, really.” Jane leaned over and stared at the seething flames below until her eyes hurt. “His name was Vince, and he had the desk opposite mine at the Bank. In his spare time he played a lot of volleyball, his favourite food was pizza and he was saving up for one of those overland adventure holidays where you cross some desert or other in an open-topped truck. What I ever saw in him I can’t for the life of me imagine, but there it is.”

Kiss nodded. “It’s the same with us and bottles,” he said. “Only, of course, we eventually get out of the bottles, even if it does mean waiting till they biodegrade. As I understand it, your lot don’t have that guarantee.”

“I don’t know.” Jane sniffed. “If you ask me, it’s all a case of misunderstood biology. In fact, as an example of a very big hammer to crack a very small nut, it’s hard to beat.”

Kiss rolled over on to his back and materialised a bottle of cold milk. He took a long pull, wiped the top of the bottle on the palm of his hand and offered it to Jane, who declined it.

“If you like,” he said, “we can see what we can do about this Vince character. If you really want me to, that is.”

Jane shook her head. “I don’t honestly think it’s something you can interfere with,” she replied. “I thought you were only allowed to do the possible.”

Kiss shrugged. “There would have to be an element of compromise,” he replied, “and certainly you can’t compel one mortal to love another. On the other hand, you can suggest to a mortal that he act affectionately towards another mortal if he doesn’t want his ears ripped off and shoved up his nose. That’d be no bother whatsoever.”

“No, thank you.”

“Sure? The more I think about it, the more I warm to the—”

“Really,” Jane said. “No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” The genie yawned. “So, what exactly do you want? I don’t want to seem pushy or anything, but it’s time you made your mind up about that. Most people have a shopping-list ready formulated before the cork’s out of the bottleneck.”

“Well, I don’t,” Jane said. “Apart from the immediate things, I mean, like not having to clean the kitchen floor or go to work. Grand ambitions really aren’t my style.”

“They don’t have to be all that grand,” Kiss suggested. “In fact, something modest but time-consuming would suit me down to the ground. A complete collection of Bing Crosby records, for example; or better still, a determination on your part to have lunch in all the wine-bars in the Southern Hemisphere. I could handle that, if you could.”

Jane removed the straw from a fruit-juice carton and chewed it thoughtfully. “Really,” she said, “I suppose I ought to make the world a better place. Eliminate nuclear weapons, irrigate the deserts of Northern Africa, that sort of—”