Jasper Fforde: The Well of Lost Plots

I opened a door that led into a small kitchenette. Attached to the fridge was the précis of Caversham Heights . I flicked through it. The sequence of events was pretty much as I remembered from my first reading in the Well, although it seemed that Mary had overstated her role in some of the puzzle-solving areas. I put the précis down, found a bowl and filled it with water for Pickwick, took her egg from my bag and laid it on the sofa, where she quickly set about turning it over and tapping it gently with her beak. I went forward and discovered a bedroom where the nose turret would have been, and climbed a narrow aluminium ladder to the flight deck directly above. This was the best view in the house, the large greenhouse-like perspex windows affording a good view of the lake. The massive control wheels were set in front of two comfortable chairs, and facing them and ahead of a tangled mass of engine control levers was a complex panel of broken and faded instruments. To my right I could see the one remaining engine looking forlorn, the propeller blades streaked with bird droppings.

Behind the pilots' seats, where the flight engineer would have sat, there was a desk with reading lamp, footnoterphone and typewriter. On the bookshelf were mainly magazines of a police nature and lots of forensic textbooks. I walked through a narrow doorway and found a pleasant bedroom. The headroom was not over-generous but it was cosy and dry and was panelled in pine with a porthole above the double bed. Behind the bedroom was a storeroom, a hot-water boiler, stacks of wood and a spiral staircase. I was just about to go downstairs when I heard someone speak from the living room below.

'What do you think that is?'

The voice had an empty ring to it and was neuter in its inflection — I couldn't tell whether it was male or female.

I stopped and instinctively pulled my automatic from my shoulder holster. Mary lived alone — or so it had said in the book. As I moved slowly downstairs I heard another voice answer the first:

'I think it's a bird of some sort.'

The second voice was no more distinctive than the first; indeed, if the second voice had not been answering the first, I might have thought they belonged to the same person.

As I descended the staircase I saw two figures standing in the middle of the room staring at Pickwick, who stared back, courageously protecting her egg from behind the sofa.

'Hey!' I said, pointing my gun in their direction. 'Hold it right there!'

The two figures looked up and stared at me without expression from features that were as insipid and muted as their voices. Because of their equal blandness it was impossible to tell them apart. Their arms hung limply by their sides, exhibiting no body language. They might have been angry, or curious, or worried, or elated — but I couldn't tell.

'Who are you?' I asked.

'We are nobody,' replied the one on the left.

'Everyone is someone ,' I replied.

'Not altogether correct,' said the one on the right. 'We have a code number but nothing more. I am TSI-I4O49I2-A and this is TSI-I4049I2-C.'

'What happened to -B?'

'Taken by a grammasite last Tuesday.'

I lowered my gun. Miss Havisham had told me about Generics. They were created here in the Well to populate the books that were to be written. At the point of creation they were simply a human canvas without paint — blank like a coin, ready to be stamped with individualism. They had no history, no conflicts, no foibles — nothing that might make them either readable or interesting in any way. It was up to various institutions to teach them to be useful members of fiction. They were graded, too. A to D, one through ten. Any that were D-graded were like worker bees in crowds and busy streets. Small speaking parts were C-grades; B-grades usually made up the bulk of featured but not leading characters. These parts usually — but not always — went to the A-grades, hand picked for their skills at character projection and multi-dimensionality. Huckleberry Finn, Tess and Anna Karenina were all A-grades, but then so were Mr Hyde, Hannibal Lecter and Professor Moriarty. I looked at the ungraded Generics again. Murderers or heroes? It was impossible to tell how they would turn out. Still, at this stage of their development they would be harmless. I reholstered my automatic.

'You're Generics, right?'

'Indeed,' they said in unison.

'What are you doing here?'

'You remember the craze for minimalism?' asked the one on the right.

'Yes?' I replied, moving closer to stare at their blank faces curiously. There was a lot about the Well that I was going to have to get used to. They were harmless enough — but decidedly creepy. Pickwick was still hiding behind the sofa.

'It was caused by the 1982 character shortage,' said the one on the left. 'Vikram Seth is planning a large book in the next few years and I don't think the Well wants to be caught out again — we're being manufactured and then sent to stay in unpublished novels until we are called into service.'

'Sort of stockpiled, you mean?'

'I'd prefer the word billeted ,' replied the one on the left, the slight indignation indicating that it wouldn't be without a personality for ever.

'How long have you been here?'

'Two months,' replied the one on the right. 'We are awaiting placement at St Tabularasa's Generic College for basic character training. I live in the spare bedroom in the tail.'

'So do I,' added the one on the left. 'Likewise.'

I paused for a moment.

'O-kay,' I began. 'Since we all have to live together I had better give you names. You,' I said, pointing a finger at the one on the right, are henceforth called ibb . You,' I added, pointing to the other, 'are now called obb .'

I pointed at them again in case they missed it as they made no sign of either comprehending what I'd said or even hearing it.

' You are ibb, and you are obb.'

I paused. Something didn't sound right about their names but I couldn't place it.

'ibb,' I said to myself, then: 'obb. ibb. ibb-obb. Does that sound odd to you?'

'No capitals,' said obb. 'We don't get capitalised until we start school — we didn't expect names so soon, either. Can we keep them?'

'A gift from me,' I told them.

'I am ibb,' said the other one, as if to make the point.

'And I am obb,' said obb.

'And I'm Thursday,' I told them, offering my hand. They shook it in turn slowly and without emotion. I could see that this pair weren't going to be a huge bundle of fun.

'And that's Pickwick.'

They looked at Pickwick, who plocked quietly, came out from behind the sofa, settled herself on her egg and pretended to go to sleep.

'Well,' I announced, clapping my hands together, 'does anyone know how to cook? I'm not very good at it and if you don't want to eat beans on toast for the next year, you had better start to learn. I'm standing in for Mary, and if you don't get in my way I won't get in yours. I go to bed late and wake up early. I have a husband who doesn't exist and I'm going to have a baby later this year so might get a little cranky — and overweight. Any questions?'

'Yes,' said the one on the left. 'Which one of us is obb , did you say?'

I unpacked my few things in the small room behind the flight deck. I had sketched a picture of Landen from memory and I placed it on the bedside table, staring at it for a moment. I missed him dreadfully and wondered, for the umpteenth time, whether perhaps I shouldn't be here hiding, but out there , in my own world, trying to get him back. Trouble was, I'd tried that and made a complete pig's ear of it — if it hadn't have been for Miss Havisham's timely rescue I would still be locked up in a Goliath vault somewhere. With our child growing within me I had decided that flight was not a coward's option but a sensible one — I would stay here until the baby was born. I could then plan my return, and following that, Landen's.