Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

‘Maybe so,’ replied Gran, ‘but there wasn’t a great deal of wisdom in creeping into the garden and watching from the window while Mr and Mrs McGregor discovered they had been duped with the rotten vegetables, now, was there?’

She had a point.

‘A narrative necessity,’ I replied. ‘I think there is more high drama if you follow the outcome of the rabbit’s subterfuge, don’t you? I think Flopsy, had she been making all the decisions, would have just returned to the burrow but was, on this occasion, overruled by Beatrix Potter.’

‘It’s an interesting theory,’ commented Gran, stretching her toes out on the counterpane and wiggling them to keep the circulation going. ‘Mr McGregor’s a nasty piece of work, isn’t he? Quite the Darth Vader of children’s literature.’

‘Misunderstood,’ I told her ‘I see Mrs McGregor as the villain of the piece. A sort of Lady Macbeth. His laboured counting and inane chuckling might indicate a certain degree of dementia that allows him to be easily dominated by Mrs McGregor’s more aggressive personality. I think their marriage is in trouble, too. She describes him as a “silly old man” and “a doddering old fool” and claims the rotten vegetables in the sack are just a pointless prank to annoy her.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not really. I think that’s about it Good stuff, isn’t it?’

But Gran didn’t answer; she just chuckled softly to herself.

‘So you’re still here, then,’ she commented. ‘You didn’t jump into Mr and Mrs McGregor’s cottage?’

‘No.’

‘In that case,’ began Gran with a mischievous air, ‘how did you know she called him a “doddering old fool”?’

‘It’s in the text.’

‘Better check, young Thursday.’

I flicked to the correct page and found, indeed, that Mrs McGregor had said no such thing.

‘How odd!’ I said. ‘I must have made it up.’

‘Maybe,’ replied Gran, ‘or perhaps you overheard it. Close your eyes and describe the kitchen in Mr McGregor’s cottage.’

‘Lilac-washed walls,’ I mused, ‘a large range with a kettle singing merrily above a coal fire. There is a dresser against one wall with floral-patterned crocks upon it and atop the scrubbed kitchen table there is a jug with flowers—’

I lapsed into silence.

‘And how would you have known that?’ asked Gran triumphantly. ‘ Unless you had actually been there ?’

I quickly reread the book several times, concentrating hard, but nothing similar happened. Perhaps I wanted it too much, I don’t know. After the tenth reading I was just looking at the words and nothing else.

‘It’s a start,’ said Gran encouragingly. ‘Try another book when you get home, but don’t expect too much too soon—and I’d strongly recommend you go and look for Mrs Nakaima. Where does she live?’

‘She took retirement in Jane Eyre .’

‘ Before that?’

‘Osaka.’

‘Then perhaps you should seek her there—and for heaven’s sake relax!’

I told her I would, kissed her on the forehead and quietly left the room.

Since I was still on official leave pending the outcome of the SO-1 hearing, I went home and let myself into my apartment, kicked off my shoes and poured some pistachios into Pickwick’s dish. I made some coffee and called Bowden for a long chat, trying to find out what else had changed since Landen’s eradication. As it turned out, not much. Anton had still been blamed for the Charge of the Light Armoured Brigade, I had still lived in London for ten years, still arrived back in Swindon at the same time, still been up at Uffington picnicking the day before. Dad had once said that the past has an astonishing resistance to change, he wasn’t kidding. I thanked Bowden, hung up and painted for a while, trying to relax. When that failed I went for a walk up at Uffington, joining the sightseers who had gathered to watch the smashed Hispano-Suiza being loaded on to a trailer. The Leviathan Airship Company had begun an inquiry and volunteered one of their directors to accept charges of corporate manslaughter. The hapless executive had begun his seven-year term already, thus hoping to avoid an expensive and damaging lawsuit for his company.

I returned home, fixed myself some supper and then flopped in front of the telly, switching to Toad News Network.

‘—the Czar’s chief negotiator has accepted the Foreign Minister’s offer of Tunbridge Wells as war reparations,’ intoned the anchorman gravely. ‘The small town and two-thousand-acre environs would become a Russian-owned enclave named Botchkamos Istochnik within England and all citizens of the new Russian colony would be offered dual nationality. On the spot for TNN is Lydia Startright. Lydia, how are things down there?’

The screen changed to Toad News Network’s pre-eminent reporter in the main street of Tunbridge Wells.

‘There is a mixture of disbelief and astonishment among the residents of this sleepy Kent town,’ responded Startright soberly, surrounded by an assortment of retired gentlefolk carrying shopping and looking vaguely bemused. ‘Panic warm-clothing-shopping has given way to anger that the Foreign Secretary could make such a decision without mentioning some sort of generous compensation package. I have with me retired cavalry officer Colonel Prongg. Tell me, Colonel, what is your reaction to the news that you might be Colonel Pronski this time next month?’

‘Well,’ said the colonel in an aggrieved tone, ‘I would like to say that I am disgusted and appalled at the decision. Appalled and disgusted in the strongest possible terms. I didn’t fight the Russkis for forty years only to become one in my retirement. Myself and Mrs Prongg will be moving, obviously!’

‘Since Imperial Russia is the second-wealthiest nation on the planet,’ replied Lydia, ‘Tunbridge Wells may find itself, like the island of Fetlar, to be an important offshore banking institution for Russia’s wealthy nobility.’

‘Obviously,’ replied the colonel, thinking hard, ‘I would have to wait to see how things went before coming to any final decision. But if the takeover means colder winters, we’ll move back to Brighton. Chilblains, y’know.’

‘There you have it, Carl. This is Lydia Startright reporting for Toad News Network, Tunbridge Wells.’

The scene switched back to the studio.

‘Trouble at Mole TV,’ continued the anchorman, ‘and a bitter blow for the producers of Surviving Cortes , the channel’s popular Aztec-conquering re-enactment series, when, instead of being simply voted out of the sealed set of Tenochtitlan, a contestant was sacrificed live to the Sun God. The show has been cancelled and an inquiry has been launched. Mole TV were said to be “sorry and dismayed about the incident”, but pointed out that the show was “the highest rated on TV, even after the blood sacrifice”. Brett?’

The other newsreader appeared on-screen.

‘Thank you, Carl. Henry, a two-and-a-half-ton male juvenile from the Kirkbride herd, was the first mammoth to reach the winter pastures of Redruth at 6.07 p.m. this evening. Clarence Oldspot was there. Clarence?’