Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

‘I’ve eaten already.’

The floor manager turned and spoke into his headphones again.

‘ She says she’s eaten already!! …I know… yes… what if… yes… ah-ha… What do you want me to do? Sit on her and force it down her throat!?! …yesss… ah-ha… I know… yes… yes… okay.’

He turned back to me.

‘How about jam instead of marmalade?’

‘I don’t really like toast,’ I told him.

‘What?’

‘I said I don’t—’

‘She says she doesn’t like toast!’ said the floor manager in an exasperated tone. ‘ What in hell’s name are we going to do!?! ’

Flanker stood up.

‘Next, eat the sodding toast, will you? I’ve got a meeting in two hours.’

‘And I’ve a golf tournament,’ added Braxton.

I gave up.

‘Okay. Make it granary with marmalade, go easy on the butter.’

The floor manager smiled as though I had just saved his job—which I probably had—and everything started over once again.

‘Would you like some toast?’ asked Lush.

‘Thanks.’

I took a small bite.

‘Very good.’

I saw the floor manager giving me an enthusiastic thumbs-up as he dabbed his brow with a handkerchief.

‘Right.’ Lush sighed. ‘Let’s get on with it. First I would like to ask the question that everyone wants answered, how did you actually get into the book of Jane Eyre in the first place?’

‘That’s easily explained,’ I began. ‘You see, my Uncle Mycroft invented a device called a Prose Portal—’

Flanker coughed.

‘Ms Next, perhaps you don’t know it but your uncle is still the subject of a secrecy certificate dating back to 1934. It might be prudent if you didn’t mention him—or the Prose Portal.’

Lush thought for a moment.

‘Can I talk to Miss Next about how she met Hades for the first time, just after he stole the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit? ’

‘That would be fine if you don’t mention Hades,’ replied Flanker.

‘It’s not something we want the citizenry to think is—’ said Marat so suddenly that quite a few people jumped. Up until that moment he hadn’t said a word.

‘Sorry?’ asked Flanker.

‘Nothing,’ said the ChronoGuard operative in a quiet voice. ‘I’m just getting a touch proleptic in my old age.’

Lush continued.

‘Can she talk about the pursuit of Hades into the Welsh Republic and the successful return of Jane to her book?’

‘Same rules apply,’ growled Flanker.

‘How about the time that my partner Bowden and I drove through a patch of Bad Time on the M1?’ I asked.

‘It’s not something we want the citizenry to think is easy,’ said Marat with renewed enthusiasm. ‘If the public think that ChronoGuard work is straightforward, confidence might be shaken.’

‘Quite correct,’ asserted Flanker

‘Perhaps you’d like to do this interview?’ I asked him.

‘Hey!’ said Flanker, standing up and jabbing a finger in my direction. ‘There’s no need to get snippy with us, Next. You’re here to do a job in your capacity as a serving SpecOps officer. You are not here to tell the truth as you see it!’

Lush looked uneasily at me, I raised my eyebrows and shrugged.

‘Now look here,’ said Lush in a strident tone, ‘if I’m going to interview Ms Next I must ask questions that the public want to hear—’

‘Oh, you can!’ said Flanker agreeably. ‘You can ask whatever you want Free speech is enshrined in statute and neither SpecOps nor Goliath have any business coercing you in any way. We are just here to observe, comment and enlighten .’

Lush knew what Flanker meant and Flanker knew that Lush knew. I knew that Flanker and Lush knew it and they both knew I knew it too. Lush looked nervous and fidgeted slightly. Flanker’s assertion of Lush’s independence was anything but. A word to Network Toad from Goliath and Lush would end up presenting Sheep World on Lerwick TV, and he didn’t want that. Not one little bit.

We fell silent for a moment as Lush and I tried to figure out a topic that was outside their broad parameters.

‘How about commenting on the ludicrously high tax on cheese?’ I asked. It was a joke but Flanker and Co. weren’t terribly expert when it came to jokes.

‘I have no objection,’ murmured Flanker. ‘Anyone else?’

‘Not me,’ said Schitt-Hawse.

‘Or me,’ added Rabone.

‘ I have an objection,’ said a woman who had been sitting quietly at the side at the studio. She spoke with a clipped Home Counties accent and was dressed in a tweed skirt, twinset and pearls.

‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ she said in a loud and strident voice. ‘Mrs Jolly Hilly, governmental representative to the television networks.’ She took a deep breath and carried on: ‘The so-called “unfair cheese duty burden” is a very contentious subject at present. Any reference to it might be construed as an inflammatory act.’

‘Five hundred and eighty-seven per cent duty on hard cheeses and six hundred and twenty per cent on smelly?’ I asked. ‘Cheddar Classic Gold Original at £9.32 a pound—Bodmin Molecular Unstable Brie at almost £10! What’s going on?’

The others, suddenly interested, all looked to Mrs Hilly for an explanation. For a brief moment, and probably the only moment ever, we were in agreement.

‘I understand your concern,’ replied the trained apologist, ‘but I think you’ll find that the price of cheese has, once adjusted for positive spin, actually gone down measured against the retail price index in recent years. Here, have a look at this.’

She passed me a picture of a sweet little old lady on crutches.

‘Old ladies who are not dissimilar to the actress in this picture will have to go without their hip replacements and suffer crippling pain if you selfishly demand cut-price cheese.’

She paused to let this sink in.

‘The Master of the Sums feels that it is not for the public to dictate economic policy, but he is willing to make concessions for those who suffer particular hardship in the form of area-tactical needs-related cheese coupons.’

‘So,’ said Lush with a smile, ‘ wheyving cheese tax is out of the question?’

‘Or he could raise the custard duty,’ added Mrs Hilly, missing the pun. ‘The pudding lobby is less—well, how should I put it— militant .’

‘ Wheyving ,’ said Lush again, for the benefit of anyone who had missed it. ‘ Wheyv —oh, never mind. I’ve never heard a bigger load of crap in all my life. I aim to make the extortionate price of cheese the subject of an Adrian Lush Special Report .’

Mrs Hilly flustered slightly and chose her words carefully.

‘If there were another cheese riot following your Special Report we might look very carefully as to where to place responsibility.’

She looked at the Goliath representative as she said this. The implication wasn’t lost on Schitt-Hawse or Lush. I had heard enough.

‘So I won’t talk about cheese either.’ I sighed. ‘What can I talk about?’

The small group all looked at one another with perplexed expressions. Flanker clicked his fingers as an idea struck him.

‘Don’t you own a dodo?’