Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

‘Young man, you have no idea of the word!’

‘Listen, Rawlings,’ I interrupted, ‘can we—’

‘Miss Next,’ replied the officer firmly but positively, ‘your turn will come, okay?’

I got out of the car. The local police didn’t much care for SpecOps and we didn’t care much for them. They would be overjoyed to pin something on any of us.

‘Name?’

‘Miss Dame-rouge,’ Havisham announced, lying spectacularly, ‘and don’t bother asking me for my licence or insurance—I haven’t either!’

The officer pondered this for a moment.

‘I’d like you to get in my car, madam. I’m going to have to take you in for questioning.’

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘If you refuse to come with me.’

Havisham glanced at me and mouthed ‘After three’. She then sighed deeply and walked over to the police car in a very overdramatic manner, shaking with muscle tremors and generally behaving like the ancient person she wasn’t. I looked at her hand as she signalled to me—out of sight of the officers—a single finger, then two, then finally, as she rested for a moment against the front wing of their car, the third and final finger.

‘LOOK OUT!’ I yelled, pointing up.

The officers, mindful of the Hispano-Suiza accident two days before, dutifully looked up as Havisham and I bolted to the head of the queue, pretending we knew someone. The two officers wasted no time and leapt after us, only to lose us in the crowd as the doors to Swindon Booktastic opened and a sea of keen bibliophiles of all different ages and reading tastes moved forward, knocking both officers off their feet and sweeping Miss Havisham and me into the bowels of the bookstore.

Inside there was a near-riot in progress, and I was soon separated from Miss Havisham; ahead of me a pair of middle-aged men were arguing over a signed copy of Kerouac’s On the Road which eventually ripped down the middle. I fought my way round the ground floor, past Cartography, Travel and Self-help, and was just giving up the idea of ever seeing Havisham again when I noticed a long red flowing robe poking out from beneath a fawn macintosh. I watched the crimson hem cross the floor and go into the elevator. I ran across and put my foot between the doors just before they shut. The Neanderthal lift operator looked at me curiously, opened the doors to let me in and then closed them again. The Red Queen stared at me loftily and shuffled slightly to achieve a more regal position. She was quite heavily built; her hair was a bright auburn shade, tied up in a neat bun under her crown, which had been hastily concealed beneath the hood of her cloak. She was dressed completely in red, and I suspected that under her make-up her skin might have been red, too.

‘Good morning, Your Majesty,’ I said, as politely as I could.

‘Humph!’ replied the Red Queen, then, after a pause, she added: ‘Are you that tawdry Havisham woman’s new apprentice?’

‘Since this morning, ma’am.’

‘A morning wasted, I shouldn’t wonder. Do you have a name?’

‘Thursday Next, ma’am.’

‘You may curtsy if you so wish.’

So I did.

‘You will regret not learning with me, my dear—but you are, of course, merely a child and right and wrong are so difficult to spot at your tender age.’

‘Which floor, Your Majesty?’ asked the Neanderthal.

The Red Queen beamed at him, told him that if he played his cards right she would make him a duke and then added ‘Three’ as an afterthought.

There was one of those funny empty pauses that seem to exist only in elevators and dentists’ waiting rooms. We stared at the floor indicator as the lift moved slowly upward and stopped on the second floor. ‘Second floor,’ announced the Neanderthal, ‘Historical, Allegorical, Historical-allegorical, Poetry, Plays, Theology, Critical Analysis and Pencils.’ Someone tried to get in; but the Red Queen barked ‘Taken!’ in such a fearful tone that they backed out again.

‘And how is Havisham these days?’ asked the Red Queen with a diffident air as the lift moved upwards again.

‘Well, I think,’ I replied.

‘You must ask her about her wedding.’

‘I don’t think that’s very wise,’ I returned.

‘Decidedly not!’ said the Red Queen, guffawing like a sea lion, ‘But it will elicit an amusing effect. Like Vesuvius, as I recall!’

‘Third floor,’ announced the Neanderthal, ‘Fiction, Popular, Authors A–J.’ The doors opened to reveal a mass of book fans, fighting in a most unseemly fashion over what even I had to admit were some very good bargains. I had heard about these sorts of ‘fiction-frenzies’ before—but never witnessed one.

‘Come, this is more like it!’ announced the Red Queen happily, rubbing her hands together and knocking a little old lady flying as she hopped out of the elevator.

‘Where are you, Havisham?’ she yelled, looking to left and right. ‘She has to be… Yes! Yes! Ahoy there, Stella you old trollop!’

Miss Havisham stopped in mid-stride and stared in the queen’s direction. In a single swift movement she drew a small pistol from the folds of her tattered wedding dress and loosed off a shot in our direction. The Red Queen ducked as the bullet knocked a corner off a plaster cornice.

‘Temper, temper!’ shouted the Red Queen, but Havisham was no longer there.

‘Hah!’ said the Red Queen, hopping into the fray. ‘The devil take her—she’s heading towards Romantic Fiction!’

‘Romantic Fiction?’ I echoed, thinking of Havisham’s hatred of men, ‘I don’t think that’s very likely!’ The Red Queen ignored me and made a detour through Fantasy to avoid a scrum near the Agatha Christie counter. I knew the store a little better and nipped in between Hergé and Haggard where I was just in time to see Miss Havisham make her first mistake. In her haste she had pushed past a little old lady sizing up a buy-two-get-one-free offer on contemporary fiction. The little old lady—no stranger to department store sales battle tactics—parried Havisham’s blow expertly and hooked her bamboo-handled umbrella around her ankle. Havisham came down with a heavy thud and lay still, the breath knocked out of her. I kneeled beside her as the Red Queen hopped past, laughing loudly and making ‘nyah, nyah’ noises.

‘Thursday!’ panted Miss Havisham as several stockinged feet ran across her. ‘A complete set of Daphne Farquitt novels in a walnut display case—run!’

And run I did. Farquitt was so prolific and popular she had a bookshelf all to herself and her recent boxed sets were fast becoming collector’s items—it was not surprising there was a battle in progress. I entered the fight behind the Red Queen and was instantly punched on the nose. I reeled with the shock and was pushed heavily from behind while someone else—an accomplice, I assumed—thrust a walking stick between my shins. I lost my footing and fell with a thud on the hard wooden floor. This was not a safe place to be. I crawled out of the battle and joined Miss Havisham where she had taken cover behind a display of generously discounted du Maurier novels.

‘Not so easy as it looks, eh, girl?’ asked Havisham with a rare smile, holding a lacy white handkerchief to my bleeding nose. ‘Did you see the royal harridan anywhere?’

‘I last saw her fighting somewhere between Irvine and Euripides.’

‘Blast!’ replied Havisham with a grunt. ‘Listen, girl, I’m done for. My ankle’s twisted and I think I’ve had it. But you—you might be able to make it.’

I looked out at the squabbling masses as a pocket Derringer fell to the ground not far from us.

‘I thought this might happen, so I drew a map.’

She unfolded a piece of Satis House headed notepaper and pointed out where she thought we were.