Lost in a Good Book

29. Rescued

The first thing I noticed about being locked in a vault twelve floors below ground at the Goliath R&D lab was not the isolation, but the silence. There was no hum of air-conditioning, no odd snatch of conversation heard through the door, nothing. I thought about Landen, about Miss Havisham, Joffy, Miles and then the baby. What, I wondered, did Schitt-Hawse have in store for him? I sighed, got up and walked around the vault. It was lit by harsh striplights and had a large mirror on the wall which I had to assume was some kind of watching gallery. There was a toilet and shower in a room behind, and a bedroll and a few toiletries that someone had left out for me. I spent twenty minutes searching in all the nooks and crannies of the room, hoping to find a discarded trashy novel or something that might effect me an escape. There was nothing. Not so much as a pencil shaving, let alone a pencil. I sat down, closed my eyes and tried to visualise the library, to remember the description in my travel book, and even recited aloud the opening passage of A Tale of Two Cities, something I had learned at school many years ago. I then tried every quote I could think of, every passage, every poem I had ever committed to memory from Ovid to De La Mare. When I ran out of those I switched to limericks—and ended up telling Bowden’s jokes out loud. Nothing.

Not so much as a flicker.

I unravelled the bedroll, lay on the floor and closed my eyes, hoping to remember Landen again and discuss the problem with him. It wasn’t to be. At that moment the ring that Miss Havisham had given me grew almost unbearably hot, there was a sort of fworpish noise and a figure was standing next to me. It was Miss Havisham, and she didn’t look terribly pleased.

‘You, young lady, are in a lot of trouble!’

‘Tell me about it.’

This wasn’t the sort of careless remark she liked to hear from me, and she certainly expected me to jump to my feet when she arrived, so she rapped me painfully on the knee with her stick.

‘Ow!’ I said, getting the message and rising. ‘Where did you spring from?’

‘Havishams come and go as they please,’ she replied imperiously. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t think you’d approve of me leaping into a book on my own—especially not Poe.’

‘I couldn’t care less about that,’ remarked Miss Havisham haughtily. ‘What you do in your own time to cheap reprints is no concern of mine!’

‘Oh,’ I said, contemplating her stern features and trying to figure out what I had done wrong.

‘You should have said something.’ she said, taking another pace towards me.

‘About the baby?’ I stammered.

‘No, idiot—about Cardenio!’

‘Cardenio?’

‘Yes, yes, Cardenio. Just how likely was it for a pristine copy of a missing play to just pop up out of the blue like that?’

‘You mean,’ I said, the penny finally dropping, ‘it’s a Great Library copy?’

‘Of course it’s a library copy—that fog-headed pantaloon Snell only just reported it. What’s that noise?’

There was a faint clank from the door as someone fiddled with the lock. Havisham’s arrival, it seemed, had been observed.

‘It’ll be Chalk and Cheese,’ I told her. ‘You’d better jump out of here.’

‘Absolutely not!’ replied Havisham. ‘We go together. You might be a complete and utter imbecile but you are my responsibility. Trouble is, fourteen feet of concrete is slightly daunting—I’m going to have to read us out. Quick, pass me your travel book!’

‘They took it from me.’

‘Never mind. Any book will do.’

‘They’ve removed everything from in here, Miss Havisham.’

She looked around.

‘How about a pamphlet?’

‘No.’

‘Anything with text printed on it? Paper and pen?’

‘No.’

‘Then we might,’ exclaimed Havisham, ‘have a problem.’

The door opened and Schitt-Hawse entered; he was grinning fit to burst.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Lock up a book-jumper and another soon joins her!’

He took one look at Havisham’s old wedding dress and put two and two together.

‘Goodness! Is that… Miss Havisham?’

As if in answer, Havisham whipped out her small pistol and fired it in his direction. Schitt-Hawse gave a yelp and leaped back out through the door, which clanged shut.

‘Are you sure there is nothing to read in here?’ asked Havisham in a more urgent manner. ‘There must be something!’

‘I’ve told you—they’ve removed everything!’

Miss Havisham raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down.

‘Take off your trousers, girl—and don’t say “what?” in that impudent manner. Do as you’re told.’

So I did, and Havisham turned the garment over in her fingers as she searched for something.

‘There!’ she cried triumphantly as the door opened and a hissing gas canister was lobbed in. I followed her gaze but she had found only—the washing label. I must have looked incredulous for she said in an offended manner: ‘It’s enough for me!’ and then repeated out loud: ‘Wash inside out, wash and dry separately, wash inside out, wash and dry separately…’

We surfed in on the pungent smell of washing detergent and overheated iron. The landscape was dazzling white and was without depth; my feet were firmly planted on the ground yet I could see nothing but white surrounding my shoes when I looked down, the same as the view above me and to either side. Miss Havisham, whose dirty dress seemed even more shabby than usual in the white surroundings, was looking around the lone inhabitants of this strange and empty world: five bold icons the size of garden sheds that stood neatly in a row like standing stones. There was a crude tub with a number sixty on it, an iron shape, a tumble-dryer shape, and a couple of others that I wasn’t too sure about. I touched the first icon, which felt warm to the touch and very comforting; they all seemed to be made of compressed cotton.

‘Iconographic representations of washing instructions,’ muttered Havisham as I put my trousers back on. ‘This could be tricky. How many other washing labels do you think there are?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘Several billions, certainly.’

‘I thought as much. We need to narrow our jump parameters, girl. I’m no expert when it comes to washing—what’s the least abundant form of garment that might have washing instructions?’

‘Dressing gown?’ I hazarded. ‘Ra-ra skirt? But does it have to be a label?’

Havisham raised an eyebrow so I carried on.

‘Washing machine instructions always carry these icons, explaining what they mean.’

‘Hmm,’ said Miss Havisham thoughtfully. ‘Do you have a washing machine?’

Fortunately, I did—and more fortunately still, it was one of the things that had survived the sideslip. I nodded excitedly.

‘Good. Now, more importantly, do you know the make and model?’

‘Hoover Electron 1000… No! 800 Deluxe—I think.’

‘Think? You think? You’d better be sure, girl, or you and I will be nothing more than carved names on the Boojumorial! Now. Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ I said confidently. ‘Hoover Electron 800 Deluxe.’

She nodded, placed her hands on the tub icon and muttered to herself between clenched teeth. I took hold of her arm and after a moment or two, in which I could feel Miss Havisham shake with the effort, we had jumped out of the washing label and into the Hoover instructions.

‘Don’t allow the drain hose to kink as this could stop the machine from emptying,’ said a small man in a blue Hoover boiler suit standing next to a brand-new washing machine. We were standing in a sparkling clean washroom that was barely ten feet square. It had neither windows nor door—just a Belfast sink, a tiled floor, hot and cold inlet taps and a single plug on the wall. For furniture a bed was pushed against the corner and next to it were a chair, table and cupboard.

‘Do remember that to start a programme you must pull out the programme control knob. Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m being read at the moment. I’ll be with you in a sec. If you have selected white nylon, minimum iron, delicate or…’

‘Thursday!’ said Miss Havisham, who suddenly seemed weak at the knees. ‘That took quite some—’

I just managed to catch her as she collapsed; I gently laid her down on the small truckle bed.

‘Miss Havisham? Are you okay?’

She closed her eyes and breathed slowly. The jump had worn her out.

I pulled the single blanket over her, sat on the edge of the low bed, pulled my hair tie out and rubbed my scalp.

‘…until the drum starts to rotate. Your machine will empty and spin to complete the programme… Hello!’ said the man in the boiler suit. ‘The name’s Cullards—I don’t often get visitors!’

I introduced myself and explained who Miss Havisham was.

‘Goodness!’ said Mr Cullards, scratching his shiny bald head and smiling impishly. ‘Jurisfiction, eh? You are off the beaten track. The only visitor I’ve had was… excuse me—Control setting “D”: whites economy, lightly soiled cotton or linen articles which are colour fast to boiling—was the time we had a new supplement regarding woollens—but that would have been six or seven months ago. Where does the time go?’

He seemed a cheerful enough chap. He thought for a moment and then said:

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

I thanked him and he put the kettle on.

‘So what’s the news?’ asked Mr Cullards, rinsing out his one and only cup. ‘Any idea when the new washing machines are due out?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I have no idea—’

‘I’m about ready to move on to something a bit more modern,’ continued Cullards, ‘I started on vacuum cleaner instructions but was promoted to Hoovermatic T5004, then transferred to the Electron 800 after twin-tub obsolescence. They asked me to take care of the 1100 Deluxe but I told them I’d sooner wait until the Logic 1300 came out.’

I looked around at the small room.

‘Don’t you ever get bored?’

‘Not at all!’ said Cullards, pouring the hot water into the teapot. ‘Once I’ve put in my ten years I’m eligible to apply for work in all domestic appliance instructions: food mixers, liquidisers, microwaves—who knows, if I work really hard I could make it into television or wireless. That’s the future for an ambitious manual worker. Milk and sugar?’

‘Please.’

He leaned closer.

‘Management have this idea that only young ‘uns should do Sound & Vision instructions but they’re wrong. Most of the kids in VCR manuals barely do six months in Walkmans before they’re transferred. It’s little wonder no one can understand them.’

‘I never thought of that before,’ I confessed.

We chatted for the next half-hour. He told me he had begun French and German classes so he could apply for work in multilingual instructions, then confided in me his fondest feelings for Tabitha Doehooke, who worked for Kenwood. We were just talking about the sociological implications of labour-saving devices within the kitchen and how they related to the women’s movement when Miss Havisham stirred awake, drank three cups of tea, ate the biscuit that Mr Cullards was reserving for his birthday next May, and announced that we should be on our way.

We said our goodbyes and Mr Cullards made me promise I would clean out the powder dispenser on my washing machine; in an unguarded moment I had let slip I had yet to do so, despite the machine being nearly three years old.

The short trip to the non-fiction section of the Great Library was an easy jump for Miss Havisham, and from there we fworped back into her dingy ballroom in Great Expectations, where the Cheshire cat and Harris Tweed were waiting for us, talking to Estella. The cat seemed quite relieved to see us both, but Harris simply scowled.

‘Estella!’ said Miss Havisham abruptly ‘Please don’t talk to Mr Tweed.’

‘Yes, Miss Havisham,’ replied Estella meekly.

Havisham replaced her trainers with her less comfortable wedding shoes.

‘I have Pip waiting outside,’ said Estella slightly nervously. ‘If you will excuse me mentioning it—Ma’am is a paragraph late.’

‘Dickens can just flannel for a bit longer,’ replied Havisham. ‘I must finish with Miss Next.’

She turned to me with a grim look; I thought I’d better say something to soothe her—I hadn’t yet seen Havisham lose her temper ‘like Vesuvius’, as the Red Queen had so graphically described it, and I was in no hurry to do so.

‘Thank you for my rescue, ma’am,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m very grateful to you.’

‘Humph!’ replied Miss Havisham. ‘Don’t expect salvation from me every time you get yourself into a jam, my girl. Now, what’s all this about a baby?’

The Cheshire cat, sensing trouble, vanished abruptly on the pretext of some ‘cataloguing’, and even Tweed mumbled something about checking Lorna Doone for grammasites and went too.

‘Well?’ asked Havisham again, peering at me intensely.

I didn’t feel quite as frightened of her as I once did, so I told her all about Landen and why I went into The Raven to begin with.

‘For love? Pah!’ she responded, dismissing Estella with a wave of her hand in case the young woman got any odd ideas. ‘And what, in your tragically limited experience, is that?’

‘I think you know, ma’am. You were in love once, I believe?’

‘Stuff and nonsense, girl!’

‘Isn’t the pain you feel now the equal to the love you felt then?’

‘You’re coming perilously close to contravening my rule two, girl!’

‘I’ll tell you what love is,’ I said ‘It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter!’

‘That was quite good,’ said Havisham, looking at me curiously. ‘Could I use that? Dickens won’t mind.’

‘Of course.’

‘I think,’ said Miss Havisham after five minutes of silent thought as I stood waiting, ‘that I shall categorise your complex marital question under widowed, which sits with me well enough. Upon reflection—and quite possibly against my better judgment—you may stay as my apprentice. That’s all. You are needed to help retrieve Cardenio. Go!’

So I left Miss Havisham in her darkened chamber with all the trappings of her wedding that never was. In the few days I had known her I had learned to like her a great deal, and hoped someday I might repay her kindness and fortitude.