Lost in a Good Book

34. The Well of Lost Plots

I slept over at Joffy’s place. I say slept but that wasn’t entirely accurate. I just stared at the elegantly moulded ceiling and thought of Landen. At dawn I crept quietly out of the vicarage, borrowed Joffy’s Brough Superior motorcycle and rode into Swindon as the sun crept over the horizon. The bright rays of a new day usually filled me with hope but that morning I could think only of unfinished business and an uncertain future. I rode through the empty streets, past Coate and up the Marlborough road towards my mother’s house. She had to know about Dad however painful the news might be, and I hoped she would take solace, as I did, in his final selfless act. I would go to the station and hand myself into Flanker afterwards. There was a good chance that SO-5 would believe my account of what happened with Aornis but I suspected that convincing SO-1 of Lavoisier’s chronuption might take a lot more. Goliath and the two Schitts were a worry but I was sure I would be able to think of something to keep them off my back. Still, the world hadn’t ended yesterday which was a big plus—and Flanker couldn’t exactly charge me with ‘failing to save the planet his way’, no matter how much he might want to.

As I approached the junction outside Mum’s house I noticed a suspiciously Goliath-looking car parked across the street, so I rode on and did a wide circuit, abandoning the motorcycle two blocks away and treading noiselessly down the back alleys. I skirted around another large dark-blue Goliath motor-car, climbed over the fence into Mum’s garden and crept past the vegetable patch to the kitchen door. It was locked so I pushed open the large dodo-flap and crawled inside. I was just about to switch on the lights when I felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed against my cheek—I started and almost cried out.

‘Lights stay off,’ growled a husky woman’s voice, ‘and don’t make any sudden moves.’

I dutifully froze. A hand snaked into my jacket and removed Cordelia’s automatic.

DH-82 was fast asleep in his basket, the idea of being a fierce guard-Tastiger had obviously not entered his head.

‘Let me see you,’ said the voice again. I turned and looked into the eyes of a woman who had departed more rapidly into middle age than years alone might allow. I noticed that her gun arm wavered slightly, she had a slightly florid appearance and her hair had been clumsily brushed and pulled into a bun. But for all that it was clear she had once been beautiful; her eyes were bright and cheerful, her mouth delicate and refined, her bearing resolute.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

‘This is my mother’s house.’

‘Ah!’ she said, giving a slight smile and raising an eyebrow. ‘You must be Thursday.’

She returned her pistol to a holster that was strapped to her thigh beneath several layers of her large brocade dress and started to rummage in the cupboards.

‘Do you know where your mother keeps the booze?’

‘Suppose you tell me who you are?’ I demanded, my eyes alighting on the knife block as I searched for a weapon—just in case.

The woman didn’t give me an answer, or at least, not to the question I’d asked.

‘Your father told me Lavoisier eradicated your husband.’

I halted my surreptitious creep towards the carving knives.

‘You know my father?’ I asked in some surprise.

‘I do so hate that term eradicated,’ she announced grimly, searching in vain amongst the tinned fruit for anything resembling alcohol. ‘It’s murder, Thursday—nothing less. They killed my husband, too—even if it did take three attempts.’

‘Who?’

‘Lavoisier and the French revisionists.’

She thumped her fist on the kitchen top as if to punctuate her anger and turned to face me.

‘You have memories of your husband, I suppose?’

‘Yes.’

‘Me too,’ she sighed. ‘I wish to heaven I hadn’t, but I have. Memories of things that might have happened. Knowledge of the loss. It’s the worst part of it.’

She opened another cupboard door revealing still more tinned fruit.

‘I understand your husband was barely two years old—mine was forty-seven. You might think that makes it better but it doesn’t. The petition for his divorce was granted and we were married the summer following Trafalgar. Nine years of glorious life as Lady Nelson—then I wake up one morning in Calais, a drunken, debt-ridden wretch and with the revelation that my one true love died a decade ago, shot by a sniper’s bullet on the quarter-deck of the Victory.’

‘I know who you are,’ I murmured, ‘you’re Emma Hamilton.’

‘I was Emma Hamilton,’ she replied sadly. ‘Now I’m a broke out-of-timer with a dismal reputation, no husband and a thirst the size of the Gobi.’

‘But you still have your daughter?’

‘Yes,’ she groaned, ‘but I never told her I was her mother.’

‘Try the end cupboard.’

She moved down the counter, rummaged some more and found a bottle of cooking sherry. She poured a generous helping into one of my mother’s teacups. I looked at the saddened woman and wondered if I’d end up the same way.

‘We’ll sort out Lavoisier eventually,’ muttered Lady Hamilton sadly, downing the cooking sherry. ‘You can be sure of that.’

‘We?’

She looked at me and poured another generous—even by my mother’s definition—cup of sherry.

‘Me—and your father, of course.’

I sighed. She obviously hadn’t heard the news.

‘That’s what I came to talk to my mother about.’

‘What did you come to talk to me about?’

It was my mother. She had just walked in wearing a quilted dressing gown and her hair sticking out in all directions. For someone usually so suspicious of Emma Hamilton, she seemed quite cordial and even wished her ‘Good morning’—although she swiftly removed the sherry from the counter and replaced it in the cupboard.

‘You early bird!’ she cooed. ‘Do you have time to take DH-82 to the vet’s this morning? His boil needs lancing again.’

‘I’m kind of busy, Mum.’

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, sensing the seriousness in my voice. ‘Was that business at Vole Towers anything to do with you?’

‘Sort of. I came over to tell you—’

‘—Yes?’

‘That Dad has—Dad is—Dad was—’

Mum looked at me quizzically as my father, large as life, strode into the kitchen.

‘—is making me feel very confused.’

‘Hello, Sweetpea!’ said my father, looking considerably younger than the last time I saw him. ‘Have you been introduced to Lady Hamilton?’

‘We had a drink together,’ I said uncertainly. ‘But—You’re—you’re—alive!’

He stroked his chin and replied: ‘Should I be something else?’

I thought for a moment and furtively shook my cuff down to hide his chronograph on my wrist.

‘No—I mean, that is to say—’

But he had twigged me already.

‘—don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!’

He stood next to Mum and placed an arm round her waist. It was the first time I had seen them together for nearly seventeen years.

‘But—’

‘You mustn’t be so linear,’ said my father. ‘Although I try to visit only in your chronological order, sometimes it’s not possible.’

He paused.

‘Did I suffer much pain?’

‘No—none at all,’ I lied.

‘It’s funny,’ he said as he filled the kettle, ‘I can recall everything up until final curtain-minus-ten, but after that it’s all a bit fuzzy—I can vaguely see a rugged coastline and the sunset on a calm ocean, but other than that, nothing. I’ve seen and done a lot in my time, but my entry and exit will always remain a mystery. It’s better that way. Stops me getting cold feet and trying to change them.’

He spooned some coffee into the cafetiere. I was glad to see that I had only witnessed Dad’s death and not the end of his life—as the two, I learned, are barely related at all.

‘How are things, by the way?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ I began, unsure of where to start, ‘the world didn’t end yesterday.’

He looked at the low winter sun that was shining through the kitchen windows.

‘So I see. Good job too. An armageddon right now might have been awkward—have you had any breakfast?’

‘Awkward? Global destruction would be awkward?’

‘Decidedly so. Tiresome almost,’ replied my father thoughtfully. ‘The end of the world could really louse up my plans to get both your husbands back, and you wouldn’t like that, now, would you? Tell me, did you manage to get me a ticket to the Nolans’ concert last night?’

I thought quickly.

‘Er—no, Dad—sorry. They’d all sold out.’

There was another pause. Mum nudged her husband, who looked at her oddly. It looked as if she wanted him to say something.

‘Thursday,’ she began when it became obvious that Dad wasn’t going to take her cue, ‘your father and I think you should take some leave until our first grandchild is born. Somewhere safe. Somewhere other.’

‘Oh yes!’ added Dad with a start. ‘With Goliath, Aornis and Lavoisier after you, the herenow is not exactly the best place to be.’

‘I can look after myself.

‘I thought I could too,’ grumbled Lady Hamilton, gazing longingly at the cupboard where the cooking sherry was hidden.

‘I will get Landen back,’ I replied resolutely.

‘Perhaps now you might be physically up to it—but what happens in six months’ time? You need a break, Thursday, and you need to take it now. Of course, you must fight—but fight with a level playing field.’

‘Mum?’

‘It makes sense, darling.’

I rubbed my head and sat on one of the kitchen chairs. It did seem to be a good idea.

‘What have you in mind?’

Mum and Dad exchanged looks.

‘I could downstream you to the sixteenth century or something but good medical care would be hard to come by. Upstreaming is too risky—and besides, SO-12 would soon find you. No, if you’re going to go anywhere, it will have to be sideways.’

He came and sat down next to me.

‘Henshaw at SO-3 owes me a favour. Between the two of us we could slip you sideways into a world where Landen doesn’t drown aged two.’

‘You could?’ I replied, suddenly perking up.

‘Sure. But steady on. It’s not so simple. A lot will be… different.’

My euphoria was short lived. A prickle rose on my scalp.

‘How different?’

‘Very different. You won’t be in SO-27. In fact, there won’t be any SpecOps at all. The Second World War will finish in 1945 and the Crimean conflict won’t last much beyond 1854.’

‘I see. No Crimean war? Does that mean Anton will still be alive?’

‘It does.’

‘Then let’s do it, Dad.’

He laid a hand on mine and squeezed it.

‘There’s more. It’s your decision and you have to know precisely what is involved. Everything will be gone. All the work you’ve ever done, all the work you will do. There will be no dodos or Neanderthals, no Willspeak machines, no Gravitube—’

‘No Gravitube? How do people get around?’

‘In things called jetliners. Large passenger aircraft that can fly seven miles high at three-quarters of the speed of sound—some even faster.’

It was plainly a ridiculous idea and I told him.

‘I know it’s far-fetched, Sweetpea, but you’ll never know any different—the Gravitube will seem as impossible there as jetliners do here.’

‘What about mammoths?’

‘No—but there will be ducks.’

‘Goliath?’

‘Under a different name.’

I was quiet for a moment.

‘Will there be Jane Eyre?’

‘Yes,’ sighed my father. ‘Yes, there will always be Jane Eyre.’

‘And Turner? Will he still paint The Fighting Temeraire?’

‘Yes, and Carravaggggio will be there too, although his name will be spelt more sensibly.’

‘Then what are we waiting for?’

My father was silent for a moment.

‘There’s a catch.’

‘What sort of catch?’

He sighed.

‘Landen will be back but you and he won’t have met. Landen won’t even know you.’

‘But I’ll know him. I can introduce myself can’t I?’

‘Thursday, you’re not part of this. You’re outside of it. You’ll still be carrying Landen’s child but you won’t know the sideslip has ever happened. You will remember nothing about your old life. If you want to go sideways to see him then you’ll have to have a new past and a new present. Perversely enough, to be able to see him, you cannot have any recollection of him—nor he of you.’

‘That’s some catch,’ I observed.

‘It’s the second best there is,’ Dad agreed.

I thought for a moment.

‘So I won’t be in love with him?’

‘I’m afraid not. You might have a small residual memory—feelings that you can’t explain for someone you’ve never met.’

‘Will I be confused?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at me with an earnest expression. They all did. Even Lady Hamilton, who had been moving quietly towards the sherry, stopped and was staring at me. It was clear that making myself scarce was something I had to do But having zero recollection of Landen? I didn’t really have to think very hard.

‘No, Dad. Thanks, but no thanks.’

‘I don’t think you understand,’ he intoned, using his paternal go-to-your-room-young-lady voice. ‘In a year’s time you can come back and everything will be as right as—’

‘No. I’m not losing any more of Landen than I have already.’

I had an idea.

‘Besides, I do have somewhere I can go.’

‘Where?’ enquired my father. ‘Where could you possibly go that Lavoisier couldn’t find you? Backward, forward, sideways, otherways—there isn’t anywhere else!’

I smiled.

‘You’re wrong, Dad. There is somewhere. A place where no one will ever find me—not even you.’

‘Sweetpea—!’ he implored. ‘It is imperative that you take this seriously! Where will you go?’

I replied slowly, ‘I’ll just lose myself in a good book.’

Despite their pleading I bade farewell to Mum, Dad and Lady Hamilton, crept out of the house and sped to my apartment on Joffy’s motorbike I parked outside the front door in clear defiance of the Goliath and SpecOps agents who were still waiting for me. I ambled slowly in, it would take them twenty minutes or more to report to base and then get up the stairs and break down the door—and I really only needed to pack a few things. I still had my memories of Landen and they would sustain me until I got him back. Because I would get him back—but I needed time to rest and recuperate and bring our child into the world with the minimum of fuss, bother and interruptions. I packed four tins of Moggilicious cat food, two packets of Mintolas, a large jar of Marmite and two dozen AA batteries into a large holdall along with a few changes of clothing, a picture of my family and the copy of Jane Eyre with the bullet lodged in the cover. I placed a sleepy and confused Pickwick and her egg into the holdall and zipped up the bag so that only her head stuck out. I then sat and waited on a chair in front of the door with a copy of Great Expectations on my lap. I wasn’t a natural book-jumper and without my travel book I was going to need the fear of capture to help catapult me through the boundaries of fiction.

I started to read at the first knock on the door and continued through the volley of shouts for me to open up, past the muffled thuds and the sound of splintered wood until finally, as the door fell in, I melted into the dingy interior of Great Expectations and Satis House.

Miss Havisham was slightly shocked when I explained what I needed, and even more shocked at the sight of Pickwick, but she consented to my request and cleared it with the Bellman—on the proviso that I’d continue with my training. I was hurriedly inducted into the Character Exchange Programme and given a secondary part in an unpublished book deep within the Well of Lost Plots—the woman I was replacing had for some time wanted to take a course in Drama at the Reading Academy of Dramatic Arts, so it suited her equally well. As I wandered down to Sub-basement six, Exchange Programme docket in hand made out to someone named Briggs, I felt more relaxed than I had for weeks. I found the correct book sandwiched between the first draft of an adventure in the Tasman seas and a vague notion of a comedy set in Bomber Command. I picked up the book, took it to one of the reading tables and quietly read myself into my new home.

I found myself on the banks of a reservoir somewhere in the Home Counties. It was summer and the air smelt warm and sweet after the wintry conditions back home. I was standing on a wooden jetty in front of a large and seemingly derelict flying boat, which rocked gently in the breeze, tugging on the mooring ropes. A woman had just stepped out of a door in the high-sided hull; she was holding a suitcase.

‘Hello!’ she shouted, running up and offering me a hand. ‘I’m Mary. You must be Thursday. My goodness! What’s that?’

‘A dodo. Her name’s Pickwick.’

‘I thought they were extinct.’

‘Not where I come from. Is this where I’m going to live?’ I was pointing at the shabby flying boat dubiously.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ smiled Mary proudly. ‘Isn’t she just the most beautiful thing ever? Short Sunderland, built in 1943 but last flew in ‘54. I’m mid-way converting her to a houseboat but don’t feel shy if you want to help out. Just keep the bilges pumped out and if you can run the number three engine once a month I’d be very grateful.’

‘Er—okay,’ I stammered.

‘Good. I’ve left a rough précis of the story taped to the fridge but don’t worry too much—since we’re not published you can do pretty much what you want. Any problems, ask Captain Nemo who lives on the Nautilus two boats down, and don’t worry, Jack might seem gruff to begin with but he has a heart of gold and if he asks you to drive his Austin Allegro, make sure you depress the clutch fully before changing gear. Did the Bellman supply you with all the necessary paperwork and fake IDs?’

I patted my pocket and she handed me a scrap of paper and a bunch of keys.

‘Good. This is my Footnoterphone number in case of emergencies, these are the keys to the flying boat and my BMW. If someone named Arnold calls, tell him he had his chance and he blew it. Any questions?’

‘I don’t think so.’

She smiled.

‘Then we’re done. You’ll like it here. It’s pretty odd. I’ll see you in about a year. So long!’

She gave a cheery wave and walked off up the dusty track. I looked across the lake at the faraway dinghies, then watched a pair of swans beating their wings furiously and pedalling the water to take off. I sat down on a rickety wooden seat and let Pickwick out of the bag. It wasn’t home but it looked pleasant enough. Landen’s reactualisation was in the uncharted future, along with Aornis’s and Goliath’s come-uppance—but all in good time. I would miss Mum, Dad, Joffy, Bowden, Victor and maybe even Cordelia. But it wasn’t all bad news—at least this way I wouldn’t have to do The Thursday Next Workout Video.

As my father said, it’s funny the way things turn out.