Lost in a Good Book

‘Blaspheming! If there is one thing I hate more than men, it’s blaspheming… Get out of my way, you godless heathens!’

A group of people at a pedestrian crossing scattered in confused panic as Havisham shot past, angrily waving her fist. I looked behind us as a police car came into view, blue lights flashing, sirens blaring. I could see the occupants bracing themselves as they took the corner; Miss Havisham dropped a gear and we took a tight left bend, ran the wheels on the kerb, swerved to avoid a mother with a pram and found ourselves in a carpark. We accelerated between the rows of parked cars but the only way out was blocked by a delivery van. Miss Havisham stamped on the brakes, flicked the car into reverse and initiated a neat reverse slide that took us off in the opposite direction.

‘Don’t you think we’d better stop?’ I asked.

‘Nonsense, girl!’ snapped Havisham, looking for a way out while the police car nosed up to our rear bumper. ‘Not with the sale about to open. Here we go! Hold on!’

There was only one way out of the carpark that didn’t involve capture—a path between two concrete bollards that looked way too narrow for my car. But Miss Havisham’s eyes were sharper than mine and we shot through the gap, bounced across a grass bank, skidded past the statue of Brunel, drove the wrong way down a one-way street, through a back alley, past the Carer’s Monument and across the pedestrianised precinct to screech to a halt in front of a long queue for the Swindon Booktastic closing-down sale—just as the town clock struck twelve.

‘You nearly killed eight people!’ I managed to gasp out loud.

‘My count was closer to twelve,’ returned Havisham as she opened the door. ‘And anyhow, you can’t nearly kill someone. Either they are dead or they are not; and not one of them was so much as scratched!’

The police car slid to a halt behind us, both sides of the vehicle had deep gouges down the side—the bollards, I presumed

‘I’m more used to my Bugatti than this,’ said Miss Havisham as she handed me the keys and slammed the door. ‘But it’s not so very bad, now, is it? I like the gearbox especially.’

The police didn’t look very friendly. They peered at Miss Havisham closely, unsure of how to put their outrage at her flagrant disregard for the Road Traffic Act into words.

‘You,’ said one of the officers in a barely controlled voice, ‘you, madam, are in a lot of trouble.’

She looked at the young officer with an imperious glare.

‘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