Lost in a Good Book

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 Herge 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.

‘You won’t make it across the main floor alive. You’re going to have to climb over the Police Procedurals bookcase, make your way past the cash register and stock returns, crawl under the Seafaring section and then fight the last six feet to the Farquitt boxed set—it’s a limited edition of a hundred—I will never get another chance like this!’

‘This is lunacy, Miss Havisham!’ I replied indignantly. ‘I will not fight over a set of Farquitt novels!’

Miss Havisham looked sharply at me as the muffled crack of a small-calibre firearm sounded and there was the thud of a body falling.

‘I thought as much!’ she sneered. ‘A streak of yellow a mile wide all the way down your back! How did you think you were going to handle the otherness at Jurisfiction if you can’t handle a few crazed fiction-fanciers hell-bent on finding bargains? Your apprenticeship is at an end. Good day, Miss Next!’

‘Wait! This is a test?’

‘What did you think it was? Think someone like me with all the money I have enjoys spending my time fighting for books I can read for free in the library?’

I resisted the temptation to say: ‘Well, yes’ and answered instead:

‘Will you be okay here, ma’am?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ she replied, tripping up a woman near us for no reason I could see. ‘Now go!’

I turned and crawled rapidly across the carpet, climbed over the Police Procedurals to just beyond the registers, where the sales assistants rang in the bargains with a fervour bordering on messianic. I crept past them, through the empty returns department, and dived under the Seafaring section to emerge a scant two yards from the Daphne Farquitt display; by a miracle no one had yet grabbed the boxed set—and it was very discounted: down from ?300 to only ?50. I looked to my left and could see the Red Queen fighting her way through the crowd. She caught my eye and dared me to try to beat her. I took a deep breath and waded into the swirling maelstrom of popular prose-induced violence. Almost instantly I was punched on the jaw and thumped in the kidneys; I cried out in pain and quickly withdrew. I met a woman next to the J.G. Farrell section who had a nasty cut above her eye; she told me in a concussed manner that the Major Archer character appeared in both Troubles and The Singapore Grip. I glanced over to where the Red Queen was cutting a swathe through the crowd, knocking people aside in her bid to beat me. She smiled triumphantly as she head-butted a woman who had tried to poke her in the eye with a silver-plated bookmark. On the floor below a brief burst of machine-gun fire sounded. I took a step forward to join the fray, then stopped, considered my condition for a moment and decided that perhaps pregnant women shouldn’t get involved in bookshop brawls. So instead, I took a deep breath and yelled:

‘Ms Farquitt is signing copies of her book in the basement!’

There was a moment’s silence, then a mass exodus towards the stairs and escalators. The Red Queen, caught up in the crowd, was dragged unceremoniously away, in a few seconds the room was empty.

Daphne Farquitt was notoriously private—I didn’t think there was a fan of hers anywhere who wouldn’t jump at the chance of actually meeting her.

I walked calmly up to the boxed set, picked it up and took it to the counter, paid and rejoined Miss Havisham behind the discounted du Mauriers, where she was idly flicking through a copy of Rebecca. I showed her the books.

‘Not bad,’ she said grudgingly. ‘Did you get a receipt?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And the Red Queen?’

‘Lost somewhere between here and the basement,’ I replied simply.

A thin smile crossed Miss Havisham’s lips and I helped her to her feet.

Together we walked slowly past the mass of squabbling book bargainers and made for the exit.

‘How did you manage it?’ asked Miss Havisham.

‘I told them Daphne Farquitt was signing in the basement’

‘She is?’ exclaimed Miss Havisham, turning to head off downstairs.

‘No no no,’ I added, taking her by the arm and steering her to the exit. ‘That’s just what I told them.’

‘Oh, I get it!’ replied Havisham. ‘Very good indeed. Resourceful and intelligent. Mrs Nakajima was quite right—I think you will do as an apprentice after all.’

She regarded me for a moment, as if making up her mind about something. Eventually she nodded, gave another rare smile and handed me a simple gold ring that slipped easily over my little finger.

‘Here—this is for you. Never take it off. Do you understand?’

‘Thank you, Miss Havisham, it’s very pretty.’

‘Pretty nothing, Next. Save your gratitude for real favours, not baubles, my girl. Come along. I know of a very good bun shop in Little Dorrit—and I’m buying!’

* * *

Outside, paramedics were dealing with the casualties, many of them still clutching the remnants of their bargains for which they had fought so bravely. My car was gone—towed away, most likely—and we trotted as fast as we could on Miss Havisham’s twisted ankle, round the corner of the building until—

‘—not so fast!’

The officers who had chased us earlier were blocking our path.

‘Looking for something? This, I suppose?’

My car was on the back of a low-loader, being taken away.

‘We’ll take the bus,’ I stammered.

‘You’ll take the car,’ corrected the police officer, ‘my car… Hey! Where do you think you’re going?’

He was talking to Miss Havisham, who had taken the Farquitt boxed set and walked into a small group of women to disguise her bookjump—back to Great Expectations or the bun shop in Little Dorrit, or somewhere. I wished I could have joined her, but my skills in these