Lost in a Good Book

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