Lost in a good book (25 page)

“They’re not
all
like that,” I tried to explain.

“Nonsense!” replied Miss Havisham as we walked downstairs. “He was one of the better ones. At least he didn’t attempt to lie his way into your favors. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this one was barely repulsive at all. Do you have a car?”

Miss Havisham’s eyebrows rose slightly as she saw the curious paintwork on my Porsche.

“It was painted this way when I bought it,” I explained.

“I see,” replied Miss Havisham in a disapproving tone. “Keys?”

“I don’t think—”

“The
keys,
girl! What was Rule One again?”

“Do exactly as you say.”

“Disobedient perhaps,” she replied with a thin smile, “but not forgetful!”

I reluctantly handed over the keys. Havisham grasped them with a gleam in her eye and jumped in the driver’s seat.

“Is it the four-cam engine?” she asked excitedly.

“No,” I replied, “standard 1.6 unit.”

“Oh well!” snorted Havisham, pumping the accelerator twice before turning the key. “It’ll have to do, I suppose.”

The engine burst into life. Havisham gave me a smile and a wink as she revved the engine up to the redline before briskly snapping the gearshift into first gear and dropping the clutch. There was a screech of rubber as we careered off up the road, the rear of the car swinging from side to side as the spinning wheels sought to find traction on the asphalt.

I have not been frightened many times in my life. Charging into the massed artillery of the Imperial Russian Army had a surreal detachment that I had found eerie rather than fearsome. Tackling Hades first in London and then on the roof of Thornfield Hall had been quite unpleasant. So had leading an armed police raid, and the two occasions I had stared at close quarters down the barrel of a gun hadn’t been a bundle of joy either.

None of those, however,
even came close
to the feeling of almost certain death that I experienced during Miss Havisham’s driving. We must have violated every road traffic regulation that had ever been written. We narrowly missed pedestrians, other cars and traffic bollards and ran three traffic lights at red before Miss Havisham had to stop at a junction to let a juggernaut go past. She was smiling to herself, and although erratic and bordering on homicidal, her driving had a sort of
idiot savant
skill about it. Just when I thought it was impossible to avoid a postbox she tweaked the brakes, flicked down a gear— and missed the unyielding iron lump by the width of a hair.

“The carburetors seem slightly unbalanced!” she bellowed above the terrified screams of pedestrians. “Let’s have a look, shall we?” She hauled on the handbrake and we slid sideways up a dropped curbstone and stopped next to an open-air café, causing a group of nuns to run for cover. Havisham climbed out of the car and opened the engine cover.

“Rev the car for me, girl!” she shouted. I did as I was told. I offered a weak smile to one of the customers at the café, who eyed me malevolently.

“She doesn’t get out often,” I explained as Havisham returned to the driver’s seat, revved the engine loudly and left the customers at the café in a cloud of foul-smelling rubber smoke.

“That’s better!” yelled Miss Havisham. “Can’t you hear it?
Much
better!”

All I could hear was the wail of a police siren that had started up.

“Oh, Christ!” I muttered; Miss Havisham punched me painfully on the arm.

“What was that for?”

“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 curb, swerved to avoid a mother with a pram and found ourselves in a car park. 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 negotiated 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 sales about to open. Here we go! Hold on!”

There was only one way out of the car park 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 pedestrianized precinct to screech to a halt in front of a large queue that had gathered 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 car 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, got out and slammed the door, “but it’s not so very bad, now is it? I like the gearbox especially.”

I knew both of the officers and they didn’t look very amused. The local PD didn’t much care for SpecOps and we didn’t much care for them. They would be overjoyed to pin something on any of us. 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.

“Name?”

“Miss
Dame-rouge,
” announced Havisham, lying spectacularly, “and don’t bother asking me for my license 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 signaled 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 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 in the door just before it 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 under the hood of her cloak. She was dressed completely in red, and I suspected that under her makeup her skin might be red, too.

“Good morning, your majesty,” I said, as politely as I could.

“Humph!” replied the red queen, then after a pause, 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 dentist waiting rooms. We stared at the floor indicator as it moved slowly upwards 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 on. The Red Queen barked “Taken!” in such a fearful tone that the person 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 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 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 Haggard and Hergé, 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 that there was a fight in progress. I entered the scrum 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. “How close is the Royal Harridan to the Farquitt shelves?”

“I last saw her fighting somewhere between Ervine 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,” she continued, “so I drew a map.”

She unfolded a piece of Satis House 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 Chicklit and then fight the last six feet to the Farquitt boxed set. It’s a limited edition of one 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 Daphne Farquitt novels!”