Lost in a good book (17 page)

“Ready is as ready does, Thursday. I’d have thought you knew that more than most!”

I grunted and returned the next ball, which was deftly deflected back to me.

“How are you, Gran?”

“Old,” she replied, behaving quite the opposite as she skipped nimbly sideways and whacked the ball towards me with savage backspin. “Old and tired, and I need looking after. The grim reaper is lurking close by—I can almost smell him!”

“Gran!”

She missed my shot and declared, “No ball,” before pausing for a moment.

“Do you want to know a secret, young Thursday?” she asked, leaning on the table.

“Go on then,” I replied, taking the opportunity to retrieve some balls.

“I am cursed to eternal life!”

“Perhaps it just
seems
like it, Gran.”

“Insolent pup,” she replied as she returned my serve. “I didn’t attain one hundred and eight years on physical fortitude or a statistical quirk alone. Your point.”

I served again and missed her return. She paused for a moment.

“I got mixed up with some oddness in my youth, and the long and short of it is that I can’t shuffle off this mortal coil until I have read the ten most boring classics.”

I looked into her bright eyes. She wasn’t kidding.

“How far have you got?” I replied, returning another ball that flew wide.

“Well, that’s the trouble, isn’t it?” she replied, serving again. “I read what I think is the dullest book on God’s own earth, finish the last page, go to sleep with a smile on my face and wake up the following morning feeling better than ever!”

“Have you tried Edmund Spenser’s
Faerie Queene
?” I asked. “Six volumes of boring Spenserian stanza, the only saving grace of which is that he
didn’t
write the twelve volumes he had planned.”

“Read them all,” replied Gran. “And his other poems, too, just in case.”

I put down my paddle. The balls kept plinking past me.

“You win, Gran. I need to talk to you.”

She reluctantly agreed, and I helped her to her bedroom, a small chintzily decorated cell she darkly referred to as her “ departure lounge.” It was sparsely furnished; there was a picture of me, Anton, Joffy and my mother alongside a couple of empty frames.

As soon as she was seated I said: “They . . . they sideslipped my husband, Gran.”

“When did they take him?” she asked, looking at me over her glasses in the way that grannies do; she never questioned what I said, and I explained everything to her as quickly as I could—except for the bit about the baby.

“Hmm,” said Granny Next when I had finished. “They took my husband too—I know how you feel.”

“Why did they do it?”

“The same reason they did it to you. Love is a wonderful thing, my dear, but it leaves you wide open for blackmail. Give way to tyranny and others will suffer just as badly as you— perhaps worse.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t try to get Landen back?”

“Not at all; just think carefully before you help them. They don’t care about you or Landen; all they want is Jack Schitt. Is Anton still dead?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What a shame. I hoped to see your brother before I popped myself. Do you know what the worst bit about dying is?”

“Tell me, Gran.”

“You never get to see how it all turns out.”

“Did you get your husband back, Gran?”

Instead of answering she unexpectedly placed her hand on my midriff and smiled that small and all-knowing smile that grandmothers seem to learn at granny school, along with crochet, January sales battle tactics and wondering what you are doing upstairs.

“June?” she asked.

You never argue with Granny Next, nor seek to know how she knows such things.

“July. But Gran, I don’t know if it’s Landen’s, or Miles Hawke’s, or whose!”

“You should call this Hawke fellow and ask him.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Worry yourself woolly then,” she retorted. “Mind you, my money is on Landen as the father—as you say, the memories avoided the sideslip, so why not the baby? Believe me, everything will turn out fine. Perhaps not in the way that you imagine, but fine nonetheless.”

I wished I could share her optimism. She took her hand off my stomach and lay back on the bed, the energy expended during the Ping-Pong having taken its toll.

“I need to find a way to get back into books without the Prose Portal, Gran.”

She opened her eyes and looked at me with a keenness that belied her old age.

“Humph!” she said, then added: “I was SpecOps for seventy-seven years in eighteen different departments. I jumped backwards and forwards and even sideways on occasion. I’ve chased bad guys who make Hades look like St. Zvlkx and saved the world from annihilation eight times. I’ve seen such weird shit you can’t even
begin
to comprehend, but for all of that I have
absolutely no idea
how Mycroft managed to jump you into
Jane Eyre
.”

“Ah.”

“Sorry, Thursday—but that’s the way it is. If I were you I’d work the problem out
backwards.
Who was the last person you met who could bookjump?”

“Mrs. Nakajima.”

“And how did she manage it?”

“She just read herself in, I suppose.”

“Have you tried it?”

I shook my head.

“Perhaps you should,” she replied with deadly seriousness. “The first time you went into
Jane Eyre
—wasn’t that a bookjump?”

“I guess.”

“Perhaps,” she said as she picked a book at random off the shelf above her bed and tossed it across to me, “you had better
try.
”

I picked the book up.

“
The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies
?”

“Well, you’ve got to start somewhere, haven’t you?” replied Gran with a chuckle. I helped her take off her blue gingham shoes and made her more comfortable.

“One hundred and eight!” she muttered. “I feel like the bunny in that Fusioncell ad, you know, the one that has to run on brand X?”

“You’re Fusioncell all the way to me, Gran.”

She gave a faint smile and leaned back on the pillows.

“Read the book to me, my dear.”

I sat down and opened the small Beatrix Potter volume. I glanced up at Gran, who had closed her eyes.

“Read!”

So I did, right from the front to the back.

“Anything?”

“No,” I replied sadly, “nothing.”

“Not even the whiff of garden refuse or the distant buzz of a lawn mower?”

“Not a thing.”

“Hah!” said Gran. “Read it to me again.”

So I read it again, and again after that.

“Still nothing?”

“No, Gran,” I replied, beginning to get bored.

“How do you see the character of Mrs. Tittlemouse?”

“Resourceful and intelligent,” I replied. “Probably a gossip and likes to name-drop. Leagues ahead of Benjamin in the brain department.”

“How do you figure that?” queried Gran.

“Well, by allowing his children to sleep so vulnerably in the open air, Benjamin clearly shows minimal parenting skills, yet he has enough
self
-preservation to cover his own face. It was Flopsy who had to come and look for him, as this sort of thing has obviously happened before—it is clear that Benjamin can’t be trusted with the children. Once again the mother has to show restraint and wisdom.”

“Maybe so,” replied Gran, “but where’s the wisdom in watching from the window while Mr. and Mrs. McGregor discovered they had been duped with the rotten vegetables?”

She had a point.

“A narrative necessity,” I declared. “I think there is more high drama if you follow the outcome of the rabbit’s subterfuge, don’t you? I think Flopsy, had she been making all the decisions, would have just returned to the burrow but was, on this occasion, overruled by Beatrix Potter.”

“It’s an interesting theory,” commented Gran, stretching her toes out on the counterpane and wriggling them to keep the circulation going. “Mr. McGregor’s a nasty piece of work, isn’t he? Quite the Darth Vader of children’s literature.”

“Misunderstood,” I told her. “I see
Mrs.
McGregor as the villain of the piece. A sort of Lady Macbeth. His labored counting and inane chuckling might indicate a certain degree of dementia that allows him to be easily dominated by Mrs. McGregor’s more aggressive personality. I think their marriage is in trouble, too. She describes him as a ‘silly old man’ and ‘a doddering old fool’ and claims the rotten vegetables in the sack are just a pointless prank to annoy her.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really. I think that’s about it. Good stuff, isn’t it?”

But Gran didn’t answer; she just chuckled softly to herself.

“So you’re still here then,” she asked, “you didn’t jump into Mr. and Mrs. McGregor’s cottage?”

“No.”

“In that case,” began Gran with a mischievous air, “how did you know she called him a ‘doddering old fool’?”

“It’s in the text.”

“Better check, young Thursday.”

I flicked to the correct page and found, indeed, that Mrs. McGregor had said no such thing.

“How odd!” I said. “I must have made it up.”

“Maybe,” replied Gran, “or perhaps you
overheard
it. Close your eyes and describe the kitchen in Mr. McGregor’s cottage.”

“Lilac-washed walls,” I muttered, “a large range with a kettle singing merrily above a coal fire. There is a dresser against one wall with floral-patterned crocks upon it and atop the scrubbed kitchen table there is a jug with flowers—”

I lapsed into silence.

“And how would you have known that,” asked Gran triumphantly,
“unless you had actually been there?”

I quickly skimmed the book, surprised and impressed by the tantalizing glimmer of another world beyond the attractive watercolors and simple prose. I concentrated hard but nothing similar happened. Perhaps I wanted it too much; I don’t know. After the tenth reading I was just looking at the words and ink and nothing else.

“It’s a start,” said Gran encouragingly. “Try another book when you get home, but don’t expect too much too soon—and I’d strongly recommend you go and look for Mrs. Nakajima. Where does she live?”

“She took retirement in
Jane Eyre
.”

“
Before
that?”

“Osaka.”

“Then perhaps you should seek her there—and for heaven’s sake, relax!”

I told her I would, kissed her on the forehead and quietly left the room.

12.
At Home with My Memories

ToadNewsNetwork was the top news station, Lydia Startright their top reporter. If there was a top event, you could bet your top dollar that Toad would make it their top story. When Tunbridge Wells was given to the Russians as war reparations there was no topper story—except, that is, the mammoth migrations, speculation on Bonzo the Wonder Hound’s next movie or whether Lola Vavoom shaved her armpits or not. My father said that it was a delightfully odd—and dangerously self-destructive—quirk of humans that we were far more interested in pointless trivia than in genuine news stories.

THURSDAY NEXT
,
A Life in SpecOps

S
INCE
I
WAS STILL
on official leave pending the outcome of the SO-1 hearing, I went home and let myself into my apartment, kicked off my shoes and poured some pistachios into Pickwick’s dish. I made some coffee and called Bowden for a long chat, trying to find out what else had changed since Landen’s eradication. As it turned out, not much. Anton had still been blamed for the charge of the light armored brigade, I had still lived in London for ten years, still arrived back in Swindon at the same time, still been up at Uffington picnicking the day before. Dad had once said the past has an astonishing resilience to change; he wasn’t kidding. I thanked Bowden, hung up and painted for a while, trying to relax. When that failed I went up for a walk at Uffington, joining the sightseers who had gathered to watch the smashed Hispano-Suiza being loaded onto a trailer. The Leviathan Airship Company had begun an inquiry and volunteered one of their directors to accept charges of corporate manslaughter. The hapless executive had begun his seven-year term already, thus hoping to avoid an expensive and damaging lawsuit for his company.

I returned home to find a dangerous-looking man was standing on my doorstep. I’d never seen him before but he knew me well enough.

“Next!” he bellowed. “I want three months’ rent in advance or I’ll throw all your stuff in the skip!”

“In advance?” I replied as I unlocked my door, hoping to sneak inside and close it as soon as possible. “You can’t do that!”

“I
can,
” he said holding up a dog-eared lease agreement. “Pets are strictly against the terms of the lease. Clause 7 subsection B, under ‘Pets—special conditions.’ Now pay up.”

“There’s no pet in here,” I explained innocently.

“What’s that, then?”

Pickwick had made a quiet
plock-plock
noise and poked her head round the door to see what was going on. It was a badly timed move.

“Oh
that.
I’m looking after her for a friend.”

My landlord’s eyes suddenly lit up as he looked closer at Pickwick, who shrank back nervously. She was a rare Version 1.2 and my landlord seemed to know this.

He eyed Pickwick greedily. “Hand over the dodo,” he said, “and I’ll give you four months’ free rent.”

“She’s not for trade,” I said firmly. I could feel Pickwick quivering behind me.

“Ah,” said my landlord. “Then you have two days to pay all your bills or you’re out on your sweet little SpecOps arse. Capishe?”

“You say the nicest things.”

He glared at me, handed me a bill and disappeared off down the corridor to harass someone else.

I didn’t have three months’ advance rent, and he knew it. After a search I eventually found a lease agreement, and he was right—the clause was there in case of something much bigger and more dangerous, such as a saber-tooth, but he was within his rights. My cards had reached their limit and my overdraft was nearly full. SpecOps wages were just about enough to keep you fed and a roof over your head, but buying the Speedster had all but cleared me out and I hadn’t even
seen
the garage repair bills yet. There was a nervous
plock-plock
from the kitchen.