Lost in a good book (24 page)

“Then,” said the Magistrate simply, “you have complied with the court’s ruling and we may proceed.”

“Objection!” said Hopkins.

“Overruled,” replied the Magistrate as he picked up a tatty notebook that lay on the table in front of him. He opened it, read something and passed the book to one of his clerks.

“Your name is Thursday N. You are a housepainter?”

“No, she—” said Snell.

“Yes,” I interrupted, “I have
been
a housepainter, your honor.”

There was a stunned silence from the crowd, punctuated by someone at the back who yelled “Bravo!” before another spectator thumped him. The Examining Magistrate peered closer at me.

“Is this relevant?” demanded Hopkins, addressing the bench.

“Silence!” yelled the Magistrate, continuing slowly and with very real gravity: “You mean to tell me that you have, at one time, been a housepainter?”

“Indeed, your honor. After I left school and before college I painted houses for two months. I think it might be safe to say that I was indeed—although not permanently—a housepainter.”

There was another burst of applause and excited murmuring.

“Herr S?” said the Magistrate. “Is this true?”

“We have several witnesses to attest to it, your honor,” answered Snell, getting into the swing of the strange proceedings.

The room fell silent again.

“Herr H,” said the magistrate, taking out a handkerchief and mopping his brow carefully and addressing Hopkins directly, “I thought you told me the defendant was
not
a housepainter?”

Hopkins looked flustered.

“I didn’t say she
wasn’t
a housepainter, your honor, I merely said she
was
an operative for SpecOps-27.”

“To the exclusion of all other professions?” asked the Magistrate.

“Well, no,” stammered Hopkins, now thoroughly confused.

“Yet you did not state she was
not
a housepainter in your affidavit, did you?”

“No sir.”

“Well then!” said the Magistrate, leaning back on his chair as another peal of laughter and spontaneous applause broke out for no reason. “If you bring a case to my court, Herr H, I expect it to be brought with all the details intact. First she apologizes for being late, then she readily agrees to a past profession as a housepainter. Court procedure will
not
be compromised—your prosecution is badly flawed.”

Hopkins bit his lip and turned a dark shade of crimson.

“I beg the court’s pardon, your honor,” he replied through gritted teeth, “but my prosecution
is
sound. May we proceed with the charge?”

“Bravo!” said the man at the back again.

The Magistrate thought for a moment and handed me his dirty notebook and a fountain pen.

“We will prove the veracity of prosecution counsel by a simple test,” he announced. “Fräulein N, would you please write the most popular color that houses were painted in, when you were—” and here he turned to Hopkins and spat the words out—“a housepainter!”

The room erupted into cheers and shouts as I wrote the answer in the back of the exercise book and returned it.

“Silence!” announced the Magistrate. “Herr H?”

“What?” he replied sulkily.

“Perhaps you would be good enough to tell the court the color that Fräulein N has written in my book?”

“Your honor,” began Hopkins in an exasperated tone, “what has this to do with the case in hand? I arrived here in good faith to arraign Fräulein N on a charge of a Class II Fiction Infraction and instead I find myself embroiled in some lunatic rubbish about housepainters. I do not believe this court represents justice—”

“You do
not
understand,” said the Magistrate, rising to his feet and raising his short arms to illustrate the point, “the manner in which this court works. It is the responsibility of the prosecution council to not only bring a clear and concise case before the bench, but also to fully verse himself in the procedures that he must undertake to achieve that goal.”

The Magistrate sat down amidst applause.

“Now,” continued the Magistrate in a quieter voice, “either you tell me what Fräulein N has written in this book or I will be forced to arrest you for wasting the court’s time.”

Two guards had pushed their way through the throng and now stood behind Hopkins, ready to seize him. The Magistrate waved the book and fixed the lawyer with an imperious stare.

“Well?” he inquired. “What was the most popular color?”

“Blue,” said Hopkins in a miserable voice.

“What’s that you say?”

“Blue,” repeated Hopkins in a louder voice.

“Blue, he said!” bellowed the Magistrate. The crowd were silent and pushed and shoved to get closer to the action. Slowly and with high drama, the Magistrate opened the book to reveal the word
green
written across the page. The crowd burst into an excited cry, several cheers went up, and hats rained down upon our heads.

“Not blue,
green,
” said the Magistrate, shaking his head sadly and signaling to the guards to take hold of Hopkins. “You have brought shame upon your profession, Herr H. You are under arrest!”

“On what charge?” replied Hopkins arrogantly.

“I am not authorized to tell you,” said the Magistrate triumphantly. “Proceedings have been started and you will be informed in due course.”

“But this is preposterous!” shouted Hopkins as he was dragged away.

“No,” replied the Magistrate, “this is Kafka.”

When Hopkins had gone and the crowd had stopped chattering, the Magistrate turned back to me and said: “You are Thursday N, age thirty-six, one hour and five minutes late and occupation housepainter?”

“Yes?”

“You are brought before this court on a charge of—what is the charge?”

There was silence.

“Where,” asked the magistrate, “is the prosecution counsel?”

One of his clerks whispered in his ear as the crowd spontaneously burst into laughter.

“Indeed,” said the Magistrate grimly. “Most remiss of him. I am afraid, in the absence of prosecuting counsel, this court has no alternative but to grant a postponement.”

And so saying he pulled a large rubber stamp from his pocket and brought it down with a crash on some papers that Snell, quick as a flash, managed to place beneath it.

“Thank you, your honor,” I managed to say before Snell grasped me by the arm, whispered in my ear, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” and steered me ahead of him past the throng of dark suits to the door.

“Bravo!” yelled a man from the gallery. “Bravo!... and bravo again!”

We walked out to find Miss Havisham deep in conversation with Esther about the perfidious nature of men in general and Esther’s husband in particular. They were not the only ones in the room. A bronzed Greek was sitting sullenly next to a Cyclops who had a bloodied bandage round his head. The lawyers who were accompanying them were discussing the case quietly in the corner.

“How did it go?” asked Havisham.

“Postponement,” said Snell, mopping his brow and shaking me by the hand. “Well done, Thursday. Caught me unawares with your housepainter defense. Very good indeed!”

“But only a postponement?”

“Oh yes. I’ve never known a single acquittal from this court. But next time we’ll be up before a proper judge—one of
my
choosing!”

“And what will become of Hopkins?”

“He,” laughed Snell, “will have to get a
very
good lawyer!”

“Good!” said Havisham, getting to her feet. “It’s time we were at the sales. Come along!”

As we made for the door, the Magistrate called into the kitchen parlor: “Odysseus? Charge of Grievous Bodily Harm against Polyphemus the Cyclops?”

“He devoured my comrades—!” growled Odysseus angrily.

“That’s tomorrow’s case. We will not hear about that today. You’re next up—and you’re late.”

And the Examining Magistrate shut the door again.

19.
Bargain Books

Jurisfiction was the fastest learning curve I had ever experienced. I think they were all expecting me to arrive a lot earlier than I did. Miss Havisham tested my bookjumping prowess soon after I arrived and I was marked up a dismal 38 out of a hundred. Mrs. Nakajima was 93 and Havisham a 99. I would always need a book to read from to make a jump, no matter how well I had memorized the text. It had its disadvantages but it wasn’t all bad news. At least I could read a book without vanishing off inside it. . . .

THURSDAY NEXT
,
The Jurisfiction Chronicles

O
UTSIDE THE ROOM
, Snell tipped his hat and vanished off to represent a client currently languishing in debtor’s prison. The day was overcast yet mild. I leaned on the balcony and looked down into the yard below at the children playing.

“So!” said Havisham. “On with your training now
that
hurdle is over. The Swindon Booktastic closing-down sale begins at midday and I’m in the mood for a bit of bargain-hunting. Take me there.”

“How?”

“Use your head, girl!” replied Havisham sternly as she grabbed her walking stick and thrashed it through the air a few times. “Come, come! If you can’t jump me straight there, then take me to your apartment and we’ll drive—but hurry. The Red Queen is ahead of us and there is a boxed set of novels that she is particularly keen to get her hands on—we
must
get there first!”

“I’m sorry—” I stammered. “I can’t—”

“No such word as
can’t!
” exploded Miss Havisham. “Use the book, girl, use
the book!
”

Suddenly, I understood. I took the leather-bound Jurisfiction book from my pocket and opened it. The first page, the one I had read already, was of the Great Library. On the second page there was a passage from Austen’s
Sense and Sensibility
and on the third a detailed description of my apartment back at Swindon—it was good, too, right down to the water stains on the kitchen ceiling and the magazines stuffed under the sofa. The rest of the pages were covered with closely printed rules and regulations, hints and tips, advice and places to avoid. There were illustrations, too, and maps quite unlike any I had seen before. There were, in fact, far
more
pages in the book than could possibly be fitted within the covers.

“Well?” said Havisham impatiently. “Are we going?”

I flicked to the page that held the short description of my apartment in Swindon. I started to read and felt Havisham’s bony hand hang on to my elbow as the Prague rooftops and aging tenement buildings faded out and my own apartment hove into view.

“Ah!” said Havisham, looking around at the small kitchen with a contemptuous air. “And this is what you call home?”

“At the moment. My husband—”

“The one who you’re not sure is alive or dead or married to you or not?”

“Yes,” I said firmly, “
that
one.”

She smiled at this and added with a baleful stare: “You wouldn’t have an ulterior motive for joining me, would you?”

“No,” I lied.

“Didn’t come to do something else?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Not some sort of
book privateer
or something, out for riches and adventure?”

I shook my head. Doing what I was doing for Landen might not have sat too well with Havisham, so I decided to keep myself to myself.

“You’re lying about something,” she announced slowly, “but about
what
I’m not so sure. Children are such consummate liars. Have your servants recently left you?”

She was staring at the dirty dishes.

“Yes,” I lied again, not so keen on her disparagement anymore. “Domestic service is a tricky issue in 1985.”

“It’s no bed of roses in the nineteenth century either,” Miss Havisham replied, leaning on the kitchen table to steady herself. “I find a good servant but they never stay. It’s the lure of
them,
you know—the liars, the
evil ones.
”

“Evil ones?”

“
Men!”
hissed Havisham contemptuously. “The lying sex. Mark my words, child, for no good will ever come of you if you succumb to their charms—and they have the charms of a snake, believe me!”

“I’ll try to keep on my toes,” I told her.

“And your chastity
firmly
guarded,” she told me sternly.

“Goes without saying.”

“Good. Can I borrow that jacket?”

She was pointing at Miles Hawke’s Swindon Mallets jacket. Without waiting for a reply she put it on and replaced her veil with a SpecOps cap. Satisfied, she asked: “Is this the way out?”

“No, that’s the broom cupboard. This is the way out over here.”

We opened the door to find my landlord with his fist raised ready to knock.

“Ah!” he said in a low growl. “Next!”

“You said I had until Friday,” I told him.

“I’m turning off the water. The gas, too.”

“You can’t do that!”

“If you’ve got six hundred quid or a V1.2 dodo on you,” he leered, “perhaps I can be convinced not to.”

But his smirk changed to fear as the point of Miss Havisham’s stick shot out and caught him in the throat. She pushed him heavily against the wall in the corridor. He choked and made to move the stick, but Miss Havisham knew just how much pressure was needed—she pushed the stick harder and he stayed his hand.

“Listen to me!” she snapped. “Annoy Miss Next once more and you’ll have me to answer to. She’ll pay you on time, you worthless wretch—you have Miss Havisham’s word on
that!
”

He gasped in short breaths, the tip of Miss Havisham’s stick stuck fast against his windpipe. His eyes were clouded with the panic of suffocation; all he could do was breathe fitfully and try to nod.

“Good!” replied Miss Havisham, releasing the man, who fell into a heap on the floor.

“The evil ones,” announced Miss Havisham. “You see what men are like?”