Lost in a good book (33 page)

I didn’t believe he was sorry for one moment—and suspected that he had been influenced from higher up. I sighed, got up, saluted and made for the door.

“Wait!” said Braxton. “There’s something else.”

I returned.

“Yes?”

“Keep your temper.”

“Is that all?”

“No.”

He handed over a packet of clothes in a polythene bundle.

“The department is now sponsored by the Toast Marketing Board. You’ll find a hat, T-shirt and jacket in this package. Wear them when you can and be prepared for some corporate entertainment.”

“Sir—!”

“Don’t complain. If you hadn’t eaten that toast on
The Adrian Lush Show
they never would have contacted us. Over a million quid in funding—not to be sniffed at with people like you soaking up the funds. Shut the door on the way out, will you?”

The morning’s fun wasn’t over. As I stepped out of Braxton’s office I almost bumped into Flanker.

“Ah!” he said. “Next. A word with you, if you don’t mind—?”

It wasn’t a request—it was an order. I followed him into an empty interview room and he closed the door.

“Seems to me you’re in such deep shit your eyes will turn brown, Next.”

“My eyes are already brown, Flanker.”

“Then you’re halfway there already. I’ll come straight to the point. You earned £600 last night.”

“So?”

“The service takes a dim view of moonlighting.”

“It was Stoker at SO-27,” I told him. “I was deputized—all aboveboard.”

Flanker went quiet. His intelligence-gathering had obviously let him down badly.

“Can I go?”

Flanker sighed.

“Listen, here, Thursday,” he began in a more moderate tone of voice, “we need to know what your father is up to.”

“What’s the problem? Industrial action standing in the way of next week’s cataclysmic event?”

“Freelance navigators will sort it out, Next.”

He was bluffing.

“You have no more idea about the nature of the Armageddon than Dad, me, Lavoisier, or anyone else, do you?”

“Perhaps not,” replied Flanker, “but we at SpecOps are far better suited to having no clue at all than you and that chronupt father of yours.”

“Chronupt?” I said angrily, getting to my feet. “My father? That’s a joke! What is your golden boy Lavoisier doing eradicating my husband, then?”

Flanker eyed me silently for a moment.

“That’s a very serious accusation,” he observed. “Have you any proof?”

“Of course not,” I replied, barely able to conceal my rage. “Isn’t that the point of eradication?”

“I have known Lavoisier for longer than I would care to forget,” intoned Flanker gravely, “and I have never had anything but the highest regard for his integrity. Making wild accusations isn’t going to help your cause one iota.”

I sat down again and rubbed a hand across my face. Dad had been right. Accusing Lavoisier of any wrongdoing was pointless.

“Can I go?”

“I have nothing to hold you on, Next. But I’ll find something. Every agent is on the make. It’s just a question of digging deep enough.”

“How did it go?” asked Bowden when I got back to the office.

“I got an F,” I muttered, sinking into my chair.

“Flanker,” said Bowden, trying on his
Eat More Toast
cap. “Has to be.”

“How did the stand-up go?”

“Very well, I think,” answered Bowden, dropping the cap in the bin. “The audience seemed to find it very funny indeed. So much so that they want me to come back as a regular—What are you doing?”

I slithered to the floor as quickly as I could and hid under the table. I would have to trust Bowden’s quick wits.

“Hello!” said Miles Hawke as he walked into the room. “Has anyone seen Thursday?”

“I think she’s at her monthly assessment meeting,” replied Bowden, whose deadpan delivery was obviously as well suited to lying as it was to stand-up. “Can I take a message?”

“No, just ask her to get in contact, if she could.”

“Why don’t you stay and wait?” said Bowden. I kicked him under the table.

“No, I’d better run along,” replied Miles. “Just tell her I dropped by, won’t you?”

He walked off and I stood up. Bowden,
very
unusually for him, was giggling.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing—why don’t you want to see him?”

“Because I might be carrying his baby.”

“You’re going to have to speak up. I can hardly hear you.”

“I might,” I repeated in a hoarse whisper, “be carrying his
baby!
”

“I thought you said it was Land—What’s the matter now?”

I had dropped to the ground again as Cordelia Flakk walked in. She was scanning the office for me in annoyance, hands on hips.

“Have you seen Thursday about?” she asked Bowden. “She’s
got
to meet these people of mine.”

“I’m really not sure where she is,” replied Bowden.

“Really? Then who was it I saw ducking under this table?”

“Hello, Cordelia,” I said from beneath the table. “I dropped my pencil.”

“Sure you did.”

I clambered out and sat down at my desk.

“I expected more from you, Bowden,” said Flakk crossly, then turned to me: “Now, Thursday. We promised these two people they could meet you. Do you really want to disappoint them?
Your
public, you know.”

“They’re not my public, Cordelia, they’re
yours.
You made them for me.”

“I’ve had to keep them at the Finis for another night,” implored Cordelia. “Costs are escalating. They’re downstairs right now. I knew you’d be in for your assessment. How did you do, by the way?”

“Don’t ask.”

I looked at Bowden, who shrugged. Looking for some sort of rescue, I twisted on my seat to where Victor was running a possible unpublished sequel of
1984
entitled
1985
through the Prose Analyzer. All the other members of the office were busy on their various tasks. It looked like my PR career was just about to restart.

“All right,” I sighed, “I’ll do it.”

“Better than hiding under the desk,” said Bowden. “All that jumping around is probably not good for the baby.”

He clapped his hand over his mouth, but it was too late.

“Baby?” echoed Cordelia. “What baby?”

“Thanks, Bowden.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, congratulations!” said Cordelia, hugging me. “Who is the lucky father?”

“I don’t know.”

“You mean you haven’t told him yet?”

“No, I mean I don’t know. My husband’s, I hope.”

“You’re married?”

“No.”

“But you said—?”

“Yes I did,” I retorted as dryly as I could. “Confusing, isn’t it?”

“This is
very
bad PR,” muttered Cordelia darkly, sitting on the edge of the desk to steady herself. “The leading light of SpecOps knocked up in a bus shelter by someone she doesn’t even know!”

“Cordelia, it’s not like that—and I wasn’t ‘knocked up’—and who mentioned anything about bus shelters? Perhaps the best thing would be if you kept this under your hat and we pretend that
Bowden
never said anything.”

“Sorry,” muttered Bowden meekly.

Cordelia leaped to her feet.

“Good thinking, Next. We can tell everyone you have water retention or an eating disorder brought on by stress.” Her face fell. “No, that won’t work.
The Toad
will see through it like a shot. Can’t you get married really quickly to someone? What about to Bowden? Bowden, would you do the decent thing for the sake of SpecOps?”

“I’m seeing someone over at SpecOps-13,” replied Bowden hurriedly.

“Blast!” muttered Flakk. “Thursday, any ideas?”

But this was a part of Bowden I knew nothing about.

“You never told me you were seeing someone over at SO-13!”

“I don’t have to tell you
everything.
”

“But I’m your partner, Bowden!”

“Well, you never told me about Miles.”

“Miles?” exclaimed Cordelia. “The oh-so-handsome-to-die-for Miles
Hawke?
”

“Thanks, Bowden.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s
wonderful!
” exclaimed Cordelia, clapping her hands together. “A dazzling couple! ‘SpecOps wedding of the year!’ This is worth soooooo much coverage! Does he know?”

“No. And you’re not going to tell him. And what’s more—
Bowden
—it might not even be his.”

“Which puts us back to square one again!” responded Cordelia in a huff. “Stay here, I’m going to fetch my guests. Bowden, don’t let her out of your sight!”

And she was gone.

Bowden stared at me for a moment and then asked: “Do you really believe the baby is Landen’s?”

“I’m hoping.”

“You’re not married, Thurs. You might think you are, but you’re not. I looked at the records. Landen Parke-Laine died in 1947.”

“
This
time he did. My father and I went—”

“You don’t have a father, Thursday. There is no record of anyone on your birth certificate. I think maybe you should speak to one of the stressperts.”

“And end up doing comedy stand-up, arranging pebbles or counting blue cars? No, thanks.”

There was a pause.

“He
is
very handsome,” said Bowden.

“Who?”

“Miles Hawke, of course.”

“Oh. Yes, yes I know he is.”

“Very polite, very popular.”

“I know that.”

“A child without a father—”

“Bowden, I’m not in love with him and it isn’t his baby— okay?”

“Okay, okay. Let’s forget it.”

We sat there in silence for a bit. I played with a pencil and Bowden stared out of the window.

“What about the voices?”

“Bowden—!”

“Thursday, this is for your own good. You told me you heard them yourself, and officers Hurdyew, Tolkien and Lissning heard you talking and listening to someone in the upstairs corridor.”

“Well, the voices have stopped,” I said categorically. “ Nothing like that will
ever
happen again.
¹

“Oh shit.”
²

“What do you mean, ‘Oh shit’?”

“Nothing—just, well, that. I’ve got to use the ladies’ room— would you excuse me?”

I left Bowden shaking his head sadly and was soon in the ladies’. I checked the stalls were empty and then said: “Miss Havisham, are you there?”
³

“You must understand, Miss Havisham, that where I come from customs are different from your own. People curse here as a matter of course.”
⁴

“I’ll be there directly, ma’am!”

I bit my lip and rushed out of the ladies’, grabbed my Jurisfiction travelbook and my jacket and was heading back when—

“Thursday!” went a loud and strident voice that I knew could only be Flakk’s. “I’ve got the winners outside in the corridor—!”

“I’m sorry, Cordelia, but I
have
to go to the loo.”

“Don’t think I’m going to fall for
that
one again, do you?” she growled under her breath.

“It’s true this time.”

“And the book?”

“I always read on the loo.”

She narrowed her eyes at me and I narrowed my eyes back.

“Very well,” she said finally, “but I’m coming with you.”

She smiled at the two lucky winners of her crazy competition, who were outside in the corridor. They smiled back through the half-glazed office door and we both trotted into the ladies’.

“Ten minutes,” she said to me as I locked myself in a cubicle. I opened the book and started to read:

“Many were the tears shed by them in their last adieus to a place so much beloved. ‘Dear, dear Norland!’ said Marianne, as she wandered alone before the house, on the last evening of their being there. . . .”

The small melamine cubicle started to evaporate, and in its

place was a large park, bathed in the light of a dying sun, the haze softening the shadows and making the house glow in the failing light. There was a light breeze and in front of the house a lone girl dressed in a Victorian dress, bonnet and shawl. She walked slowly, gazing fondly at the—

“Do you always read aloud in the toilet?” asked Cordelia from behind the door.

The images evaporated in a flash and I was back in the ladies’.

“Always,” I replied. “And if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll
never
be finished.”

“. . . when shall I cease to regret you!—when learn to feel a home elsewhere?—Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you know more!—And you, ye well known trees!—But you will continue . . .”

The house came back again, the young woman talking quietly, matching her words to mine as I drifted into the book. I was now sitting not on a hard SpecOps standard toilet seat but a white-painted wrought-iron garden bench. I stopped reading when I was certain I was completely within
Sense and Sensibility
and listened to Marianne as she finished her speech:

“. . . and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade!—But who will remain to enjoy you?”

She sighed dramatically, clasped her hands to her breast and sobbed quietly for a moment or two. Then she took one long look at the large white-painted house and turned to face me.

“Hello!” she said in a friendly voice. “I haven’t seen you around here before. Would you be working for Juris-thingummy-whatsit?”

“Don’t we have to be careful as to what we say?” I managed to utter, looking around nervously.

“Goodness me
no!
” exclaimed Marianne with a delightful giggle. “The chapter is over, and besides, this book is written in the
third person.
We are free to do what we please until tomorrow morning, when we depart for Devon. The next two chapters are heavy with exposition—I hardly have anything to do, and I say even less! You look confused, poor thing! Have you been into a book before?”