The Well of Lost Plots n-3

by Jasper Fforde

  I stayed in the bath long enough to need to top it up with hot water twice, and when I came out I found Gran sitting on the laundry basket outside the door.

  'Ready?' she asked softly.

  'Yes,' I replied, 'I'm ready.'

  I slept in my own bed — Gran said she would sit in the armchair and wake me if things looked as though they were getting out of hand. I stared at the ceiling, the gentle curve of the wooden panelling and the single-domed ceiling light. I stayed awake for hours, long after Gran had fallen asleep and dropped her copy of Tristram Shandy on the floor. Night and sleep had once been a time of joyous reunion with Landen, a collection of moments that I treasured: tea and hot buttered crumpets, curled up in front of a crackling log fire, or golden moments on the beach, cavorting in slow motion as the sun went down. But no longer. With Aornis about, my memory was now a battleground. And with the whistle of an artillery shell I was back where I least wanted to be — the Crimea.

  'So there you are!' cried Aornis, grinning at me from her seat in the armoured personnel carrier as the wounded were removed. I had returned from the lines to the forward dressing station where the disaster had generated a state of sustained and highly controlled panic. Cries of 'Medic!' and swearing punctuated the air, while less than three miles away we could still hear the sound of the Russian guns pummelling the remains of the Wessex Light Tank. Sergeant Tozer stepped from the back of the APC with his hand still inside the leg of a soldier as he tried to staunch the bleeding; another soldier blinded by splinters was jabbering on about some girl he had left back home in Bradford on Avon.

  'You haven't dreamed for a few nights,' said Aornis as we watched the casualties being unloaded. 'Have you missed me?'

  'Not even an atom,' I replied, adding: 'Are we done?' to the medics unloading the APC.

  'We're done!' came back the reply, and with my foot I flicked the switch that raised the rear door.

  'Where do you think you're going?' asked a red-faced officer I didn't recognise.

  'To pick up the rest, sir!'

  'The hell you are!' he replied. 'We're sending in Red Cross trucks under a flag of truce!'

  It would take too long and we both knew it. I dropped back into the earner, revved the engine and was soon heading back into the fray. The amount of dust thrown up might screen me — as long as the guns kept firing. Even so, I still felt the whine of a near-miss and once an explosion went off close by, the concussion shattering the glass in the instrument panel.

  'Disobeying a direct order, Thursday?' said Aornis scathingly. 'They'll court-martial you!'

  'But they didn't,' I replied, 'they gave me a medal instead.'

  'But you didn't go back for a gong, did you?'

  'It was my duty. What do you want me to say?'

  The noise grew louder as I drove towards the front line. I felt something large pluck at my vehicle and the roof opened up, revealing in the dust a shaft of sunlight that was curiously beautiful. The same unseen hand picked up the carrier and threw it in the air. It ran along on one track for a few yards and then fell back upright. The engine was still functioning, the controls still felt right; I carried on, oblivious to the damage. It was only when I reached up for the wireless switch that I realised the roof had been partially blown off, and it was only later that I discovered an inch-long gash in my chin.

  'It was your duty, all right, Thursday, but it was not for the army, regiment, brigade or platoon — certainly not for English interests in the Crimea. You went back for Anton, didn't you?'

  Everything stopped. The noise, the explosions, everything. My brother Anton. Why did she have to bring him up?

  'Anton,' I whispered.

  'Your dear brother Anton,' replied Aornis. 'Yes. You worshipped him. From the time he built you a tree house in the back garden. You joined the army to be like him, didn't you?'

  I said nothing. It was true, all true. Tears started to course down my cheeks. Anton had been, quite simply, the best elder brother a girl could have. He always had time for me and always included me in whatever he got up to. My anger at losing him had been driving me for longer than I cared to remember.

  'I brought you here so you can remember what it's like to lose a brother. If you could find the man that killed Anton, what would you do to him?'

  'Losing Anton was not the moral equivalent of killing Acheron,' I shouted. 'Hades deserved to die — Anton was just doing his misguided patriotic duty!'

  We had arrived outside the remains of Anton's APC. The guns were firing more sporadically now, picking their targets more carefully; I could hear the sound of small arms as the Russian infantry advanced to retake the lost ground. I released the rear door. It was jammed but it didn't matter; the side door had vanished with the roof and I rapidly packed twenty-two wounded soldiers into an APC designed to carry eight. I closed my eyes and started to cry. It was like seeing a car accident about to happen, the futility of knowing something is about to occur but being unable to do anything about it.

  'Hey, Thuzzy!' said Anton in the voice I knew so well. Only he had ever called me that; it was the last word he would speak. I opened my eyes and there he was, as large as life and, despite the obvious danger, smiling.

  'No!' I shouted, knowing full well what was going to happen next. 'Stop! Don't come over here!'

  But he did, as he had done all those years before. He stepped out of cover and ran across to me. The side of my APC was blown open and I could see him clearly.

  'Please, no!' I shouted, my eyes full of tears. The memory of that day would fill my mind for years to come. I would immerse myself in work to get away from it.

  'Come back for me, Thuz—!'

  And then the shell hit him.

  He didn't explode; he just sort of vanished in a red mist. I didn't remember driving back and I didn't remember being arrested and confined to barracks. I didn't remember anything up until the moment Sergeant Tozer told me to have a shower and clean myself up. I remember treading on the small pieces of sharp bone that washed out of my hair in the shower.

  'This is what you try and forget, isn't it?' said Aornis, smiling at me as I tugged my fingers through my matted hair, heart thumping, the fear and pain of loss tensing my every muscle and numbing my senses. I tried to grab her by the throat in the shower but my fingers collapsed on nothing and I barked my knuckles on the shower stall. I swore and thumped the wall.

  'You all right, Thursday?' said Prudence, a W/T operator from Lincoln in the next shower. 'They said you went back. Is that true?'

  'Yes, it's true,' put in Aornis, 'and she'll be going back again right now!'

  The shower room vanished and we were back on the battlefield, heading towards the wrecked armour amid the smoke and dust.

  'Well!' said Aornis, clapping her hands happily. 'We should be able to manage at least eight of these before dawn — don't you just hate reruns?'

  I stopped the APC near the smashed tank and the wounded were heaved aboard.

  'Hey, Thursday!' said a familiar male voice. I opened one eye and looked across at the soldier with his face bloodied and less than ten seconds of existence remaining on his slate. But it wasn't Anton — it was another officer, the one I had met earlier and with whom I had become involved.

  'Thursday!' said Gran in a loud voice. 'Thursday, wake up!'

  I was back in my bed on the Sunderland, drenched in sweat. I wished it had all just been a bad dream; but it was a bad dream and that was the worst of it.

  'Anton's not dead,' I gabbled. 'He didn't die in the Crimea it was that other guy and that's the reason he's not here now because he died and I've been telling myself it was because he was eradicated by the ChronoGuard but he wasn't and—'

  'Thursday!' snapped Gran. 'Thursday, that is not how it happened. Aornis is trying to fool with your mind. Anton died in the charge.'

  'No, it was the other guy—'

  'Landen?'

  But the name meant little to me. Gran explained about Aornis and Landen and mnemonomorphs an
d, although I understood what she was saying, I didn't fully believe her. After all, I had seen the Landen fellow die in front of my own eyes, hadn't I?

  'Gran,' I said, 'are you having one of your fuzzy moments?'

  'No,' she replied, 'far from it.'

  But her voice didn't have the same sort of confidence it usually did. She wrote Landen on my hand with a felt pen and I went back to sleep wondering what Anton was up to and thinking about the short and passionate fling I had enjoyed in the Crimea with that lieutenant, the one whose name I couldn't remember — the one who died in the charge.

  23

  Jurisfiction

  session number 40320

  'Snell was buried in the Text Sea. It was invited guests only so although Havisham went, I did not Both Perkins and Snell's places were to be taken by B-2 Generics who had been playing them for a while in tribute books — the copies you usually find in cheaply printed book-of-the-month choices. As they lowered Snell's body into the sea to be reduced to letters, the Bellman tingled his bell and spoke a short eulogy for both of them Havisham said it was very moving — but the most ironic part of it was that the entire Perkins & Snell detective series was to be offered as a boxed set, and neither of them would ever know it.'

  THURSDAY NEXT The Jurisfiction Chronicles

  I felt tired and washed out the following morning Gran was still fast asleep, snoring loudly with Pickwick on her lap, when I got up I made a cup of coffee and was sitting at the kitchen table reading Movable Type and feeling grotty when there was a gentle rap at the door I looked up too quickly and my head throbbed.

  'Yes?' I called

  'It's Dr Fnorp I teach Lola and Randolph.'

  I opened the door, checked his ID and let him in He was a tall man who seemed quite short and was dark haired although on occasion seemed blond. He spoke with a notable accent from nowhere at all, and he had a limp — or perhaps not He was a Generic's Generic -all things to all people.

  'Coffee?'

  'Thank you,' he said, adding 'Ah-ha!' when he saw the article I had been reading 'Every year there are more categories!'

  He was referring to the BookWorld Awards which had, I noted earlier, been sponsored by Ultra Word™.

  '"Dopiest Shakespearean Character,'" he read. 'Othello should win that one hands down. Are you going to the Bookies?'

  'I've been asked to present one,' I replied. 'Being the newest Jurisfiction member affords one that privilege, apparently.'

  'Oh?' he replied. 'It's the first year all the Generics will be going — we've had to give them a day off college.'

  'What can I do for you?'

  'Well,' he began, 'Lola has been late every day this week, constantly talks in class, leads the other girls astray, smokes, swears and was caught operating a distillery in the science block. She has little respect for authority and has slept with most of her male classmates.'

  'That's terrible!' I said. 'What shall we do?'

  'Do?' replied Fnorp. 'We aren't going to do anything. Lola has turned out admirably — so much so that we've got her a leading role in Girls Make all the Moves, a thirty-something romantic comedy novel. No, I'm really here because I'm worried about Randolph.'

  'I … see. What's the problem?'

  'Well, he's just not taking his studies very seriously. He's not stupid; I could make him an A-4 if only he'd pay a little more attention. Those good looks of his are probably his downfall. Aged fifty-something as he is and what we call a "distinguished grey" archetype, I think he feels he doesn't need any depth — that he can get away with a good descriptive passage at introduction and then do very little.'

  'And this is a problem because—?'

  'I just want something a bit better for him,' sighed Dr Fnorp, who clearly had the best interest of his students at heart. 'He's failed his B-grade exams twice; once more and he'll be nothing but an incidental character with a line or two — if he's lucky.'

  'Perhaps that's what he wants,' I suggested. 'There isn't enough room for all characters to be A-grade.'

  'That's what's wrong with the system,' said Fnorp bitterly. 'If incidental characters had more depth the whole of fiction would be a lot richer — I want my students to enliven even the C-grade parts.'

  I got the point. Even from my relative ignorance I could see the importance of fully rounded characters — the trouble was, for budgetary reasons, the Council of Genres had pursued a policy of minimum requirements for Generics for more than thirty years.

  'They fear rebellion,' he said quietly. 'The C of G wants Generics to stay stupid; an unsophisticated population is a compliant one — but it's at the cost of the BookWorld.'

  'So what do you want me to do?'

  'Well,' sighed Fnorp, finishing his coffee, 'have a word with Randolph and see what you can do — try to find out why he is being so intransigent.'

  I told him I would and saw him to the door.

  I found Randolph asleep in bed. He was clutching his pillow. Lola had gone out early to meet some friends. A photo of her was on the bedside table next to him and he snored quietly to himself. I crept back to the door and banged on it.

  'Wshenifyduh,' said a sleepy voice from within.

  'I need to run one of the engines,' I told him. 'Can you give me a hand?'

  There was a thump as he fell out of bed. I smiled to myself and took my coffee up to the flight deck.

  Mary had told me to run the number-three engine periodically and left instructions on how to do so in the form of a checklist. I didn't know how to fly but did know a thing or two about engines — and needed an excuse to talk to Randolph. I sat in the pilot's seat and looked along the wing to the engine. The cowlings were off and the large radial was streaked with oil and grime. It never rained here, which was just as well, although things didn't actually age either so it didn't matter if it did. I consulted the checklist in front of me. The engine would have to be turned by hand to begin with and I didn't really fancy this, so got a slightly annoyed Randolph out on the wing.

  'How many times?' he asked, turning the engine by way of a crank inserted through the cowling.

  'Twice should do,' I called back, and ten minutes later he returned, very hot and sweaty with the exertion.

  'What do we do now?' he asked, suddenly a lot more interested. Starting big radial engines was quite a boy thing, after all.

  'You read it out,' I said, handing him the checklist.

  'Master fuel on, ignition switches off,' he read.

  'Done.'

  'Prop controls fully up and throttle open one inch.'

  I wrestled with the appropriate levers in a small nest that sprouted from the centre console.

  'Done. I had Mr Fnorp round this morning.'

  'Gills set to open and mixture at idle cut-off. What did that old fart have to say for himself?'

  I set the gills and pulled back the mixture lever.

  'He said he thought you could do a lot better than you have been. What's next?'

  'Switch on fuel booster pump until warning light goes out.'

  'Where do you think that is?'

  We found the fuel controls in an awkward position above our heads and to the rear of the flight deck. Randolph switched on the booster pumps.

  'I don't want to be a featured character,' he said. 'I'll be quite happy working as a mature elder male mentor figure or something; there is call for one in Girls Make all the Moves.'

  'Isn't that the novel Lola will be working in?'

  'Is it?' he said, feigning ignorance badly. 'I had no idea.'

  'Okay,' I said as the fuel pressure warning light went out, 'now what?'

  'Set selector switch to required engine and operate priming pump until delivery pipes are full.'

  I pumped slowly, the faint smell of aviation spirit filling the air.

  'What's this love/hate thing between you and Lola?'

  'Oh, that's all well over,' he said dismissively. 'She's seeing some guy over at the Heroes Advanced Classes.'

  I stopped pumpi
ng as the handle met with some resistance.

  'We have fuel pressure. What's next?'

  'Ignition and booster coil both on.'

  'Check.'

  'Press starter and when engine is turning, operate primer. Does that make sense?'

  'Let's see.'

  I pressed the starter button and the prop slowly started to move. Randolph pumped the primer and there was a cough as the engine fired; then another, this time accompanied by a large puff of black smoke from the exhaust. A few waders that were poking around in the shallows took flight as the engine appeared to die, then caught again and started to fire more regularly, the loud detonations transmitting through the airframe as a series of rumbles, growls and squeaks. I released the start button and Randolph stopped priming. The engine smoothed out, I switched to auto-Rich and the oil pressure started to rise. I throttled back and smiled at Randolph, who grinned at me.

  'Are you seeing anyone?' I asked him.

  'No.'

  He looked at me with his large eyes and his face fell. When we first met he had been an empty husk; a blank face with no personality or features to call his own. Now he was a man of fifty but with the emotional insecurity of a fifteen-year-old.

  'I can't imagine life without her, Thursday!'

  'So tell her.'

  'And make myself look an idiot? She'd tell everyone at Tabularasa's — I'd be the laughing stock of them all!'

  'Who cares? Dr Fnorp tells me it's affecting your work; do you want to end up as a walk-on part somewhere?'

  'I really don't care,' he said sadly. 'Without Lola there isn't much of a future.'

  'There'll be other Generics!'

  'Not like her. Always laughing and joking. When she's around the sun shines and the birds sing.' He stopped and coughed, embarrassed at his admission. 'You won't tell anyone I said all that stuff, will you?'