The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [218]
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