The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [378]
“It’s not exactly my sort of thing,” I said slowly, trying to figure out what sort of book St. Tabularasa’s had thought Lola might be most suitable for. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a girls’ day out—certainly not this decade. Most of my clothes came mail order—when did I ever have time for shopping?
“Oh, go on!” said Lola. “You could do with a day off. What were you doing yesterday?”
“Attending a course on bookjumping using the ISBN positioning system.”
“And the day before?”
“Practical lessons in using textual sieves as PageRunner capturing devices.”
“And before that?”
“Searching in vain for the Minotaur.”
“Exactly why you need a break. We don’t even have to leave the Well—the latest Grattan catalog is still under construction. We can get in because I know someone who’s got a part-time job as a text-justifying engineer. Please say yes. It means so much to me!”
I sighed. “Well, all right—but after lunch. I’ve got to do my Mary Jones thing in Caversham Heights all morning.”
Lola jumped up and down and clapped her hands with joy. I had to smile at her childish exuberance.
“You might move up a size, too,” said Randolph.
She narrowed her eyes and turned to face him. “And what do you mean by that?” she asked angrily.
“Exactly what I said.”
“That I’m fat?”
“You said it, not me,” replied Randolph, concentrating on his metal soldier.
She picked up a glass of water and poured it into his lap.
“What the hell did you do that for!” he spluttered, getting up and grabbing a tea towel.
“To teach you,” yelled Lola, wagging a finger at him, “that you can’t say whatever you want, to whoever you want!”
And she walked out.
“What did I say?” said Randolph in an exasperated tone. “Did you see that? She did that for no reason at all!”
“I think you got off lightly,” I told him. “I’d go and apologize if I were you.”
He thought about this for a few seconds, lowered his shoulders and went off to find Lola, whom I could hear sobbing somewhere near the stern of the flying boat.
“Young love!” said a voice behind me. “Eighteen years of emotions packed into a single week—it can’t be easy, now can it?”
“Gran!” I said, whirling round. “When did you get back?”
“Just now.” She removed her gingham hat and gloves and passed me some cash.
“What’s this?”
“D-3 Generics are annoyingly literal, but it can pay dividends—I asked the cabbie to drive backwards all the way here, and by the end of the trip he owed me money. How are things?”
“Well,” I sighed, “it’s like having a couple of teenagers in the house.”
Look upon it as training for having your own children.” Gran sat down on a chair and sipped at my coffee.
“Gran?”
“Yes?”
“How did you get here? I mean, you are here, aren’t you? You’re not just a memory, or something?”
“Oh, I’m real all right.” She laughed. “You just need a bit of looking after until we sort out Aornis.”
“Aornis?”
“Yes,” sighed Gran. “Think carefully for a moment.”
I mulled the name around in my mind, and sure enough, Aornis came out of the murk like a ship in fog. But the fog was deep, and other things were hidden within—I could feel it.
“Oh, yes,” I murmured, “her. What else was I meant to remember?”
“Landen.”
He came out of the fog, too. The man in the sketch. I sat down and put my head in my hands. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten him.
“I’d regard it a bit like measles,” said Gran, patting my back. “We’ll cure you of her, never fear.”
“But then I have to go and battle with her again, in the real world?”
“Mnemonomorphs are always easier to contain on the physical plane. Once you have beaten her in your mind, the rest should be easy.”
I looked up at her. “Tell me again about Landen.”
And she did, for the next hour—until it was time for me to stand in for Mary Jones again.
I drove into Reading