The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [546]
“Wavering between ‘to be’ and ‘not to be’ at the moment.”
“So there’s hope, then?”
“There’s always hope.”
“My sentiments entirely. Ever had a near-death experience?”
“Yes,” I replied, recalling the time I was shot by a police marksman in an alternative future.
“What was it like?”
“Dark.”
“That sounds like a plain old common or garden-variety death experience,” replied Spike cheerfully. “I get them all the time. No, we need something a bit better than that. To pass over into the dark realm, we need to just come within spitting distance of the Grim Reaper and hover there, tantalizingly just out of his reach.”
“And how are we going to achieve that?”
“Haven’t a clue.”
He turned off the motorway at Junction 17 and took the entrance ramp back onto the opposite carriageway to do another circuit.
“What did Cindy do before you were married?”
“She was a librarian then, too. She comes from a long line of dedicated Sicilian librarians—her brother is a librarian for the CIA.”
“The CIA?”
“Yes, he spends the time traveling the world—cataloging their books, I presume.”
It seemed as though Cindy was wanting to tell him what she really did but couldn’t pluck up the courage. The truth about Cindy might easily shock him, so I thought I’d better plant a few seeds of doubt. If he could figure it all out himself, it would be a great deal less painful.
“Does it pay well, being a librarian?”
“Certainly does!” exclaimed Spike. “Sometimes she is called away to do freelance contract work—emergency card-file indexing or something—and they pay her in used notes, too—in suitcases. Don’t know how they manage it, but they do.”
I sighed and gave up.
We drove around twice more. Parks and the rest of the SO-6 spooks had long since got bored and driven off, and I was beginning to get a little tired of this myself.
“How long do we have to do this for?” I asked as we drove onto the Junction 16 roundabout for the seventh time, the sky darkening and small spots of rain appearing on the windshield. Spike turned on the wipers, which squeaked in protest.
“Why, am I keeping you from something?”
“I promised Mum she wouldn’t have to look after Friday past five.”
“What are grannies for? Anyway, you’re working.”
“Well, that’s not the point, is it?” I answered. “If I annoy her, she may decide not to look after him again.”
“She should be grateful for it. My parents love looking after Betty, although Cindy doesn’t have any—they were both shot by police marksmen while being librarians.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as unusual?”
He shrugged. “In my line of work, it’s difficult to know what unusual is.”
“I know the feeling. Are you sure you don’t want to play in the SuperHoop?”
“I’d sooner attempt root-canal work on a werewolf.” He pressed his foot hard on the accelerator and weaved around the traffic that was waiting to return to the westbound M4. “I’m bored with all this. Death, drape your sable coat upon us!”
Spike’s car shot forward and rapidly gathered speed down the slip road as a deluge of summer rain suddenly dumped onto the motorway, so heavy that even with the wipers on full speed, it was difficult to see. Spike turned on the headlights, and we joined the motorway at breakneck speed, through the spray of a passing juggernaut, before pulling into the fast lane. I glanced at the speedometer. The needle was just touching ninety-five.
“Don’t you think you’d better slow down?” I yelled, but Spike just grinned maniacally and overtook a car on the inside.
We were going almost a hundred when Spike pointed out the window and yelled, “Look!”
I gazed out my window to the empty fields; there was nothing but a curtain of heavy rain falling from a leaden sky. As I stared, I suddenly glimpsed a sliver of light as faint as a will-o’-the-wisp. It might have been anything, but to Spike’s well-practiced eye, it was just what we’d been looking for—a chink in the dark curtain that separates the living from the dead.
“Here we go!” yelled Spike, and he pulled the wheel hard over. The side of