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'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 dentists' waiting rooms. We stared at the floor indicator as the lift moved slowly upward 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 in; but the Red Queen barked 'Taken!' in such a fearful tone that they 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 sorts of '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't think that's very likely!' The Red Queen ignored me and made a detour through Fantasy to avoid a scrum near the Agatha Christie counter. I knew the store a little better and nipped in between Hergé and Haggard where I was just in time to see Miss Havisham make her first mistake. In her haste she had pushed past a little old lady sizing up a buy-two-get-one-free offer on contemporary fiction. The little old lady – no stranger to department store sales battle tactics – parried Havisham's blow expertly and hooked her bamboo-handled umbrella around her ankle. Havisham came down with a heavy thud and lay still, the breath knocked out of her. I kneeled beside her as the Red Queen hopped past, laughing loudly and making 'nyah, nyah' noises.
'Thursday!' panted Miss Havisham as several stockinged feet ran across her. 'A complete set of Daphne Farquitt novels in a walnut display case – run!'
And run I did. Farquitt was so prolific and popular she had a bookshelf all to herself and her recent boxed sets were fast becoming collector's items – it was not surprising there was a battle in progress. I entered the fight behind the Red Queen and was instantly punched on the nose. I reeled with the shock and was pushed heavily from behind while someone else – an accomplice, I assumed – thrust a walking stick between my shins. I lost my footing and fell with a thud on the hard wooden floor. This was not a safe place to be. I crawled out of the battle and joined Miss Havisham where she had taken cover behind a display of generously discounted du Maurier novels.
'Not so easy as it looks, eh, girl?' asked Havisham with a rare smile, holding a lacy white handkerchief to my bleeding nose. 'Did you see the royal harridan anywhere?'
'I last saw her fighting somewhere between Irvine and Euripides.'
'Blast!' replied Havisham with a grunt. 'Listen, girl, I'm done for. My ankle's twisted and I think I've had it. But you – you might be able to make it.'
I looked out at the squabbling masses as a pocket Derringer fell to the ground not far from us.
'I thought this might happen, so I drew a map.'
She unfolded a piece of Satis House headed notepaper and pointed out where she thought we were.
'You won't make it across the main floor alive. You're going to have to climb over the Police Procedurals bookcase, make your way past the cash register and stock returns, crawl under the Seafaring section and then fight the last six feet to the Farquitt boxed set – it's a limited edition of a hundred – I will never get another chance like this!'
'This is lunacy, Miss Havisham!' I replied indignantly. 'I will not fight over a set of Farquitt novels!'
Miss Havisham looked sharply at me as the muffled crack of a small-calibre firearm sounded and there was the thud of a body falling.
'I thought as much!' she sneered. 'A streak of yellow a mile wide all the way down your back! How did you think you were going to handle the otherness at Jurisfiction if you can't handle a few crazed fiction-fanciers hell-bent on finding bargains? Your apprenticeship is at an end. Good day, Miss Next!'
'Wait! This is a test?'
'What did you think it was? Think someone like me with all the money I have enjoys spending my time fighting for books I can read for free in the library?'
