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I
The absence of breakfast
* * *
'The Well of Lost Plots: To understand the Well you have to have an idea of the layout of the Great Library. The library is where all published fiction is stored so it can be read by the readers in the Outland; there are twenty-six floors, one for each letter of the alphabet. The library is constructed in the layout of a cross with the four corridors radiating from the centre point. On all the walls, end after end, shelf after shelf, are books. Hundreds, thousands, millions of books. Hardbacks, paperbacks, leather-bound, everything. But beneath the Great Library are twenty-six floors of dingy yet industrious sub-basements known as the Well of Lost Plots. This is where books are constructed, honed and polished in readiness for a place in the library above. But the similarity of all these books to the copies we read back home is no more than the similarity a photograph has to its subject; these books are alive.'
THURSDAY NEXT – The Jurisfiction Chronicles
Making one's home in an unpublished novel wasn't without its compensations. All the boring day-to-day mundanities that we conduct in the real world get in the way of narrative flow and are thus generally avoided. The car didn't need refuelling, there were never any wrong numbers, there was always enough hot water, and vacuum-cleaner bags came in only two sizes – upright and pull-along. There were other, more subtle differences, too. For instance, no one ever needed to repeat themselves in case you didn't hear, no one shared the same name, talked at the same time or had a word annoyingly 'on the tip of their tongue'. Best of all, the bad guy was always someone you knew of and – Chaucer aside – there wasn't much farting. But there were some downsides. The relative absence of breakfast was the first and most notable difference to my daily timetable. Inside books, dinners are often written about and therefore feature frequently, as do lunches and afternoon tea; probably because they offer more opportunities to further the story. Breakfast wasn't all that was missing. There was a peculiar lack of cinemas, wallpaper, toilets, colours, books, animals, underwear, smells, haircuts and, strangely enough, minor illnesses. If someone was ill in a book it was either terminal and dramatically unpleasant or a mild head cold – there wasn't much in between.
I was able to take up residence inside fiction by virtue of a scheme entitled the Character Exchange Programme. Owing to a spate of bored and disgruntled bookpeople escaping from their novels and becoming what we called 'PageRunners', the authorities set up the scheme to allow characters a change of scenery. In any year there are close to ten thousand exchanges, few of which result in any major plot or dialogue infringements – the reader rarely suspects anything at all.
Since I was from the real world and not actually a character at all, the Bellman and Miss Havisham had agreed to let me live inside the BookWorld in exchange for helping out at Jurisfiction – at least as long as my pregnancy would allow.
The choice of book for my self-enforced exile had not been arbitrary; when Miss Havisham asked me in which novel I would care to reside I had thought long and hard. Robinson Crusoe would have been ideal considering the climate but there was no one female to exchange with. I could have gone to Pride and Prejudice but I wasn't wild about high collars, bonnets, corsets – and delicate manners. No, to avoid any complications and reduce the possibility of having to move, I had decided to make my home in a book of such dubious and uneven quality that publication and my subsequent enforced ejection were unlikely in the extreme. I found just such a book deep within the Well of Lost Plots among failed attempts at prose and half-finished epics of such dazzling ineptness that they would never see the light of day. The book was a dreary crime thriller set in Reading entitled Caversham Heights. I had planned to stay there for only a year but it didn't work out that way. Plans with me are like De Floss novels – try as you might, you never know quite how they are going to turn out.
I read my way into Caversham Heights. The air felt warm after the wintry conditions back home and I found myself standing on a wooden jetty at the edge of a lake. In front of me there was a large and seemingly derelict flying boat of the sort that still plied the coastal routes back home. I had flown on one myself not six months before on the trail of someone claiming to have found some unpublished Burns poetry. But that was another lifetime ago, when I was with SpecOps in Swindon, the world I had temporarily left behind.
I donned a pair of dark glasses and stared at the ancient flying boat, which rocked gently in the breeze, tautening the mooring ropes and creaking gently. As I watched the old aircraft, wondering just how long something this decrepit could stay afloat, a well-dressed young woman stepped out of an oval-shaped door in the high-sided hull. She was carrying a suitcase. I had read Caversham Heights so I knew Mary well, although she didn't know me.
'Hello!' she shouted, trotting up and offering me a hand. 'I'm Mary. You must be Thursday. My goodness! What's that?'
'A dodo. Her name's Pickwick.'
Pickwick plocked and stared at Mary suspiciously.
'Really?' she replied, looking at the bird curiously. 'I'm no expert, of course, but … I thought dodos were extinct.'
'Where I come from they're a bit of a pest.'
'Oh?' mused Mary. 'I'm not sure I've heard of a book with live dodos in it.'
'I'm not a bookperson,' I told her, 'I'm real.'
'Oh!' exclaimed Mary, opening her eyes wide. 'An Outlander.'
She touched me inquisitively with a slender index finger, as though I might be made of glass.
'I've never seen someone from the other side before,' she announced, clearly relieved to find that I wasn't going to shatter into a thousand pieces. 'Tell me, is it true you have to cut your hair on a regular basis? I mean, your hair actually grows?'
'Yes.' I smiled. 'And my fingernails, too.'
'Really?' Mary reflected. 'I've heard rumours about that but I thought it was just one of those Outlandish legends. I suppose you have to eat, too? To stay alive, I mean, not just when the story calls for it?'
'One of the great pleasures of life,' I assured her.
I didn't think I'd tell her about the real-world downsides such as tooth decay, incontinence or old age. Mary lived in a three-year window and neither aged, died, married, had children, got sick nor changed in any way. Although appearing resolute and strong minded she was only like this because she was written that way. For all her qualities, Mary was simply a foil to Jack Spratt, the detective in Caversham Heights, the loyal sergeant figure to whom Jack explained things so the readers knew what was going on. She was what writers called an expositional, but I'd never be as impolite as to say so to her face.
'Is this where I'm going to live?'
I was pointing at the shabby flying boat.
'I know what you're thinking.' Mary smiled proudly. 'Isn't she just the most beautiful thing ever? She's a Sunderland; built in 1943 but last flew in '68. I'm midway through converting her to a houseboat, but don't feel shy if you want to help out. Just keep the bilges pumped out, and if you can run the number-three engine once a month I'd be very grateful – the start-up checklist is on the flight deck.'
'Well – okay,' I muttered.
'Good. I've left a précis of the story taped to the fridge and a rough idea of what you have to say, but don't worry about being word perfect; since we're not published you can say almost anything you want – within reason, of course.'
'Of course.'
I thought for a moment.
'I'm new to the Character Exchange Programme,' I said. 'When will I be called to do something?'
'Wyatt is the inbook exchange liaison officer; he'll let you know. Jack might seem gruff to begin with,' continued Mary, 'but he has a heart of gold. If he asks you to drive his Allegro, make sure you depress the clutch fully before changing gear. He takes his coffee black and the love interest between myself and DC Baker is strictly unrequited, is that clear?'
'Very clear,' I returned, thankful I would not have to do any love scenes.
'Good. Did they supply you with all the necessary paperwork, IDs, that sort of thing?'
