‘I’m sorry, Cordelia, but I have to go to the loo.’
‘Don’t think I’m going to fall for that one again,’ she growled under her breath.
‘It’s true this time.’
‘And the book?’
‘I always read on the loo.’
She narrowed her eyes at me and I narrowed my eyes back.
‘Very well,’ she said finally, ‘but I’m coming with you.’
She smiled at the two lucky winners of her crazy competition, who smiled back through the half-glazed office door, and we both trotted into the ladies’.
‘Ten minutes,’ she said to me as I locked myself in a cubicle. I opened the book and started to read:
Many were the tears shed by them in their last adieus to a place so much beloved. ‘Dear, dear Norland!’ said Marianne, as she wandered alone before the house, on the last evening of them being there…
The small melamine cubicle started to evaporate and in its place was a large park, bathed in the light of a dying sun, the haze softening the shadows and making the house glow in the failing light. There was a light breeze, and in front of the house a lone girl walked, gazing fondly at the—
‘—do you always read aloud in the toilet?’ asked Cordelia from behind the door.
The images evaporated in a flash and I was back in the ladies’.
‘Always,’ I replied. ‘And if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll never be finished.’
‘…when shall I cease to regret you!—When I learn to feel a home elsewhere?—Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!—and you, ye well known trees!—but you will continue…’
The house came back again, the young woman talking quietly, matching her words to mine as I drifted into the book. I was now sitting not on a hard SpecOps standard toilet seat but on a white-painted wrought-iron garden bench. I stopped reading when I was certain I was completely within Sense and Sensibility and listened to Marianne as she finished her speech:
‘…and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade! But who will remain to enjoy you?’
She sighed dramatically, clasped her hands to her breast and sobbed quietly for a moment or two. Then she took one long look at the large white-painted house and turned to face me.
‘Hello!’ she said in a friendly voice. ‘I haven’t seen you around here before. Would you be working for Juris-thingummywhatsit?’
‘Don’t we have to be careful as to what we say?’ I managed to utter, looking around nervously.
‘Goodness me no!’ exclaimed Marianne with a delightful giggle. ‘The chapter is over and, besides, this book is written in the third person. We are free to do what we please until tomorrow morning when we depart for Devon. The next two chapters are heavy with exposition—I hardly have anything to do, and I say even less! You look confused, poor thing! Have you been into a book before?’
‘I went into Jane Eyre once.’
Marianne frowned overdramatically.
‘Poor, dear, sweet Jane! I would so hate to be a first-person character! Always on your guard, always having people reading your thoughts! Here we do what we are told but think what we wish. It is a much happier circumstance, believe me!’
‘What do you know about Jurisfiction?’ I asked.
‘They will be arriving shortly,’ she explained. ‘Mrs Dashwood might be beastly to Mama but she understands self-preservation. We wouldn’t want to suffer the same tragic fate as Confusion and Conviviality, now, would we?’
‘Is that Austen?’ I queried. ‘I’ve not even heard of it!’
Marianne sat down next to me and rested her hand on my arm.
‘Mama said it was a socialist collective,’ she confided in a hoarse whisper. ‘There was a revolution—they took over the entire book and decided to run it on the principle of every character having an equal part, from the duchess to the cobbler! I ask you! Jurisfiction tried to save it, of course, but it was too far gone—not even Ambrose could do anything. The entire book was… boojummed!’
She said the last word so seriously that I would have laughed had she not been staring at me so intently with her dark brown eyes.
‘How I do talk!’ she said at last, jumping up, clapping her hands and doing a twirl on the lawn. ‘…and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade.…’
She stopped and checked herself, placed her hand over her mouth and nose and uttered an embarrassed girlish giggle.
‘What a loon!’ she muttered. ‘I’ve said that already! Farewell, Miss… Miss… I beg your pardon but I don’t know your name!’
‘It’s Thursday—Thursday Next.’
‘What a strange name!’
She gave a small curtsy in a half-joking way.
‘I am Marianne Dashwood and I welcome you, Miss Next, to Sense and Sensibility.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘I’m sure I shall enjoy it here.’
‘I’m sure you shall. We all enjoy it a great deal—do you think it shows?’
‘I think it shows a great deal, Miss Dashwood.’
‘Call me Marianne, if it pleases you. May I be so bold as to ask you a favour?’
‘Of course.’
She came closer and sat on the seat with me, holding my hand and staring into my eyes intently.
‘Please, I wonder if I might be so bold as to ask when your own book is set?’
‘I’m not a book person, Miss Dashwood—I’m from the real world.’
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘Please excuse me; I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t real or anything. In that case, when, might I ask, is your own world set?’
I smiled at her strange logic and told her. She leaned closer still.
‘Please excuse the impertinence, but would you bring something back next time you come?’
‘Such as?’
‘Mintolas. I simply adore Mintolas. You’ve heard of them, of course? A bit like Munchies but minty—and, if it’s no trouble, a few pairs of nylon tights. And some AA batteries; a dozen would be perfect.’
‘Sure. Anything else?’
Marianne thought for a moment.
‘Elinor would so hate me asking favours from a stranger, but I happen to know she has an inordinate fondness for Marmite—and some real coffee for Mama.’
I told her I would do what I could. She smiled again, thanked me profusely, pulled on a leather flying helmet and goggles that she had secreted within her shawl, held my hand for a moment and then was gone, running across the lawn.
25. Roll-call at Jurisfiction
‘Boojum: Term used to describe the total annihilation of a word/line/character/subplot/book/series. Complete and irreversible, the nature of a boojum is still the subject of some heated speculation. Some past members of Jurisfiction theorise that a Boojum might be a gateway to an “anti-library” somewhere beyond the “imagination horizon”. It is possible that the semi-mythical Snark may hold the key to deciphering what is, at present, a mystery.
Bowdlerisers: A group of fanatics who attempt to excise obscenity and profanity from all texts. Named after Thomas Bowdler, who attempted to make Shakespeare “family reading” by cutting lines from the plays, believing by so doing that “the transcendental genius of the poet would undoubtedly shine with greater lustre”. Bowdler died in 1825, but his torch is still carried, illegally, by active cells eager to complete and extend his unfinished work at any cost. Attempts to infiltrate the Bowdlerisers have so far met with no success.’
I watched Marianne until she was no longer in sight and then, realising that her ‘…remain to enjoy you line was the last of Chapter 5, and that Chapter 6 begins with the Dashwoods already embarked on their journey, I decided to wait and see what a chapter ending looked like. If I had expected a thunderclap or something equally dramatic, I was to be disappointed. Nothing happened. The leaves in the trees gently rustled, the occasional sound of a woodpigeon reached my ears, and before me a red squirrel hopped across the grass. I heard an engine start up and a few minutes later a biplane rose from the meadow behind the rhododendrons, circled the house twice and then headed off towards the setting sun. I rose and walked across the finely manicured lawn, nodded at a gardener, who tipped his head in response, and made my way to the front door. Norland was never described in that much detail in Sense and Sensibility, but it was every bit as impressive as I thought it would be. The house was located within a broad sweeping parkland which was occasionally punctuated by mature oak trees. In the distance I could see only woods, and beyond them the occasional church spire. Outside the front door there was a Bugatti 356 motor-car and a huge white charger saddled for battle, munching idly on some grass. A large white dog was attached to the saddle by a length of string, and it had managed to wrap itself three times around a tree.