The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next 3)

We stooped and entered the low doorway. The interior was a workshop, small and smoky. There was a workbench in the middle of the room liberally piled with glass retorts, test tubes and other chemical apparatus; the walls, I noticed, were lined with shelves that held tightly stoppered bottles containing small amounts of colourful liquids, all with labels describing varying styles of backstory, from one named idyllic childhood to another entitled valiant war record.

'This one's nearly empty,' I observed, pointing to a large bottle with: Misguided feelings of guilt over the death of a loved one/partner ten years previously written on the label.

'Yes,' said a small man in a corduroy suit so lumpy it looked as though the tailor was still inside doing alterations, 'that one's been quite popular recently. Some are hardly used at all. Look above you.'

I looked up at the full bottles gathering dust on the shelves above. One was labelled Studied squid in Sri Lanka and another Apprentice Welsh mole-catcher.

'So what can I do for you?' enquired the backstoryist, gazing at us happily and rubbing his hands. 'Something for the lady? Ill-treatment at the hands of sadistic stepsisters? Traumatic incident with a wild animal? No? We've got a deal this week on unhappy love affairs; buy one and you get a younger brother with a drug problem at no extra charge.'

Snell showed the merchant his Jurisfiction badge.

'Business call, Mr Grnksghty – this is apprentice Next.'

'Ah!' he said, deflating slightly. 'The law.'

'Mr Grnksghty here used to write backstories for the Brontës and Thomas Hardy,' explained Snell, placing his bag on the floor and sitting on a table edge.

'Ah, yes!' replied the man, gazing at me over the top of a pair of half-moon spectacles. 'But that was a long time ago. Charlotte Brontë, now she was a writer. A lot of good work for her, some of it barely used—'

'Yes, speaking,' interrupted Snell, staring vacantly at the array of glassware on the table. 'I'm with Thursday down in the Well … What's up?'

He noticed us both staring at him and explained:

'Footnoterphone. It's Miss Havisham.'

'It's so rude,' muttered Mr Grnksghty. 'Why can't he go outside if he wants to talk on one of those things?'

'It's probably nothing but I'll go and have a look,' said Snell, staring into space. He turned to look at us, saw Mr Grnksghty glaring at him and waved absently before going outside the shop, still talking.

'Where were we, young lady?'

'You were talking about Charlotte Brontë ordering backstories and then not using them.'

'Oh, yes.' The man smiled, delicately turning a tap on the apparatus and watching a small drip of an oily coloured liquid fall into a flask. 'I made the most wonderful backstory for both Edward and Bertha Rochester, but do you know she only used a very small part of it?'

'That must have been very disappointing.'

'It was.' He sighed. 'I am an artist, not a technician. But it didn't matter. I sold it lock, stock and barrel a few years back to The Wide Sargasso Sea. Harry Flashman from Tom Brown's Schooldays went the same way. I had Mr Pickwick's backstory for years but couldn't make a sale – I donated it to the Jurisfiction museum.'

'What do you make a backstory out of, Mr Grnksghty?'

'Treacle, mainly,' he replied, shaking the flask and watching the oily substance change to a gas, 'and memories. Lots of memories. In fact, the treacle is really only there as a binding agent. Tell me, what do you think of this upgrade to UltraWord™?'

'I have yet to hear about it properly,' I admitted.

'I particularly like the idea of ReadZip™,' mused the small man, adding a drop of red liquid and watching the result with great interest. 'They say they will be able to crush War and Peace into eighty-six words and still retain the scope and grandeur of the original.'

'Seeing is believing,' I replied.

'Not down here,' Mr Grnksghty corrected me. 'Down here, reading is believing.'

There was a pause as I took this in.

'Mr Grnksghty?'

'Yes?'

'How do you pronounce your name?'