First Among Sequels (Thursday Next 5)

“This is Very Old Jokes,” explained the psychiatrist apologetically. “Pianos are down the corridor, first on the left.”

“Sorry,” I muttered somewhat sheepishly, and quietly closed the door. “I keep on doing that,” I murmured. “They should really label these doors better.”

We walked along the corridor, found the correct door and opened it to reveal a room about fifty feet square. The walls were roughly plastered, and the vaulted stone ceiling was supported in the center of the room by a sturdy pillar. Set into the wall to our right was an aperture the size of a single garage, painted bright white and illuminated from within by several hundred lightbulbs. As we watched, there was a faint buzz, a flicker, and an ornate cabinet piano suddenly appeared in the aperture. Almost instantly a workman dressed in brown overalls and with a flat cap moved forward to wheel it out on well-oiled castors. Facing the bright white opening was a control desk that looked like a recording studio’s mixing console, and behind this were two men of youthful countenance, dressed in linen suits. They were wearing headsets and had the harried look of people under great pressure.

“Upright rosewood returned from Sons and Lovers,” whispered the one who was standing. “Stand by to send the Goetzmann into Villette.”

“Check!” shouted the other man as he adjusted the knobs and sliders on the console. The workman pushed a Goetzmann grand into the empty aperture, stepped back, called “Clear,” and with another buzz, the piano vanished.

They looked at us as soon as we entered, and I nodded a greeting. They nodded one back and returned to their work.

“Observe,” I said to the Thursdays, pointing to a large indicator panel on the wall behind the men. The fifteen pianos were listed down the left-hand side, and in columns next to them were indicator lights and illuminated panels that explained what was happening to each. The uppermost piano on the list we noted was a “generic” grand and was currently inside Bleak House. It would be available in a few minutes and was next due to appear in Mill on the Floss, where it would stay for a number of scenes until departing for Heart of Darkness. While we watched, the indicator boards clicked the various changes as the two operators expertly moved the pianos back and forth across fiction. Below the indicator boards were several other desks, a watercooler and a kitchenette and coffee bar. There were a few desultory potted plants kicking around, but aside from several rusty filing cabinets, there was not much else in the room.

“Fifteen pianos is usually ample,” I explained, “and when all pianos are available for use, the Piano Squad just trots along merrily to a set timetable. There are a few changes here and there when a new book requires a piano, but it generally works—eightysix percent of pianos appear in nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century literature.”

I pointed to the indicator board.

“But if you notice, eight pianos are ‘status unavailable,’ which means that they have been pulled out of frontline service for maintenance.” I waved the report Bradshaw had handed me. “There was an administrative mix-up; we usually have one piano offline at a time, but some clot had them all refitted at once to save costs.”

The Thursdays looked at the two operators again, and as we watched, the upright piano made of rosewood and with inlaid brass was moved from Sons and Lovers to The Mayor of Casterbridge and then on to The Turn of the Screw.

“That’s right,” I said, “Charles and Roger are having to spread seven pianos around the entire canon of English fiction. Hang on, it looks as though we’re coming to a break.”

They did indeed seem to be about to stop work for a few minutes. The two operators relaxed, stopped what they were doing, removed their headsets and stretched.

“Hello, Thursday,” said the younger of the two in a quiet whisper. “Brought your family in to work?”

“Not a chance,” I laughed. “Jurisfiction Cadets Thursday5 and Thursday1–4, meet Charles and Roger of the Piano Squad.”

“Hello!” yelled Roger, who appeared not to be able to converse at anything less than a shout. “Come up and have a look-see!”

The Thursdays went to join Roger at the console, Thursday5 because she was genuinely interested and Thursday1–4 because Roger was actually quite attractive.

“Just how many piano mentions are there in fiction?” asked Thursday5.

“Thousands,” he replied, “but in varying degrees. Much of nineteenth-century literature—the Brontës, Hardy and Dickens in particular—is literally awash with pianos, but they’re rarely played. Those are the easy ones to deal with. Our pianos one to seven are nonfunctioning and are for description only. They are simply on an automatic circuit of the BookWorld, appearing momentarily in the text before flashing off to appear elsewhere.” He turned to the indicator board. “If you look at the panel, our trusty old P-6 Broadwood upright is currently on page three hundred and thirty-nine of The Lost World, where it occupies a space near the standard lamp in the Pottses’ villa in Streatham. In a few moments, it will jump automatically to the subbasement on page ninety-one of Howards End, where it will sit beneath a Maud Goodman painting. A moment later it will jump off to page one hundred and sixty-one of Huckleberry Finn and the Grangerford parlor.”

“However,” added Charles in a whisper, “Eliot, Austen and Thackeray are not only knee-deep in pianos, but working ones which in many instances are the linchpin of a scene. And those are the ones we have to be most careful about regarding supply and demand. Amelia Sedley’s piano in Vanity Fair is sold at auction and repurchased by Dobbin to be given to her as a gift, and the singing and accompaniment within Austen do much to add to the general atmosphere.”

Thursday5 nodded enthusiastically, and Thursday1–4, for the first time that day, actually expressed a vague interest and asked a question: “Can’t someone just make some more pianos?”

“There is a measure of economy that runs throughout the BookWorld,”

he replied. “We count ourselves lucky—pianos are positively bountiful compared to the number of real dusty gray and wrinkly elephants.”

“How many of those are there?”

“One. If anyone needs a herd, the Pachyderm Supply Division has to make do with cardboard cutouts and a lot of off-page trumpeting.”

The Thursdays mused upon this for a moment, as Charles and Roger donned their jackets and prepared to take a few hours off while I took over. I’d done it before, so it wasn’t a problem.

“Everything’s pretty much set on automatic,” explained Charles as they headed out the door, “but there are a few manual piano movements you’ll need to do—there’s a list on the console. We’ll be back in two hours to take care of the whole Jude the Obscure letter-in-the-piano plot-device nonsense and to somehow juggle the requirements of a usable piano in Three Men in a Boat with the destruction of a Beulhoff grand in Decline and Fall.”

“Sooner you than me,” I said. “Enjoy your break.”

They assured me that they would and departed with the man in overalls, whose name, we learned, was Ken.

“Right,” I said, sitting down and putting my feet up on the console. “Get the coffee on, Thursday.”