One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

“You’re not playing me, you’re playing her. There’s a big difference. Although I’ve been Thursday for so long that sometimes I think I am her, I’m not. I’m just the written her. But in answer to your question, I try to play her dignified. I took over from the other written Thursday—long story, don’t ask—soon after the Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco was deleted—even longer story, still don’t ask—and the previous Thursday played her a little disrespectfully, so I’m trying to redress that.”

“I heard that the violent and gratuitous-sex Thursday had a lot more readers.”

I glared at Carmine, but she simply stared back at me with big innocent eyes. She was making a statement of fact, not criticism.

“We’ll get the readers back somehow,” I replied, although I wasn’t wholly convinced.

“Can I meet the real Thursday?” asked Carmine in a hopeful tone of voice. “For research purposes, naturally.”

“She’s very busy, and I don’t like to bother her.”

I was exaggerating my influence. Despite overseeing my creation, the real Thursday didn’t like me much, possibly for the very same reasons she thought she might be improved. I think it was a RealWorld thing: the gulf between the person you want to be and the person you are.

“Look,” I said, “just play her dignified—the individual interpretation is up to you. Until you get into the swing of it, play her subtly different on alternate readings. Hamlet’s been doing it for years. Of course, he has twenty-six different ways of playing himself, but then he’s had a lot of practice. In fact, I don’t think even he knows his motivation anymore—unless you count confusing readers and giving useful employment to Shakespearean scholars.”

“You’ve met Hamlet?”

“No, but I saw the back of his head at last year’s BookWorld Conference.”

“What was it like?” asked Carmine, who seemed to enjoy celebrity tittle-tattle.

“The back of his head? Hairy,” I replied cautiously, “and it might not have been him. In any event, keep your interpretation loose, and don’t telegraph. Let the readers do the work. If you’re going to explain everything, then we might as well give up and tell everyone to stick to television and movies.”

“Were there any goblins?” asked Pickwick as soon as we walked back in.

“I didn’t see any. Did you, Miss O’Kipper?”

“No, no, not a single one.”

“Mrs. Malaprop,” I said, “we’ll be having royalty for tea tomorrow. Better bake some silver and have the buns cleaned.”

“Very good, Mizzen Exe.”

“Here,” I said to Carmine, handing her the complete script for my part. “I have to go out for an hour. I’ll test you on it when I get back.”

She suddenly looked nervous. “What if someone starts to read us while you’re away?”

“They won’t,” I replied, “and if they do, Mrs. Malaprop will point you in the right dictation. Just take it smooth and easy. The rest of the cast will help you along.”

“What do I do with Skimmers?” she asked with a faint tinge of panic in her voice. All rookies feared Dippers, Skimmers and Last-Chapter-Firsters.

“There’s no hard-and-fast rule. Skimmers move in a generally forward direction, and with experience you’ll figure out where they’re going to land next. But the main thing is not to waste time with the nuisance reader—in a word, prioritize. Find the stable, methodical, bread-and-butter readers and give them your best. Leave the Skimmers and Dippers high and dry if there’s a crisis. When things die down later, you can pick them up then.”

“And students?”

“A breeze. They’ll pause at the end of each sentence to think quasi-intellectual deep thoughts, so as soon as a full stop looms, you can be off dealing with someone else. When you get back, they’ll still be pondering about intertextuality, inferred narratives and the scandalously high price of the subsidized beer in the student union.”

She was quiet and attentive, so I carried on.

“You should show no discrimination with readers. Treat the lip movers as you would the New York Times critic. You might not be able to distinguish between the two at first, but you soon will. Yossarian said that you can get to know individual readers by the way they read you. Mind you, he’s been doing it a long time, and Catch-22 gets reread a lot.”

“You’ve met Yossarian?”

“He was just leaving the room after giving a talk. I saw his foot.”

“Left or right?”

“Left.”