Richard stared up at him. There were dark circles beneath Richard's eyes. "Do I believe it? I don't know anymore. I did. I was there. There was a part in there when you turned up, you know."

"You didn't mention that before."

"It was a pretty horrid part. You told me that I'd gone mad and I was just wandering around London hallucinating."

They walked out of the cafe and walked south, toward Piccadilly. "Well," said Gary. "you must admit, it sounds more likely than your magical London underneath, where the people who fall through the cracks go. I've passed the people who fall through the cracks, Richard: they sleep in shop doorways all down the Strand. They don't go to a special London. They freeze to death in the winter."

Richard said nothing.

Gary continued. "I think maybe you got some kind of blow on the head. Or maybe some kind of shock when Jessica chucked you. For a while you went a little crazy. Then you got better."

Richard shivered. "You know what scares me? I think you could be right."

"So life isn't exciting?" continued Gary. "Great. Give me boredom. At least I know where I'm going to eat and sleep tonight. I'll still have a job on Monday. Yeah?" He turned and looked at Richard.

Richard nodded, hesitantly. "Yeah."

Gary looked at his watch. "Bloody hell," he exclaimed. "It's after two o'clock. Let's hope there are still a few taxis about." They walked into Brewer Street, at the Piccadilly end of Soho, wandering past the lights of the peep shows and the strip clubs. Gary was talking about taxis. He was not saying anything original, or even interesting. He was simply fulfilling his obligation as a Londoner to grumble about taxis. ". . . Had his light on and everything," he was saying, "I told him where I wanted to go, he said, sorry, I'm on my way home, I said, where do all you taxi drivers live anyway? And why don't any of you live near me? The trick is to get in first, then tell them you live south of the river, I mean, what was he trying to tell me? The way he was carrying on, Battersea might as well have been in bloody Katmandu . . . "

Richard had tuned him out. When they reached Windmill Street, Richard crossed the road and stared into the window of the Vintage Magazine Shop, examining the cartoonish models of forgotten film stars and the old posters and comics and magazines on display. It had been a glimpse into a world of adventure and imagination. And it was not true. He told himself that.

"So, what do you think?" Gary asked.

Richard jerked back to the present. "Of what?"

Gary realized Richard had not heard a word he had said. He said it again. "If there aren't any taxis we could get night buses."

"Yeah," said Richard. "Great. Fine."

Gary grimaced. "You worry me."

"Sorry."

They walked down Windmill Street, toward Piccadilly. Richard thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He looked puzzled for a moment, and pulled out a rather crumpled black crow's feather, with red thread tied around the quill.

"What's that?" asked Gary.

"It's a-" He stopped. "It's just a feather. You're right. It's only rubbish." He dropped the feather in the gutter at the curb, and did not look back.

Gary hesitated. Then he said, picking his words with care, "Have you thought about seeing somebody?"

"See somebody? Look, I'm not crazy, Gary."

"Are you sure about that?" A taxi came toward them, yellow for-hire light burning.

"No," said Richard, honestly. "Here's a taxi. You take it. I'll take the next one."

"Thanks." Gary waved down the taxi and climbed into the back before telling the driver that he wished to go to Battersea. He pulled down the window, and, as the taxi pulled out, he said, "Richard-this is reality. Get used to it. It's all there is. See you on Monday."

Richard waved at him and watched the taxi drive away. Then he turned around and walked slowly away from the lights of Piccadilly, back up toward Brewer Street. There was no longer a feather by the curb. Richard paused beside an old woman, fast asleep in a shop doorway. She was covered with a ripped old blanket, and her few possessions-two small junk-filled cardboard boxes and a dirty, once-white umbrella-were tied together with string beside her, and the string was tied around her wrist, to keep anyone from stealing them while she slept. She wore a wool hat, of no particular color.

He pulled out his wallet, found a ten-pound note, and bent down to slide the folded note into the woman's hand. Her eyes opened, and she jerked awake. She blinked at the money with old eyes. "What's this?" she said, sleepily, displeased at having been woken.

"Keep it," said Richard.

She unfolded the money, then pushed it up her sleeve. "Whatchyouwant?" she asked Richard, suspiciously.

"Nothing," said Richard. "I really don't want anything. Nothing at all." And then he realized how true that was; and how dreadful a thing it had become. "Have you ever got everything you ever wanted? And then realized it wasn't what you wanted at all?"

"Can't say that I have," she said, picking the sleep from the corner of her eyes.

"I thought I wanted this," said Richard. "I thought I wanted a nice, normal life. I mean, maybe I am crazy. I mean, maybe. But if this is all there is, then I don't want to be sane. You know?" She shook her head. He reached into his inside pocket. "You see this?" he said. He held up the knife. "Hunter gave this to me as she died," he told her.

"Don't hurt me," said the old lady. "I ain't done nuffing."

He heard a strange intensity in his own voice. "I wiped her blood from the blade. A hunter looks after her weapons. The earl knighted me with it. He gave me the freedom of the Underside."

"I don't know anyfing about that," she said. "Please. Put it away. That's a good lad."

Richard hefted the knife. Then he lunged toward the brick wall, next to the doorway in which the woman had been sleeping. He slashed three times, once horizontally, twice vertically. "What you doin'?" asked the woman, warily.

"Making a door," he told her.

She sniffed. "You ought to put that thing away. If the police see you they'll run you in for offensive weapons."

Richard looked at the outline of a doorway he had scratched on the wall. He put his knife back into his pocket, and he began to hammer on the wall with his fists. "Hey! Is there anyone there? Can you hear me? It's me-Richard. Door? Someone?" He hurt his hands, but he kept banging and flailing at the brickwork.

And then the madness left him, and he stopped.

"Sorry," he said to the old lady.

She did not answer. She had either gone back to sleep or, more probably, pretended to go back to sleep. Elderly snores, real or feigned, came from the doorway. Richard sat down on the pavement, and wondered how someone could make such a mess of their life as he had made of his. Then he looked back at the doorway he had scratched on the wall.

There was a door-shaped hole in the wall, where he had scratched his outline. There was a man standing in the doorway, with his arms folded theatrically. He stood there until he was certain that Richard had seen him. And then he yawned hugely, covering his mouth with a dark hand.

The marquis de Carabas raised an eyebrow. "Well?" he said, irritably. "Are you coming?"

Richard stared at him for a heartbeat.

Then Richard nodded, without trusting himself to speak, and stood up. And they walked away together through the hole in the wall, back into the darkness, leaving nothing behind them; not even the doorway.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to all the readers of this book in its various drafts and versions for their input, suggestions, and feedback-particularly to Steve Brust, Martha Soukup, Dave Langford, Gene Wolfe, Cindy Wall, Amy Horsting, Lorraine Garland, and Kelli Bickman; to Doug Young and Sheila Ableman at BBC Books for their help and support, and to Jennifer Hershey and Lou Aronica at Avon Books. I would also like to thank all the people who came to my rescue whenever chunks of this novel devolved to their component electrons, and Norton Utilities.

-Neil Gaiman

Because I Say So: The Making of Neverwhere.

Excerpts from a March 1999 interview with Neil Gaiman by Claire E. White for The Internet Writing Journal The Internet Writing Journal, http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/ Let's talk about Neverwhere Neverwhere. I understand that project came about actually for British television. So did you write the story for television or did you write the novel first? I've read the novel, but I haven't seen the television series.

Well, you haven't missed anything. The first thing I wrote was the TV script. And then they started making the film. As I started going, I would have these conversation with the producer when he'd say, "Ok, Neil, just to let you know we've lost this scene. This location just fell through." Or, "We've lost this scene; the episode is running too long." Or, "When filming this scene the actor broke his leg running down a tunnel, and you're going to have to write him out of the rest of it." All of which happened. Every time he would say something like that, I would say, "Its okay, I'll put it back in the novel." The novel, for me, was my way of asserting control. Saying, "No, this is what I meant." Suddenly I had control over the costumes again. Control over the things that I didn't have any control over on the TV screen. On the one hand, you'd spent a few years writing the story. On the other hand, what's being made is not entirely the thing in your head. You've lost the power that you have writing novels or writing comics. Which is the power of "Because I Say So." You know, why is this character doing that? Because I say so. Because I say so.

Because you see it that way in your mind.

Yes. Why is this character wearing this? Because that is what he is wearing. All of a sudden, you are dealing with a costume lady who doesn't necessarily see things your way. Now, I'm not asserting here that my way is right and the way of the director, or the costume lady, or the cameraman or whatever is wrong. That's not even the issue. The issue here is simply the power of Because I Say So.... So, for me, the novel was very much a way of being able to put that back. It was to go back to a world over which I had complete and utter control. And so I did and I wrote the novel. And then I wrote the novel again, having written it once for the UK. I then wrote it again for America. Great fun, because I got to treat London as a slightly more imaginary and unreal place the second time through. It's funny because Americans occasionally get slightly huffy at me when I tell them that I've written Neverwhere Neverwhere more than once. On occasion, there is a slight sort of huffiness as if, "What, you don't think we're bright enough to have read the English version?" And that's not actually it at all. In fact, I think the American version is a much better book for me than the English version. In the English version, I could say something like "he walked down Oxford Street," and know that everybody reading my book knows that Oxford Street is a large metropolitan street in the central west-end of London filled with large shops. I don't expect anybody in Kansas to know that. If somebody in Kansas read that, they might think, "Oxford Street, maybe it's a street with a University on it or something." I would not make fun of that person for thinking that. They don't know - nor should they. So what I tried to do was, in the American version, just add information, add details. Sometimes I'd hide the details or the information in the book. In the English one there is a joke which is at one point, one character says, "We're going to this market but it's in a really nasty area of London." And the hero says, "Where's that?" And she says, "Knightsbridge." Which is very funny if you know London, then you know this is the nicest area of London. But people who haven't been to London merely know that they are missing a joke there. more than once. On occasion, there is a slight sort of huffiness as if, "What, you don't think we're bright enough to have read the English version?" And that's not actually it at all. In fact, I think the American version is a much better book for me than the English version. In the English version, I could say something like "he walked down Oxford Street," and know that everybody reading my book knows that Oxford Street is a large metropolitan street in the central west-end of London filled with large shops. I don't expect anybody in Kansas to know that. If somebody in Kansas read that, they might think, "Oxford Street, maybe it's a street with a University on it or something." I would not make fun of that person for thinking that. They don't know - nor should they. So what I tried to do was, in the American version, just add information, add details. Sometimes I'd hide the details or the information in the book. In the English one there is a joke which is at one point, one character says, "We're going to this market but it's in a really nasty area of London." And the hero says, "Where's that?" And she says, "Knightsbridge." Which is very funny if you know London, then you know this is the nicest area of London. But people who haven't been to London merely know that they are missing a joke there.

Did you change any dialogue?

Yes. I changed some of the dialogue. It's been interesting talking to Americans about this who, again, get a little bit huffy, asking, "What? We aren't good enough to get the words?" But that's not the point. For example, in the English version Richard, our hero, meets Door, our, for want of a better word, heroine. He stumbles over her bleeding on the pavement pavement. In the American version, he stumbles over her bleeding on the sidewalk sidewalk. English people ask me, "Why did you change that?" And I say, "Because it's a word that means two different things. The English word pavement literally means sidewalk. In America pavement is the paved area; it's actually the road. If I left her bleeding on the pavement in the American version, for reasons of cultural superiority, she would be in a different place. People would understand it differently." I wanted the story to be understood and to be read the same. There was definitely a certain amount of work done on both sides. I also wound up with an editor who didn't like a couple of sequences, especially one sequence. The American version I'd say is about 10,000 words longer and 1,000 words shorter than the English one. My favorite version of the book (I think you'd like it) is called the international version, which so far has gotten printed in several foreign countries. The French version and the Dutch version actually contain something closer to a complete text. Just to confuse everybody.

The hero of Neverwhere Neverwhere is Richard Mayhew. How did you go about creating him? He seems to have elements of Everyman. Things just keep happening to him. Did you sit down and plan him out, or did he just evolve as you wrote the story? is Richard Mayhew. How did you go about creating him? He seems to have elements of Everyman. Things just keep happening to him. Did you sit down and plan him out, or did he just evolve as you wrote the story?

Well, a little bit of both. C.S. Lewis wrote an essay all about heroes and Everyman, where he said that, "It is very, very important that a hero in a novel not be too odd. How odd events strike odd people is an oddity too much." He pointed out that in Through the Looking Glass Through the Looking Glass ... Wonderland would not have been anywhere so interesting had Alice not been so dull, so plain. If Alice had been in any way interesting herself, it would have been a much less interesting book. And I thought, "You've got to try." It seems like a nice position to begin a book from. I wanted a hero who was not a hero. I wanted somebody who was a little bit everybody, someone who was not the kind of person who would make the list if you were putting together a hero roster, but who was going to get by on essentially a good heart and good intentions, which were going to get him into deep trouble, but perhaps get him out again as well. I don't know that I planned him. It was much more a matter of knowing how the story started. When I began the book, I had more than the beginning in my head, but not an awful lot more than the beginning. I knew that he was going to stumble across this girl. I knew that truly no good deed would go unpunished. And that he was going to wind up losing his life, his identity and everything else. His fiancee would dump him and ... he would very rapidly stop existing as far as everybody else was concerned. I had Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar in my head, and the marquis. I figured we'd meet Hunter sooner or later. But that was it. That's what I had to go on when I started the book and when I started writing the script. Most everything else turned up along the way. These are the things I discovered as I wrote. ... Wonderland would not have been anywhere so interesting had Alice not been so dull, so plain. If Alice had been in any way interesting herself, it would have been a much less interesting book. And I thought, "You've got to try." It seems like a nice position to begin a book from. I wanted a hero who was not a hero. I wanted somebody who was a little bit everybody, someone who was not the kind of person who would make the list if you were putting together a hero roster, but who was going to get by on essentially a good heart and good intentions, which were going to get him into deep trouble, but perhaps get him out again as well. I don't know that I planned him. It was much more a matter of knowing how the story started. When I began the book, I had more than the beginning in my head, but not an awful lot more than the beginning. I knew that he was going to stumble across this girl. I knew that truly no good deed would go unpunished. And that he was going to wind up losing his life, his identity and everything else. His fiancee would dump him and ... he would very rapidly stop existing as far as everybody else was concerned. I had Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar in my head, and the marquis. I figured we'd meet Hunter sooner or later. But that was it. That's what I had to go on when I started the book and when I started writing the script. Most everything else turned up along the way. These are the things I discovered as I wrote.

Excerpted from an interview with Neil Gaiman by Claire E. White. Copyright 1997-2001 by Writers Write, Inc., http://www.writerswrite.com. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Neil Gaiman is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of the novels Neverwhere Neverwhere, Stardust Stardust, the Sandman series of graphic novels, and Smoke and Mirrors Smoke and Mirrors, a collection of short fiction. He is coauthor of the novel Good Omens Good Omens with Terry Pratchett. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States. with Terry Pratchett. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States.

Visit his website at www.neilgaiman.com.