Читать книгу The Library of Lost and Found - Phaedra Patrick - Страница 13

CHAPTER FIVE

Bookshop

As they walked to the bus stop, Martha glanced over both shoulders to make sure that Clive wasn’t around to see her leaving work early. She asked Will and Rose if they’d prefer to go to the bookshop with her, or to meet their mother at the restaurant.

Will lowered his phone. ‘Chichetti’s does an amazing chocolate fudge cake. Can we go and get a slice?’

‘Mum sounded like she needed some time out,’ Rose said cautiously. ‘Like, without us.’

Will shrugged and returned to his game.

‘I’m sure your mum will be pleased to see us,’ Martha said, though she wasn’t convinced. ‘But I must get to that bookstore before it closes.’

‘What time’s that?’ Rose asked.

‘One thirty, I think.’

‘But it’s almost one o’clock now.’

When the bus rumbled up, five minutes later, they got on board. Will and Rose made their way to the back seat and positioned themselves as far away from each other as they could. Martha sat down between them. She touched the sparkly slide in her hair and held onto her bag.

Her upper body did a strange dance, as the bus turned and wound its way out of Sandshift and up onto Maltsborough Road. She raised her head to look down at the bay, where the sky was a shroud of mist hanging over the grey-blue sea. Siegfried’s lighthouse gleamed in the hazy February daylight, and Martha willed the bus to get a move on.

Maltsborough was Sandshift’s wealthier neighbour. It had a run of smart seafront bistros, a bank, a grand hotel with turrets, fish and chip shops galore, a museum and a state-of-the-art library that had a coffee shop, gift shop and large lights that looked like giant blue test tubes hanging from the ceiling. It attracted lots more funding than Sandshift and was where Clive sat in his office, hatching plans for budget cuts, synergy and synchronicity.

Chichetti’s was a new Italian restaurant on the high street with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the promenade. It was the kind of place where eating pasta and being seen were of equal importance to diners.

Martha, Will and Rose stood in a line, on the pavement outside, looking in.

Martha spotted her sister’s gold pumps near the window. She raised her hand to wave, but then paused with her hand mid-air. Lilian was leaned forward over the table with her face pointing down. Another woman, who Martha presumed must be Annie, had an arm wrapped around her shoulder.

Martha slowly lowered her hand but Will didn’t seem to notice there might be something going on. He rapped loudly on the window and gave a double thumbs-up to his mum.

Annie shook Lilian’s shoulder, and she sat up abruptly. She knocked her glass of white wine with her wrist and it wobbled. A passing waiter reached out and steadied it.

Lilian blinked hard at Martha, Will and Rose. She got up so quickly her stool rocked, and she sped towards the smoked-glass front door.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked breathlessly, as she stepped outside. Her eyes were pink and glistening above her puffy cheeks. ‘It’s only twenty past one.’

Martha swallowed. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. Just a spot of, um, hay fever.’

‘I have a packet of tissues in my bag. They’re extra-soft and have aloe vera in them…’

‘I’m fine,’ Lilian said. ‘What’s this about?’

‘Sorry for bringing the kids early, but I want to get to that bookshop before it closes. Will and Rose don’t want to join me. I think they want food instead.’

‘I’m really hungry,’ Rose said.

‘Me too.’ Will nodded.

Lilian knitted her hand into her hair and didn’t speak for a while. She took a deep breath and held it in her chest. ‘I suppose that’s fine. We’re just about to order dessert.’ Then her eyes grew harder. ‘I hope this isn’t about that old book?’

Martha felt as if she was shrinking in size, like Alice in Wonderland after drinking from a potion bottle. ‘The shop doesn’t open again until Wednesday,’ she said meekly.

‘I told you to leave it alone.’

‘I just want to find out where it came from, that’s all.’

Lilian pressed her lips together. ‘It’s your choice,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t know why you’re so interested in that stupid old thing, anyway. You could join us for a lovely dessert instead.’

‘Oh yeah, go on, Auntie Martha.’ Rose said.

‘The chocolate fudge cake is really gooey.’ Will licked his lips.

Martha stared inside the restaurant, at a waiter who glided past carrying an enormous ice cream sundae. Her mouth began to water. ‘I, um…’

‘And I need to ask you for another favour,’ Lilian added.

‘Yes?’ Martha said. She fumbled in her bag for her notepad and pen and flipped to her current task list. ‘What is it?’

‘Will you look after the kids, the weekend after next? I need to, um, work away.’

‘I bet it’s at a posh spa,’ Will quipped.

Lilian fixed him with a brief stare, then found a smile for Martha. ‘I have a few things to sort out. Can we make it an overnighter?’

Martha wrote this down and thought about it. Now that they were getting older, Will and Rose hadn’t slept at the house for a couple of years. Her parents’ old bedroom was full of bags and boxes. ‘I’m happy to have them during the day, but there’s not enough space for them to—’

‘Great,’ Lilian interjected. ‘Thanks, Martha. Now, let’s grab that dessert.’

Martha’s mind ticked between her two options. She was here now, but Chamberlain’s closed in a few minutes. She placed her notepad in her handbag and fastened the zip. Lilian’s eyes still looked tense, but it could be because of the pollen. ‘The restaurant looks lovely, but perhaps some other time.’

A veil seemed to slip across Lilian’s features. She wrapped her arms around Will and Rose’s shoulders. ‘You seem to remember our grandmother as some kind of fairy godmother figure,’ she said sharply. ‘It really wasn’t the case.’

Martha’s mouth fell open a little. ‘Zelda was wonderful. She was bright and fun, and always—’

Lilian shook her head. ‘Sometimes, Martha,’ she said as she placed her hand against the restaurant door, ‘it’s easy to remember things differently to how they actually were.’

Martha could hear faint electronic tunes from the amusement arcades on the seafront, but the street where Chamberlain’s Pre-Loved and Antiquarian Books was located was quiet, except for two seagulls cawing and flapping over a dropped bag of chips.

Suki said the bookshop was new, but the shade of the duckegg blue paint coating the window frames and door, and the semicircle of silver lettering embossed on the large windowpane, made it look a couple of centuries old.

Flustered after her uncomfortable discussion with Lilian, Martha struggled to regulate her breathing. Her chest felt tight again and she gave it a rub. There was something about the flicker in her sister’s eyes that made her question her decision to come here.

Even though Lilian was the younger sister, she’d always taken the lead. When she first arrived home from the hospital as a plum-faced newborn, she had assumed control. She would sleep and eat when she wanted, and the rest of the family had to fit their lives around her.

Thomas loved his new daughter. He cooed at her and puffed out his chest when he pushed Lilian in the pram, showing her off to friends and neighbours. He didn’t allow any of the fun toys that Zelda bought inside her cot.

Martha could admit that, with her icy-blonde hair and blue eyes, her sister was a beautiful child. However, her father’s devoted attention to her made Martha feel like the ugly sister in comparison.

As she stood in front of the shop door, she lifted her chin. There were only a couple of minutes left until closing time and she had to follow her instincts. Twisting the brass knob, she opened the door.

A brass bell rang and she felt a little otherworldly as she inhaled the heady aroma of leather, cardboard and ink. Her eyes widened at the sight of the books lining the floor-to-ceiling shelves. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, some worn and some like new.

Her forehead crinkled a little with disapproval as she spotted a screwed-up tissue and a felt tip pen without its lid on the desk. There was a small heap of sweet wrappers, several key rings and a plastic pug dog with a nodding head. Her own house might be busy, but this shop looked disorganized, in need of a good system.

A long wooden ladder, leaning against a bookshelf, stretched from the floor and rose upwards as far as Martha could see. There was a pair of legs, with feet facing her, clad in monogrammed red slippers. The toes wriggled as if their owner was listening to music that nobody else could hear. The ladder rungs creaked and bowed as the legs climbed down.

The red slipper-wearer was tall with a circular face. His sandy hair was pushed back off his forehead and streaked white around the temples. A red silk scarf framed his open-necked black shirt and his grey suit fitted loosely over his large rounded chest. He wore four colourful pin badges. One featured an illustration of a book, and another said ‘Booksellers – great between the sheets’. Martha noticed that his hand was large enough to hold several books in its span and that he had a smear of ink on his cheek.

Martha tapped her own face. ‘You have a smudge.’

‘Oh.’ The man put down his books and lifted his scarf. He used it to rub his face. ‘I keep finding bruises in strange places… but it’s ink from the books and newspapers. There,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Is that better?’

Martha stared at his cheek, which was now denim blue. ‘You may need a mirror.’

‘I don’t think I have one.’

Taking the battered book from her bag, Martha searched for a spare space on the countertop. ‘I think you might have left this for me?’

‘Ah, you must be Martha.’ Owen smiled and held out his hand.

Martha hesitated. Although she liked to help library-goers, physical contact was something she tried to forgo. Helping her parents out of their chairs was as close as she’d got to others for a long time. She reached out and lightly shook his hand, then quickly let it go. ‘May I ask where the book came from, and how you found me?’

Owen picked it up, handling it as if it was an injured baby bird. ‘A fellow bookseller sent it to me, for repair. But it’s in such a bad state and would be too expensive to reconstruct. When I told him the price, he said not to bother. I paid him a tenner for it because I could sell some of the illustrations. But then I got The Guilt.’

‘Guilt?’

‘I can’t bring myself to disassemble books… even if they’re beyond rescue. I always end up keeping them. But then I can’t sell them, either.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Though, over the years I bet my wives would have liked me to.’

Martha blinked, wondering just how many times he’d been married. He did have an air of Henry VIII about him.

‘When I flicked through this one,’ Owen continued, ‘I spotted your name in the dedication and knew it from leaflets about the library. There aren’t any other Martha Storms in the telephone directory… so it had to be you.’

‘Were you huddled by the library door, yesterday evening?’ Martha asked with a frown.

‘Yes, that sounds like me.’

‘I called out to you, but you vanished.’

‘Really? I didn’t hear anything. I was on my way to the footie match with my son – he was waiting in the car. There was an author event on, or something, so I left the book by the door.’

‘The event was cancelled. It was written on the poster.’

‘Oh.’ Owen scratched his head. ‘I don’t think I was wearing my glasses.’

Martha noted that his sentences were as higgledy-piggledy as his bookshop. He started to speak then looked distracted, as if he had to physically search for his next words. ‘Where did your contact get the book from?’ she asked.

Owen scratched his head, leaving his hair stuck up on top. ‘I’d really have to ask him, or check my notes… I do write these things down… sometimes.’

Martha waited for him to look around but he didn’t do anything.

‘You look a little disappointed… or puzzled.’ he said.

She twisted her fingers around her wrist, wondering if she should tell him the reason for the book’s importance. ‘The dedication inside is from my grandmother, Zelda,’ she said. ‘But the date she’s written is three years after she died. The stories in the book are also… well, personal.’

Owen cocked his head to one side. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘Um…’ Martha said, scolding herself for mentioning the last bit.

‘You can tell me anything.’ Owen held up three fingers of his right hand. ‘I’m a bookseller and we have a code of secrecy.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, no.’ He grinned. ‘I just wanted to assure you.’

Martha stared at him, wondering if he was a little crazy or not. But with what she had to say, he might think the same thing about her. After Lilian’s negative reaction to the book, she just wanted someone to listen to her and take this strange situation seriously.

‘I used to write stories, when I was younger,’ she admitted. ‘I only shared them with my family, Zelda mainly. And now I’ve found them here, printed in this book. They’re alongside other ones my nana and mum told me.’

Owen rocked back and forth on his heels for a while. He worked his mouth. ‘I’ve certainly not heard that one before.’

Martha wasn’t sure if he was mocking her or not. She wished that the ground would swallow her up, or that a bookshelf would fall over and squash her flat.

Owen picked up the book and leafed through it again. ‘Publishers sometimes print the title of the book on each page… but not in this case. It looks like the book might be self-published, so it will be more difficult to trace… not impossible, though.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I’ll get back in touch with Dexter, my contact. I’ll see if he remembers where it came from. He knows people.’

He sounds like the James Bond of the second-hand book world, connected to a secret underground network, Martha thought.

‘I’ll make a note of some of these story titles.’ Owen picked up a pen and took hold of a scrap of paper. ‘Or perhaps I can keep this… for a while?’

Martha clicked her tongue. She didn’t want to let the book out of her sight.

‘I’ll take good care of it.’

‘Hmm, well, okay then. But I’d like it back as soon as possible.’

‘I promise to call you on Monday.’

Martha took her purse from her bag. ‘How much do I owe you, for the book and your research?’

‘Now put that away, I don’t want any money.’ He raised a palm. ‘Just buy me a coffee sometime.’

Martha took out a ten-pound note and waved it. ‘Please take this remuneration.’

He shook his head. ‘Tell you what. I’m just about to close the shop, and there’s a nice café called Love, Peace and Coffee just around the corner. It’s perfect for sitting in the window, reading and eating cake. Why don’t we grab a table, and you can tell me more about these intriguing family stories of yours?’

Martha felt her cheeks reddening. She hadn’t been invited out for a coffee by anyone for a long time. Plus, something her father used to say, when she was younger, popped into her head. ‘Watch your cake portions, Martha. You’ll always be beautiful to me, but you’re the type to put on weight easily.’

She paused for what felt like an age, thinking of a reason to give Owen for not joining him. Eventually, she said, ‘Sorry, but I don’t eat cake.’

‘Oh.’ He squinted. ‘Perhaps just a coffee, then?’

Martha started to back up, across the shop towards the door. ‘Not today, thank you. If you find out anything about the book, do let me know.’ She fumbled behind her and opened the door. ‘I’d be most obliged.’

‘I’ll need your phone number.’ Owen reached out with one hand, as if trying to catch her coat. ‘Or I can call the library…’

Martha stood with one foot inside the shop and the other on the pavement outside. She imagined Clive’s smug face, if he took a personal call for her. He’d enjoy berating her.

She stepped back inside the shop, took a piece of paper from her notepad and quickly wrote down her home number.

Owen made a great show of folding it neatly and placing it in his jacket pocket. ‘Fantastic,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’