The Lost Bookshop(14)

Chapter Nine





HENRY





‘Is everything okay?’

I’d heard the commotion and was quite surprised to see Martha, still with that defiant expression, having something of a disagreement with the librarian. Having spent so long in libraries myself, my sympathies tended to lie with the staff, but not today.

‘Fine, thank you,’ she replied, tugging the strap of her bag on to her shoulder a little too vigorously, whereupon it snapped and dropped all of the contents to the floor.

‘Oh, let me,’ I said, bending down to help.

‘It’s okay, I can manage,’ she stage whispered. ‘I just bought this,’ she said, looking somewhat forlorn.

I wasn’t sure what to say to make it better.

‘Buy cheap, buy twice,’ I said, in case there was any doubt that my chosen Olympic event would be sticking my foot in my mouth.

She rolled her eyes as I picked up the leaflets and left her to gather her personal effects.

‘Oh, you’re thinking of going to university? Cool,’ I said, flicking through them.

‘You really think so?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course. Especially as a mature student, I think that’s …’ I looked at her face as she stood up and held her hand out in order for me to return her leaflets. ‘Oh. You were being sarcastic.’

It was possible she might have smiled at that, but only fleetingly.

‘Apologies. None of my business. Quite right.’

She sighed heavily.

‘No, I’m sorry. It’s all just a bit—’

‘Can you keep the noise down please?’ the librarian whisper-shouted at us. ‘People are trying to read.’

‘Give me a sec to grab my stuff,’ I said, motioning for her to stay where she was, as though she were a car with a dodgy handbrake.

Once outside, she seemed much happier, but still very guarded towards me, which was fair enough.

‘So, are you still looking for your lost manuscript?’

Her tone made it clear that she didn’t see it as the life-changing search I knew it to be.

‘Very much so, yes. Actually, I came across an old catalogue that was printed by Opaline in the 1920s. It’s really quite fascinating—’

‘Opaline? What a beautiful name,’ she said, and I stupidly felt glad that I was the cause for the smile that spread across her face.

‘Yes, it’s unusual, isn’t it?’

‘And what happened to her?’

We stepped through a stone archway which led into something of a secret garden, right in the middle of the city, with marble statues and a fountain, which was currently empty.

‘Well, that’s what I’m trying to find out. I’m hoping it will give me a clue as to what happened to the bookshop.’ And the manuscript – that was where my interest truly lay. I would make my name, then return home to London a success and show Isabelle that marrying me wouldn’t be a ‘last resort’, as she had put it once.

She took a can of Coke out of her giant bag and pressed down hard on the top so it wouldn’t spray everywhere.

‘Do you want to sit down for a minute?’ she said, pointing to a bench positioned neatly in front of a miserable flowerbed. ‘I’m not really in a rush to get back. Turns out being a live-in housekeeper means you’re on call 24/7.’

I was only too delighted. It seemed her first impression of me had thawed somewhat. That’s when it dawned on me why her company mattered so much. I was lonely. My whole life I had been quite comfortable with the lone wolf lifestyle, but I felt like a total outsider here.

‘So what’s with the obsession?’

‘Obsession?’

‘With this manuscript?’

‘I don’t think I’d call it an obsession.’

‘Erm, you seemed pretty obsessed outside my window the other day.’

‘Oh, right. I suppose I did a bit. I’m writing a PhD proposal about lost manuscripts and why we’re so fascinated with them.’

‘Are we?’ she questioned, scrunching up her nose, then taking a large gulp of her Coke.

‘Come on, surely you can see the appeal? Look at Harper Lee, for example. All those years assuming that she had only written one novel.’

She looked at me askance.

‘To Kill a Mockingbird?’ I said, in case there was any confusion.

‘Oh right, yes.’

There was an awkward silence in which I realised that being an expert in rare books and lost manuscripts could sometimes be construed as quite boring.

‘Of course, there’s Sylvia Plath’s second novel, Double Exposure, which mysteriously vanished after her death.’

‘Who?’

‘You’re not much of a reader, are you?’

She stole a glance at me then, a mixture of spite and hurt in her eyes. I really had a knack for pissing her off.

‘Okay, listen to this. Let me tell you the story of Walter Benjamin. He was a writer, intellectual, genius of a man who also happened to be Jewish living in Nazi-occupied Paris. He didn’t have the right papers, so he had to trek south with other refugees, across the Pyrenees and into Spain.’

‘That’s awful,’ she said, turning her whole body to face me.