The Grandest Bookshop in the World

by Mellor, Amelia

  ‘I think so,’ she said, with disbelief. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Any time.’

  He’d thrown himself across the room to catch her. To protect her. She could have died, but Vally had caught her. Because even though he insulted her with oyster facts, he must love her. She didn’t know how to express her sudden, overwhelming rush of affection for him. He could have sliced himself open on any number of tiny spikes and edges, could have spilled his life out on the floor for her. ‘I think I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you, Val.’

  Vally sat up and began to dust himself off. ‘Well, I had to try.’

  ‘Even though I’m irritating?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You used to call me the Constant Irritation. Because of how pearls are made in the oyster.’

  ‘That’s embarrassing. How long ago was that?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked away. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to lose our memories.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Pearl grabbed the rocking horse and hauled herself upright. Her bare feet still felt stiff, as if her ankles were set in plaster casts. ‘You can’t give up on Pa and the Book Arcade just because you’re ashamed of your mistakes!’

  ‘Right – Pa. We’re doing this for Pa.’ Vally shook his head, as if to dislodge the previous thought. ‘But I just … I don’t know anymore if …’ He swallowed. ‘If I was a good person.’

  Pearl snorted. ‘Valentine. You just saved my life. You patched up Eddie’s arm. You were the first one Ma used to ask for when Ruby was upset.’

  ‘Was I?’ He kneaded his brow with the heel of his hand. ‘How did her song go?’

  It took Pearl a moment to remember it herself. ‘She flew like a fairy, she sang like a bird –’

  ‘No, that’s the tune of Pa’s jingle. Cole’s Book Arcade, Cole’s Book Arcade, it’s Melbourne’s favourite place …’

  ‘That doesn’t sound right.’ Pearl limped back to her shoes and put them on. Through the grubby window of the toyshop, she could just make out the Book Arcade’s rainbows. The first sliver of the sixth band, indigo, had already faded away. She picked up Vally’s shoes, too, which had popped off his stumpy doll-feet. ‘Let’s find out what those flowers say.’

  ‘OK,’ Vally said, wobbling upright. He wiggled his toes and gave his kneecap an experimental tap with his knuckles. It made a nice solid sound. ‘Where did we leave Eddie, again?’

  By now, the Book Arcade was looking shabby. Lichen was growing over the skylight. The rust was spreading along the railings like a fungus. The books slouched against one another. Things that were meant to be bright were pale. Things that were meant to be pale looked dirty.

  And the storeroom door on the first floor was ajar.

  ‘Pearl, come on.’ Vally indicated the rainbows. ‘We’ve only got an hour or so.’

  ‘Just a minute. We left this door closed.’ Pearl balled her fists in anticipation. She didn’t want to see, but she was desperate to know.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Very.’ The first time, the girl in the cot had been breathing. The second time, she’d been sitting up, testing out her hands. She’d looked at Pearl, right at her, with those eyes just like Ruby’s that were so big and … blue? Her eyes were blue like Vally’s, weren’t they?

  She wasn’t Ruby. She wasn’t Ruby, because she couldn’t be Ruby, because Ruby was three years dead and buried and the world had gone on turning without her.

  But she looked like Ruby. And if she could talk, and if she could move, maybe that would be enough. Just to see her. Just to pretend, like Ivy could pretend.

  Pearl looked both ways. She took a deep breath. She went in.

  The room was empty.

  No piles of dead stock. No broken chairs. No spare brooms or dusters or floor wax. No window – only boards. No mattress in the cot, the frame of which stood in the dark with its barrier missing. This had already been a dusty room, but before, it had possessed an atmosphere of mystery, as if something amazing could be found among the forgotten books. Now it was as sad and dull as Lolly Land and Toy Land and the rest. Even the spider webs were limp and lifeless. Pearl turned towards the door.

  There were footprints in the dust. Small, bare footprints.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Vally.

  The room darkened. Pearl realised he didn’t mean the footprints.

  The doorway was filled by the form of Mrs Cole. Her hands were on her hips. Her massive skirts brushed either side of the doorjamb. And her voice was as hard and cold as hailstones. ‘Oh, no, indeed.’

  She strode into the storeroom with all the menace and power of a steamship parting the seas. Behind her stood the cringing traitors: Ivy, who would not meet Pearl’s eye, and Eddie, cradling his bandaged hand.

  When Ma and Pa were first married, everyone in Melbourne had said that the genius of Cole’s Cheap Books had found his perfect match. She had good manners and good taste. She was not too serious, nor too silly. He was shy, cool-headed and gentle, and she seemed to be the same.

  But they hadn’t heard yet how loudly she laughed at parties. They hadn’t seen the blood rise to her cheeks in fury.

  A few weeks after the wedding, she had met a Mr Shufflebottom, whom she’d known in Hobart. In fact, he had proposed to her there, but she’d turned him down. He had unpredictable mood swings and a ridiculous name – and besides, she didn’t love him. When Mr Shufflebottom had seen the Coles on the streets of Melbourne, he’d broken into one of his dramatic outbursts. He’d cursed at Pa. He’d bemoaned Hobart’s emptiness without ‘sweet Miss Jordan’. He had threatened to throw himself in the Yarra.

  And this was the moment that Melbourne realised their Book King had not married his perfect match, but his perfect opposite. For Ma was a woman with her feet on the ground and a fire in her heart and a tongue as sharp as a shard of glass.

  ‘The Yarra?’ she had scoffed. ‘The filthiest river in Australia? Of course you’re not, you silly man! You said the same thing about the Derwent when I turned you down last time!’

  Even after that, Mr Shufflebottom had never jumped in any rivers.

  But neither had he told dozens of lies to his parents. He had not bet his memory or anybody’s life on a game he probably would not win. He had not caused anyone to disappear. He had not let anyone sacrifice themselves to a Whipping Machine for him.

  Pearl had. And right now, as her mother stood over her in the living room, the Yarra felt like the place she ought to be. She belonged down in the dark mud with the rest of the garbage. Her father and siblings looked as if they felt the same. In fact, her father looked as if he had been dragged from the river already. His face was pale and clammy, and his hair lay in flat wet strands.

  ‘How could you all be so stupid?’ Ma alone was standing, her fury running at full steam. She gestured at Eddie and Ivy. ‘If what these two have told me is true – and I quite honestly don’t know if I can trust that it is – then it’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done! To strike a deal with a notorious charlatan is one thing. But to do it when he has defrauded your family already? To let him set the rules? To think I wouldn’t find out?’

  Vally raised his head. ‘We didn’t want you to worry.’

  ‘Is that so, Valentine? You were going to have one of the others spring the worry on me tomorrow, were you, when we woke up on the streets? With no business, and nowhere to live! No husband or father! And you two with your minds half gone, ready for the lunatic asylum!’ She pointed at Pearl and Vally. The gesture alone felt like a punch to the chest.

  ‘Then let us finish,’ Eddie muttered.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Let us finish the game, or that’s exactly what will happen! We only have an hour left for the sixth round, and you’re making us waste it!’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, Edward Cole Junior,’ said Ma, now with terrifying calm.

  ‘Like what? Like someone trying to save his fami
ly? You’re the one who’s always telling us to get along and help each other. Now you’re biting our heads off for it!’

  Pa cleared his throat. Everyone turned to him. He was focused on Pearl now, and he spoke gently. ‘Just tell us the truth. You won’t be in trouble.’

  ‘Of course they’ll be in trouble!’ their mother exploded. ‘They deserve to be in trouble! They’ve done a very thoughtless and selfish thing! And don’t think you’re getting out of this, darling. You’re the one who gave them the idea!’

  ‘It wasn’t selfish.’ Pearl couldn’t keep the anger from her voice. ‘We were trying to put things right.’

  ‘We were going to lose the Arcade.’ Even Vally sounded righteously indignant now. ‘We had to do something.’

  Pa braced his hands on his knees and stood up, a little shakily. He touched Ma’s arm. ‘They meant well, dear. Don’t be hard on them.’

  Ma drew a breath that lifted her bosom like a billowing sail. ‘You know, you’re right. They’re children. I could have sworn we raised them to know better, but perhaps they’re still too young.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Pa, patting her arm – although it was beginning to look like he was leaning on her. ‘Now, if we could all –’

  ‘You, on the other hand, have no excuse.’

  Pa was stunned into silence.

  ‘The problem with you, Cole, is that you put too much faith in the best possible outcome.’ She was starting up again, not as loudly now but with a deeper fury. ‘You think that no matter what happens, everything will sort itself out with a bit of hard work and good luck, no matter whether it’s a new department or RAISING OUR DAUGHTER FROM THE DEAD!’

  The shout was so sharp that in the next room, Ebenezer woke up barking.

  ‘We were healing!’ Ma’s voice cracked. ‘She passed over! And you had to open it all up again!’

  Pa took a step backwards. ‘I just thought … if we were all together …’

  ‘What, we could pretend that thing was Ruby? Drag a – a mannequin around as if nothing ever happened? They told me about the copy, Cole! It’s the most horrible thing I can imagine!’

  Ma’s proud shoulders jolted with a sudden sob. She collapsed on the couch beside her youngest daughter.

  Ivy screamed. ‘NO! You can’t sit –’

  ‘Oh, grow up, Ivy!’ The words were out of Pearl’s mouth without having to think about them. ‘Ruby isn’t your imaginary friend. She was our real sister, and you pretending she’s still here doesn’t do anything except make everyone upset!’

  By the end of the sentence, Pearl was looking at her father.

  ‘Pearl.’ Her mother spoke in a cold, flat voice. ‘Go to your room.’

  A moment ago, that voice might have terrified Pearl – but her anger had burned away the sludgy feeling of shame and self-pity. Snatching the bouquet from the floor, she went without a backward glance.

  ‘You too, boys,’ said Ma. ‘To your room. I need to speak to your father.’

  ‘What about me?’ asked Ivy, and to Pearl’s frustration she was sniffling again.

  ‘Oh – sit in the kitchen,’ said Ma, but she sounded annoyed – as if the girls’ squabble was the last thing on her mind.

  Pearl did not go to her room. Her mother was being completely unfair. She went instead to the corridor just outside her room and looked at the flowers. She recognised the long, dark leaves of the pink ones. Pa had warned her and Ruby about a whole tree of them, hanging over a neighbour’s fence at their old house, before the Coles had decided to live at the Book Arcade. The loss of her Arcade memories had uncovered it, like a lost necklace in an emptied wardrobe. That’s oleander, girls. We can put violets or rose petals on a cake, but never that one. It’s very poisonous.

  ‘Where’s the flower dictionary?’ she murmured to Eddie, as the boys came down the hall.

  Hope dawned in Vally’s eyes. ‘We’re still playing?’

  ‘If Maximillian is, I am,’ said Pearl, as Eddie reached into his room for the satchel of books. ‘Oleander, Ed.’

  He took out the flower dictionary and leafed through it. ‘Beware. How about the purple ones?’

  Vally touched the petals. ‘I’ve seen these before. You know how Pa always goes on about his Murray River adventure, when he collected the seeds for Sir Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich von Mueller?’

  ‘You can’t remember where Toy Land is,’ said Eddie, ‘but you remembered that?’

  Vally tapped the side of his head. ‘Got that memory from the Botanic Gardens. It’s Australian hollyhock, from Adelaide. Might be listed under cheeseweed – that’s the general family.’

  ‘Cheeseweed can’t be a real one,’ Pearl muttered, but Eddie found it all the same.

  ‘Cheeseweed: wildness.’ Eddie slid the book back in his jacket pocket. ‘Beware wildness.’

  ‘Monkeys,’ said Pearl and Vally at the same time, and Pearl added, ‘Personal jinx.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MONKEY BUSINESS

  By Vally’s madly speeding watch and somewhat frantic calculations, the Coles had forty-five minutes of indigo left. Pearl spared a few of them to change into some more sensible clothes. It would be a fine thing if she had to run or climb in the Fernery, only to be rendered helpless by her dress.

  As she buttoned up her boots, she caught a glimpse of herself in her bedroom mirror. Her rationals were big bossy things. The athletic jacket had huge leg-o’-mutton sleeves, and the trousers were so loose about the thighs that they looked like a skirt when she put her legs together. She looked like a New Woman. She’d seen caricatures of them in the newspaper: lady cyclists, suffragettes, Rational Dress campaigners. The artists always tried to make them look frightful and mannish, but ladies in rationals always had a wonderful swagger about them that even the cruellest cartoonist couldn’t hide. Pearl liked their proud postures. She liked the way they propped one foot on their pedals, as if their bicycles were mountains they had conquered.

  She emerged in the corridor to find Vally had made a tactical change as well. The satchel was slung across his shoulder, over a tweed sport suit. Before, Pearl’s knee-length skirt and Vally’s long trousers had set them apart as girl and boy, as child and young man – but now they were both dressed for action, in brown boots and loose pants that gathered at the knee.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  Pearl had to smile at that. It was so different to how he’d treated her before. She didn’t recall exactly where they’d been going, nor what he’d said, but she was sure he wouldn’t have asked whether she was ready. Come to think of it, she probably wouldn’t have asked, either. Nor cared about his answer. After all, she’d never had the patience before to wait for spoilsport Val to get through all his hold ons and let’s think about its. He’d been a stick-in-the-mud. And she’d been a bull at a gate.

  ‘Think so,’ Pearl said. ‘Are you?’

  He hoisted his schoolbag, gripping the strap with white knuckles. ‘I reckon.’

  Pearl dreaded being caught by her parents, but when she looked into the living room, their backs were turned to the doorway. On Vally’s mimed advice, she crawled through the room, spreading her weight evenly between her hands and knees so the floorboards wouldn’t creak, until she reached the front corridor. Pearl didn’t want to listen to her parents arguing, but she couldn’t help overhearing their distressed voices.

  ‘… that you didn’t even tell me,’ Ma was saying, with an uncharacteristic quaver in her voice. ‘I can’t do it on my own, not all five of them –’

  ‘I didn’t intend for it to happen like this –’

  ‘But it did! It’s no good anyone’s heart being in the right place if their head isn’t! I – look, I don’t know why you didn’t ask me –’

  Pearl stood up to open the front door – and had to stifle a scream. A huge white monster stood in the hallway. It held its shaggy paws up to attack. It took her a moment to realise it was stuffed. A top hat was perched on its head.

  ‘What is that?’ she wh
ispered to Vally, as he caught up with her.

  He looked up at it, puzzled. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s a dead bear.’

  ‘Why do we have a poor dead bear in the house?’

  Vally shook his head. ‘No idea.’

  Outside in the Arcade proper, all was strangely quiet. Rain pattered on the skylight, giving Pearl that odd sense again that the world had shifted sideways while she wasn’t looking. She would have sworn it hadn’t been raining earlier. Maybe it was only Melbourne’s unpredictable weather. Maybe there was a chance that she wasn’t losing her mind that drastically.

  Vally looked over the railing. ‘The people are gone!’

  ‘The Arcade is closed.’

  ‘Not the customers. The people who work here. Mr Pie and Mr Gravel and … everyone.’

  ‘Maybe they went home.’ Pearl descended the stairs, which were much in need of a good polish. ‘And they’re not called Pie and Gravel.’

  ‘What are they called?’

  ‘Mr Spike and Mr Gable.’

  ‘Spike,’ said Vally, slapping his leg. ‘I knew it had an “I” sound.’

  When Pearl opened the door to the Fernery, a wave of warm, humid air rolled out. She was surprised by the size of it – she had forgotten how much bigger it was on the inside than it appeared. But she had not forgotten how full of life and noise it usually was, and the silence was troubling. She could hear no insects. Green slime was dripping down one glass wall from a broken sprinkler pipe. The grime on the ceiling dimmed the light from outside. Something smelled like a stagnant pond. Sitting on a dew-drenched frond of the nearest tree fern was the paper wagtail.

  ‘Whoa!’ exclaimed a voice Pearl wasn’t expecting. ‘It’s like a dirty aquarium in here!’

  Ivy had followed them. She wasn’t even dressed for the jungle. Pearl felt again that rush of frustration. It was hard to remember what she had in common with Ivy anymore. She tried to think of something she and Ivy had once enjoyed, just the two of them, but nothing would come to mind. She could only think of things they had all done as a family: swimming at the beach, visiting the zoo, going to see their relatives in Camberwell. Memories in which there was no Ivy and Pearl, but only all of us.