The Man Who Wanted to Smell Books

by Elspeth Davie

  Their second evening in the cupboard was less peaceful. Mr Springer, inclined to be pessimistic by nature, had half-expected it, believing that peace, brightness and silence together could not last. It was half past nine. The chair-moving had gone smoothly as before. They had been settled in their places for almost an hour when the door of the sitting-room opened. But it was Mrs Palmer who had the greater shock. She came forward, and stopped aghast at the spectacle of bright people. ‘My God – what’s this! What’s going on? The three of you! Come out of there. You are hiding!’

  ‘In a sense – yes,’ said Springer, rising with dignity. ‘We have taken refuge from the dark and gloom.’

  ‘So – theatricals! And much, much more to it than that, I daresay.’ Intent to flush out a séance or even a trio of witches, Mrs Palmer drew near.

  ‘We are saving our eyes,’ said Springer.

  ‘Exactly what damage has been done in here?’ she said.

  ‘No damage.’ The elder sister now rose to her feet. ‘But if our eyes have suffered – now that’s a different matter. The costs and damages will all be yours. If proper lights are not to be supplied under your roof, Mrs Palmer, we can expect, of course, a very substantial reduction on our bills.’

  ‘A swingeing cut,’ added Springer thoughtfully, ‘– amounting, most likely to a total non-bill – seeing the gap between what’s promised and what’s given can interest lawyers.’

  Mrs Palmer swayed a little where she stood, but her farseeing eyes swept the cupboard. ‘And the bulbs? What about them? Night after night exposed to the light! Of course you have shifted them around. Have you broken any bowls?’

  ‘Certainly not. But your two guests here value themselves as much as crocuses or tulips.’

  ‘And you, Mr Springer? What kind of flower or weed do you rate yourself with? Well, I can’t stand here all night. You will certainly not sit there. And what, if I may ask, do you intend to do for the rest of your stay in this house?’

  ‘Why, Mrs Palmer, that is very simple. We’ll be doing nothing. We’ll be waiting – waiting for different bulbs, different makes.’

  Just before suppertime the following evening the guests, returning from various outings, met at the corner of the street. All three had an air of expectancy. They were not disappointed. As they approached it the house was gradually switched on. ‘She has been watching for us,’ said Springer as slits of light appeared between the downstairs curtains. A few minutes later unfamiliar globes shone from the windows above. Through the opaque, bubbled glass of the bathroom a ray appeared like the headlight in a fog. They went upstairs as soon as they got in and emerged from their bedrooms with the same story. Suddenly on every bedside table the bulbs had bloomed extravagantly. Downstairs it was the same. In the bowl above the dining-room table there was a dazzling white flower. Under the lampshade in the sitting-room – a brilliant bud.

  ‘Well it is nothing to write home about,’ said the elder one cautiously as the others exclaimed. ‘But compared to yesterday I will admit the place has sprouted like a fun garden.’

  ‘I could sit here all night,’ said Springer as he took up his book, ‘and I believe there is not a single dark corner in the entire house. We are flourishing down here at any rate. Who wants to sleep?’

  But behind them the cupboard was in darkness. The rows of bulbs – equally determined on flourishing – lay deeply, thankfully asleep.

  Shoe in the Sand

  ‘KATE AND I are going home the long way round,’ Paula told the group of young picnickers as she got up with her friend. ‘We’re going to look for fossils round by the red rocks. This is the shore for them. Great fossil fish were found here once – fins, jaws, tails and all.’

  ‘Yes, that was years and years ago,’ said one of the party. ‘You’ll not find anything now but small grey pebbles with specks and dents in them. If you’re very lucky I suppose you might find a fraction of a fin.’

  ‘We’re going anyway,’ said Paula firmly. The two girls were aware that the moment they left the group the place at once appeared darker, colder. Of course the sun was beginning to fade from the shore at the other end, but the real reason was that the company behind them had already started to move away – taking the quick route back. The two girls looked round once. The bright figures of these friends in their summer dresses were vanishing up into the dunes like flowers picked off, one after the other, by a cold wind. There was a premonition of winter in the air. Resolutely the two set off, facing the darker sky.

  This eastern shore on the coast of Berwickshire had indeed been a place rich in fossils. Far down that coast the city’s museum showed the bony, strong-jawed fishes under glass – showed other fish like splintered flowers, and thick-fleshed plants resembling animals. Cases of shells and pebbles lay there, crusted with the spikes and beaks of ancient sea creatures. People still searched this shore – found badges, belts and buttons, found clips, coins and contraceptives, but seldom the rare fossil. The girls knew they were unlikely to find anything of value on this beach, but they walked slowly, all the same, as if careful not to crush frail shells and skeletons.

  First they walked up in the deep, dry sand by the rocks, then down close to the sea where the gluey, wet sand sucked at their feet and left deep, widening holes behind them. It was only when they’d sat down on the rocks at the far side that Kate discovered she’d lost one shoe. But how does one lose a shoe without knowing it? ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Kate, ‘and it was you who wanted to go near the shore where the sand was sticky as clay. So it’s you who should go back and look for it.’ Paula went off willingly enough, running hopefully here and there towards strips of old cloth, half-buried stones and bits of basket washed in by the tides. She came back slowly, empty-handed, and sat down. And now Kate was almost crying. It turned out she’d actually hurt her foot on a sharp rock as they’d come along. ‘It seems you don’t know anything today,’ said Paula sharply. ‘You don’t know where you lost your shoe. You don’t know how you hurt your foot. Do you know how we’re going to get home, by any chance?’ She didn’t continue the scolding, for some distance away she noticed a figure coming along the beach. A man was approaching from the city side of the shore. It wasn’t easy to see him against the grey and white ribs of the sea for he was dark and light himself – wearing a voluminous black anorak and a thick pale grey muffler wrapped around his neck. Paula stood up straight with one hand on Kate’s shoulder. With her other arm she hailed the man. ‘Did you see a shoe in the sand as you came along?’ she shouted. The man came nearer, hand cupped to his ear.

  ‘Because if we don’t find it,’ the girl called again, ‘it’ll soon go out to sea.’

  The man was close. ‘No chance of that,’ he answered. ‘No fear of it, because the tide’s turned. It can only be brought further in now. No, I didn’t see anything. But I’ll go back and have a look.’ He turned, treading the sand down in his strong black boots. So thickly wrapped he was, there was little of him visible except the white hands dangling from his jacket cuffs. The girls, still thinking of picnics and sunlit beaches, were surprised at these clothes and Paula turned up her collar and put her hands into the flimsy pockets of her dress as she watched him go. It seemed that summer had finally disappeared with this last man on the beach – summer and daylight too.

  ‘Don’t move, will you?’ he said, stopping for a moment to look over his shoulder.

  ‘No, of course we’ll not move,’ said the girl. ‘It’s getting more and more difficult to move at all. My friend needs that shoe to get home. She’s hurt her foot, you see.’

  ‘Well, we can’t have that, can we?’ said the man. ‘Are you far from home then?’

  ‘We’re on holiday,’ said the girl. ‘It’s a hostel, not home. Out of the town, but even so there’s lots of pavement and steps before you reach it. Are you on holiday?’

  ‘Oh – holiday! That’s one word for it, I suppose. I’m not working, if that’s what you’re asking, and haven’t been for months. Right yo
u are then – I’ll go back.’

  ‘I’ll spread this red scarf on the rock so you’ll spot us again,’ said Paula, pulling it from under her collar.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the man. ‘I saw you both miles away. The one so dark and the other fair.’

  After he had gone neither girl spoke at all or even moved. Birds flew over them with raucous cries. The grinding battle of the pebbles and the incoming waves began. Suddenly Kate exclaimed: ‘I didn’t like you hailing him like that!’

  ‘What else could I do, Kate? You’ve got to get home, haven’t you? And I can’t leave you here.’

  ‘And I don’t like him,’ Kate went on. ‘He’s mocking us, you know. Grinning to himself as he went off!’

  ‘Maybe he was,’ Paula said. ‘We’re helpless, you see. Maybe he sees us as a couple of stranded, flapping fish.’

  ‘Do people smile like that at helplessness?’ said Kate. ‘I don’t know whether he’s good or bad. There’s not another soul on the beach and won’t be till tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s childish, Kate. He’s neither good nor bad, of course, but just like everyone else. Like you or me, for instance. Like Sara, like Tom, like Paul, Julia and Anna.’

  ‘Oh, how I wish they were all here now!’ cried Kate.

  ‘Poor Kate. It’s just that you’re cold. People get scared when they get cold. Sit down quietly against that rock out of the wind.’

  ‘He’ll be ages,’ her friend replied. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘We can talk.’

  ‘I’m shivering too much. You’d better begin. Tell me again how your aunt managed to lose weight. I’ve heard it dozens of times before, of course.’

  ‘She went out one day and bought this grey silk dress,’ began Paula. ‘A shift dress – slinky – the most expensive thing she’d ever bought in her life.’

  ‘And how ridiculously out of date now,’ interrupted Kate, ‘and most probably was even then, knowing your aunt.’

  ‘Look, do you want this dress or don’t you?’ demanded Paula. ‘She opened up the box in the sitting-room the moment she got in, and in front of my uncle. Nothing but the rustle of tissue paper for a few minutes. Then she held it up against herself – couldn’t even wait to try it on. It was a joke really, for my aunt swelled and bulged around it like a live, fat person round a thin grey ghost.’

  ‘No ghosts please, Paula. Make it cheerful, can’t you? Where is he now?’

  ‘More than halfway along.’

  ‘I don’t believe he’s been looking at all.’

  ‘Yes, of course he’s looking. He’s been bending and searching all the way. Well, to go on – my uncle was furious of course. Very angry indeed. When exactly would she wear the dress? he asked. She never went to a party, did she? And did she think he was made of money? “That’s the point,” she said. “And true enough, I never go to a party. I want to be ready for anything now. And I’m going to make myself fit this dress if it kills me.” “Well, I suppose you can get buried in it, if nothing else,” my uncle said.’

  ‘More cheerful!’ called Kate. ‘Don’t talk about burials.’

  ‘It was just a joke. She took it in good part,’ said Paula. ‘In two months, by the way, it fitted her. No butter, no cream, no chocolate for weeks. She ate her first chocolate éclair at her first party. That was the funny bit – and went on eating. After that she was the same size as before.’

  ‘Not funny at all,’ said Kate. ‘It’s getting sad again. So don’t go on. Can’t you think of something else to talk about?’

  ‘It’s your turn, Kate.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it has to be that boring old tale of getting into the wrong train and landing up the other end of the Caledonian Canal. Is he coming back? The thing is I don’t believe he even knows what he’s supposed to be looking for. He hardly glanced at the shoe on my foot. And I keep thinking we’re the only people on the whole of this beach. You and me and that man. And I can’t even run.’

  ‘Why should you run?’ Paula asked.

  ‘There are terrible stories around. And I don’t mean the stupid ones we tell one another, of course.’

  ‘I thought he looked rather a decent person myself,’ said Paula cautiously.

  ‘That’s the whole difficulty!’ her friend exclaimed.

  All that stuff about what you look like – whether you look good or bad, good-tempered or bad-tempered, soft, hard, patient, impatient, stupid or clever, kind or cruel – all that seems to have gone overboard. Do you remember that photo face I pointed out in a paper months ago? I showed it to you and said, “Look – who would you say that was? Is it a triple murderer, do you think, or is it that man who’s giving all his fortune to the relief of pain?” It was the first, but you guessed the second. And you’re bright, after all – not easily fooled. So is it all nonsense – this telling character by appearance?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say it was all nonsense,’ her friend replied. ‘Maybe you have to see people in all sorts of situations to know anything about them. I agree a flash look – a snapshot, so to speak, tells you nothing. It’s a flash judgment, that’s all.’

  ‘Do you remember long ago as children we were taught to trust everyone?’ said Kate meditatively. ‘And when I say trust I mean right up to the hilt. To bring the good out of them, was the idea. It was all part of the Sunday School equipment of the time. Whatever would it be now?’

  ‘The same probably. I still believe a lot of it myself, I think,’ said Paula. Kate looked over her shoulder. ‘He’s coming back, Paula. He’s got an armful of old shoes, and what looks like a boot or two. I told you he’d never once looked at my foot.’

  The man was coming up now, laughing and laughing at his loot. ‘Would you believe the sea could throw up this lot?’ he said. ‘Where on earth do they all come from, for God’s sake – ships, rubbish tips, foreign beaches, shoe factories, back gardens?’ He shrugged and looked down doubtfully at his pile. ‘Well, I’m very, very sorry,’ he said, holding up a weedy boot by the heel. ‘I found everything, you see, but your other pink slipper. And I don’t mind telling you now that I’d begun to think you were both fooling around with me. So I was just about to give up the search and go up town for a drink and a meal. But then I had another think to myself. At first you’d looked like a pair I could trust. So back I came. And here I am. All the same, I saw you watching me as I came near. Ah – such knowing, frightened eyes! I almost turned back again. Such clever artful girls, I thought!’

  ‘What do you mean – “knowing”? We don’t know a thing,’ said Kate.

  ‘How can we thank you?’ said Paula.

  ‘Why should you?’ the man replied. ‘I haven’t even brought the right shoe.’

  ‘I can wear anything’, said Kate. ‘Any old boot, if I have to.’

  ‘But here’s something smaller,’ the man said, holding up a wet black shoe. ‘How does that feel?’

  ‘Feels O.K.,’ said the girl. ‘But it looks awful. Do I have to walk through the place looking like a clown or a tramp?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the man said. ‘It’s wonderful how soon you can get used to it if you have to. Well, this isn’t the Cinderella story, is it? No use waiting around. It seems there’s no glass slipper coming up, and I’m no prince. Personally, I wouldn’t say you’re a princess either. I’ll never understand what you two girls are doing on the beach by yourselves this time of day. Well, I’m going back now, so I’ll say goodbye.’ Kate put on the wet black shoe and laced it tight. ‘Safe home then,’ said the man. ‘No – beg your pardon – it’s not home, is it? A hostel, you said.’

  He turned abruptly and went walking back the way he’d come.

  ‘Yes, it’s quite a long way home,’ said Kate, limping up the shallow slope of a dune and down into a hollow place. ‘There. Now I’m saying it! Home. I wish it were home, though. I don’t fancy answering all the questions when we’re back to camp, and having to show them this horrible shoe.’

  For some time they plodded on, seeming to ma
ke little progress away from the incoming sea. The sand squeaked and slid under their feet as they climbed a further slope. ‘I think you were probably right,’ Kate remarked. ‘He did seem quite a sympathetic person after all. I feel terribly ashamed of myself for imagining anything else. And what’s more I feel an absolute fool. The rest would laugh at me if they knew. You are much more trusting of persons, Paula – you always were, and I daresay you mightn’t even laugh at me now. But I can’t forget the kind of things that went through my mind a few minutes ago down there – stupid, childish stuff. I even thought of that man they were looking for months and months ago and miles and miles away. To be here at this moment in time he’d have to have hopped onto a jet-plane, going like the Concorde – infantile, idiotic thought! You can sometimes be tough on me, Paula. But I’m proud of you. I always was. You don’t lose your shoes, you don’t lose your head, and you never lose your temper.’

  The dunes gradually grew steeper as they climbed further from the sea, and they were divided by deeper and deeper hollows. The pale yellow day still remained on the highest crests of these sandhills. Blue night was growing in the hollows. The two girls stopped once or twice for breath. And now for the first time, Paula – moving her head round stiffly as an automaton – looked back. Very far in the distance she saw the man walking away. Suddenly he hesitated and slowly made off in another direction, taking a long, curving backward path somewhat inland.

  ‘What exactly is trust?’ Kate asked. ‘Not just the old Sunday School thing again, is it?’

  ‘No, of course it must be more,’ said Paula in a low voice so that her friend had to come close in order to hear. ‘Of course it’s more. I don’t know what it is, but I know what it is not. Feeling the slightest fear of anyone, for no reason at all, is lack of trust.’

  ‘But surely you must sometimes have fear Paula! For defence. Adrenalin! I haven’t a clue what the stuff’s made of, but it’s the thing that makes you strong, that makes you run, that lets you climb walls and trees and fences you could never climb before.’