Book Woman

by Ivan B

  Her nose twitched.

  “The best of a bad lot, or the best.”

  He reached over the table and placed his hand over her left wrist.

  “The best.”

  She was not sure about the absolute meaning of his words, but his actions spoke volumes. People normally avoided touching her left wrist, whether from fear of hurting her or disgust she didn’t know, but he had no such inhibitions. She said, in a more passive voice.

  “What did you mean about self-esteem?”

  He smiled.

  “You haven’t been condescending to her, or treated her like a three year old; over the last few days she’s almost visible grown in confidence. Now I know what comes swiftly can go equally swiftly, but no-body else has had that effect on her.”

  The waitress came and poured out some coffee, Robert sat back and let go of Mary to give her room. Mary stirred her coffee, he poured two sugars straight into his cup, he looked up.

  “Would you like a sugar?”

  “Please.”

  He opened a packet and poured it in her cup; she stirred her coffee again.

  “What would you expect me to do?”

  He shrugged.

  “Be yourself, talk about girlie things, take her shopping.”

  Mary tested her coffee for temperature.

  “Can I sleep on it?”

  He sighed with exasperation.

  “What’s there to sleep on, I’m not asking much.”

  Mary gave him a stern look.

  “Oh yes you are. You know and I know that if I do this properly then I’m going to get emotionally involved with her. The more I see her the more ‘bonding’ there will be and the more the relationship will move from the impersonal to the personal. If I’m going to do it properly I don’t want to be bounced into it I want to make a positive decision in my own time.”

  He nodded, looking slightly disappointed.

  “Sounds fair enough.”

  She mellowed a little.

  “Look this is all new to me. I never see my sister’s children and I’m not sure if I really am the best person to teach a little girl anything.”

  He looked mildly surprised.

  “I don’t want you to teach her anything, I just want you to continue what you’ve been doing, that is being natural with her.”

  He suddenly looked at his watch and an anxious look crossed his face.

  “Do they mind mobile phones in here?”

  Mary nodded and passed over her keys that were on the table.

  “Go in the library.”

  He shot out the fire exit and Mary had some time to think, but came to no conclusions.

  Robert returned and gave her back the keys.

  “Eerie place your library.” He smiled. “Josie sends her love and says that the book you gave her is brill.”

  Mary laughed.

  “Doesn’t she have any other positive adjectives other than brill?”

  When Mary got home she took her mother’s bedclothes from the tumble dryer and remade her bed, leaving the duvet turned down to let it air. She pottered about doing a few jobs, undertook her leg exercises and then inspected the gold coin again. Eventually she got ready for bed and sat on the edge of it; she said aloud, and self consciously.

  “Look God, I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask to be involved with this little girl and I’m not sure if I’d be a good influence anyway.”

  She paused wondering how to go on.

  “I just want peace of mind when I make the decision. I don’t want to upset the girl, but equally I don’t want to start something I’m not capable of finishing.”

  She swung herself into bed, she was still not sure about this praying lark, but if God was God, why not talk to him?

  Mary was falling. She was falling when she knew that she should be floating. She tried flapping her arms, but she was still falling. She passed through a cloud and found herself in the middle of a pile of flower pots, everybody was staring at her, people were screaming. She tried to stand up, but her legs were all bendy. Josie appeared from nowhere, looked at her and screamed. Mary woke with a violent start, her heart racing and her pulse audibly in her head. She took some deep breaths and then burst into tears and pounded her pillow.

  “Why me God, why me.”

  She lay back in the bed feeling totally drained and a curious thought entered her head, if not her then who else? If someone had to sky-dive into a load of pots, who should do it if Mary didn’t have to? She imagined the local traffic warden doing a nose dive and the dreadful slob in the filling station plummeting to a grisly end. And then she saw in her dreamy minds eye Josie getting ready to jump from an aeroplane. She screamed, ‘no not Josie, I’ll jump, let me jump, not Josie, no not Josie.’ She ran forward as if to catch Josie and found herself running her best ever race. It was a balmy spring day, she could feel the warmth of the sun on her face and the anger in her heart that her sisters had told her to lose he race as they had bet on someone else. She could feel herself pounding down the track and ran straight through the winning tape into her bedroom, where Jenny pinned her to the bed and Cathy unmercifully beat the back of her legs with the loo brush. And once again she awoke in a dreadful sweat. Trembling she swung herself to sit on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands and took some deep breaths to regain some control; she moaned to herself. After a few moments she laid back down, she knew that she had to do something about the nightmares, but what?

  The following morning, after opening the library, she went to the jewellers and sought out Bill, she passed him the gold coin. He looked at it, weighed it, sought information from a book and then turned to her.

  “Curious piece this, I’ll just phone an expert.”

  Mary studied the cases of ear-rings and wondered if she had enough courage to get her ears pierced. Bill sidled up to her.

  “Fairly painless you know, quick pop and they’re in.”

  She smiled.

  “Don’t think so, my mother always told me that if we were meant to have holes in our ears we’d have been born with them.”

  Bill laughed.

  “Come through to the back.”

  Mary went through to his little workshop and he passed her a chair.

  “Interesting little coin this, I suppose you want to know what it’s worth?”

  She nodded and held her breath

  He tapped it with his fingernail.

  “For starters it is gold so there is always the value of the gold. It’s supposed to be a guinea, but the last English guineas were issued in 1813, so you could say that it is a forgery as it is dated 1952.”

  He made a circular motion with his hands.

  “On the other hand my coin expert says that there was a strong rumour in the 1960s that the government had some gold guineas minted just after the war and stashed them away in their nuclear shelters. The theory being that if law and order had broken down gold coins would be a useful currency. It’s only a rumour mind and no one has ever turned up with one.” He smiled. “If they did, of course, it would be worth a small fortune, especially if they could get the Mint or the Bank of England to verify that it was genuine.”

  Mary smiled, hardly breathing.

  “What’s a small fortune?”

  He tapped the telephone.

  “My mate says he’d pay £10,000 for one and still make a profit at auction.”

  Bill smiled again.

  “He also said that if you had two the price would probably hold, but five would start to bring the price down as the rarity factor diminished.”

  He passed the coin back to Mary.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you got it?”

  Mary smiled and shook her head.

  “But if I do sell any I’ll come to you first.”

  He nodded and led her out into the shop, she stopped.

  “Is it really painless?”

  He was mystified for a moment and then smiled.

  “I’m to
ld it throbs a little afterwards.”

  She looked at the earrings.

  “Can you do me now?”

  Bill waved to his female assistant, who came over. He said to Mary gently.

  “Kylie does the ear piercing, she puts in basic gold studs and then, when the holes are nice and formed, you put in what you like.”

  Kylie inspected Mary’s ears and made a short humming noise.

  “You’ve got nice big tapered lobes, just made for two rings.”

  Mary closed her eyes.

  “Go ahead, but make it quick. I’ve waited twenty years to have this done.”

  Kylie pressed a leaflet into Mary’s hands.

  “Read and follow the instructions and you’ll have no problems, now just hold still…”

  Mary went back into the library wondering if she had lost her mind. Serena stopped her and then broke into a broad grin.

  “Mary, you’ve had your ears done!”

  She touched her nose and Mary squirmed.

  “Ears are enough Serena.”

  Serena smiled.

  “Well I’ve got good news for you, takings over the last two days are 5% up.”

  “How come?”

  Serena grinned.

  “I’ve worked out what’s happening. Each supermarket manager can make their own decisions about books and our lady up the road is taking whatever book she can by cheaply in bulk from the warehouse. I don’t think she realises that most of the time the bulk stocks they have are books that don’t sell well and have been returned to the warehouse under sale or return. However, she never stocks any supplementary books. At the moment they’re offering Meredith Mannett’s Fratricide by candlelight, I didn’t like it at all, you knew by page 12 that the handyman was the culprit. The point is that it is a slim book of around 60,000 words, far below the normal novel word-count. I’ve stocked up on the others in the series, Homicide by limelight, Suicide by sunlight, Matricide by moonlight, and Patricide by firelight. They’ve all been selling well and I’ve even taken some advance orders on the next offering.

  “Regicide by starlight.”

  Mary burst into laughter.

  “Just how many books can he get in that series?”

  “According to the book-press there’s two more to come, one on suicide and one on tyrannicide, apparently he’s going to give infanticide a miss.”

  Mary nodded at the re-instated travel section.

  “What’s happening with travel?”

  “The supermarket only sells books on foreign countries or big cities, so we’re selling books in Suffolk and East Anglia again.”

  Serena hesitated.

  “I’ve been getting the murder books on a sale or return basis, I know the profit margin is less, but I thought it was a bit risky.”

  Mary patted her on the arm.

  “Wise decision, I now know why you run the book-shop, I’d never have thought of stocking sequels.”

  Serena beamed and then briefly closed her eyes.

  “Sorry, almost forgot, there’s some architect chappie poking about upstairs, said you’d know all about it.”

  Mary nodded, she did know, but then again she had forgotten.

  Ten minutes later Mary looked up from her desk to see a thin spotty youth standing on the other side of the desk. The girl managed a smiled.

  “The people at the counter said I had to see you.”

  Mary smiled in return.

  “What about?”

  The girl sort of writhed inside her dress, she said timidly.

  “I wondered if you’d have a summer job.”

  Mary motioned the girl to sit down. In some respects she reminded Mary of herself. She’d seen the girl in the library before, she was always on the edge of the crowd, never in the centre and always seemed reluctant to push herself forward. Mary said quietly.

  “Tell me about yourself.”

  The girl’s face adopted a terrified appearance and she half-shrugged.

  “Just taken twelve GCSEs, hoping to do three A levels next year.”

  Mary tried for a reassuring smile.

  “What subjects?”

  “English Literature, History and Latin.”

  Mary pointed to the shelves.

  “What books have you read recently, and I don’t mean schoolbooks.”

  The girl was now on more solid ground, she rattled off ten titles and Mary questioned her closely about the story-lines of two of them. Mary said.

  “So if I employed you, what would you want to do?”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Work in the book-shop.”

  There was some laughter from the Internet café and the girl shivered. Mary looked over to see a mixed group of youths laughing. Mary looked at the girl.

  “What’s going on?”

  She turned a shade of pink.

  “They don’t think I stand a cat’s chance in hell of getting a job.”

  All of a sudden Bella was wagging a finger at the lad who seemed to be the ringleader and even at a distance Mary could see that his cheeks had turned red. Mary turned back to the girl.

  “What’s your name and how old are you?”

  “Jasmine Felicity Cook and I’m sixteen.”

  Mary nodded and rummaged in a drawer, she passed some papers across to Jasmine.

  “Fill these in and get your parents to sign the consent form at the back and I’ll give you a summer job five days a week, but that would include Saturdays as they are our busiest days. And I can’t promise it will always be in the book-shop, but they have been asking for an extra pair of hands.”

  Jasmine hesitated and blurted out.

  “Do I have to work Sundays?”

  Mary shook her head.

  “None of us work Sundays and even though a lot of shops are open on a Sunday we don’t open the book-shop.”

  The girl grabbed the papers.

  “When can I start?”

  “Bring me the forms in the morning and if they are OK, you’ll be on the payroll, but I’ll still expect names and addresses of two referees.”

  Jasmine froze and then echoed in a weak voice.

  “Referees?”

  “People who will tell me that your trustworthy.”

  She opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. Mary decided to help her out.

  “A school teacher, your Vicar, a previous employer…”

  The girl relaxed.

  “Could I give my Minister and the lady who runs the stables?”

  Mary raised her eyebrows.

  “Why the lady who runs the stables?”

  “I help out with the riding scheme for the disabled; mostly it’s leading the ponies up and down.”

  Mary nodded.

  “They’ll be fine.”

  Jasmine smiled in total relief and perhaps in triumph. She wandered away and Mary remembered her first summer job in a children’s book-shop. She had loved every minute of it, especially as her older sister’s wouldn’t be seen dead in a shop that only catered for the under twelve’s. Mary got up and went to the Internet Café to see Bella.

  “What was the problem?”

  Bella shrugged.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  Mary sense there was something Bella didn’t want to say.

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t handle it, I wondered what the commotion was all about.”

  Bella looked away from her.

  “They just made some rude remarks.”

  Mary gave her a curious look and went back to her desk; Bella sighed with relief, she hadn’t wanted to tell Mary that most of the youths called her Mistress Hook or Old Miss Sourpuss.

  Mary worked steadily to lunch-time on her rates appeal and was just about to sneak away to her hidey-hole when Robert came out of the back-staircase doorway. He walked straight over, he looked agitated.

  “Anywhere we can talk?”

  She led him to her little room and closed the door. Robert grinned.

  “This must be
your secret place Josie was on about.”

  Mary put her fingers to her lips.

  “Shush, don’t tell.”

  He chuckled and pulled a laptop computer out of his oversize briefcase.

  “There is no way in via the remarkable small roof-space, so I used a fibre optic lens. Drilled a small hole in the ceiling and poked it through.” He turned the laptop towards her. “I can record what it sees on here.”

  Mary looked at the screen and he pressed a button, a distorted view of the room appeared on the screen and the camera lens slowly swung through 360 degrees. It was a weird show. One wall seemed to be taken up with what looked like wet suits and full face gas-masks, Mary counted twenty, each with a large pair of over-boots underneath. The smaller wall with the window had a bench seat, under which were three wooden chests. However, it was the third wall that held her attention. She looked at Robert.

  “Are they what I think they are?”

  He nodded.

  “I can’t record everything, but I did have a good look on high resolution. I think the rack holds nine rifles and three shotguns, plus – I think – two revolvers hanging in some sort of canvass webbing.”

  His head was so close to hers as they looked at the screen she could smell his aftershave.

  “And I think the suits are radiation suits, not wet-suits.”

  Mary stood upright.

  “So your idea about a war-room cum nerve centre was bang-on. If they were expecting unrest, you’d need properly equipped soldiers to handle the situation.”

  Robert nodded.

  “But now what?”

  Mary sat down.

  “I’ve no idea, but I guess we can’t just sell the stuff. Just because it’s in our building doesn’t mean that we own it.”

  Robert gave a short laugh.

  “But I bet you’ve been paying rent on those rooms for years.”

  Mary gave him a peculiar look; that aspect of the situation had never occurred to her. She replied.

  “I guess I’ll have to go and see someone in the council, when I find out who will you come with me?”

  He smiled and Mary thought that he was still treating it as a schoolboy adventure.

  “Love to.”

  Mary reached into her locker and offered him a sandwich, he hesitated and then took one.