The Bookshop

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  ‘I shall miss you, Christine, and I wanted to ask you what you’d like for a present.’

  ‘Not one of those books. Not the kind you have.’

  ‘Well, then, what? I’m going into Flintmarket tomorrow. What about a cardigan?’

  ‘I’d rather have the money.’ Christine was implacable. She could only find relief in causing pain. Her resentment was directed against everyone who had to do with books, and reading, and made it a condition of success to write little compositions, and to know which picture was the odd one out. She hated them all. Mrs Green, who was supposed to understand these things, and had always told her she would pass, was no better than the rest of them. She wouldn’t pay them the compliment of distinguishing between them.

  ‘Well, I hope you’ll come round to the shop and see me sometimes, in the evenings.’

  ‘I shan’t have that much time.’

  ‘The school bus gets in about five, doesn’t it? I could keep a look out for you?’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t strain yourself. They say it’s not good for you after you’ve turned forty.’

  Perhaps it wasn’t. Florence had noticed one or two eccentricities in herself lately, which might be the result of hard work, or of age, or of living alone. When the letters came, for example, she often found herself wasting time in looking at the postmarks and wondering whoever they could be from, instead of opening them in a sensible manner and finding out at once.

  The letters, however, were fewer, and her whole business life might be said to be contracting. The lending library, which after all had been a steady if modest source of income, was now closed for good. This was because for the first time in its history a Public Library had been established in Hardborough. The borough had been requesting this service for very many years, and it would be difficult to say who was to be congratulated on forcing the measure through the County Council at last. The new Library was an important amenity. Fortunately, suitable premises were available. The property acquired was that of Deben’s wet fish shop.

  The rapper made itself heard less frequently, although once Florence found the account books, on which she spent so much time nowadays, thrown violently face downwards on to the ground. The pages were scrawled and tangled. She felt somewhat awkward in showing them to Jessie Welford’s niece, who, however, told her that she was afraid other arrangements would have to be made, as she’d been given promotion at the office and wouldn’t have time in the future to give a hand at the Old House. A certain coldness reflected the feeling at Rhoda’s. Only just at the end, when she was making sure that she hadn’t left anything behind, did she relent a little.

  ‘Of course, my business was only to check the transactions, and I should professionally be quite wrong to offer you any other advice –’

  ‘If it would be quite wrong, my dear, I certainly mustn’t let you do it,’ said Florence, watching the assured young woman settle and pat herself into her raincoat.

  ‘Well, then, so that seems to be all. I hope I haven’t left you with any of my goods and chattels. What was it my father used to say – if you’re down in the mouth think of Jonah – he came out all right.’

  She was having supper next door at Rhoda’s, and hurried away, leaving Florence with these images of disaster and shipwreck. Fortunately there was the spring cleaning to do, and the mailing list, which the scouts had undertaken to do for her on their hand printing-press. It would mean getting up an hour or two earlier in the mornings. She looked with shame at the rows of patiently waiting unsold books.

  ‘You’re working too hard, Florence,’ Milo said.

  ‘I try to concentrate – Put those down, they’ve only just come in and I haven’t checked them. Surely you have to succeed, if you give everything you have.’

  ‘I can’t see why. Everyone has to give everything they have eventually. They have to die. Dying can’t be called a success.’

  ‘You’re to young to bother about dying,’ said Florence, feeling that this was expected of her.

  ‘Perhaps. I believe Kattie might die, though. She wastes so much energy.’

  Three times a week, Florence thought. She sighed. ‘How is Kattie?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. As a matter of fact, Kattie has left me. She’s gone to live with someone else, in Wantage. He’s in Outside Broadcasting. I’m confiding in you.’

  ‘I expect you’ve told everybody else in Hardborough who’ll listen to you.’

  ‘It concerns you particularly, because I shall have so much more free time. I shall be able to work here part-time as your assistant. I expect you miss that little girl.’

  Florence refused to be taken aback. ‘Christine learned a great deal while she was here,’ she said, ‘and she had quite a nice manner with the customers.’

  ‘Not as nice as mine,’ said Milo. ‘She hit Violet Gamart, didn’t she? I shouldn’t do that. How much can you pay me?’

  ‘I gave Christine twelve and six a week, and I don’t feel able to offer any more than that at the moment.’ Surely that would get rid of Milo, although Florence was quite fond of him. If everyone was like this at the television place at Shepherd’s Bush, they must find it difficult to get anything done at all. They must all be persuading each other.

  ‘If you’re interested in the work’ – we used to call it ‘nosey’ at Müller’s, she thought – ‘you’re welcome to come in the afternoons and try the job for a few weeks. If you don’t need the twelve and sixpence you can give it to the Lifeboat or the Coastguards’ box. Only please remember that I didn’t ask you to come. You asked yourself.’

  When Parliament reassembled, the Private Bill brought in by the member for the Longwash Division passed its third reading and went straight to the Lords. It attracted even less attention this time. Very few of the great public in whose name it was promoted read any of its amended provisions. The ancient buildings, for example, were to be subject to compulsory purchase even if they were occupied at the moment, provided they had stood vacant at any time in the past for more than five years. Mrs Gamart’s nephew had had the assistance of Parliamentary draftsmen. It was impossible to say who was responsible for this detail or that.

  Everybody thought it was very obliging of young Mr North to help out at the Old House, particularly when the business was not doing nearly as well as it used to. It was regrettable, perhaps, that whenever Florence had to drive over to Flintmarket to see if the new orders had arrived, he immediately shut up shop and could be seen sitting in the comfortable chair, moved forward into the patch of afternoon sunlight which came through the front window. But if business was slack, how could you blame him? And he always had a book of poetry, or something of the kind, open in front of him.

  As Milo never remembered on these occasions to lock the backhouse door, Christine was able to come straight in, approaching on soundless feet, wearing her new school blazer.

  ‘Shower down thy love, O burning bright! for one

  night or the other night

  Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered

  flowers are dead, Christine.’

  ‘You watch it, Mr North,’ said Christine.

  ‘What unpleasant expressions they teach you in that new school of yours!’

  Christine turned very red.

  ‘I didn’t come here to mix it with your sort,’ she said.

  A kind of unease had brought her back and she was disappointed not to find Florence there, partly so that she could cheer her up a little, partly so that she could show that she wouldn’t take the job on again at any price. Also, she might as well show her the cardigan which she had bought with the money she had been given. It buttoned up high, not like the old-fashioned sort.

  ‘Why don’t you help Mrs Green any more?’ Milo asked. ‘She misses you.’

  ‘Well, she’s got you, hasn’t she, Mr North? You’re always in and out.’

  Hesitating, not wanting to seem to ask for information, she burst out: ‘They say they won’t let her go on keeping this book
shop.’

  ‘Who are “they”?’

  ‘They want the Old House for something else they’ve thought of.’

  ‘Why should you mind about that, my dear?’

  ‘They say she can’t hold on to it, do they’ll have her up. That’ll mean County Court. She’ll have to swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  ‘We must hope that it won’t come to that.’

  Christine hardly felt that she had reasserted her position as yet. She minced round, dusting here and there – the duster needed a wash, as usual, she said – and looking with a stranger’s recognition at her old acquaintances on the shelves.

  ‘These don’t ought to be with the Stickers,’ she said, heaving up the two volumes of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary.

  ‘No one has offered to buy them.’

  ‘Still, they’re not Stickers. They’re a stock line.’

  There was nothing much more to do. Even now, at the end of the day, there was scarcely anything that needed putting to rights.

  ‘I don’t see so much wrong with this shop, give it’s terribly damp, and you can’t tell when the rapper’ll start up.’

  ‘Certainly there can’t be much wrong with it, or I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘How long are you going to stay, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I might not have the energy to stay much longer.’

  ‘You might not have the energy to get up and go,’ said Christine, watching him, with scornful fascination, where he sat. It would do him good to get a bit of garden and work it, she thought, even if it was only a couple of rows of radishes.

  ‘I never had time to sit about when I was assistant.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t. You’re either a child or a woman, and neither of them have any idea how to relax.’

  ‘You watch it,’ said Christine.

  10

  THE cold weather came on early after the fine summer of 1960. By the beginning of October Raven had begun to speak pessimistically about the cattle, who were coughing piteously. In the early morning the thick white vapour came up to the level of their knees, so that their bodies seemed to float detached above the mist. Their heads, with large ears at half-mast, turned slowly in a cloud of steamy breath towards the chance comer.

  The mist did not lift until nearly mid-day and closed down again by four o’clock. It was madness for Mr Brundish to go out in such conditions; and yet at Holt House, entirely by himself, he was slowly getting ready to pay a visit. By a quarter to eleven he had assumed the appearance almost of a boulevardier, with a coat collared in fur, and a grey Homburg hat, rather higher in the crown than was usual in those years. The natives of Hardborough only breathed the autumn air through woollen scarves, and Mr Brundish also wore one of these, and took a stick from the many waiting in the hall.

  Because of the mist, only the hat and upper three-quarters of Mr Brundish could be seen, bending down with an occasional terrifying gasp and wheeze, as he navigated the Ropewalk, the Sheepwalk and Anson Street. It was at first thought, by those at their windows, that he was heading for the doctor’s, or, still more alarming, for the church. Mr Brundish had not attended a service for some years. He was pale, and seemed afflicted. It was thought that he looked very moderate.

  If not the doctor’s or the church, then it could only be The Stead. Improbable or impossible as it seemed, he was toiling up the front steps, and, clear of the mist at last, stood pressing the bell.

  Mrs Gamart was making a morning entry in her diary, and had written Wednesday: wretched weather for Oct. Hydrangea petolaria quite damped off. She heard the bell and was ready to rise, making light of the interruption, when she realized who the visitor really was. Then she felt the same disbelief as the rest of Hardborough, who had watched the progress from Holt House. The young local girl who helped with the washing up and had answered the front door, looked half-stunned, as though she had witnessed trees walking.

  To be accepted by this tiresome old man would be an entry into a new dimension of time and space – the past centuries of inhabited Suffolk, and its present silent and watchful existence. From the very first months of her arrival her invitations had been refused, on the steady excuse of ill-health. Yet, beyond question, there were little gatherings at Holt House, distinguished by visitors who stayed the night, as well as ancient cronies drawn from the deepest recesses of East Anglia. Men only perhaps, although it was said – but Mrs Gamart didn’t believe it – that Mrs Green had been to tea, and her own husband had certainly never been included. The General, however, with the transparent complicity of the male sex, insisted that old Mr Brundish was a decent fellow. The inadequacy of this remark vexed Mrs Gamart into silence.

  And now Mr Brundish had come. He made no apologies as he was shown in, for in his day none had been thought necessary for an eleven o’clock call. Without attempting to disguise his weakness, without pretending to stop for a few minutes to admire the proportions of the hall, he clung to the banisters, struggling for breath. His stick fell with a clatter to the shining floor.

  ‘I shall recover my stick later. Fortunately I have retained all my faculties.’

  Mrs Gamart, who had come out to meet him, thought it best to lead the way into the drawing-room. The sweeping French windows overlooked the sea, as misty as the land. They both sat down. Without any further reference to his health, Brundish went on:

  ‘I have come to ask you something. That is not very good manners, but I do not know that I can put it any better. If you mind being asked, you must say so at once. I could speak to your husband, of course.’

  From long habit, Mrs Gamart rejected the idea that her husband might be necessary for anything. The concentration of her visitor appeared to waver and cease. For what seemed a considerable time he sat with his eyes closed, while his face took on a curious slatey pallor, as though he had been bleached by the sea. Then he resumed:

  ‘A curious experience, fainting. One can’t tell if one is doing it properly. There is nothing to go on. One can’t remember the last time. You had better offer me something,’ he added loudly, and then, in precisely the same tone: ‘The bitch cannot deny me a glass of brandy.’

  Mrs Gamart looked doubtfully at the stricken man. If he was having some kind of attack, all that was necessary was to ring the doctor’s. Then he would be taken away. He would be under an obligation, of course, as anyone must be who is taken ill in someone else’s house, although Mr Brundish, she realized, might not recognize obligations. But he couldn’t have made the painful transit from Holt House, on a day like this, simply to tell her that he wasn’t well, unless he suddenly wanted to make amends for the short-sightedness of fifteen years. It would be better not to offer him stimulants, she thought.

  ‘Shall I see about some coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘The woman is trying to poison me. The moment will pass.’ Mr Brundish opened and closed his hands, as though to grasp the air, yet even in that movement there was nobility. ‘I want you to leave Florence Green alone,’ he brought out.

  Mrs Gamart was utterly taken aback. ‘Did she ask you to come here?’

  ‘Not at all. She is simply a woman, no longer young, who wants to keep a bookshop.’

  ‘If Mrs Green has any cause to complain,’ said Mrs Gamart, ‘I suppose she could employ a solicitor. I believe that she is rather given to changing her legal advisers.’

  ‘Why do you want her out of that house? I live in an oldish house myself, and I know how inconvenient they are. The bookshop is draughty, ineligible for a second mortgage, and, of course, haunted.’

  Tact and good training had by this time come to Mrs Gamart’s assistance.

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you, as someone who must care so much for the welfare and the heritage of this place, that a building of such historical interest could be put to a better use?’

  This was a false move. Mr Brundish didn’t care at all about the welfare or the heritage of Hardborough. He was, in a sense, Hardborough; it never occur
red to him whether he cared or not.

  ‘Old age is not the same thing as historical interest,’ he said. ‘Otherwise we should both of us be more interesting than we are.’

  Mrs Gamart had realized by now that though her visitor might be conducting the conversation according to some kind of rules, they were not the ones she knew. Some different kind of defence would accordingly be needed.

  ‘I say again, I want you to leave my friend Florence Green alone,’ shouted Mr Brundish. ‘Alone!’

  ‘Your friend, you know, seems to have fallen foul of the law, I rather think more than once. If that is the case, I, of course, can have nothing to say. If she goes on as she has begun, the law will have to take its course.’

  ‘I don’t know whether you are referring to a law that wasn’t in existence a year ago, and crawled through Parliament while our backs were turned? I’m talking about an order for compulsory purchase. You may call it an eviction. That is a fairer term. Did you put your precious nephew up to that Private Bill of his?’