The Bookshop

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  She would not lower herself so far as to pretend not to understand. ‘It’s true that my nephew’s Bill may affect the bookshop, as there’s a provision that the premises must have stood empty for five years. That would certainly apply to the Old House.’ How had he come by this information? It seemed as though he had drawn it in through unseen roots, without moving from Holt House, without seeing or listening. ‘There are so many authorities to consider, you know, Mr Brundish. Ordinary mortals like myself –’ she hesitated – ‘and you, would scarcely know where to begin. I’m on the bench, and fairly well used to public service, but I should be quite out of my depth. We shouldn’t even be able to find the right person to write to.’

  ‘I know perfectly well, madam, who to write to. Over the past years, if I hadn’t made it my business to know, I should have lost several hundred acres of my marshes, some farming land, and two pumping mills. Let me inform you that the purchaser of the Old House will have to be the Flintmarket Borough Council, and that they will proceed under the Acquisition of Land Authorisation Procedure Act of 1946, the Housing Act of 1957, and this grotesque effort of your nephew’s. If nothing has been done so far, we can make common front against them. If notice has been served that they are willing to treat, we must call for a private hearing in front of a government inspector.’

  The significance and weight of that ‘we’ could not be mistaken. Violet Gamart perfectly understood the bargain that was being offered. An alliance was proposed, a working alliance at any rate, between Holt House and The Stead, and in return something was demanded which in fact she had no power to bring about. But did that matter? She would temporize. Mr Brundish would have to call again to undertake further persuasion, she must call on him to discuss details. His mind was not under complete control, he would forget what had been said last time, he would become a regular visitor. She would have yielded nothing and gained considerably. Meanwhile it would be wiser not to promise too much.

  ‘We could certainly think of ways of making the move easier, if it has to come. There are still plenty of other shops to let, you know, in larger towns than Hardborough.’

  ‘That’s not what I am talking about! You must talk about what I am talking about! It was difficult for me to get here in this weather! – Either this woman is stupid, or else she is malevolent.’

  ‘I wish I could do more.’

  ‘I am to understand, then, that you will do nothing.’

  This was exactly what she had meant, and what she intended. She had to restore the situation, and neither evasion nor frankness would answer; he saw through both of them. That frightful old men have hearts ready to be touched was, however, something that she had never questioned. She turned on him a delightful smile, which warmed her dark bright eyes and had moved many more important people than him.

  ‘But you mustn’t speak to me like that, Mr Brundish. You can’t realize what you are saying. You must think me outrageous. Is that it?’

  Mr Brundish gave the impression of carefully turning the words over in his mind, as though they were pebbles of which he must ascertain the value.

  ‘I find that I cannot answer either “yes” or “no”. By “outrageous” I take it that you mean “unexpectedly offensive”. Certainly you have been offensive, Mrs Gamart, but you have been exactly as I expected.’

  With some difficulty he rose, and propping himself on the various bits of furniture, not all of them adapted to bear his weight, he regained his hat and left The Stead. But half-way across the street – the mist having cleared by this time, so that he could be clearly seen by the inhabitants of Hardborough – Mr Brundish fell over and died.

  The local tradespeople, in consultation with the Flintmarket Chamber of Commerce, decided not to close on the day of old Mr Brundish’s funeral. It was market day, and there would be a fair chance of extra sales.

  ‘I’m not going to close either,’ Florence told Raven, who on occasion acted as sexton. Raven was surprised, because in his view she had a right to go to the ceremony, being able to claim better acquaintance with the deceased than many who’d be there. This was true, but she could not explain to him how much she wanted to be by herself, to think about her strange correspondent and champion. On what uncanny errand had he crossed the square, with his hat and stick, that day?

  He was buried in the flinty soil of the churchyard among the Suffolk sea dead, midshipmen drowned at eleven years old, fishermen lost with all hands. The northeast corner of the acre was the family plot of the earth-loving Brundishes. Hardborough, huddled below the level of its marshes, was for one day at least a centre of interest. Who would have thought that old Mr Brundish would have known so many people, and that so many relatives would have turned up, and such a lot from London? He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, it seemed; how had that come about? The public houses had all applied for an extension, and there was a large cold lunch at The Stead, where the guests talked and laughed, and then subdued their laughs, and scarcely knew where to put them. It was known that the old man had died intestate, and Mr Drury had set out on the prolonged research which would dispose of Holt House and the marshes and pumping mills and the £2,705 13s. 7d. remaining in the current account.

  While the church ceremony was still in progress, and Florence, without any expectation of customers, was slowly winding down the cash register, General Gamart came into the shop. He stood for a moment blocking the light. Then, evidently giving himself a command, he took three paces forward. At first, that seemed to exhaust the whole enterprise. He was speechless, and fidgeted with a pile of Noddy annuals. Florence Green did not much feel like helping him. He had not been in the shop for some months, and she presumed that he had been acting under orders. Then she relented, knowing that he had come on a kind impulse. In the end, she valued kindness above everything.

  ‘You don’t want a book, do you?’

  ‘Not exactly. I just came in to say “A good man gone”.’

  The General cleared his throat. It was the best he could do. ‘I believe you knew Edmund Brundish quite well,’ he added hoarsely.

  ‘I feel as though I did, but when I come to think of it, I’ve only spoken to him during one afternoon in my whole life.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never spoken to the fellow at all. He was in the first show, of course, but not in the Suffolks, he was in the RFC, I believe – he wanted to fly. Odd, that.’

  The General talked much more freely now that the sticky part, the condolences, were over.

  ‘Another odd thing, he was calling on us that very morning.’

  ‘He wanted to speak to your wife, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, you’re quite right. Violet told me all about it. He made a great effort to call on her, it seems, to congratulate her on her idea – her idea, I mean, about this Arts Centre. I’m sorry I didn’t manage to get a word with him myself. I must say I shouldn’t have thought Art was quite his line of country, but, well, a good man gone. Twelve years older than I am. I suppose any of us could collapse like that, when you come to think of it.’

  There was nothing to stop him going on like this indefinitely. ‘You mustn’t be late for lunch, General Gamart.’ She knew about the preparations at The Stead. He would be needed to open the wine.

  Conscious of some want of tact, half relieved and half dissatisfied, he dismissed himself and withdrew.

  A month or so later, the Old House was requisitioned under the new Act of Parliament. Since one of the provisions was that there should be no other uninhabited buildings of the same date in the area, the oyster warehouse could have been offered in its place, so it was unfortunate that Florence had given orders to have it pulled down. Wilkins had taken nearly a year over the demolition, but he was going ahead quite fast now.

  Large numbers of pieces of paper were put through the brass letter-box of the bookshop. The postman apologized for bringing so many. On one of them the City of Flintmarket notified Florence Mary Green that they required to purchase and take under the provisions of the Act o
f 1959 or Acts or parts of Acts incorporated in the above Acts the lands or hereditaments mentioned and described in the schedule as delineated in the plan attached hereto (but they had forgotten to attach it) and thereon coloured pink, together with all mines and minerals in and under the said lands, other than coal, and that they were willing to treat with you and each and every of you for the purchase of the said lands and as to the compensation to be made to you and each and every of you by reason of the taking of the said lands authorized as aforesaid. Florence felt, as she read this, that it was the moment for the rapper to manifest itself, and when it did not, she almost missed it.

  The notice also appeared in the Flìntmarket, Kingsgrave, and Hardborough Times, making poor Florence feel like a wanted criminal. It was certainly not her imagination that old acquaintances avoided her in the street, and customers wore a surprised expression, saying, Oh, I thought I saw somewhere that you had closed down. Mr Thornton, Mr Drury and Mr Keble and their wives no longer came to the shop at all, for it was tainted.

  She didn’t mind so much as she had expected. It was defeat, but defeat is less unwelcome when you are tired. The compensation would be enough to pay off the bank loan and to put down a deposit on a rented property, perhaps somewhere quite else. Change should be welcome. And after all, as she now realized, Mr Brundish himself had come round to the idea of the new Centre. For some reason, this idea gave her more pain than the notice of Willingness to Treat.

  Raven, in the bar of the Anchor, wanted to know how that lot at Flintmarket Town hall, who according to themselves never had a penny to spare, and couldn’t even afford to drain their own marshes, had managed to raise the money to buy out Mrs Green at the Old House. But Flintmarket Urban District Council were no more ready to discuss their finances than any other public body. The Recreation Committee said in their report how heartening it was, that if anything was truly wanted and needed, a benefactor could always be found to step forward and make it possible.

  Florence’s solicitors in Flintmarket were at first greatly excited at the idea of handling, as they called it, one of the first cases under a new Act. They spoke of bringing an action for declaration, or applying for an order of certiorari.

  ‘Would that do any good?’

  ‘Well, there can’t really be any legal grounds for challenging an administrative decision, but it’s been held that in fact the public can do so, on the grounds of natural justice.’

  ‘What is natural justice?’ asked Florence.

  After the solicitors found that their client had very little money, they gave up the order of certiorari and discussed the matter of compensation. Like all her other advisers, they took a gloomy and hostile view. There would be no claim for depreciation, as books were legally counted as ironmongery, as not losing value by being moved about. Nothing could be claimed for services, as it was a one-man business. Mr Thornton would have made a joke about its being a ‘one-woman’ business, but the Flintmarket solicitors did not do so. There remained the issue of compensation for the Old House itself.

  When, after a few more weeks, she rang them up, they spoke of snags and delays. By this they meant, although they did not admit it for some time, that she was unlikely to get anything at all. Various Town and Country Planning Acts provided that if a house was so damp that it was unfit for human habitation and subsidence was threatened, no claim for compensation could be made.

  ‘But the Old House has been there for centuries without subsiding. I’m inhabiting it, and I’m still human, and it’s not as damp as all that – it dries out in the summer, and in midwinter. And anyway, what about the land?’

  The solicitor referred to the land as ‘the cleared site value’, as though the Old House had already ceased to exist.

  ‘That can only be estimated if it is in fact land, but an inspection of the cellars has established that the property is standing in half an inch of water.’

  ‘What inspection? I wasn’t notified about it.’

  ‘Apparently on various dates when you were absent from the business, an experienced builder and plasterer, Mr John Gipping, was sent in by the council to make an estimate of the condition of the walls and cellar.’

  ‘John Gipping!’

  ‘Of course, we assume that he made a peaceable entry.’

  ‘I’m sure he did. He’s not at all a violent man. What I should like to know is, who let him in?’

  ‘Oh, your assistant, Mr Milo North. It will be assumed that he acted as your servant, and following your instructions. Have you any comments?’

  ‘Only that I’m glad they gave the job to Gipping. He hasn’t found it easy to get work lately.’

  ‘What makes it very awkward for us is that Mr North has also signed a deposition to the effect that the damp state of the property has affected his health, and made him unfit for ordinary employment.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’ she asked Milo. ‘Did somebody ask you to?’

  ‘They did ask me rather often, and it seemed the easiest thing to do.’

  Milo no longer came round to help in the bookshop; she happened to meet him crossing the common. He made no attempt to avoid her on this occasion. Indeed, he tried to make himself useful by suggesting that if she still wanted an assistant, Christine might well be free again, since, after only half a term at the Technical, she had been suspended by the headmaster. Milo said that he did not know the details, and Florence did not press for them.

  There was not very much more that she could do. The bank manager, with some embarrassment, asked her if it would be convenient for her to make an appointment to see him as soon as possible. He wanted to know whether what he had heard was correct, that she had no legal right to compensation, and, in that case, what she intended to do about repayment of the loan.

  ‘I was hoping to start again,’ said Florence. ‘I thought I could.’

  ‘I should not advise you to try another small business. It’s curious how many people look upon the bank as no more than a charitable institution. There comes a time when each of us must be content to call it a day. There is, of course, always the stock. If that could be liquidated, we should be well on the way out of our difficulty.’

  ‘You mean that you want me to sell the books?’

  ‘To clear off the loan, yes – the books and your car. I fear that will be absolutely necessary.’

  Florence was left, therefore, without a shop and without books. She had kept, it is true, two of the Everymans, which had never been very good sellers. One was Ruskin’s Unto this Last, the other was Bunyan’s Grace Abounding. Each had its old bookmarker in it, Everyman I will be thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side, and the Ruskin also had a pressed gentian, quite colourless. The book must have gone, perhaps fifty years before, to Switzerland in springtime.

  In the winter of 1960, therefore, having sent her heavy luggage on ahead, Florence Green took the bus into Flintmarket via Saxford Tye and Kingsgrave. Wally carried her suitcases to the bus stop. Once again the floods were out, and the fields stood all the way, on both sides of the road, under shining water. At Flintmarket she took the 10.46 to Liverpool Street. As the train drew out of the station she sat with her head bowed in shame, because the town in which she had lived for nearly ten years had not wanted a bookshop.

  About the Author

  Penelope Fitzgerald ‘Of all the novelists in English of the last century, she has the most unarguable claim on greatness.’ Philip Hensher, Spectator was one of the most elegant and distinctive voices in British fiction. She was the author of nine novels, three of which – The Bookshop, The Beginning of Spring and The Gate of Angels – were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. And she won the prize in 1979 for Offshore. Her most recent novel, The Blue Flower, was the most admired novel of 1995, chosen no fewer than nineteen times in the press as the ‘Book of the Year’. It won America’s National Book Critics’ Circle Award, and this helped introduce her to a wider international readership.

  A superb biographer and critic, Penelope
Fitzgerald was also the author of lives of the artist Edward Burne-Jones (her first book), the poet Charlotte Mew and The Knox Brothers – a study of her remarkable father Edmund Knox, editor of Punch, and his equally remarkable brothers.

  Penelope Fitzgerald did not embark on her literary career until the age of sixty. After graduating from Somerville College, Oxford, she worked at the BBC during the war, edited a literary journal, ran a bookshop and taught at various schools, including a theatrical school; her early novels drew upon many of these experiences.

  She died in April 2000, at the age of eighty-three.

  Other Works

  Also by Penelope Fitzgerald

  EDWARD BURNE-JONES

  THE KNOX BROTHERS

  THE GOLDEN CHILD

  OFFSHORE

  HUMAN VOICES

  AT FREDDIE’S

  CHARLOTTE MEW AND HER FRIENDS

  INNOCENCE

  THE BEGINNING OF SPRING

  THE GATE OF ANGELS

  THE BLUE FLOWER

  THE MEANS OF ESCAPE

  Copyright

  Fourth Estate

  An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  Fourth Estate

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Previously published in paperback by Flamingo 1989

  First published by Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd 1978

  Copyright © Penelope Fitzgerald 1978

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.