‘I don’t know about that,’ he says, uncomfortably. ‘And my family aren’t from Cambridge, that’s just where I ended up living and working.’
‘Oh, OK.’ I remember him saying his parents were often too busy for him. He was lonely. Maybe that’s why he’s so reticent to talk about himself? He’s not used to it.
‘So where are you from originally?’ I pry.
He throws me a look that tells me he’s not inclined to answer, and I don’t want him slipping away from me again, so I try to reel him back into the conversation. ‘Tell me something happy,’ I say.
‘Such as?’
I laugh. ‘You don’t have to look so startled. I don’t know, tell me why you ended up here at the bookshop.’
‘I thought you wanted a happy story?’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Nothing.’
For a second I worry I’m definitely losing him, but to my surprise he looks out at the last streaks of orange sunset and starts talking. ‘When I was a kid I’d dream about visiting the great bookshops of the world.’
Me too, I want to cry out, but I don’t want to do anything that stops him talking.
‘Have you ever been to Venice?’ he says, glancing at me briefly.
I shake my head. I don’t want to tell him I’ve never been anywhere.
‘In Venice there’s the Libreria Acqua Alta. You think Borrow-a-Bookshop is eccentric? This place might fall down upon your head, it’s so ancient, and there’s a gondola stuffed with books in the middle of the shop and outside you can climb a staircase made of books, I’m not even kidding, and from the top there’s a wonderful view of the canal.’
‘No way!’
‘Yes! It even says, painted on the wall by the staircase, “climb these books for a wonderful view”, or something like that. It’s years since I’ve been.’
‘You’ve actually been there?’
‘Oh yeah. And Shakespeare and Company. That’s probably the most famous bookshop right?’
‘Yes!’ I pitch in, feeling my enthusiasm bubbling up. ‘I’ve always wanted to go there. You’ve been?’
‘I got fleas.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, we went to a poetry reading one night in the summer, left the place covered in bites! And the electricity went off while I was there too.’
‘Did you visit in the nineteen thirties?’
‘Nineteen ninety-nine. Anyway, they’re all modern now. You can follow them on Instagram.’
I make a mental note to do exactly that. ‘How old were you then?’
‘Only small. We went on a school trip.’
‘You went on a school trip toParis?’
‘I cried every day, I was so homesick, if that helps? I was kinda too young to be packed off with my form, but that’s what happened. Went to Disneyland too though, so…’ he holds his hands up and levels them, balancing his childhood trauma against a trip to the magic kingdom.
‘Elliot, how old are you?’ I can’t figure this guy out, he’s so grown up and serious and so like a lost child too.
He hesitates for a moment but seems to relent. He’s already given so much away, maybe it’s a case of in for a penny… ‘I’m thirty-one.’
