‘Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.’
As Padam reads, Malcolm blinks tears away. He hardly knows why he wants to cry. Thoughts of his mother? Anxiety for his friend Rev. Ruth with all that she takes on? Or is it just being here in a bookshop lit by fairy lights, listening to this gentle man read to him about magic.
When Padam has finished, Malcolm asks, ‘Have you ever wanted to write?’ He is sure such a book lover would have stories he would want to tell. He suspects not all of them happy ones.
Padam surprises him by laughing.
‘I used to write poems for the children. Just silly things to make them smile. And it helped me with my English – which was good, but some words could still trip me.’ He stares off into space, a look of concentration on his face. ‘I’ll see if I can remember one. Ah … this one was for Toby when he was little and was always disappointed by the pictures he found in his advent calendar.’ There is another pause, and then slowly Padam starts to recite:
‘I’ve found presents and stars,
Crackers and bows,
Snowmen and puddings,
And candles a-glow.
I’ve seen stockings and bells,
A jolly yule log.
But I still haven’t found
A pig or a frog.’
Malcolm claps his hands and gives a small ‘Hurrah’, then feels flushed and foolish. It really is time to go before he makes an even bigger fool of himself. He hauls himself to his feet using the low windowsill for purchase, hoping he doesn’t look as decrepit as he feels.
Soon he is making his way across the Market Place, resisting the urge to take one last look at Padam, who has waved him off at the door. Would he still be watching him, or would that beguiling man with a taste for Fair Isle knitwear already be back inside, turning off the lights?
When Malcolm arrives home, he heads to the desk in the room that is part study, part library. He does not even wait to remove his coat. He opens the bottom drawer of his desk. What he had not told Padam was that there was a time when he wrote poetry. It was in the years after his father and brother died in the car crash. His mother had not been a woman to talk about grief, and for a while it had felt as though both parents had been lost to him. She had become a formal and distant figure and, although over the years she returned to him, changed, as he was, those lonely years had been a desolate period for young Malcolm. It was during this time that he had found an outlet in writing, encouraged by an English teacher, who he now appreciates was a kind and sensitive man. Malcolm had written about the memories of his father that he was worried he waslosing. For some reason, he never thought that he would lose his brother, and even now, approaching eighty, he carries with him a clear image of his brother as the young boy he had been when he died. With his father it had been different, and he had feared this gradual leeching of memories. So, with his teacher’s encouragement, he had tried to pin the memories down with words.
One memory is particularly precious. His father had been a talented amateur artist and he would make pencil sketches of the surrounding countryside. At times he would encourage the young Malcolm to climb on his lap and add his childish contributions of colour, not ever suggesting that these spoiled the drawings. If Malcolm closes his eyes now, he thinks he might recapture the soft scratchiness of his father’s old jumper, recall the sight of his father’s lean hand holding a pencil. Knowing that when this hand held his, it would smell of pipe smoke and Imperial Leather soap.
In the bottom of the drawer, Malcolm finds what he is looking for. It is curled and crisp with age. He smooths it out in front of him. He imagines he must have written it in his mid-teens. That young man is lost to him now, but rereading the words, he recaptures his father and for an instant imagines the squeak of a tobacco tin being opened and recalls the woody scent of Balkan Sobraine.
My father drew the sky in pencil.
B for the flat cold clouds.
H for the hard horizon of trees.
But I pulled crayons from his pot.
Added crimson for his scarf and nose.
Pressed hard for the conkers in his glove,
And left shavings on his desk like leaves.
Malcolm sits back, and like the autumn leaves, his tears gently fall.
Chapter 6
An invitation
Malcolm really dislikes Mrs Switherington-Gorsley right now.
How on earth is he expected to write all of thatandher phone number on the back of a tiny green raffle ticket? He does his best, but it is difficult to concentrate with Mrs Switherington-Gorsley talking at him as he writes. She has the sort of voice that would have foxes running for their lives across a hunting field. And Malcolm has a soft spot for foxes. Then it occurs to him that if her name is illegible, it is unlikely that any prize could be assigned to her, so he finishes with a flourish of a scribble and, smiling, agrees with Mrs Switherington-Gorsley, that, indeed, they only have themselves to blame.
