‘Don’t go staring off into space – I want to hear more about Will the book man,’ Eric prompts, before taking a slug of wine.
Jo takes a sip too, and starts to tell Eric all about how William came to start his bookshop and of his flair for publicity – including creating adverts showing him and his brother Gilbert delivering books on a tandem.
‘What was William like?’ Eric asks, looking up from doodling a picture on her tester pad.
‘It sounds like he was fun. There are loads of stories about him.’ She smiles. ‘Once he was going to a book sale at an old estate, and on the train there were a load of other book people who also wanted to get their hands on the books in this library that were being sold off. When the train got into the station, these other guys got all the taxis, so William was left standing there. Anyway, he flagged down a passing car, which turned out to be a hearse, and he persuaded the undertaker to give him a lift – and to put his foot down, whilst he was at it. He got to the sale before the others and bought up all the best books. When the other guys found out, they were furious. Especially as they had all stopped in the road and taken their hats off as the hearse shot by.’
Eric laughs. ‘This is a great project, Jo,’ he says. ‘How did you get involved in it?’
‘Malcolm’s one of my customers. He’s interested in local history and is writing a book. Me and another customer, Ruth, offered to help.’
‘What’s the book about?’
‘He hasn’t quite decided yet,’ Jo says, slowly, ‘I think he’s just at the research stage.’ She is reluctant to talk about Malcolm’s idea, as he was so shy about sharing it.
‘There you go.’ Eric tears the top sheet of paper off the tester pad and hands her his drawing of two men riding a tandem piled high with books. ‘One for your collection.’
‘Thanks,’ Jo says, turning and pinning it to her noticeboard, which is now a colourful mix of words and pictures filling over half the board. These spiral out like paper petals around a central point – Uncle Wilbur’s small square calendar.
‘What’s the most common thing people write?’ Eric asks, scanning the collection of words and phrases.
‘Most of the time it’s their name, and then quite a lot of people scribble it out, saying that they shouldn’t leave their signature lying around.’ Jo laughs. ‘As if I’d ever do anything with them!’
Eric grins. ‘You don’t have to tell me that.’
For some reason, rather than feeling pleased that Eric the Viking thinks she’s honest, she worries that he thinks she’s boring. Average Jo.
‘What else?’
‘What?’ Jo replies, momentarily lost.
‘What else do people write?’ Eric asks, shaking his head at her.
‘Oh, all sorts,’ she says, hurriedly, ‘some write,the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, as it has all the letters in the alphabet in it.’
Eric nods and, leaning over, starts a new drawing with the scarlet fountain pen.
Jo studies his hand as he draws.
She finds she just can’t help herself.
She forces herself to turn away and look at the board. ‘I have no idea what some of my customers write as they scribble away in different languages. I’m pretty certain I have Russian, Gaelic, Arabic and French up there.’
And you also have something in Italian, she thinks, reminded once more of Clare and her Italian pen pal. She rushes on, ‘And sometimes people write what they are thinking, and they end up sharing things with me. One woman wrote …’ She searches the collage to find what she is looking for. She glimpses it hidden under a postcard – it had felt too personal to put on obvious display. ‘… She wrote,I think I should leave him, though my heart will break.’
Eric stops drawing and looks up quickly. ‘That’s really tough. I wonder …’ he pauses.
‘Why she would leave?’ Jo offers.
He nods, ‘Even though it would …’ he says, softly.
‘… break her heart.’ Jo finishes.
They stare at each other, and the moment stretches between them until Jo thinks one of them will need to reach out and physically break the silence that holds them. Then – just when she feels she will have to say something, shewilltell him – he drops his eyes and returns to his drawing. And she wonders what it is she would have said.
After another pause, Jo continues, ‘I didn’t know what to say to the woman. So I kept quiet.’
Just like now.
