Chapter Thirteen
Arthur
Arthur had arranged to meet Ash at four o’clock at the community center, and so over the weekend he spent every spare minute readingMuch Ado About Nothing. It wasn’t easygoing, filled with strange old words and long, nonsensical rambles, and several times he almost gave up. This was why he’d hated school so much; teachers forcing them to read these old stories that were impossible to follow. It had damn near put him off reading altogether, and when he left school at sixteen, he’d sworn he was never going to read a book again.
Of course, all that changed when he met Esi. Arthur could still remember the first time he’d seen her as if it were yesterday. It had been the Port Gowan fair, back in the summer of 1964. She’d been sitting on a hay bale, engrossed in whatever book she was reading, absentmindedly twirling a braid round her finger while the fair raged on around her. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, like a radiant rose in a field of wheat. Of course, Arthur hadn’t dared speak to her that day. Later, he told her it was because he didn’t want to bother her while she was reading, but the truth was he’d been terrified he’d open his mouth and say something stupid, just like poor Ash worried about with Dan. But he’d sworn that next year he wouldpluck up the courage, and the very next day, Arthur had headed to the library and borrowed a book. It hadn’t made much more sense to him than the Shakespeare they’d read at school, but he persevered, reading a few pages every evening when he got back from the cow sheds. It had taken him almost a month to finish that first book, and then he’d swapped it for a new one, and on it went. A year later, he’d returned to the county fair, and when he saw the beautiful woman with the book, he’d strolled straight up and said hello.
“Arthur Robinson, stop daydreaming or you’ll never finish it.”
Esi’s softly scolding voice interrupted his memories. Arthur chuckled; she could always tell when he was drifting off.
“Sorry, love.” He turned his attention back to the text in front of him. “So, let me get this straight. Claudio wants to marry Hero, but he’s tricked into thinking she’s having it off with Borachio, and so instead of marrying her, Claudio humiliates her at the altar.”
“That’s right. I never understood what Hero sees in Claudio. The man is a dolt.”
“And in the meantime, Benedick and Beatrice don’t like each other and bicker all the time.”
“Benedick doesn’t believe in love and has sworn he’s never going to get married, which we all know means he’s going to end the story loved up and happily married.” Even without looking up from the page, Arthur could hear the smile in his wife’s voice.
“And Benedick and Beatrice’s friends play a trick on them so they both realize that actually, rather than hating each other, they love each other,” Arthur continued. “And then Hero pretends to be dead, and that makes Claudio see what a fool he’s been, and then Hero’s dad says you can marry my other daughter, who isn’t dead. And that turns out to be Hero all along.”
“Yep, that’s about it.”
Arthur exhaled. “Bloomin’ heck, this Shakespeare chap doesn’t half make it complicated.”
Esi laughed, a sound that still made his heart sing even after all these years. “It’s not that complicated! Now read me the scene where Benedick and Beatrice finally realize their feelings for each other. I always loved that bit.”
Arthur flicked to the page. When the problems with Esi’s eyesight had started, he’d felt like a right lemon reading to her. He was no actor, after all, and he could never do all the voices. But Esi told him to stop being so soft, and now, after ten years of reading to her, he didn’t think twice. And so, he took a sip of tea, cleared his throat, and began to read aloud.
—
At three-thirty, Arthur left home and walked the two miles from his farmhouse into the village. He must have done this walk thousands of times over his eighty-one years, but he didn’t think he’d ever tire of the view as he crossed the fields and came over the brow of the hill to see St. Tredock nestled far below at the bottom of the cliff. When he was a boy, the village had been little more than a small, steep high street leading up from the harbor and a huddle of whitewashed stone fishermen’s cottages. Much about St. Tredock had changed since then, the village expanding as new houses were built up the hill like vines growing on a wall. The fishermen were long gone, too, their cottages now converted into overpriced holiday lets. Not that Arthur minded: unlike many of his generation, he’d always embraced change, and he loved seeing the village come to life every summer, with barefoot children playing on the beach and crabbing off the harbor walls, their parents drinking pints of cider outside theAnchor and eating steaming hot pasties from the bakery. And whilst so much about the village had changed, some things remained the same: the high street with its traditional butcher and greengrocer, the old library, and of course, the community center.
Arthur had called Sandy this morning and asked if there was a free space he could use—he’d not gone into detail why—and been told he could borrow the room they usually held book club in. When he arrived at the center, he found Ash waiting for him by the entrance door, scuffing his trainers on the gravel.
“Afternoon, lad!”
“Hi, Arthur.”
They headed into Tintagel, closing the door behind them.
“So, how did you get on withMuch Ado About Nothing?” Arthur asked as they sat down.
“Not good,” the boy said with a sigh. “It’s all gobbledygook to me.”
“I’ll be honest, I felt the same for much of it. All that fancy language is intimidating, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know why they make us read all this dead white guy stuff in the first place, it’s completely irrelevant.”
“I used to think that too. But do you know what? Reading Shakespeare again after sixty-odd years, I realized it’s not so different to modern books after all.”
Ash raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Look, it might be written strangely, but when you boil the whole thing down, it’s basically just your common or garden enemies-to-lovers rom-com.”
Arthur had been quite pleased with that summary, but Ash was squinting at him as if he was speaking in Shakespearean English himself.
“Enemies-to-lovers? What’s that?”
