‘Good friends,’ I say, and as proof, which he seems to need, I tell him I’m taking the job at the bookstore.
‘For as long as it’s there,’ he says.
I ask what he means, and he tells me that tonight, he voted to sell. ‘It solves all my problems. We sell the shop. I get some money. Amy and I travel, and when we move back I can afford to rent my own place. No more making-out in the self-help section.’
‘You make out in the self-help section?’ I ask.
‘I’ll study and become something.’
You’re something now, I think. ‘Be sure,’ I say, and he says the one thing he’s sure about is Amy.
I know it’s time to get up because Henry starts reciting poetry again. I get my poetry from two places – school and Henry – so I haven’t heard any for a while. The last poem I heard in Henry’s voice was ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’. Tonight it’s one I don’t know.
The words drop, drunk and heavy, and I see the poem as Henry speaks it– a raining world, a hiding sun, a person fighting to love the terrible days. He tells me it’s called ‘Dark August’, and it’s by Derek Walcott.
‘Are you still searching for Frederick’s book?’ I ask, and he nods.
Henry believes in the impossible, the same way Cal did. He thinks he can find the copy of that book against all odds.
He recites the poem one more time because I ask him. There’s something in it that I need to find. An answer, maybe, to how it’s done, how a person starts living again. I don’t find it. All the poem does is make me ache, in places unlocatable.
‘I need to go home,’ I say, but Henry’s too drunk for me to explain to him why that’s no longer possible.
There’s still a light on inside the bookstore and it gives the place a soft glow. I’ve always loved it here. I loved the polished floorboards and the deep rich wood of the shelves. I loved the way the spines of the books looked, neatly aligned, one next to the other. I loved it because here I could always find Henry.
I ring the bell and, while I wait, I look at the front window. There’s the seat where George always sat reading with Ray Bradbury on her knee. The books in the window form a new display – Zadie Smith, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Safran Foer, Simmone Howell, Fiona Wood, Nam Le – and I’ve read none of them.
I look closely at the book in the centre of the window – Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. At the bottom of the pink cover is a small typewriter with paper flying out, the paper turning into clouds as it rises. I can’t name what it makes me feel; sadness, maybe, at the pointlessness of an atlas for clouds – an atlas for things that move from minute to minute.
Michael comes to the door with Frederick. ‘Lucky I was here playing Scrabble,’ Frederick says, as they take Henry off my hands. I follow with the wallet and keys that have fallen from his pocket.
‘My father,’ Henry says as they tumble through the door.
‘My son,’ his dad replies, helping him towards the fiction couch.
‘Amy’s going out with Greg Smith,’ I say to explain why Henry’s drunk. ‘I found him in the girls’ toilets.’
‘In my defence, I was too drunk to know it was the girls’ toilets,’ Henry says.
‘Go to sleep,’ his dad tells him. ‘It’ll seem better in the morning.’
‘No offence, Dad,’ Henry says, ‘but unrequited love is just as shit in the morning as it is at night. Possibly worse, because you have a whole day ahead of you.’
‘No offence taken,’ Michael says. ‘You’ve got a point there.’
‘They should just kill the victims of unrequited love,’ Henry says. ‘They should just take us out the second it happens.’
‘That would certainly thin the population,’ Michael says, as he tucks a blanket around him.
Henry calls me over. He beckons as I’m walking towards him, waving me down to face level when I arrive. His breath smells of beer. ‘I wish I’d gotten the letter.’
‘Forget the letter.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘But I want you to know something.’
‘What?’
‘I missed you,’ he says, and then he kisses me on the mouth, before he falls back on the couch, asleep.
I don’t like admitting it, but I can feel Henry’s kiss all the way home. It was a drunken kiss, a mistaken kiss and he’s so out of it he probably thought he was kissing Amy, and I don’t like him anyway, but still, I think about it just the same.
I’ve parked and I’m sitting in the car, angry with myself for feeling it, and telling myself at the same time that it’s not my fault, telling myself that anyone would feel weird after a friend kissed them, when Rose walks out of the warehouse and gets into the passenger seat.
‘You’re avoiding me,’ she says.
‘I’m avoiding myself,’ I tell her. ‘I’m sorry. About before.’
‘Me too,’ she says, and takes a breath. ‘So I called Gran. She suggested the value of compromise.’
‘Translated: she said you’re stubborn and you might try listening to other people once in a while?’
‘That’s quite close to how the conversation went, yes. I’d do anything for you,’ she says. ‘Even call my mother.’ She shifts around so she’s facing me. ‘Want some good news?’
‘I would really love some good news.’
‘I think I might have found you a job cleaning at the hospital.’
‘We’re in some serious fucking trouble if that’s the good news,’ I say.
‘Don’t swear. Gran’ll think you got it from me.’
‘We’ll blame Henry. For a guy with a wide vocabulary, he leans heavily on the word shit.’ I say. ‘Don’t think I’m not appreciative of the cleaning job, but I’ve decided to work at the bookstore.’
‘This is why I don’t have kids,’ she says, getting out of the car. ‘And remember, the offer of travel still stands.’
I lie in bed thinking about tonight, thinking about Henry and the kiss, which leads to thoughts I don’t want. Thoughts about Joel, the last person whose kiss meant something to me.
We met in Year 10, on the beach over the black rocks, where the sand is flat and unshifting. He was looking in the tide pools, and Cal went over to see what he was doing. I stayed to the side and watched Joel pointing things out to him. They were crouched by the pools for ages, Joel reading the tiny details of the beach – small shells housed in the rough texture of rocks.
I knew Joel from school, so I walked over eventually. I could feel his look on my skin. I’d spent years with Henry barely noticing I was a girl, and then there I was, visible to someone.
We kissed at a party later that year. Joel smiled and I knew what it meant. We went to a quiet place near the water. The moon was a floating yellow light. We stripped off our clothes and swam right through.
‘You can come back,’ he’d said on the night we broke up. ‘When things get better.’
I told him not to wait.
I close my eyes tonight, and dream about Joel and the sand, about clouds and unstoppable rain. And Henry.
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
Written on title page: Dear Sophia, for you, on the first day of our new life in the bookshop. See page 508, Michael
Markings on page 508
Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since, – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets.
Letter left between pages 508 and 509
12 January 2016
Michael
As you’re not returning my calls about the sale of the bookstore, and as you disappear when I stop by, it seems there’s no other way to talk but by letter. I hope that I have a better chance of reaching you through this book than through the ordinary postal service.
I’ve chosen to go with Bernadine and Saunders Real Estate. I rent my flat through them and I’m happy with the service.
The most likely buyers are developers who’ll want the building but not the business. Should we start running down the stock? Selling it to other stores when we can?
Please let me know what you think.
Sophia