‘You think? It seems to me it would have been much easier if we could’ve just fitted in.’
‘Heaven forfend, Martha! Conformity is a death sentence. No, my dear, you must embrace what makes you stand out. That’s what they despise. It’s the circle of hell in this life – blaming children for being who they are, because we were blamed and our parents before us. If you’re not harming anyone, why try to change who you are?’
‘I don’t know. I never thought of it that way. All I know is that I feel so angry with myself all the time. Like I’ll never be good enough for them, so why even try?’
‘Good enough for whom? For people who are trapped in a life that is not of their own making? Surely you can see that they merely want you to be trapped with them, so they will feel less alone in their emptiness. Be careful, Martha, you’ll become blind to your own value if you keep looking through the eyes of the bourgeoisie!’
That night, after I showered and looked once more at the story inked on my back, I thought about what Madame Bowden had said. I knew it as soon as I arrived in Ha'penny Lane, but I kept trying to deny it. I could feel the very fibres of the building getting under my skin, filling my head with ideas of a future I would never have dared to dream about. Yet when I saw Opaline’s letter to Sylvia, I knew that the book she referred to was the one that had been given to me. Was it all somehow linked to Madame Bowden? All I had were questions and the only person I could talk to about it was Henry. Could we be friends? The idea made me feel so sad. But I couldn’t see any other way. I couldn’t risk losing myself again, not when I’d fought so hard to rebuild my life.
As I lay in bed reading one of the books on my literature course, Persuasion by Jane Austen, I noticed more books lying flat on the branch that had flattened out as a shelf. The words emblazoned on their spines were almost golden in the lamplight. Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews. Gosh. Did Madame Bowden really think I could manage all of this extra reading? I looked back down at the page I was reading. I couldn’t let myself get distracted, as I had to finish it before my next class. My curiosity wouldn’t let me be and I looked up again, only this time, certain words seem to stand out more than others.
Dear Reader
Go
In The Attic
I held my breath and pressed the book I was reading to my chest. This was properly spooky. I looked at the clock. A minute past midnight. I looked back at the books and they seemed perfectly normal and harmless once again, no word more luminous than the rest. There was no secret message at all. I should just ignore it, I told myself, figuring my eyes were tired and seeing things that weren’t there.
Intuition, Madame Bowden had called it. Maybe ignoring it had been the problem all along.
I slipped my feet into my sneakers and pulled around me the old cardigan that doubled as a dressing gown. I didn’t want to turn on the hall light upstairs – I knew Madame Bowden was a light sleeper – and as a result I stubbed my toe on the last step to the top floor. I silently cried out in pain and at being gullible enough to believe the books were telling me something.
But was it gullible? I was wearing a tattoo on my back, half of which I didn’t put there.
I came to a small door at the highest point of the building and had to crouch down. I pushed and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. I searched fruitlessly at the top of the architrave for a key, finding only dust. It was pointless. There was nothing I could do in the dark. I made my way a little more carefully down the stairs and as I trod softly past her bedroom door, the lady of the house called out.
‘Is that you, Martha?’
‘Yes, just …’ Shit. What could I say? ‘There’s a spider in my toilet so I had to use the one up here. Sorry.’
I waited for a reply, but after a few seconds I kept on going. Just before I reached the ground floor, it came.
‘You’re a terrible liar, Martha!’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
HENRY
‘Are you still there? Mr Field?’
I put the pillow over my head and shouted some obscenities into it before returning to the phone call.
‘I just need a bit more time, that’s all. You got the initial draft, right?’
‘Yes, yes, indeed, and it’s a very promising premise but the problem is—’ Derrick, the head of department, was a decent bloke and he had tried to break it to me gently. The problem was I couldn’t accept what he was telling me. ‘The problem is that you’ve produced absolutely nothing to back it up, Henry.’
He was right. I knew he was right. An old letter discussing the possibility of a second Bront? novel was just hearsay. I had no real hard evidence.
‘I’m sorry, Henry, but they’ve pulled your funding.’
‘What?’
‘Look, I tried to fight your corner, but this isn’t the first wild goose chase you’ve been on, is it?’
Oh good, a healthy dose of humiliation to boot. I thanked him for calling and delivering the bad news himself, rather than in a letter. Then I shouted into the pillow some more.
I’d spent years chasing down leads, trying to find that one missing manuscript that would make my name. Yes, I had attributed short stories or essays written under pseudonyms to their rightful authors, uncovered interesting letters between significant players in the literary world and handled countless texts discovered by rare book specialists, but, as yet, I still had not achieved that one big discovery. This was my chance, I could feel it. I’d let myself become completely distracted by my emotions and this was the result. Martha had made her feelings on the subject perfectly clear and if I was to salvage what was left of my career, I was going to have to throw myself into this search one hundred per cent.
I took out my laptop and propped myself up in bed. Trance music always helped me to focus; something about the repetitive tones and beats made me feel like I was moving even when I was sitting still. I was going to get to the bottom of this mystery, one way or another. I had already contacted Rosenbach’s estate for confirmation that the letter was not a forgery. They had employed a handwriting specialist and fobbed me off with delays. Either way, if he had obtained the manuscript, surely the whole world would know about it by now. No, I had to get back to Opaline and find out what happened to her and why she claimed to possess Emily Bront?’s lost manuscript.
I heard a tap on the door and assumed that if I kept quiet enough, Nora would presume I had gone out.
‘I can smell the drink from here,’ she said.
I got up to open the door and saw her standing there with a tray carrying a steaming cup of tea and a toasted bacon sandwich.
‘You truly are a remarkable woman.’ I took the tray from her and brought it inside.
‘What in God’s name happened to your face?’
‘Oh that, yes.’ I’d almost forgotten, what with having my reputation broken and my heart smashed to pieces.
‘Are … are you okay, Henry?’