A Book at Bedtime Read online

  Copyright © 2021 Barrie Shore

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

  9 Priory Business Park,

  Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,

  Leicestershire. LE8 0RX

  Tel: 0116 279 2299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  Twitter: @matadorbooks

  ISBN 9781800468221

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  To the many carers I have known,

  with admiration and gratitude.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  JACK

  EVA

  JACK AND EVA

  EVA

  IN THE END

  PROLOGUE

  It began with a portrait.

  W.B. Yeats, by Augustus John.

  And a woman in blue with an elegant hat, who said, ‘He looks a bit raffish, wouldn’t you say?’

  And a man dressed up in his second best suit, clutching a bunch of primroses in his hand, who said, ‘I beg your pardon, are you talking to me?’

  Or was it before that?

  Did it start with the letter from Oliver Brande?

  ‘Darling Jack, do come and see us, we so long to meet you at last…’

  Or the Great Man. What about him?

  So back and back, to a father dead of drink and despair, to a mother consumed with religious ferocity, to a bookshop, a lady man and a Saturday boy, a school gymnasium, an undersized chair…

  And the war.

  The war.

  And whatever way it all began, how did it come to end like this?

  JACK

  castlebridge

  Sunday, 3rd December, 2006

  An old man sleeps in his chair, snoring and whistling as old men will, chin on chest, book in hand. Not a comfortable chair, or an easy one. It’s split at the seams, worn to the web on either arm, springs sagging down to the floor. But this is the chair in which his father used to sit, and the old man is happy to sit in it too, as if some paternal warmth remains in it to solace him.

  The old man has been reading by the light of the lamp on the bedside cabinet, but his book has fallen to his knee, glasses slipped to the end of his nose, chin resting on chest, chest rising and falling gently with every breath. His breathing is slow and steady, seeming to harmonise with the grandfather clock out on the landing that ticks tiredly but dependably on, till it takes rest for a moment, gathering strength for the preliminary clunk and wheeze it makes two minutes before striking the hour. The old man jerks awake from the middle of a dream: of his father riding the dray cart, singing a shanty, old Nell’s ears pricking forward as she trots unerringly back to the brewery. And Jack, boy Jack, sitting between his father’s knees, twitching the reins, crowing with delight.

  The old man’s yawn is wide and loud with a chuckle in it as he remembers the dream. He finishes the yawn with a smack of his lips, rescues his glasses and tucks them into his dressing gown pocket; clenches and unclenches his fists, rubs the fingers of each hand, chafing them back to life and warmth. The book slips from his knee to the floor and he bends with a grunt to retrieve it, marks his page with a faded ribbon that his wife once used to tie up her hair, and strokes the cover. The book is an old friend, a collection of poetry given to him as a boy by the Great Man. Its dark green leather is bleached by time, the bright gilt at the edges worn away by his affectionate thumb.

  He turns his head as a small sound comes from the cot beside him. An old woman is lying there, propped up on the pillows, gazing at the wall. Her eyes move slowly from left to right as if she is reading, and she smiles from time to time as if she’s amused; then frowns a little, perhaps with displeasure, perhaps in pain.

  ‘Good morning, my sweetheart.’

  There’s no reply, there never is. But he still says good morning each morning, just in case.

  The man is John William Carter, known as Jack, a shopkeeper by trade but not by choice. The woman is Eva, his wife of nearly sixty years, who lives in a private world of her own that’s long gone beyond his reach, no matter how hard he tries to follow her.

  The grandfather clock out on the landing starts to strike. Six o’clock, three minutes slow. And he remembers that it’s Sunday, the one day when he doesn’t open the shop. Long Sunday, stretching its hours into eternity.

  Eva makes another small sound, a low sort of hum without a tune. Jack lays his book on the bedside cabinet and struggles to his feet, pauses a moment to rub his knee then shuffles to the end of the cot and leans on the rail looking down at his wife. She has grown pale and thin, like a plant buried too long under a stone; her skin is ivory smooth, all the old lines that he used to love faded away along with her memory; and her hair, that once glorious swoop that had made him catch his breath in wonder, is a jagged white bob in need of a wash.

  But Jack doesn’t see the old woman with the blank face and greasy hair who plucks the duvet and smiles at the wall. He sees the young woman in blue with the elegant hat whom he met in London soon after the war.

  london

  Friday, 14th March, 1947

  ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair:

  Dull would he be who…’

  Wait a minute, he was on the wrong bridge. That was Westminster, this was Waterloo. And the view was anything but fair.

  Blackened warehouses jutting from either bank like broken teeth; chimneys belching foul smoke into fouler air; a row of cranes, swinging their necks like a stand of giraffes. Above them, the air was raucous with noise, thick with the stink of carbon, and the river below didn’t glide at his own sweet will, but ran fast and high after the interminable winter and spring floods, turbid with mud, polluted with oil.

  And the traffic of the river: a dredger resting at anchor, reddened with rust, black with silt; barge after barge, flat and filthy, hoisting cargo onto crowded wharves. Ferryboats lurching, lighters chugging; a police launch bouncing out from under the bridge, klaxon screaming, sending miniature tides to either bank. Only the dome of St Paul’s, rising triumphant amid the shatterings of war, provided a symbol of hope. London was undefeated and would rise again.

  As Jack gazed down at the turbulent water, he thought of the slow splendour of the river at Castlebridge with its lazy rowing boats, chattering waterfowl, solitary fishermen, and he was suddenly sick for home. Till a familiar sound rang out through the din of the river, the pounding feet, the thundering traffic, and he looked about, wondering for an absurd moment where the wireless could be. And then he saw it: Big Ben on a distant bridge booming the time. Nine o’clock.

  Six hours before his appointment this afternoon. Six hours to do as he pleased. And he knew exactly where he was going.

  He’d never been to London before, but he’d studied the route in the A to Z for weeks until he knew it by heart, and he set off with cheerful step and confident heart, reached the end of the bridge, turned left into
the Strand and slowed to a dawdle as he passed places he’d heard of but never thought to see. The Savoy Theatre where the opera played; Simpson’s, home to his beloved chess; Stanley Gibbons… oh, vision of boyhood! Great Uncle Silas and his collection of stamps, the dusty albums that his father had treasured, the exotic tales he’d told of piratical seas and faraway lands. Then on past buildings entirely new to him: hotels, theatres, a department store, everything bigger, grander, more intimidating than the yellowing, mellowing stone that was Castlebridge.

  He crossed the street at Charing Cross, dodging trams, trolley buses, taxis, and went into Trafalgar Square… through swoops of pigeons, disturbing sparrows pecking at his feet… past the great lions, vast and still, the fountains splashing… Lord Nelson, chalky with birdlime… a man with a monkey and a box camera… an old woman selling monkey nuts… a crocodile of schoolboys with bony knees chattering up the steps to the National Gallery… St Martin’s Church… a pavement artist… and on to the heavy entrance, where he stopped and looked up, with a lift of his heart, at the blackened slabs of Portland stone, the busts of Carlyle, Stanhope, McCauley set in roundels, wreathed in garlands… every stone and cornice as familiar to him as his own front door but which he’d never dreamt he would breach.

  The National Portrait Gallery.

  And a flower stall.

  ‘Lovely daffs, shilling the bunch… get your fresh prims now, tuppence the twist.’ A man with an empty sleeve and a whining voice who spotted a softie and moved in for the kill with an obsequious leer. ‘Go on, guv, give ’em to your girl.’

  He spent an hour and more in the gallery, walking from room to room, hat in one hand, primroses in the other like a propitiatory offering to the gallery staff whom he dared not approach, so intimidating was the lift of their chins, so superior the length of their noses. And stopped at last in front of a portrait. A portrait in pencil and wash: W.B. Yeats by Augustus John.

  And heard her voice for the very first time.

  ‘He looks a bit raffish, wouldn’t you say?’

  He turned to look at the woman beside him. She was dressed in blue, with an elegant hat on the side of her head, its wide brim obscuring her face. He wondered vaguely how she kept it in place.

  ‘I beg your pardon? Are you talking to me?’

  ‘Yes. I said he looks raffish. And frightfully tired.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so?’ He looked at the portrait again, examined the young man’s face, the stoop of his shoulders, the droop of his hat, and tried to compose an intelligent reply. ‘Ah, yes, I see what you mean.’

  ‘I expect he’d been to an all-night party and had too much to drink. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’ve never been to an all-night party. Or had too much to drink.’

  ‘Haven’t you? How disappointing.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  They studied the portrait again.

  ‘Do you like his work?’ she said.

  ‘Who, Yeats?’

  ‘No, John.’

  ‘I don’t really know it, except his portrait of Hardy.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Thomas Hardy. He’s my favourite author.’

  She glanced at him briefly round the brim of her hat. ‘Heavens, no wonder you look so depressed.’ She opened her handbag and searched inside.

  Jack searched for something clever to say. ‘I was so looking forward to seeing it.’

  ‘What?’ She took a powder compact out of her bag. ‘Seeing what?’

  ‘The portrait of Hardy.’

  ‘Were you?’ She opened the compact.

  ‘But it isn’t here.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What a shame.’ She studied her face in the mirror, touched the tip of her nose with her finger. Long nails, scarlet nails, picking a puff from the compact, powdering her nose. Pink puff, fluffy with powder. ‘You’re not a Londoner.’

  ‘No. How can you tell?’

  ‘Your suit, I suppose. And the way you speak.’

  Oh. He’d felt so smart this morning, setting out in his second best suit that his mother had brushed and pressed, tucking the map and the railway ticket into his pocket; but now the rough tweed seemed provincial and lumpish. And that accent of his, how hard he’d worked to get rid of it.

  ‘No,’ he said, careful to keep his vowels in line, ‘I live in Castlebridge.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Castlebridge, Dorset.’

  ‘Oh, Dorset,’ she said, in that superior way that Londoners have when speaking of the provinces. She frowned at the mirror and puckered her lips.

  ‘I’m just up for the day, on business for the shop.’

  ‘Oh, you work in a shop? What a coincidence, so do I.’

  ‘Do you?’ He was delighted.

  ‘Yes, Swan & Edgar. It’s my day off.’ She delved in her bag and brought out a lipstick.

  ‘Swan & Edgar…’ He strung out the words. ‘How exotic it sounds.’

  ‘It’s only a shop. It’s a department store in Piccadilly.’

  ‘Where the statue is?’ Pleased to display some knowledge of London. ‘The statue of Eros?’

  ‘Oh, that old thing, you don’t notice it after a while.’ She stretched her mouth and renewed her lipstick. Blood red, matching the nails. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘What’s my what?’

  ‘Your shop. What kind of shop do you work in?’

  ‘A bookshop. It’s called Bob’s Books, we sell books, second-hand mostly.’

  ‘How exciting.’ She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her little finger and folded her lips together to blot them.

  She was laughing at him. Hard to tell, her face still hidden behind the hat. He thought of the bookshop and the quiet, comfortable hours he spent there.

  ‘Not exciting at all, I’m afraid, anything but. We can go for days at a time, not a customer in sight, except in the summer when the tourists come. Oh, and Christmas, of course, we do quite well at Christmas. Not that I mind it quiet, I resent them sometimes, the customers, I mean, especially if I’m in the middle of a book that I’m really enjoying. It’s not much of a living, but I’m happy there.’

  ‘How nice.’ She was bored. She put her compact and lipstick away and snapped the bag shut.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m talking too much.’

  She didn’t deny it. She opened the bag again and took out her gloves. ‘Who’s “we”?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said “we”. We sell second-hand books.’

  ‘That’s just habit. The shop used to belong to a chap called Robert Pride, Bob Pride. That’s why it’s called Bob’s Books. But it’s only me now.’

  ‘You mean it’s your shop? It belongs to you?’

  ‘Yes. Bob died soon after the war began.’

  ‘What, in France?’ She pulled on her gloves.

  ‘No, he was too old to fight. And anyway, he was a… he had a club foot.’

  ‘Oh, dear, poor chap.’

  ‘Yes. He had a fall.’ The body lying on the cellar floor… ‘He tripped and fell.’ One arm flung out as if in appeal… ‘I found him next morning.’

  ‘How perfectly ghastly.’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘So you weren’t serving by then?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You hadn’t been called up?’

  ‘No.’

  Change the subject. Now. Quickly. Before it’s too late. ‘Well, anyway, he left me the shop.’

  ‘Golly, what a lot he must have thought of you.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he did.’

  She looked round the brim of her hat and smiled at him sadly. Scarlet smile, waiting for something, he didn’t know what.

  ‘Oh, well…’ She shrugged. ‘Tata,
then, nice meeting you and all that.’ And she walked away.

  Why didn’t he follow her? Because she was tall and straight in her sky-blue suit with the nipped-in waist and swirling skirt; because of her slim ankles and the black seams to her stockings and her high-heeled shoes; because she was urban and smart, because of Swan & Edgar and the statue of Eros. Because he was fearful of what she might ask. And because his clod-hopping, country boots were stuck to the floor.

  She disappeared through the doorway without looking back.

  Jack turned to the portrait of Yeats again; bent to it, breathing it in, as if some vestige of the woman in blue might still be lingering there. He looks a bit raffish, wouldn’t you say?

  ‘I say…’

  She was in the doorway, beckoning him. ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve found.’

  It was a portrait in oil by William Strang. Of a man no longer young but not yet old; a man in a dark suit and a puritan collar, with a hooked nose, high forehead and receding hair, thick black eyebrows and a drooping moustache; a man with a serious, dreamy face. Thomas Hardy.

  ‘I say,’ said Jack, ‘how clever you are.’

  They stood side by side in front of the portrait, she as proud and pleased as if she’d painted it herself, Jack only conscious of her shoulder beside him. He could have stood there forever.

  But.

  But a couple approached from behind and stood craning their necks. Jack and the woman stepped aside; turned about; met again behind their backs, as if they were taking part in a stately dance. Looked at each other.

  She was tall for a woman, almost as tall as him. And beautiful. Pale face, scarlet lips; brown hair under the hat, beautiful nut-brown hair; dark eyes, brown, almost black, flecked with green, no, gold; almond eyes, that looked at him gravely. Till she started to laugh.

  ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s just so unexpected, a chap with flowers.’

  Damn. Damn the war. Blast the survivors with their whining voices and empty sleeves. Damn and blast the blasted primroses.