AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, I’m not scared of the Big Bad Wolf.”
“Is that so?” His eyes met mine across the table. Such plain eyes—just brown, unremarkable—but so full of steady light. Like finding the deepest heart of a flame.
“My grandmother w-was horrible, so if a wolf had come alongand eaten her, I’d p-probably have jumped into his arms.”
He tilted his head in that curious way of his. “You had an evil grandmother? That sounds…so wrong.”
“Not really evil. She was the s-sort of woman you would call formidable. I d-don’t do very well around formidable people.”
“Who does? It’s hard to like someone when they care more about how they come across than making you feel comfortable.”
“She lived through the Blitz when nearly everyone she knew…um…didn’t. So you c-can see why.” I adopted the “We Can Do It!” pose. “‘We didn’t beat Jerry b-by st-stammering at him.’” I waited, like a poor stand-up comic, for laughter. But when it didn’t come, I felt…touched. Oddly liberated from the social responsibility to make light of things like that. “She used to tell me, ‘S-spit it out boy.’ I d-don’t think she meant to be cruel, but I didn’t like it.” It had always seemed like such an ugly idea. My words reduced to nothing but phlegm.
Adam was frowning rather fiercely. “Your parents never said anything?”
“I didn’t ask them. I was too scared they…um…agreed with her. And I didn’t want to make my mother do the ‘he’s very sensitive’ speech because I could tell my father didn’t like it.”
“Aww, petal.” I normally flinched from sympathy—that crooked, cater-cousin to pity—but I didn’t mind this: Adam’s unfussy comfort. Understanding offered for its own sake. “My gran was textbook,” he went on. “Like she’d gone on a perfect gran course. Her house always smelled of cakes. She took us to the park on Sunday afternoons. Used to let us watch whatever we wantedon telly while she knitted.” He sighed. “It gets harder, of course, when you grow up. Get interested in engineering instead of ducks and Ludo. You sort of run out of things to talk about, so there’s love and memories, but nothing new to build.”
“I think it’s beautiful,” I blurted out, with awkward passion. “The way the end of life can take you back to the beginning. I…I’m really looking forward to b-being a grandfather.”38
“You’d be a good one.” Adam helped himself to the last slice of bread and devoured it with gratifying enthusiasm, at one point uttering a noise that I could have sworn was a genuinenom. “And you’ve already got the baking down.”
His pleasure unravelled me just a little. “It’s…just…a thing I do sometimes.”
“Like your books?”
“W-well, that’s also my job. I’m a conservator at the Bodleian.”
“I was going to ask”—another of his grins—“but I thought it might be classified again. I would have guessed librarian or possibly doctor, because of your hands.”
“My hands?”
“Yeah.” And to my surprise, he blushed. “They’re… It’s the way you…the way you hold them, maybe.” I stared at my hands, half-expecting to see whatever it was he saw. But no, they were just the same, nothing magical or special about them. “But, anyway, I was at least half right.”
“S-since I’m neither a doctor nor a librarian, you’re not any f-fraction of right.”
He gave me a look, soft and full of mirth. “You’re a book surgeon.”
And I laughed because it was so sweet to simply talk like this and be surprising and surprised. “I s-suppose I’ll give you that. W-what about you?”
“I’m a civil engineer. I’ve spent the last few years working with the council here on the flood risk management strategy.” He shoved a wayward flop of hair away from his eyes, and I caught the gleam of a streak of butter at the base of his thumb. God. “And, as you can see from the massive-arse flood we’re in the middle of having, I’ve been doing a great job.”
It didn’t suit him, this touch of bitterness, and I wanted to suck it from him like venom from a wound. Or maybe I just wanted to put my mouth on him. Taste the fire of his skin. “It’s a lot better than it was before.”
He nodded. “Yeah. But better isn’t enough. Anyway, you don’t want to hear me bang on about flood prevention.”
But I did. I thought I could listen to that soft-vowelled voice talk about anything. With a quiver of unease, I realised he reminded me of Marius. Well, not Marius personally—they were nothing alike, either in person or in temperament—but of a time with Marius when words had been so magical and so precious. Each of them a small revelation. He had told me everything, in the beginning, and I had drunk him like wine, loving his boldness, his passion, his ease. He was so full of grandeur, and I have always been fearful of absurdity.39
As the years passed, the things we talked about changed. In the early years of our relationship,ushad been a meeting ofhimandme, this almost procreative togetherness—but over time, it had becomeits own entity again.Usandhim. He had admirers and colleagues and critics of his art. With me, he had home and habit: can you pick up the milk, we need to pay the gas bill, it’s your turn to cook, don’t forget Max’s wedding. But where wasI? Where hadIever been?
I tried to find a smile for Adam. “W-well, you w-wouldn’t w-want to hear me”—I couldn’t quite saybang on. It was so much his phrase that it would have been like taking his tongue into my mouth—“going on about book conservation.”
He finished his tea and plonked the mug down next to his empty plate. “Of course I would. It’s a pleasure hearing people talk about what’s important to them.”
I liked it too. But it felt strange to imagine myself the speaker, not the listener. Vulnerable. Yet at the same time…I imagined talking to Adam as Marius had once spoken to me, his dark eyes intent on mine, as I—oh, what, what? Stumbled out stories of broadsheets, handbills, fruit-box labels, and London transport posters? The secrets that nestled in two hundred years of Valentines:to abachelorwith fondest love.Printed in gold, Angus Thomas, 1870s.40
“I d-don’t think book conservation and printed ephemera are the s-sort of things that mean much to most people.”
