Phaedra Patrick - The Library of Lost and Found

Annie shook Lilian’s shoulder, and she sat up abruptly. She knocked her glass of white wine with her wrist and it wobbled. A passing waiter reached out and steadied it.

Lilian blinked hard at Martha, Will and Rose. She got up so quickly her stool rocked, and she sped towards the smoked-glass front door.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked breathlessly, as she stepped outside. Her eyes were pink and glistening above her puffy cheeks. ‘It’s only twenty past one.’

Martha swallowed. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. Just a spot of, um, hay fever.’

‘I have a packet of tissues in my bag. They’re extra-soft and have aloe vera in them…’

‘I’m fine,’ Lilian said. ‘What’s this about?’

‘Sorry for bringing the kids early, but I want to get to that bookshop before it closes. Will and Rose don’t want to join me. I think they want food instead.’

‘I’m really hungry,’ Rose said.

‘Me too.’ Will nodded.

Lilian knitted her hand into her hair and didn’t speak for a while. She took a deep breath and held it in her chest. ‘I suppose that’s fine. We’re just about to order dessert.’ Then her eyes grew harder. ‘I hope this isn’t about that old book?’

Martha felt as if she was shrinking in size, like Alice in Wonderland after drinking from a potion bottle. ‘The shop doesn’t open again until Wednesday,’ she said meekly.

‘I told you to leave it alone.’

‘I just want to find out where it came from, that’s all.’

Lilian pressed her lips together. ‘It’s your choice,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t know why you’re so interested in that stupid old thing, anyway. You could join us for a lovely dessert instead.’

‘Oh yeah, go on, Auntie Martha.’ Rose said.

‘The chocolate fudge cake is really gooey.’ Will licked his lips.

Martha stared inside the restaurant, at a waiter who glided past carrying an enormous ice cream sundae. Her mouth began to water. ‘I, um…’

‘And I need to ask you for another favour,’ Lilian added.

‘Yes?’ Martha said. She fumbled in her bag for her notepad and pen and flipped to her current task list. ‘What is it?’

‘Will you look after the kids, the weekend after next? I need to, um, work away.’

‘I bet it’s at a posh spa,’ Will quipped.

Lilian fixed him with a brief stare, then found a smile for Martha. ‘I have a few things to sort out. Can we make it an overnighter?’

Martha wrote this down and thought about it. Now that they were getting older, Will and Rose hadn’t slept at the house for a couple of years. Her parents’ old bedroom was full of bags and boxes. ‘I’m happy to have them during the day, but there’s not enough space for them to—’

‘Great,’ Lilian interjected. ‘Thanks, Martha. Now, let’s grab that dessert.’

Martha’s mind ticked between her two options. She was here now, but Chamberlain’s closed in a few minutes. She placed her notepad in her handbag and fastened the zip. Lilian’s eyes still looked tense, but it could be because of the pollen. ‘The restaurant looks lovely, but perhaps some other time.’

A veil seemed to slip across Lilian’s features. She wrapped her arms around Will and Rose’s shoulders. ‘You seem to remember our grandmother as some kind of fairy godmother figure,’ she said sharply. ‘It really wasn’t the case.’

Martha’s mouth fell open a little. ‘Zelda was wonderful. She was bright and fun, and always—’

Lilian shook her head. ‘Sometimes, Martha,’ she said as she placed her hand against the restaurant door, ‘it’s easy to remember things differently to how they actually were.’

Martha could hear faint electronic tunes from the amusement arcades on the seafront, but the street where Chamberlain’s Pre-Loved and Antiquarian Books was located was quiet, except for two seagulls cawing and flapping over a dropped bag of chips.

Suki said the bookshop was new, but the shade of the duckegg blue paint coating the window frames and door, and the semicircle of silver lettering embossed on the large windowpane, made it look a couple of centuries old.

Flustered after her uncomfortable discussion with Lilian, Martha struggled to regulate her breathing. Her chest felt tight again and she gave it a rub. There was something about the flicker in her sister’s eyes that made her question her decision to come here.

Even though Lilian was the younger sister, she’d always taken the lead. When she first arrived home from the hospital as a plum-faced newborn, she had assumed control. She would sleep and eat when she wanted, and the rest of the family had to fit their lives around her.

Thomas loved his new daughter. He cooed at her and puffed out his chest when he pushed Lilian in the pram, showing her off to friends and neighbours. He didn’t allow any of the fun toys that Zelda bought inside her cot.

Martha could admit that, with her icy-blonde hair and blue eyes, her sister was a beautiful child. However, her father’s devoted attention to her made Martha feel like the ugly sister in comparison.

As she stood in front of the shop door, she lifted her chin. There were only a couple of minutes left until closing time and she had to follow her instincts. Twisting the brass knob, she opened the door.

A brass bell rang and she felt a little otherworldly as she inhaled the heady aroma of leather, cardboard and ink. Her eyes widened at the sight of the books lining the floor-to-ceiling shelves. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, some worn and some like new.

Her forehead crinkled a little with disapproval as she spotted a screwed-up tissue and a felt tip pen without its lid on the desk. There was a small heap of sweet wrappers, several key rings and a plastic pug dog with a nodding head. Her own house might be busy , but this shop looked disorganized, in need of a good system.

A long wooden ladder, leaning against a bookshelf, stretched from the floor and rose upwards as far as Martha could see. There was a pair of legs, with feet facing her, clad in monogrammed red slippers. The toes wriggled as if their owner was listening to music that nobody else could hear. The ladder rungs creaked and bowed as the legs climbed down.

The red slipper-wearer was tall with a circular face. His sandy hair was pushed back off his forehead and streaked white around the temples. A red silk scarf framed his open-necked black shirt and his grey suit fitted loosely over his large rounded chest. He wore four colourful pin badges. One featured an illustration of a book, and another said ‘Booksellers – great between the sheets’. Martha noticed that his hand was large enough to hold several books in its span and that he had a smear of ink on his cheek.

Martha tapped her own face. ‘You have a smudge.’

‘Oh.’ The man put down his books and lifted his scarf. He used it to rub his face. ‘I keep finding bruises in strange places… but it’s ink from the books and newspapers. There,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Is that better?’

Martha stared at his cheek, which was now denim blue. ‘You may need a mirror.’

‘I don’t think I have one.’

Taking the battered book from her bag, Martha searched for a spare space on the countertop. ‘I think you might have left this for me?’

‘Ah, you must be Martha.’ Owen smiled and held out his hand.

Martha hesitated. Although she liked to help library-goers, physical contact was something she tried to forgo. Helping her parents out of their chairs was as close as she’d got to others for a long time. She reached out and lightly shook his hand, then quickly let it go. ‘May I ask where the book came from, and how you found me?’

Owen picked it up, handling it as if it was an injured baby bird. ‘A fellow bookseller sent it to me, for repair. But it’s in such a bad state and would be too expensive to reconstruct. When I told him the price, he said not to bother. I paid him a tenner for it because I could sell some of the illustrations. But then I got The Guilt.’