this I love
It’s a relief to tell Henry, to let everything out – losing Cal, how I failed, how it’s all ruined now. It’s a relief to cry and have Henry tell me this is the correct response and to hold out his sleeve.
I feel exhausted afterwards. I feel almost as tired as I did in those days after I dragged Cal out of the ocean and tried to force him back to life on the beach. I sit on a bench and I tell Henry I’m not sure I can get up. Sometimes I feel like running and sometimes I want to swim, and sometimes I just want to sit in the same place forever because I don’t have the energy for another day without Cal in it.
The story he told me about The Log from the Sea of Cortez is perfect. I can see Cal near the register, taking mints from the free bowl and rolling them up and down the counter while he and Henry spoke. Cal loved Henry. He loved telling him strange scientific facts when he came to our place for Sunday-night pizzas.
It starts to rain softly. There are sparks in the humid sky. ‘We need to go,’ Henry says. He’s not a fan of thunderstorms.
‘Maybe I’ll just sit here,’ I say. ‘It’ll stop raining soon.’
‘No,’ he says, and kneels down with his back to me so I can climb on.
He stands and I wrap my legs around his waist and tuck my chin into his neck, like I did as a kid when we were running races in primary school.
‘This is much better,’ I say as we start walking.
‘I’m sure it is,’ he says. ‘If you’re the one on the back.’
‘I did save you the other night,’ I say. ‘So it’s payback.’
‘I’m very happy to carry you as long as you need it. Payback or not.’
The rain starts to soak us.
‘I forget. Do you stand under a pole in a lightning storm?’ Henry asks, moving faster up High Street.
‘Sure, and it helps if you can find a puddle too,’ I tell him.
‘We don’t stand under a pole,’ he says.
‘We don’t stand under a pole,’ I confirm.
It feels good to be weightless and moving. I count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder and tell Henry the charge is at least six kilometres away from us. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you,’ he says. ‘But I’m making a run for it.’ He sprints the last stretch to the bookstore, and leans so I can open the door with my keys.
He puts me on the floor, and goes upstairs to find some towels. While he’s gone I text Rose to let her know I’ll stay the night at Henry’s. I don’t want to go home. I want to lie on the floor on the same quilt bed like Henry made when we were kids, and talk until I fall asleep.
I say this to Henry when he comes downstairs, and he looks relieved that there’s something practical he can do. He makes a three-quilt bed on the floor – three on the floor and one to pull over us. But because it’s a warm night we don’t really need a top quilt, so we lie on the four, and it’s as comfortable as a mattress.
We lie listening to the creak of the shop – someone’s footsteps across the ceiling, walking to the bathroom and back in the flat above. I look at the water that’s falling outside the window, lit up by the streetlights so every separate line of water is visible.
‘I had a dream where Cal told me he could see the world from above,’ I tell Henry. ‘He said the seconds were pouring off people, tiny glowing dots pouring from their skins, only no one could see them.’
‘Beautiful dream,’ Henry says.
‘Is it? Wouldn’t it be better if the seconds were adding up? Do we have a set amount of seconds to live when we’re born or an unknowable number?’
‘An unknowable number,’ Henry says.
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t. I believe.’ He rolls over and looks at me. ‘I believe I am adding up to something.’
‘I don’t want to cry anymore,’ I tell him. ‘I think I’m at the end but then I realise there’s more to go. Tonight there was more to go.’
‘Have you gone to the top of that cliff in Sea Ridge and just screamed your lungs out?’ he asks.
‘Done it.’
‘Did you swim till you’re exhausted?’ he asks.
I look right at him because I don’t care if he sees how sad I am. ‘I hate the water now.’ I tell him I can look at it, but I can’t stand the thought of diving under. ‘It took him,’ I say. ‘I went in once and all I could feel was that day – the water in my mouth and the weight of him. I pulled him back to shore and all the time I knew he was dead.’
‘What can I do to help?’ he asks.
‘Distract me,’ I say, because he can’t do anything.
‘I can do that. I’m very distracting.’
‘What’s your plan?’ I ask. ‘The life plan for after you sell the bookstore?’
‘There are several. I could go to university. Become a lawyer. Maybe a literature professor.’
‘You’ve never wanted to be a literature professor. You’ve always wanted to work in the bookstore.’
‘I’ll be poor, like Dad.’
‘Your dad’s got two great kids and a bookstore. He might not be rich, but he’s not poor.’
‘Mum left him. He’s working all day every day, trying to hunt down first editions so we can stay afloat. It just seems like a hard life.’ He shifts around. ‘Books can’t buy your girlfriend a good night out.’
They can’t buy Amy a good night out. ‘You know the best night out I’ve ever had? Hands down the best night? The time you read me “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.’
‘I seem to remember you saying you hated poetry,’ he says. ‘I distinctly remember you saying something along the lines of “poetry is pointless”. That we could lose all the poets from the world and no one would care. In fact, thousands of people would be very happy.’
‘You’re twisting what I said.’
‘What did you say then? I can’t remember.’
‘I said poems don’t make a difference to the real things.’
‘The real things?’
‘They can’t save people from cancer or bring people back from the dead. Novels can’t either. They don’t have a practical use, that’s what I meant. I loved that you read the poem to me that night, but the world remained unchanged.’
‘And yet you don’t think I should sell the bookshop.’
‘My theory isn’t perfect,’ I say, already in the blue before sleep.
I wake in the early morning, with Henry’s arm slung around me, and Lola tapping on the shop window. I open the door and see she’s still in the clothes she was wearing last night. She’s here for Henry, but when she sees me she looks excited. ‘I sense there’s gossip to be had.’
‘No gossip,’ I tell her after we’re sitting at Frank’s. It’s seven. I haven’t been up this early for the longest time. It’s cool, but the light promises heat. We order coffee and toast and a large orange juice to share.
‘Big night?’ I ask, and point at her clothes.
She tips a heap of sugar in her coffee and stirs. ‘We played till three. Then Hiroko and I went out to eat. Two gigs to go till we’re gone.’
‘You should record all your songs,’ I tell her as Frank brings our food. ‘Make a permanent record of everything you’ve ever written and played, from start to end.’
‘I don’t know if I want to record the end,’ she says, buttering her toast. ‘I’ll think about it. So I saw you and Henry lying together on the floor.’
‘We’re back to being friends.’
‘You two were never just friends,’ she says. ‘You were inseparable till Amy arrived.’
‘What about you and Hiroko?’ I ask. ‘You’re inseparable.’
‘We’re not girlfriends,’ she says eventually. ‘She’s the only person I can write with. We’re Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Hervey and Goodman, Sleater-Kinney. At least we were. Now we’re nothing.’
I tell her again that they should record their songs. She licks some jam from her thumb, and says, ‘Maybe.’
I drive home to shower and change. Rose has left a note for me on the kitchen bench.
I saw you yesterday, walking straight out of the ER. I was about to come after you but I saw Gus. Is something wrong? Call if you need me to come home today. P.S. Your mum called. There’s a message from her on the answering machine.
I press the button and listen to Mum talking about Gran and Sea Ridge and her new classes at school. She says she’s planning a trip to the city soon. ‘I miss you,’ she says, in a voice that’s flat and sad. I delete the message and take a shower.
Henry’s behind the counter when I return. I take the coffee cup he offers and sit with him to drink it. Michael joins us after a while, along with Martin and George and Frederick and Frieda. Sophia arrives with croissants, which makes two breakfasts I’ve had this morning.
I ask Michael if we can close the Letter Library for the duration of the cataloguing. ‘It’s too hard to record the comments if people are looking at the books,’ I tell him, and it becomes clear that Sophia doesn’t know about the job that Michael’s asked me to do.
‘Why?’ she asks him.
‘My reasons are no longer your concern,’ he tells her, and gives me permission.
I tape a notice to the front window – The Letter Library is closed for cataloguing. Howling Books is sorry for the inconvenience – and then start work.
I’d lose all sense of time if it weren’t for George and Martin, who keep walking over to put notes in The Broken Shore. I’ve decided the restriction on the Letter Library doesn’t apply to the staff, so I don’t say anything. At first George shyly places her letters in the book, but after a while, she’s angrily shoving in paper.
To give her some privacy, I concentrate on recording the notes in Prufrock and Other Observations. It takes a long time to catalogue everything people have written, and in the end I have to leave out some small notes.
From what I can tell, the poem that Henry read to me that night is the love song of someone who doesn’t think very much of himself. He’s a man debating whether or not he should tell a woman how much he wants her. The notes along the side are mostly from people worrying that life has passed them by. Or, to quote Henry, people who feel a bit shit about themselves.
‘Is that why you like it?’ I ask Henry when he’s on a break.
‘I think you’ll find a lot of people like T.S. Eliot for reasons other than that they feel a bit shit about themselves. Read the language. It’s beautiful.’
‘But it’s basically about him wanting sex isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s about him debating whether or not to take a risk.’
Henry stays with me this afternoon to help and to argue more about Eliot. There are so many comments on the book that my hands are tired, so I read out the comments and Henry types. Eventually we get to the last one and Henry walks back to the counter.
I’m too tired to start cataloguing another book. I proofread what I’ve done today, and make sure it’s formatted. Then I save the database and shut down the computer. Martin’s not ready to go yet, so I pass the time looking through the books.
The one I really want to look at is Mark Laita’s Sea. I noticed it on the first day. It’s one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen and I can’t believe someone would leave a copy of it in the Letter Library for people to write on.
I take it off the shelf today. The creatures are hypnotic, glowing off pages in brilliant light. I sit on the floor and look through. I stop when I get to page with the North Pacific Giant octopus, a red spectacular creature, with no eyes that I can see, the end of its body a mouth, open in a kind of blind wonder. I’m staring at that mouth for a long time before I notice a tiny hand-drawn arrow in the margin, pointing to the creature. There’s a word next to that, written in small neat letters, the kind of letters that Cal used: this I love.
I know before I’ve hardly had time for thought that it’s Cal’s handwriting. I know from the way the tail of his ‘e’ kicks upwards, and the way the arrow is drawn, a tiny arch in its back. I know because he loved this octopus, because he loved this book. I know it in a way I can’t prove.
I think about that arrow for the rest of the week, the love next to it, the small arch in its back. By Sunday I decide the feeling it gives me isn’t sadness, exactly. It’s too complicated to easily name. It has something to do with Cal being in a library along with other people who no longer exist in the world. The traces of them are hidden, small lines in books. In a library from which no one can borrow.
The Broken Shore
by Peter Temple
Letters left between pages 8 and 9
16 January – 22 January 2016
Hi Martin
I’m writing to explain some things about last night. I was wrong about you – you’re a nice guy. I liked talking to you in the bathroom. I liked hearing about Rufus, who’s no particular breed that you know of. I like that you chose him because he was the strangest dog at the shelter and you thought no one else would take him. I meant what I said – I’d like to meet him one day. I’d like to meet your mums, too, and your little sister. I think you’d make a great human rights lawyer. I like that you like mysteries. I like you.
And the kiss – what we had of it – was nice.
But, there’s that guy I told you about. I know, for certain now, that he’s stopped writing because he’s gone overseas, so I’m going to wait for him to get back. I’m really hoping that you and I can be friends. It’ll be a long summer in the bookshop if we can’t.
George
Dear George
Thanks for your letter. I still feel like a bit of an idiot but your explanation helps. (My kiss was nice?? That’s hugely flattering, thanks, George.) You have my word that I won’t try to kiss you again and yes we can be friends. I’d like that. I’d like if we could be friends when we go back to school, too. It’ll be a long summer if we’re not friends, but it’ll be an even longer year.
Martin
Dear Martin
Thanks for your reply. That’s a huge relief. I meant the kiss was really nice. It was more than nice. Not that I’ve had a lot of experience, but I think you’re a good kisser. Sure, we can be friends when school starts, but that might cause some trouble for you with Stacy and her group.
George
Dear George
Friends it is, then. You really need to stop worrying about what people think. That’s half your problem.
Martin
Martin
I have a problem? You’re the one who’s hanging out with Stacy, a girl who likes to call people freaks.
George
Dear George
I’m sorry. I wrote that last note in a bit of a hurry at the end of my lunch break. I didn’t mean you had a huge problem, just that you tend to hang out alone at school, and I know of at least one person who’s tried to talk to you (me!) and you haven’t exactly been friendly. I just meant that you’re a great person and maybe the guy you like would have told you who he was before now if you’d been a bit more welcoming.
Martin
Martin
Fuck off and stop writing to me.
George
Dear George
I’m not fucking off. I’m your friend. Friends don’t fuck off. And by the way, friends don’t tell each other to fuck off, either.
Martin
Martin
Fuck. Off.
George