The street was quiet in the midday sun, dry leaves huddling at curbs and chatting in whispers when cars passed. The rooming house faced the street with its broad side, fronted by a long porch, and even at three floors, including the dormers, it seemed much smaller from the street than the place he was more familiar with from the rear. There the land fell away to the playing fields of Lawrence, Henry's old grammar school. From the back, the brown-shingled Victorian dropped a full four floors, broken by an endless number of windows above a gravel parking area. At one of those windows a very buxom and completely naked woman had screamed at her departing lover in the driveway below as Henry and his teammates stopped playing baseball to watch. It was a fond memory often brought up at reunions.
Henry rang the buzzer. Within, through the door glass, he saw a dark common room, chairs and couches, spread toward an empty fireplace to the left. To the right an oak staircase rose to upper floors.
He rang the bell again.
Squinting through the glass, he could see mail spread on a small table. He tried the handle. The door opened.
He said, “Hello,” his voice dying in the still air.
The mail on the table was addressed to half a dozen different people, including Peter Johnson. One of those, from a doctor, also listed the room number as twenty-two.
Henry climbed the stairs, the baritone grunt of the wood against wood echoing around him. Number twenty-two was the first room at the top. He knocked.
A woman's voice responded, “Hello?"
He answered against his own polished reflection on the door.
"Hello. My name is Henry Sullivan. I was looking for Peter Johnson."
The door opened to a burst of sunlight from the back windows. The woman standing before him was very thin; the gossamer fabric of her robe revealed the dark shadow of her frailty. Her face appeared almost joyous with surprise and delight, as if she had long been expecting him. She wore a handmade cotton knit cap which only served to accent the absence of hair on her head.
"Hello. I'm Vivienne, Peter's wife. I know you! Peter has told me all about you. Please come in."
She swung her arm in a lanky gesture of welcome toward the bright interior. The paleness of her skin was barely colored by a blush of rouge on her cheeks. Her eyes were large and dark and touched by every glint of color in the room.
He said, “Thanks. I hope I'm not disturbing you."
She shook her head with a girlish laugh. “God, no. I sit here and pray for someone to come that I can talk to. I even spoke to the minister from St. Paul's church yesterday. I usually hate ministers. He was lovely, though."
Henry's eyes scanned the room. It was in perfect order, newspapers stacked square, a short row of books arranged on almost every flat surface. This was a sitting room. A bedroom led off to the side.
He asked, “Will Peter be back soon?"
She shrugged, and the bones of her shoulders poked at the fabric of her dressing gown.
"I don't think so. He's out job hunting. Jobs for middle-aged booksellers are not easy to find, as you probably know too well."
Dressed in the pearl white fabric, he thought she had the appearance of someone in the theatre.
Lacking a more positive response, he mumbled, “I guess so."
She held up a hand. “But can you stay a moment? I'd love the company."
Vivienne tugged at the back of one chair, which did little more than tilt with her hand. Henry moved it and waited for her to sit on the couch which faced the rear windows and the sun.
She said brightly, “It's a very pleasant room, don't you think? I used to sit here and watch the children play in the field, but they've blocked it off now for the construction at the school."
Henry peeked out at his old haunts before he sat down. The playing field was gouged by the tracks of large equipment and divided by temporary fences.
He asked, “How long have you been here?"
She said, “Only a month ... this time. But we found this room some years ago when I was here first, and it was so nice, we have arranged to get it each time since.
"It must be difficult on your life at home to be away."
She did not quite shake her head, but angled it back and forth oddly, as if she might be avoiding some pain by the movement. “Only on the pets. But I give them to my mother. They know her house as well as any. Sadly, we've lost the little house we had in Hay-on-Wye. That went with the shop.... But it was a rickety little place with hardly any yard, so I think the pets are better off with Mum."
Henry had not asked Peter more about the business.
"When did you lose the shop?"
She sighed. “The last time. Last year, when we came over. The little ass Peter had found to run things ran off instead with the best books and what little money had come in. Business was terrible, in any case. Half the stores have closed since the internet came along."
Henry nodded at the reiteration of a sad fact. “I'm sorry."
Vivienne smiled instead. “No. We are very fortunate, really. We lost a little, but we got out with something. And Peter will find another job soon enough. He's very good. He's really quite a scholar in his own right. Medieval studies ... Do you like medieval history?"
Henry relaxed. Her question seemed genuine and interested. “Yes. I guess Peter and I have that in common. I like the early part, mostly. The ‘Dark Ages.’”
She smiled. “King Arthur! Yes? Americans love King Arthur."
Henry grabbed at the subject as something to talk about that might avoid things more obvious.
"I suppose so. In spite of all the books, all the silly fantasies, I still think it's underappreciated. It's part of the mythology that shapes us now, in our own age. And like most mythology, I think it's most often based on fact."
She almost hopped in her seat as she straightened.
"Exactly! Just what Peter thinks. You two should talk about that. I'm trying to get him to write a book about it. He has so many ideas. He was telling me just last night about the monasteries. About all those rules and restrictions. No property, no meat, no company, no sex, and all the rest. Did you realize that those things had little to do with any principles of faith? The rules were simply trials, made to keep out those whose faith was not strong enough. In that time, the monastery was a perfect refuge from the boil of trouble in the real world. Anyone with half a brain would want to be a monk. Did you ever read the Umberto Eco book, The Name of the Rose?"
He had ambivalent feelings about Mr. Eco's scholarship, but her enthusiasm was clear.
"I did. The descriptions of the making of the books and the burning of the fire was incredible."
She somehow straightened further. “Peter knows all about that kind of thing. He got it from his father. Heber was a medieval scholar, too, you know."
Henry said simply, “Yes."
Vivienne angled her head once more. “And his mother, Ismay. She was a bit of a nut—pagan spiritualism and all of that, but she loved historical detail. It was probably what attracted Heber to her in the first place. But she was so very kind to Peter. He was her little prince. She spoiled him, really. I think it was because she bought him any book he wanted at a very young age that he became so devoted to books."
Henry found it difficult to imagine—now the man was forced to sell his father's books to save what mattered even more.
Henry wondered, “What kind of jobs has he looked into?"
She answered immediately, the thought already on her lips. “The libraries, mostly. He has a green card because of his father. Library work would be good for him. But nothing's open just now, and he's trying anything. He's had some part-time work, but they want to send him to the worst places. I worry about him. He's so foolish about some things. Naive. He'll be taken advantage of.... He was even mugged once. Last spring. He was an awful mess. Just some drunken bullies."
Henry imagined Peter was too thin to be a match for more than one. He asked, “What was your interest before you became entangled with Peter's book business?"
Vivienne smiled. Her teeth were white and perfectly formed within the curve of her pale lips. Her tongue caught at her teeth in a bit of a tease.
"You'll never guess."
Her eyebrows rose in expectation. He knew she wanted to tell him.
He said, “An actress?” He guessed only because it was his unlikely first thought.
Her face fell to a pout. “He told you."
Henry shook his head defensively. “No. It was just a guess."
Her dark eyes danced with reflected color again. “Nobody ever guesses it ... but it's true. I finished the run of a show in Piccadilly one day and decided to take a drive in the country and just kept going. Something made me keep right on. I ended up in Hay-on-Wye. And there was Peter. Looking like the bookworm that he is, all folded up behind his desk. He practically killed himself trying to get up when I came in. I was in love with him before he managed to straighten his tie. What a boy! I gave up the lead in a very promising production of a Terence Rattigan play and asked for a job. And he, without a penny in his pocket, hired me. Just like that. And I would have thought such things never happened."