The Book Keep
T HE B OOK K EEP
I GNATIUS O LIVER WAVED TO the tea shop owner.
“Hello, Desdemona,” he said.
“Morning, Ignatius,” said Desdemona Macklin. “Where you been off to?”
“Oh, I took a walk over to Bethnal Green. Had an errand to run.”
“Bethnal Green! Well, you were up and out early then. It’s not half eight yet.”
“Yes, it was quite early. How’re the teas and cakes selling?”
“Oh, it’s bloody wonderful,” she said, her voice liberally doused with sarcasm. “Why, if I knew it was so good for business, I’d wish we were at war all the time.”
“Well, we must do our part.”
“That was a bad bit of bombing the other night,” she said. “You look like you made it through all right.”
He rapped his knuckles against the wooden door. “For luck,” he said.
“Saw you had a late-night visitor last night.”
He turned to the woman. “You did?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Sharp eyes, you have,” he said, unsmiling.
“Isn’t that what the government tells us? Lots of dodgy things going on in wartime.”
“Yes, I suppose there are.”
“Funny time for a bloke to be wanting a book, considering it was after midnight. Little stout bloke. Saw you open the door for him before I nipped off to bed.”
She waited for him to respond.
“Yes, well, he’s a collector of sorts who came into town late, from the north. He was leaving very early this morning and last night was the only time he could meet.”
“So he was after a book, then?”
“They’re the only things I sell after all,” he replied.
She sniffed and didn’t look convinced. “Book blokes are funny, aren’t they?”
“I consider myself a ‘book bloke’ and I’m not at all funny. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
He lifted a set of keys from his pocket, inserted one in the door, and opened it. The bell tinkled and the door closed behind him.
Charlie waited until Macklin returned to her shop and then hurried back in time to see Oliver take off his jacket, hang it on a peg, lift the hinged countertop, and disappear through the curtained doorway.
Charlie squatted there, trying to decide what to do. He could leave here and purchase himself shoes and a coat, and Gran a hat because hers was disintegrating on her head. And fresh spectacles because she told Charlie she had the cataracts. And Charlie could take her around to the pub near them and they could have a meal prepared by someone else for once.
Yet how would he explain to Gran where the paper pounds and coin had come from? Gran was old, and there were things he could get away with, but she wasn’t stupid.
But there was one thing Charlie needed to know first, which was why he had come back here.
He slid over to the door and, wary of the tinkling bell, slowly opened it just enough to slide his nimble fingers through and stifle the ringing before it could commence.
He ventured near the till. Next to it was a framed photo he hadn’t noticed the previous night. The woman pictured was quite pretty, with large, intelligent brown eyes, full lips, and an angular face, which all promised goodness in abundance, if features could actually manage that. The clothes she wore were like what Charlie’s mother had worn. Oliver’s wife, maybe?
There was a black gauzy material wrapped around the frame. He gingerly touched it. The correct term came to him from some distant part of his brain.
Funeral crepe.
This person had died.
He eased by the framed picture and noted the coat hanging on the peg. It was as threadbare as his. The old felt hat next to it was stained and carried several tears and holes.
Charlie felt a thickening lump form in his throat. He could sense poverty when he was looking at it. And the man had walked halfway across London to return Charlie’s clothes tag, and probably inquire about his missing money and book. And he had risked his life to save others and earned the George Medal.
He slowly withdrew the pilfered paper and coins from his pocket and looked down upon them. Swimming across his mind were visions of shoes and a coat for himself, and a hat and specs for his gran, and a meal free of watery cabbage soup. They abounded in neat, linear frames of his imagination. And then, like loose sand in a tide, they were washed from his thoughts. Even thieves, at least those like Charlie, had principles. And empathy for others also badly off.
He only took from those who had spares. This man clearly did not.
Charlie placed the money next to the till and stepped away. He would have returned the biscuits, too, but he’d eaten them all. And there was also the book. He reached into his pocket and placed it next to the money.
“You weren’t home earlier.”
Charlie turned. Ignatius Oliver was standing in the curtained doorway.
A nimble and lightning-quick Charlie leapt to the door, his hand on the knob.
Oliver made no move to stop him; he simply glanced at the money on the counter and then looked at Charlie.
“Why?” Oliver asked.
Instead of answering, Charlie said, “So the ‘I’ on the glass is for Ignatius, then?”
“No, it’s for Imogen,” he said, surprising Charlie. “My wife. This was her shop. I—” he looked around as though seeing the space for the first time “—I was never much of a reader. I just took it over… when.” His gaze traveled to the funeral-creped photo.
“Never knew no bloke named Ignatius.”
“Saint Ignatius of Antioch. I was named for him.”
“What’d he do to be a saint?” asked Charlie with genuine curiosity.
“He was fed to wild beasts as his martyrdom.”
“Wild beasts! Who woulda done that?”
“People who did not agree with him. It happens, you know. Awful things occur all the time. This war is a prime example. Do you go by Charles?”
“No, just Charlie. You sell lots of books, do you?”
“Not many, no. If folks have spare shillings, it probably won’t be going for books. I have sold a number of book tokens as part of a national scheme, so that helps. Rather good idea, actually. Yet not that many have been redeemed. I think people are rather… tired. But maybe that will turn around as the war continues to move in a positive direction.”
“I guess your wife liked books.”
“Yes, indeed. She said they were a wonderful way to get through troubling times, though my sales of late do not necessarily support that conclusion. Perhaps it’s the location. This alleyway can be rather hard to find.”
“ I found it,” said Charlie.
“Indeed you did.” He paused and glanced at the pile of paper and coins on the counter.
“You must’a dropped it out on the street,” explained Charlie. “I just found it and brought it back.”
“Clumsy of me. But I can be clumsy.”
Charlie looked in the direction of the drawer where Oliver had placed the packet of papers from the night before. When he looked up, Oliver was studying him closely.
Charlie said, “Heard you got the George Medal. That you’re brave.”
“Many people are brave. Why I got the medal over others, I’m not sure.”
“For not sellin’ many books, that’s a lot of quid.”
“That was for many months’ worth of sales, I’m afraid,” replied Oliver. “So not so very much.” He eyed the book next to the money. “Ah, yes, I thought that was missing as well.”
“It ain’t got no words in it,” said Charlie.
“Well, it’s like a diary or a journal. My wife filled up many of them with her… thoughts.”
Charlie spied the odd device he had seen before lying on the counter. “Eh, what’s that thin’?” he asked, pointing.
Oliver picked it up. “It’s a replica of Alberti’s Disk. Have you heard of it?” Charlie shook his head. “Alberti was an Italian polymath from the fifteenth century.”
“A polly what?”
“It means he was quite accomplished at a great many things: poetry, languages, art, architecture, and cryptography , of which this is an example.” He held it up. “It has two concentric rings. The outer ring is imprinted with a standard alphabet, and the inner one the same, but with the letters out of normal order. When you rotate the inner ring and line it up with letters from the outer, you can create an encrypted, or secret, message.”
“Why would you wanta do that?”
Oliver set the device down. “Oh, just for a bit of fun.”
“I gotta go now,” said Charlie.
They stood there staring at each other for a moment.
“Charlie, why don’t you keep the book?”
“What?”
“Take the journal and… well, you can write things down in it, like my wife used to do.”
“What things?”
“Imogen would describe things that she saw. A man walking. A bird on a tree branch. A pile of rubble that used to be a home. A woman bringing food to people who needed it. And then she would write down what she thought about all that.”
Charlie used his sleeve to wipe his runny nose. “Is that really somethin’ folks do with their time?”
“At least certain people, yes. You strike me as observant and curious. So you might find it… worthwhile , I guess is the word I’m looking for. Ironic that a bookshop owner has difficulty finding the right words.”
“Bet you know a lot more words than me.”
“I daresay you’ll catch up and pass me. But please take the book. I have so many others, as you can see for yourself.” He picked up the book and held it out to him.
Charlie came forward and his grimy fingers closed around the journal. “Thanks.”
Oliver said, “And thank you for returning the money. It’s very fortunate you found it. In fact, I would imagine a finder’s fee is in order.”
Charlie stared at the money, but then he held up the book. “You give me this. And thanks for fetchin’ my tag back. Must’a dropped it round here.”
“Exactly where I found it, around here.”
“Saw a short, fat bloke here. Was he buying books?”
“He was a friend with a manuscript for me to read. I’m afraid it’s not very good.”
“Well, goodbye,” said Charlie, wondering if the same man had given Oliver another manuscript, whatever that was, earlier that morning.
“Goodbye,” said Oliver, not looking pleased.
The bell tinkled freely as Charlie left Ignatius Oliver and his shop.
A moment later he slid his head back inside the door. “And I ain’t bloody honorable .”
“Well, you were today, Charlie.”