Chapter Three #2
Petra locked the door and turned the sign to “closed.” It had been a good day’s trade. Not many people seemed to be quite
so interested in the old books upstairs, though. She did think she had seen a glimpse of someone in a long dark coat and a
beanie hat slip up the stairs earlier that afternoon, but it had been much earlier. They must have slipped back out without
buying anything, while she was distracted.
She was looking forward to going up to the flat to make a cup of tea and try out the inviting blue sofa. She had had no time
for lunch and was starving too. Maybe lovely Flo had tucked a packet of cookies, or some chocolate, into one of those kitchen
cupboards. Perhaps she would even install herself on that lovely window seat to watch the world go by. She fleetingly thought
about curling up there to read a book, until she remembered that she didn’t read anymore. Reading had become work. And work
had been stressful enough for her to avoid doing anything connected with it for relaxation.
Walking through from the office at the back to the stairs, it occurred to Petra that she hadn’t checked for customers up here
before she locked the door.
She glanced through the bannisters as she climbed the first flight, and her heart jolted to see a pair of heavy walking boots beneath the table that customers could sit at to read.
Definitely a man’s foot as well, she realized with a gulp—they were too big to be a woman’s.
The bottom part of a strangely familiar, thick, dark green wool coat above the feet looked as if it might belong to the figure with the beanie hat she had glimpsed.
But that had been literally hours ago. Surely, he would have left already?
And then a thought struck her. Of course, it was so bitterly cold outside, this person had come in to get warm and had snuck upstairs where he wouldn’t be disturbed.
Maybe he had nowhere else to go? Bless him.
He hadn’t even moved in response to her approach.
She was going to have to ask him to leave.
“Ahem.” Petra cleared her throat politely as she climbed the last step. Yes, it was definitely the beanie-hat man. She could see
just the top of his head, because his face was right down over the top of a book, opened in front of him on the table. He
seemed to be taking a nap. And then a terrible thought occurred to her. What if this man was elderly and in ill health, with
no one to care for him? What if he had dragged himself into the shop, feeling unwell and instinctively seeking sanctuary,
and then his spirit had—this precise afternoon—slipped away from this cruel world to reside permanently in a better place?
Just at that moment, his head shot up and Petra screamed.
“Christ!” he yelled back. “What on earth is the matter with you, woman?”
“I thought you were dead,” she gibbered. “Hang on, I know you!”
“No, you don’t,” he snapped.
“Yes! From the station—you’re the pirate guy.”
“Ah.” He faltered for just a millisecond, his eyebrows shooting up, and then, “You mean the plundering, murderous, tyrant
of the seas—or, alternatively, the dressed-up children’s party turn, balloon cutlasses and walking the plank game my specialty?”
he reminded her wryly.
“Yes. No! I mean, I really thought you were . . . sorry, that was ridiculous of me,” she said, chastened.
Although, if he only knew, accusing someone’s everyday wardrobe of being a costume was quite mild in the Petra playbook of insults.
“I honestly didn’t mean to offend,” she apologized.
“You were being very kind, and I jumped to conclusions, because, well,” she gestured at his clothes, and then struck herself on the forehead. “Oops, sorry again . . .”
He laughed but immediately stopped, as if he had just remembered that laughing was not something he did.
“You just scared the bejaysus out of me, by the way,” she added, with a hint of reproach.
“Likewise,” he countered. “How are your knees?”
“Oh, fine,” Petra made a dismissive gesture. “Thank you. What are you reading?” she nodded her head at the book on the table
and peered at the spine as he lifted it for her to see. “Paradise Lost!” Petra clasped her hands to her heart and sighed.
“You know it?”
“Of course! ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ Ain’t that the truth,” she added wholeheartedly.
His eyes widened. “Extraordinary . . . look.” He showed her the page he had been reading, pointing to the words she had just
quoted.
Petra nodded emphatically. “I think it’s the truest thing I’ve ever heard, don’t you?
” she went on. “And the precision of his language! Like where he talks about ‘darkness visible’? He’s writing more than three hundred years ago, and we know exactly what he means—this idea that it’s so pitch-black the dark has a physical presence of its own? ”
“Exactly! And that brutal spareness, it just kills me. I always try to get near that myself, to use the most direct, unadorned
language I can. So much more powerful . . . I ask myself, what would Milton do?”
“You’re a writer!” Petra exclaimed, delighted.
“No,” he snapped. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh, okay, I thought you just said—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I meant, when I was at school. English essays. We had quite a good English teacher. It was like something
out of Dead Poets Society, but then I grew up, so . . .”
His manner invited no further questions on the matter, and this time even Petra could take the hint. Plus, she had put her
foot in her mouth once too often with the poor man, the last thing she wanted was to subject him to any further insults.
“I should be going,” he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “You’ll be wanting to lock up.”
“Ah yes,” she said, realizing, “I already have. I’ll come and let you out.” It occurred to her that she was alone with him,
and the shop door was now locked, but—despite her initial mistaken impressions—she felt entirely safe in his company.
“So, whenever you want to just come back to hang out and—I dunno—find your land legs, you’re more than welcome,” she told
him as she held open the door.
“Not a pirate, remember?”
“Ah yes,” said Petra again, clapping her hands to her cheeks in confusion. “In that case, do just come back and spend a squillion pounds on books,” she joked. “I’m on commission”—she wasn’t—“so that would be very nice.”
“You’re right, I should buy something,” he said. “How much do you want for the Milton?”
“Eleventy-billion pounds, please,” said Petra solemnly, holding out her hand. The register was all shut down now, and she
was pretty sure he didn’t mean it.
Instead, he shook her outstretched hand. His own hand was strong, warm, and dry. “Ross,” he said. “How do you do?”
Actually, maybe he was incredibly rich, she thought, as she climbed the stairs to the flat a minute later. So, basically,
she had just insulted him. Again. Didn’t eccentric rich aristocrats sometimes dress weirdly because it amused them? But then,
replaying their interactions, she thought it through. Discerning the mood of the “mind’s own place” hiding behind those sea-green
eyes, this was not—she felt sure—a man who considered himself amused, or in heaven.
In fact, he looked more like a man who was in hell.