Chapter Six
The silence was only broken by the turning of pages or tapping of nails on e-readers.
Even her own breath sounded too loud to Grace.
She tried to take in air through her nose, but was horrified by a whistling noise she was sure everyone could hear.
Scalp prickling, she peeked around the group, ready to apologize for her inelegant airways, but all eyes were still on the words in front of them.
Annie, now slumped into the corner of the sofa, her long legs stretched out in front of her, chin tucked into her neck, looked as comfortable as someone in their own front room.
The bald man sat back, legs neatly crossed, book open in front of his face, the cat asleep at his feet.
He glanced up and smiled. Grace smiled back, then forced herself to look back at her book, feeling like she’d been caught cheating at a test.
A moment later, she glanced up again to see a man with glasses, a side-parting and moleskin trousers lick his finger then turn a page.
She dipped her head to see the title. It was The Bee Sting by Paul Murray.
She recognized the yellow cover from some news report or other.
Had it won an award or something? The man read with his lips pursed, as if giving it great thought.
She supposed she should try to do the same.
She looked back at the first page of The List of Suspicious Things, but couldn’t seem to focus on the words.
She glanced at Crush, who’d pushed her fringe to one side, eyes trained on the upright book resting against her stomach.
A deep V formed between her eyebrows and her vivid blue eyes seemed liquid.
She glanced up and caught Grace looking at her.
She gave a quick smile, then rubbed her fringe, allowing it to fall back over her eyes.
It felt to Grace like a deliberate act, designed to appear casual.
She wanted to hide whatever the book was making her feel, thought Grace.
A moment of envy took her by surprise. Since Frank’s death, she hadn’t been able to lose herself in anything.
Even The Antiques Trade Gazette, which used to be her weekly treat, seemed pointless and banal.
She was considering cancelling her subscription.
For the first time ever, furniture seemed just that – functional and lifeless.
She’d lost the passion for the stories behind the pieces.
Did it really matter who chiselled the leg of a table, or who’d imported it for whatever grand house they were renovating?
It was still just a piece of wood without a beating heart.
Frank described reading as experiencing another world, inhabiting the mind of someone else, seeing through their eyes, feeling their emotions.
Grace wanted that. If she couldn’t live in a world where her husband was still alive, she wanted to at least be able to travel somewhere else in her mind to distract her.
But the magic wasn’t working for her like it seemed to be for everyone else.
Instead, she was stuck in this ghost-filled room, in her miserable reality, all alone.
She’d been right at the start; communal reading was stupid.
It didn’t make her feel included. Quite the opposite.
The silence was screaming in her ears even more than it did at home.
At least when the quiet became too much there, she could fill it with the noise of the TV or radio to muffle the sound of her sobs.
She closed the book and shuffled to the front of the seat.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I forgot I need to …’ She trailed off, cheeks flushing as all eyes lifted to watch her stand.
She rounded her shoulders, making herself as small as possible, and tiptoed towards the door, ignoring Crush calling her name.
The jangle of the bell above the door was as loud as church bells.
It rang in her ears as she pulled it closed behind her.
The bright colours of the room were replaced by darkness punctuated by the glare of Georgian-style streetlamps.
Cool air was welcome on her burning skin.
She was glad to hear the sound of traffic and the voices of people chatting outside The Cockpit micropub a few doors up.
She rounded the corner, quickening her pace when she heard the faint jangle of the bell again at her back, then heavy footsteps behind her.
‘Grace?’
It was Annie’s voice. Grace crossed the road to the patch of green, hoping to get away before Annie saw her.
She turned when her name was said again.
Annie’s strides were too long to escape, and Grace was a grown-up.
She shouldn’t run away when someone wanted to talk to her, however much she wanted to.
‘Sorry, Annie. That just wasn’t my thing. Sorry.’
‘That’s okay. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’ The kindness in Annie’s eyes made Grace’s throat tighten.
She’d avoided seeing that kind of look in anyone for the last year.
She knew it would undo her. ‘I just need to—’ She threw her thumb in the direction of the High Street, but it was too late.
A sob bubbled up from nowhere and, despite her desperate attempts to suppress it, it gurgled out of her mouth in a strangled cry.
‘Oh, love.’ Annie put a hand on Grace’s shoulder.
It felt warm and caring and brought another sob up from her chest. ‘Come on.’ Annie led Grace to the bench overlooking the crossroad.
They sat, watching the cars make their way past the War Memorial to Bromley, right to Sidcup, or down towards the centre of Chislehurst, until Grace’s breathing steadied.
‘Want to tell me what upset you?’ said Annie.
‘You don’t have to. I’m happy to just sit, if you’d prefer? ’
‘I don’t want to take up your reading time.’
‘I can read anytime,’ said Annie. ‘That’s the beauty of books. You don’t miss an episode if you’re out.’ She crossed her ankles and sat back, as if she had all the time in the world.
Grace fiddled with the handle of the paper bag holding her novels. She could feel the warmth of the woman beside her, and for some reason, she had the urge to open up. ‘I used to work in there, when it was Simpson’s Antiques. I don’t quite know where the last ten years have gone.’
‘Oh yes, I remember it! Lovely old place.’
‘It was,’ said Grace. ‘I still miss it: having a job to go to, the space, being surrounded by all that history.’
‘And that’s why you left?’ Annie’s voice was gentle. ‘Too many memories?’
‘Maybe,’ said Grace. ‘But I think it was the silence that got to me most,’ she said.
‘Just being in there felt strange. I don’t know how to describe it.
’ She wiped her eyes, wondering how much to share.
Annie gave off a calm, steady air, and the fact she wasn’t probing, like some people would, made Grace feel free to unburden herself.
‘And when I came, I suppose I expected a lively debate, you know, people disagreeing about themes and characterization and that kind of thing. The fact that everyone was sitting quietly reading threw me off.’
‘I can see that,’ said Annie. ‘It’s not your usual sort of book club, is it?
That’s what I like about it, though. I find it a comfort, to simply sit and read, especially if I’m not feeling a hundred per cent.
It’s a shame numbers are dwindling. I worry that soon there won’t be enough of us left to make it worthwhile.
’ She glanced at Grace. ‘Not that I’m trying to emotionally blackmail you into coming.
I just know how much I look forward to it.
Maybe if you tried it a few more times, got to know everyone, you’d feel a bit more comfortable? ’
Grace shook her head. ‘I’ve got plenty of silence at home. It’s the last thing I want when I leave the house.’
‘It’s not always quiet. We’re pretty noisy when we get going,’ said Annie.
‘I think maybe today wasn’t the best example for you.
We tend to go with the flow. Sometimes we start with a catch-up, you know fill each other in on our news.
Other times, someone needs a bit of time to process, like today.
’ She turned to Grace, her face in shadow.
‘If Crush needs time, we give it to her. She’s a real character, and she’s usually the life and soul, but she’s had it tough and sometimes her past seems to overwhelm her.
If she’s cracking out the Dorothy Parker, we all know to give her some space.
That book was her go-to when she was growing up. ’
‘I thought she was a rock star?’ That phrase suggested luxury and excitement to Grace.
Annie nodded. ‘She was. She was a rock star for a while, now she’s a bookshop owner, but before all of that she was a foster kid who spent most of her teens in care.
We’re all more than one thing, aren’t we?
Just because we are living a certain life now, doesn’t erase all the things that have happened to us before. ’
There was a sadness in Annie’s voice that made Grace wonder what Annie’s various lives had been, and how she was living now. ‘That’s very true.’ She thought about her own journey to this point – she was a wife, mother, grandmother and now widow.
‘We’ve all found reading helps us process the lives we’ve lived.
We talk about that a lot. We’re not just a silent book club, we’re a group of people who like to read, share what we’re reading, and how it makes us feel and how it relates to what we’ve experienced in our lives.
We talk about what we’ve learned from what we’ve read, but it doesn’t always have to be deep.
We share stuff we find funny, or, you know, light relief.
Books are escapism too. Frank, the man who started the book group, he was big on that.
He didn’t think people should be snobbish about reading.
He said that where books are concerned, there’s—’
‘No such thing as a guilty pleasure,’ Grace finished Annie’s sentence.
Annie grinned. ‘You said that in exactly the same way he did. Did you know our Frank, then?’
‘Yes,’ said Grace, picturing Frank smiling at this conversation in her mind’s eye. ‘I knew him quite well.’
‘Where did you know him from?’
Grace peered up into Annie’s shining eyes. ‘We were married for forty-six years.’