Chapter 45
Jack
I exit the police station and drive towards the new shop, having identified the ‘hoody’ man from the line-up.
After I had gone in and explained that I’d made progress recuperating from the stroke, I had given a full statement.
My phone vibrates and just as I have for the past five weeks, I check to see if it’s Maggie, to see if she’s changed her mind, but it’s a voice note from Dad wishing me luck and telling me to call him if I need help.
Last week the police asked me to come in.
There had been a bout of attacks of women walking home late at night in Brighton and they’d made an arrest, and they thought it might be connected to my case.
I’m once again grateful that I was there that night, that Maggie is safe.
I can’t be one hundred per cent sure, but I’m confident it was the same guy.
I hope he gets what is coming to him. My statement will add ‘assault occasioning actual bodily harm’ to his rap sheet so hopefully he will be going away for a very, very long time.
Not as long as it will take for me to read a whole novel, but there we go.
Bayside is busy. Buses pass; workmen are putting barriers up, partitioning roadworks.
The shop looms over me as I slide the key into the lock and flick on the lights, the empty shelves blinking against the harsh light.
The room seems to expand as I walk in, a tension released as though it’s ready to be filled with stories and life. I scan the room.
There’s a few unopened letters and flyers on the floor and I pick them up.
My eyes skim the symbols on one of the envelopes, my finger – automatically, now – tracing the outline of my name, to the distant sound of Darth Vader’s theme tune.
My mind skips back to the curve of Maggie’s shoulder, my finger drawing an ‘s’ the night she first read Great Gatsby to me and the loss of her hits me again.
I’ve replayed that final night over and over again.
Tried to turn back time so I take her home instead of letting Charl convince us to stay.
Said things differently when she told me it was over.
I can’t turn back the past, but maybe I can still change the future.
Make her see that if I can do this, then maybe there will still be a chance for us.
And maybe I can help her, just as she has helped me.
I pile the envelopes up on the wooden counter that stretches along the wall facing the window and head into the back room. It’s small, a nook really. I had wanted this to be a reading room.
The polythene covering easily rips off two reading chairs, which I’d picked out last week, and I bend down.
I know the tub of paint is ‘Whisky-White’.
I wipe my finger across the small rectangle on the front of the tin, slow my breathing and look for the ‘W’.
It takes me a few minutes, but I can start to see the letter form, smell clementine and cloves.
I take off my jacket and head into the storeroom.
There are at least twenty boxes towering inside; each one I know is filled with classics.
It was my first order, the books that most people wish they’d read.
I lift one down, tear away the tape, and open it after several goes with a knife.
I will never understand why book deliveries are always so hard to open.
I shake my head, reach in and pull out the first book.
I know it’s Dracula by the picture on the front, but the symbols are dancing again.
I hold it in my hands, tracing the letters but I still can’t work out the title.
Levin encouraged me to use an app. I open it and scan the front of the book.
The title and author fills the room, a robotic voice echoing from the walls.
I turn the hardback over and repeat the action, the full blurb and reviews rebounding around the small room.
It’s a laborious process, but by lunchtime, I have small piles of books ordered into alphabetised piles.
I write down the names of the stock, a page for each letter. But the notes soon become jumbled.
Google tells me where the nearest hardware shop is, and I listen to the directions; I’ve tried to read the usual map and I’m making progress, but I’m often distracted by the symbols still dancing on the screen.
Town is busy, the packed streets buzzing with the relief of a brief lunch break and Christmas shoppers.
I dip into a café, use the app again to read the menu, the words read out loud through my ear pods.
Nobody looks at me, or notices what I’m doing.
I’m just a guy listening to music while picking out his lunch.
I pay and then eat my sandwich while I follow the direction from Google Maps until I locate the hardware shop and find the sandpaper.
The streets are still busy, despite the threat of rain in the dark, heavy clouds.
There is a souvenir shop, postcards slotted into a white plastic frame that tilts to the right.
I slow down, my hand reaching out. The card is split into quarters, little snapshots of this small bay.
I trace the letter B and the opening bars of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ pound in my chest. I’ve got to give it to Levin; it might be madness, but some of his methods are definitely working.
Once back in my shop, I pull out the sandpaper and plastic alphabet stencils that I’d brought with me.
They’re the same as the ones I bought Jaz for her birthday.
I turn the sandpaper over, draw inside the stencils then cut them out.
Twenty-six symbols at my feet, which I carefully trace and place around the room.
In the store cupboard, I take the stack of thrillers and begin placing them in piles next to the sandpaper letters.
It’s dark when I finish. My eyes are stinging, my fingers blistered, and my back is already starting to seize, but most of the stock is sorted into genre and alphabetised.
I dig my hands into my coat pocket, checking for my keys, my finger catching on the edge of the rectangle of cardboard.
Beside the new till is a pen and I reach for it, not letting myself think too much.
I write Maggie’s name and address on the right side of the card.
I miss you.
Jack
x
I attach a stamp from the stationery drawer and pocket the card, and as I drop it into a postbox, and picture Maggie standing on her sofa, attaching it to the wall, the hole inside my chest begins to fill a little.