The Keeper of Stories, page 19
Janice watches as Euan tilts his pint from side to side very slowly, letting the liquid sway in the glass. She thinks of the stories she collects and how normally she loves the unexpected. But here there is so much pain. Hasn’t she devised her rules and categories to build a defence against the pain? But it’s madness to think it can be avoided. She cannot file it away deep in the recesses of her library and only have stories with happy endings.
He looks up and half-smiles. “Look, I know we don’t really know each other. I don’t normally tell people that stuff, but if we’re talking stories, I wanted to tell you because I will not have that as one of my stories. That doesn’t mean I don’t think about it, it’s just I want some say in this. I don’t know if that makes sense?”
“You think you can choose your story?” Janice asks for Adam, and she asks because she needs to know there is hope.
“Bloody hope so. And anyway, it’s stories for me, not just the one, remember. And hey, I like being a bus driver. Though I am the fussiest bugger when it comes to safety – some of the other drivers call me ‘Checkpoint Charlie’.”
Euan goes to the bar to get them more drinks and she studies his back, trying to imagine him at sea in charge of a boat, looking after a crew. She can easily picture it, but can’t put her finger on why. Stray thoughts float past as she watches him. Why was his dad the one who patched him up? Where was his mum? And what is the sad story that he does keep? She also tries to picture him as a little boy rummaging through his dad’s bookshop.
Euan is back at the table and seems keen to leave the melancholy behind so she smiles in sympathy with him as he sits down. “Right, you can have one of my stories, the one closest to me being a geography teacher.” He pauses for effect. “I am the travelling bus driver.”
Now her laughter is genuine. “Don’t all bus drivers travel?”
“Not like this. I’ve never taught geography but I do like maps and I like to go to places I’ve never been before. Especially the ones I’ve come across in books I like. Now, you might not know this, but there is a shortage of bus drivers around the country. And if you have been driving for as long as I have you can quite easily get taken on by a company that sends in drivers when bus companies need cover at short notice. I like to think of it as a travelling bus-driver superhero, but without the tights.” He grins. “So I keep an eye out for this type of job and when I find one in an area I fancy, I load my bike on the train and off I go. The company puts me up in a pub or B&B and when I’m not driving I go cycling and walking. I also visit places in the area I’ve been reading about. A few weeks ago I was in the Brecon Beacons; last summer I was up in Northumberland exploring Hadrian’s Wall.” He takes another sip from his drink. “Is that okay as a story? Does that qualify?”
“It’s a great story.” She really means it. Without thinking she asks, “You do this all on your own? I mean you’re not married … or anything…” The inner teenager is back with a vengeance (probably payback for the swipe on the head). “Oh God! He’ll know I’m interested … how embarrassing … he’ll think I want to marry him.” It doesn’t help that Sister Bernadette is also back whispering, “But you do, don’t you, Janice?” She thinks of Mrs B emerging though the steam of a Russian tea room. Is this a “perfect moment” like that one? It can’t be. That sounded so romantic; this is simply weird.
He’s smiling at her like he’s sharing some of what she’s thinking, and she downs most of her new glass of wine.
“No, I’ve never been married. But that’s mixed up with another story. For now, you can only have the one story. I’ll tell you another the next time we meet.”
Now she is thinking about Scheherazade, enticing you back with the promise of another story. If Mrs B were here, Janice knows she would be snorting with laughter.
“So, go on. I’ve told you one of mine. You tell me your story.” He is smiling at her and has no idea what he’s done.
She looks down at her hands and realises her fingers are clasped firmly together, as if, by one hand holding on tight to the other, she will be able to stop herself from falling. But it is no good. What had she been thinking? Despite her nails biting into her flesh, she is slipping.
His words reach out and catch her as she falls. “Janice, I’m sorry. Look, you don’t need to tell me your story. Just tell me about one of the other ones, one of the stories you’ve collected. Could you do that?”
She looks at the book on the table and it steadies her. She reviews her library. She has a number of stories that begin their lives in the Second World War. She hopes Euan won’t mind if she tells the story as if she were reading it from a large story book – just the way she does for Mrs B – as she knows it will help calm her.
She starts.
“This is the story of an Italian man who learnt the secret of how to get spots of mould off just about everything.” She adds, “It is a story any good cleaner would like.” She says this to reassure him (and herself) that things are getting back on track – this is the cleaner and the bus driver having a drink and talking about books and stories.
“During the Second World War, the Italian was sent to fight in Africa, but he was not a very good soldier; before the war he had been training to be a carpenter and he had been much better at that. He was soon captured and taken to England to a prisoner of war camp in the Lake District. From there he was sent out to work on local farms and in the surrounding woodlands. He felt disloyal to the land he had left behind, but the truth was he liked the countryside where he was now living. He loved the chameleon hills that changed colour with the sun and the forests that whispered with the wind. And he liked the people he met – the farmers, villagers, shopkeepers, even the prison guards – and they liked him. He was the sort of man it would be hard not to like. He also made friends with the other Italian prisoners, some of whom, like him, found themselves at home at a time when they had thought they were lost.
“The people who liked him the best, however, were the people who could not see him. These were the children. Of course, they saw him walk past them on their way to school and caught sight of him striding up the hills among the sheep. But they never saw him when he was working on the presents he left for them in the forest. They never knew he was the person who carved animals for them out of old tree stumps and logs. All they saw were the badgers and foxes and rabbits that appeared, as if by magic, to play with them in the woods.
“When the war was over, the man who ran the camp came to the Italian and asked him to help those who wanted to stay in England to find work. By now he knew most of the people who might offer these men jobs and he was trusted by both the Italians and the English. So this is what he did and he was very good at it – too good, as it turned out. At the end of several weeks, he had filled all the suitable jobs with all the suitable Italians. But he had forgotten one thing: he had not got a job for himself. The Italian did not want to leave what he now thought of as his home, so he looked every day in the paper for something that he might be able to do. Eventually, he saw an advert asking for applications for the role of Cleenyzee salesman. He did not know the first thing about cleaning and had never heard of the new Cleenyzee range of cleaning products, but he applied for the position and he was given the job. Soon, he knew how to get sticky patches off the bottom of an iron and the best way to remove mould from just about anywhere. He was a quick learner.
“What the Italian liked most about his job was that he could travel around the countryside he loved, talking to the people he liked. Most of his customers asked him in for a cup of tea, especially those who were on their own and might not have had a visitor for days at a time. The Italian was happy to call by and also to run errands for them – and their houses had never looked so clean. One old lady he visited was too frail to use the excellent Cleenyzee products that she bought from him, so he gave her a demonstration and in the process cleaned her entire house. The next week he came back and gave her the demonstration all over again. The following week he demonstrated how a curtain rail could be re-hung when it has fallen down. And the following week he demonstrated how a leaky roof might be mended.
“When the old lady died, she left her house and land to the Italian and that is where he lived until he was eighty-five and he himself died. It was always said by people in the area that the Italian’s house was the cleanest in the valley.”
Janice looks around. She is slightly bemused to find herself sitting in a country pub. She is even more surprised to find that Euan has stopped patting the library book and is now holding her hand.
Twenty-Eight
Never write anything down
Janice is in the attic with Fiona looking at her current renovations to the doll’s house.
“So, what do you think?” Fiona asks.
“I think it’s wonderful … but why…?”
“Why a cheese shop?”
Janice nods. Jebediah Jury (undertaker) has moved out and the new sign reads, “Fiona Jury:” There is then a blank space where “Undertaker” had once been written in gold paint.
“I’ve always fancied running a cheese shop, ever since I saw the most wonderful shop in Bath when John and I went there for a weekend away.”
In the downstairs premises, where there once were coffins, there are now dressers and tables loaded with tiny wheels and wedges of cheese. On a small table there is a miniscule cash register and a pair of gold-coloured scales.
“I haven’t decided yet whether to branch out into cold meats and possibly cakes. That’s why I’ve left the sign blank. I was thinking maybe ‘Fiona Jury: Delicatessen’. What do you think?”
“You could put tables and chairs outside and serve coffee and cake,” Janice suggests, picturing red and white tables lined up outside the shop window.
“Good idea,” Fiona agrees, peering further into the interior of the shop.
“And the name?” Janice queries. “I guess Jebediah isn’t a man I can imagine rustling up a couple of lattes with brownies on the side.”
“Well, that’s just it,” Fiona says, sitting back and looking at Janice. “This is my business. It will be run by a woman. A woman who will find a way to manage it on her own.”
Before Janice can smile or cry, she isn’t sure which, they are interrupted by Adam and Decius, who bundle into the room.
“Well, are you coming out or not?” Decius spins on the spot by Adam’s side. He really could be a circus dog. Janice imagines him balancing on his two paws on a ball. Then Decius glances at her and his expression (as always) says it all. “Don’t even go there.”
Fair enough.
Instead, Janice asks Adam, “Do you like your mum’s changes to the doll’s house?”
Adam looks at her as if she is mad. “Suppose,” he offers, but she can see they have ventured into Midsomer Murders territory. The “how can you possibly like that” stuff.
She smiles to herself and joins them as they head for the stairs. Just before they leave the attic, Fiona says, “I’ve had an idea about Adam too. I’ll tell you later if I get a chance, when he’s not around.”
Janice knows there is something she wants to say to Fiona too. She wants to mention that her friend Euan (the travelling bus driver) might be joining them on some of their walks. She wants to introduce Euan to Decius. She wonders how that meeting is going to go.
Later, as Janice lets herself into Mrs B’s home, she remembers that neither she nor Fiona got round to saying what they had planned to.
Mrs B is in her normal armchair and seems in high spirits.
“Anything from Mycroft?” Janice asks, unloading a bottle of Hendricks gin and three bottles of tonic water from her bucket. She had avoided wine as, without Mycroft there to make a suggestion, she was unsure what to buy. However she did recall once seeing a bottle of Hendricks on a tray along with some glasses, on one of the bookshelves.
“As I believe I once said, you are an exceptional cleaner,” Mrs B declares, spotting the gin. “You must tell me what I owe you.”
“I think it might have been an exceptional woman?” Janice queries, arranging the bottles on the tray. As Mrs B does not rise to this, she repeats, “Mycroft?”
Mrs B rubs her hands together. “Yes, a little bit of news there. Shall we have a G&T as we discuss it?”
“Hot chocolate to start?” Janice suggests, as a compromise. She is not sure her cleaning rules allow for drinking this early.
“If you insist.”
As Janice heads to the kitchen she wonders what would be wrong with having a G&T with Mrs B at 2pm in the afternoon. Nothing at all, really. Since Euan challenged her rules of story collecting (one person, one story), she is finding herself questioning more of the things she has previously set in stone.
“So, Mycroft?” Janice says again, handing Mrs B her hot chocolate and picking up her duster.
“Are you not joining me?” Mrs B asks, glancing at her husband’s old chair.
“Maybe in a bit.” How can she say she must keep some of this professional? She needs to feel she is earning her money. Geordie’s return is looming, her bank balance is low, and she still hasn’t been able to speak to anyone at the building society about the mortgage.
Mrs B sniffs but after a while continues. “Mycroft is going for a two-pronged attack. He has been in touch with the committee that oversees the residential side of the college’s assets, and he assures me that he has provided them with a list of legal queries that will keep them busy until Christmas. He said he even quoted a line from a statute from the time of Henry VIII.” Mrs B’s feet start to swing to and fro. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he made that statute up. He really does have a wicked sense of humour.”
Janice cannot resist asking innocently, “Like the time the two of you were in Madagascar?”
Mrs B snorts into her hot chocolate. “Oh, you’ll have to do better than that. As I was saying, Mycroft is also trying another approach. It seems he is a member of the same club as the current Master. They’ve been discussing their shared interest in ornithology over a few bottles of Chateau Margaux.” Mrs B stares up to study the rafters. “Augustus always said one of Mycroft’s greatest strengths was that you never saw him coming.” She looks back at Janice and chuckles.
Once Janice has finished the cleaning she takes up Mrs B’s offer of a G&T and settles into the chair opposite her. “Come on then, Becky and the letters. What did she do next?”
“She wrote a letter to the prince. Now, we have to remember this is a woman with a spectacular temper…” Mrs B gets side-tracked. “Do you know, she once struck one of her lovers in public with a riding whip? Apparently he was a mild-mannered man, but that was too much, even for him. He left her in the restaurant and got into his car and refused to let her in. Becky simply opened the driver’s door, threw the poor chauffeur out onto the gravel, then got in, started the car, and drove her lover home. What a woman!”
Mrs B takes a taste of her G&T. “So you can imagine the sort of letter she wrote the Prince of Wales. Not only had he dumped her without a word, he had failed to act like a gentleman in providing her with some recompense. I imagine when he opened that letter he feared the paper he held in his hands might very well burst into flames. She reminded him of their previous correspondence and of some of the choice phrases he had used, and of his comments about the King, among others.”
“I bet she wished she could have seen his face when he read it.”
“Oh, indeed. The Prince of Wales now had no option but to call in his advisors. There was even talk of Sir Basil from Special Branch being consulted. ‘The Paris Woman’ was talked of in hushed tones behind closed doors in Paris, London, and Windsor. When asked about the letters, Edward admitted that ‘she has not burnt one of them’, and that he believed her to be a ‘£100,000 or nothing type’. All his previous cloying baby names were forgotten and he started calling Becky ‘It’.”
“Much she would have cared,” Janice suggests.
“I agree with you.” Mrs B nods. “On the next point, I have to say I disagree with some historians. Some argue that Becky was indeed considering blackmailing the prince. However ,I do not believe she ever seriously contemplated this. She was a wealthy woman and she earned her money by the patronage of rich men. I hardly think she would have risked her future income by an act that, should it become known, would scare off other men. She was not going to kill the goose – or rather, the gander – who laid the golden egg, if that is not too tortuous a metaphor.”
“You think she was just after revenge?”
“Yes, I believe she wanted to make him suffer for not playing the game according to the rules. I certainly do not believe she did it because she was upset about the break-up. I suspect she was never greatly attached to Edward; he was just a means to an end.”
“So what happened next?”
“Oh, you will like this … or maybe you won’t…”
Janice raises an eyebrow at Mrs B, who continues. “Our Becky got married. She chose for herself a wealthy man…”
“Of course.”
“…An air force officer whose father was a director of the Hotel Crillon and also of an exclusive department store.”
“Let’s hope she got a family discount,” Janice interjects.
“It was an unsuitable match, one which Becky herself knew would not last. Her husband’s tastes ran to literature, the occasional opera, and quiet nights in. And Becky’s…”
