by John Eider
Sylvie squirmed beside him.
‘What’s up,’ he asked.
‘They scare me, people like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘The kind who get left behind. I’ve seen them, Finn. Those lonely alcoholic women, and men who hang around street corners. I don’t want that for us.’
And Finn could only share her fear.
‘Let’s talk about something cheerful,’ said Sylvie then. ‘You never told me of those dreams. The bookshops and all that.’
‘I never meant not to,’ explained Finn. ‘They just belonged to the past. They weren’t a part of who I was by the time I knew you. Can you understand that?’
‘I think so,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you have girlish stuff you’ve never told me.’
‘Yes. But I probably told Jem, or my Mum, or someone. That head of yours is like an attic room. How much is still locked up there?’
Finn didn’t answer, but continued, looking around,
‘I think of my time here a lot, you know. The Sixth Form, and those few months after, working in town.’
‘But weren’t you unhappy?’ asked Sylvie. ‘Wasn’t than what you left to get away from?’
‘Oh, it was horrible, I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I couldn’t tell you how unhappy I was; but I remember it now something like a golden age.’
She nudged him with her shoulder, ‘Your head’s a funny place to visit, buddy, but I wouldn’t like to live there.’
She asked him,
‘Have you had any breakfast yet?’
‘A bit.’
‘Sit with me while I have some?’
‘Of course. You’ve got your meal token?’
She checked her watch,
‘I don’t think the hotel restaurant’s still open.’
‘Good, I don’t want to get back there any sooner than I have to.’
‘Me neither.’
‘There’s a café down that way,’ he pointed past the fountain. ‘At least, there used to be.’
Finn looked along the road that led their way,
‘And if you’re planning on opening a bookshop,’ he continued, ‘don’t think about doing it on this street. The rents would be enormous; and there’s a Waterstone’s just along that avenue.’ He pointed over to an arcade of yet more shops. ‘And a Smith’s just over there. They’ll have this whole area stitched up.’
‘You’re always looking for sites still?’
‘I don’t even notice I’m doing it.’
Sylvie asked, ‘And why didn’t you get a job in Waterstone’s or Smith’s?’
‘Because…’
Finn hated it when he hadn’t words for something deeply held. He blurted out,
‘Because they were the mainstream, and we had to be the alternative.’
‘But aren’t books themselves something special? The good bits of the mainstream? The bits you like?’
He had no answer to this point. Sylvie following quickly with,
‘And haven’t bookshops themselves become the alternative now? Aren’t even the big chains struggling to survive? Wouldn’t you even say that the small shops have a better chance than the big ones now, not carrying their weight?’
‘I’d never thought of that.’
‘There’s just no space left up there sometimes, is there?’ she asked, gently knocking at his temple, as if on the door of someone you didn’t want to wake. ‘Give us a hug.’
And he did so. And as they did so, so their cheeks brushed, and it felt like a kiss. And so he kissed her, just for a moment, and something settled in each of them, neither letting go, before falling back into their hold. And as they did so, so he felt years-old armour fall around him like scrap metal. And she nestled, like a creature in a new shape, never wanting to be moved.
They held each other, each knowing they could trust the other totally. And that though life may pull them hither and dither, it would never pull them apart – for the future that they could foresee, they were each other’s. And this after already being tested, already seeing each other under duress, and so knowing each other in a way a brittle and fleeting and maybe instantly shattering new couple never could.
Sylvie found herself so grateful for this odd excursion, where a night out of town had let the world turn on its head. She almost pitied Jemima and Jasper (once their drama had died down, of course) for only coming out of it with better jobs; when it felt that she and Finn had earned the freedom of the world.
Of course, she knew it would be hard at first. She might have days where she would think differently, might wonder what the hell the pair of them had been thinking. There’d be times when Finn would slip, and she’d grow tired of understanding. But such sad moments would be grossly outweighed by incidences of pure joy.
‘And there’s so much more, Sylv,’ Finn would tell her in the days to come. ‘You haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg.’ But she wasn’t daft, and even in her current enthusiasm was aware of the places a mind as unhappy as his, and for so long, could have found itself. Maybe it had been the chat with Jack the night before, but she was not naive to this.
‘Anyway,’ she asked, smiling, ‘I thought you were taking me to breakfast?’
Their walk had led them back to the fountain. They were at its foot now, and looking over at the other side of the square. From there, Sylvie saw the Town Hall clock, then checked her watch against it,
‘Half an hour for you, Finn.’
‘I know. I only need to grab my bag.’
‘Walk me to the café first?’
‘Come on then.’
Before they left the fountain though, she said,
‘You know, all that about the book stall, it’s only an idea.’
‘I know,’ he replied.
‘We don’t have to do it.’
But he hoped his smile in return told her that, even if not the book stall, then there would be something.
Sylvie asked him,
‘Finn. When we get back, what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I don’t know.’
But she was resolved, and trusted him as she did few others, this odd man with his head full of machinery even he couldn’t fully work. She would put her faith in him, so as to let his flow to her.
‘I don’t know what I’ll do,’ he said again, though bolder now, not fearing the uncertainty.
‘Well, neither do I, she said. ‘But I do know, if you want me to, I’ll do it too.’
The buildings were sombre in the morning stillness, the pigeons fluttering in the empty air between them. The first rays of sunlight were reaching over the Post Office now, to catch the water as it rippled in the pool. Together, the pair turned from the fountain and left the square.
The End
