The Glass Book - A London Love Story

by Christian Hayes

  He looked up at the clock on the wall: it read three minutes to four. He must have either left his house late or lost track of time whilst eating. Time seemed to hurry by, but at least that meant he could shelter under his duvet for another night and hurry on to the next day. After some contemplation of what to do next, he got up from the table and walked briskly out of the café and onto the pavement. He looked both ways and randomly chose a direction. He circled the streets, pushing himself onwards. He clutched onto the coins in his pocket, fantasising that when he next removed them, there would be more coins in amongst them.

  Turning into a park, he took in the grey-greeness of it all before taking a seat at a bench. He was so engrossed by his financial crises that he barely noticed the body lying on the grass. It looked like a mass of twisted limbs, the body’s jacket having been pulled up, obscuring its head. After a moment it began to move, to untwist back into shape. A thick-bearded face appeared and looked out at the raw sky. It blinked, sputtered, coughed a wet cough.

  Edward was oblivious to any such activities. His collar was pressed up against his neck and the wind caused his hair to blow about his forehead. He was staring at the ground without noticing any of its details. He barely even noticed the bearded tramp sit down next to him. Only when the tramp let out another damp cough did Edward shiver out of his trance. He did not turn his head, instead continuing to stare at the ground. The tramp was now staring directly at Edward. It was at least five minutes before he spoke.

  ‘Cold,’ was all he said. He seemed to expel it from his chest as though the word itself was a cough. Edward heard it but did not know what he had meant. The tramp could have been talking to himself, telling himself that he was cold. He could have been talking to Edward, telling him that it was cold. He could even have been telling Edward that he had a cold. It could even have been a question. ‘Cold?’ he may have asked. If it were a question, he would be expecting a response anytime now. However, Edward did not answer. All he could do now was turn this word over in his mind: cold, cold, cold. And yes, he was cold. Now that the tramp had mentioned it, it was all he could think about. He could only draw attention to how the wind was making its way through his jacket, how it was against his neck and his wrists and his chest, how his socks and shoes did not keep his feet warm, let alone his ankles.

  The tramp did not speak again for another few minutes, by which time Edward had almost completely forgotten about him. This time the tramp’s words were more defined, but his meaning no clearer. This time, he said,

  ‘Money troubles?’ Edward’s eyes focused sharply on the tramp.

  ‘What did you say?’ he snapped.

  ‘I said “Money troubles”.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did you say that?’

  ‘I’ve seen that look before.’ Edward turned away again. There was a pause. ‘Where you sleeping?’ he asked. Edward turned to him.

  ‘Sleeping?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Oh, I-I’m not, no... I have a home.’

  ‘You don’t look it.’ Indeed, Edward looked a lot like the tramp sitting beside him. They both had thick black hair that ran greasily up and out and their beards made them look like brothers. Edward saw himself sitting on this bench and suddenly felt very ill. He wasn’t a tramp; he had a place to stay, yet he was indistinguishable from the man sitting next to him. ‘You have money then?’

  ‘No, no money.’

  ‘How you got a home with no money? If you had money you could get yourself a tent.’

  ‘I don’t need a tent. I have a bed. I have clothes. I have food. I have books. I have money.’ The moment he said this, Edward realised that he barely had any of these things. He was wearing all he owned; the change in his pocket was all he had; his kitchen was as empty as his stomach; his bed was merely an old mattress; and the only book he owned had almost killed him. Objects, possessions, things, ran through his mind quickly followed by the sound of coins falling through the air.

  ‘What you doing out here then?’ Edward didn’t answer. In fact, he couldn’t answer; he didn’t really know what he was doing out here. He had never meant to make it so far. The hospital had never meant to happen. He would have been better off if he had never made it. He’d be warmer if he were dead.

  ‘Henry’s my name,’ said the tramp, uninvited. ‘I’ve been many people before. I was young once. Had a mum once. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you I was once rich. Yes, I once had money up to my eyeballs. Had so much food I was once fat. Even had women. Now look at me. Not even got two pennies to rub together.’ He removed a coin from his pocket. ‘Got one penny though. You know my eyes are now tied to the ground. Am looking for a penny to rub against this one. It’s amazing what you’ll find. People drop money all the time. It’s there if you look hard enough. Even check the phone boxes. Always money left in the little change slot. You see, it falls there after they’ve left the box. They don’t hear it chink as it falls. They think they’ve lost it. They think they’ve been ripped off. All the better for me. Not to mention the paper cup. I could get quite a bit with a paper cup. It’s just time consuming. I know many who choose to sit for hours, begging. I’m no beggar though. I was rich once, you know. I prefer to do more productive things with my days. I could do with a new pair of shoes though.’ He looked down at his feet. The sole was coming away from the leather.

  Edward had not been listening. He was too busy thinking about what to do next. He noticed the tramp’s shoe though. It looked as though it may have once been quite a smart shoe: brown leather that must have shined brightly in the distant past. In fact, this was the first time that Edward was noticing the clothes the man was wearing. He was in fact wearing a suit. It was filthy, of course, covered in mudstains and bloodstains-he was even wearing a tie underneath his blackened collar. He almost looked respectable in a twisted kind of way. Only when the tramp’s hand moved to the armrest of the bench did he notice a walking cane propped up against it.

  ‘Yes, I used to be rich,’ said the tramp, ‘now all I got is an itch.’ He laughed a little to himself. Edward did not laugh. He stood up slowly and without saying anything, began to walk away from the bench. ‘See you around, my friend,’ called the tramp after him. Edward did not turn back again.

  Under his breath, the tramp said, ‘Edward.’ He reached for his cane.

  As Edward walked, he noticed that the sky had turned a deeper grey and that the air was touched with frost. He refused to let it enter his jacket. He also noticed a half-concocted plan forming in his head, and as it grew more defined, his footsteps became more determined.

  The antique bell rang as he entered the Paradise Bookshop. It still had that musty smell that was so familiar to him, the scent of thousands of yellowing books. On entering he was presented with aisles upon aisles of bookshelves, and as he walked along, the view of the end of the aisles came and went, and at the very last aisle he saw the old man sitting at the counter. He made his way down an aisle where he couldn’t be seen. He looked along the shelves, each one filled to the brim with books. He was in the history section: books on war and politics and politics and war; he walked along the aisle. He found himself in the travel section with books on many different cities: Florence, New York, Berlin. He cut across the centre of the room towards shelves that lined the wall, and there he was presented with book upon book of fiction, all dog-eared, torn, or yellow.

  This shop was like a graveyard and Edward felt sorry for the books that ended up in this dusty little building, invisible in amongst the crowds. All their readers were probably now dead. He picked up a book, a yellowing stale paperback. Cobwebs clung to the edges of the pages and Edward attempted to blow them away before brushing them off with his fingers. An unremarkable painting of a woman turning away illustrated the book’s cover, and its title, Scopophilia, was printed in plain black letters across the picture. Edward opened it. The words had been printed thick and blotchily, almost as though the ink had st
arted to run. Its scent was particularly odorous. The text itself appeared unremarkable, its condition beyond repair. Edward replaced it and let his eyes wander along the row where other similar titles lay: unknown, unremarkable books that had once been worked on with passion enough for their completion. Edward sighed and looked along the aisle to where he could hear the old man breathing. He walked until its end and glanced out to see the old man sitting, half-asleep at the counter where books were piled high around an old till.

  Edward walked cautiously towards the old man, finding that his eyes were shut. Edward stood for a moment, cleared his throat and said,

  ‘Excuse me?’ The man’s eyes flicked open.

  ‘Yes?’ he replied sleepily.

  ‘I’m looking for a job. Have you any vacancies...?’

  ‘Vacancies? What kind of vacancies? No one else works here.’

  ‘Well I’d be very willing to help.’

  ‘I do not need any help. There’s very little to be done here. Very little.’

  ‘I could do anything. Think of something, anything you need doing and I’ll do it.’

  ‘I don’t need anything...’ his voice trailed off. ‘I know you.’ Edward didn’t reply. ‘Where do I know you from?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s somewhere... somewhere.’ There was a silence as the old man studied Edward’s face. Something clicked. ‘You used to come in here, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘You used to sell me your books.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Edward was amazed he remembered him after such a long time, especially when they had never exchanged more than two words before.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Here and there.’

  ‘No more books for me?’

  ‘Do you need any more books?’

  ‘Not really. But there’s always room for more.’ The man was silent for a moment. ‘So you want a job, eh?’

  ‘Yes, please... anything.’

  ‘Follow me.’ The old man slowly descended from the tall stool and led Edward to the top of a staircase that was almost hidden amongst all the shelves. The old man walked with a slouch in his back and even though he moved slowly, he walked with great determination. He flicked a switch by the doorway that shed light over the staircase leading downwards and began to descend. Edward followed.

  The room below was dark until the old man disappeared for a moment and a light flickered on. Edward descended the final few steps; he would have entered further into the room but his path was blocked by clutter: boxes upon boxes, books upon books. Edward opened a flap of a nearby box. It was filled with more books. At the other end of the room, books were piled so high that they reached the ceiling and hid the wall.

  ‘What is all this?’ asked Edward.

  ‘Books,’ the old man answered with assurance.

  ‘Where’d they all come from?’

  ‘They’ve been collected over the years: donated, unwanted, bought. This used to be the store room for the books I couldn’t fit upstairs, but after time the collection, up there as well as down here, grew to breaking point.’

  ‘How many books do you think are here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Hundreds. Thousands.’

  ‘Well, what do you want me to do with them?’

  ‘I want you to organise them.’

  ‘Organise them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Alphabetically.’

  ‘Alphabetically?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh.’ Edward looked around the room again. ‘Do you think there’s even enough space in this room for all these books?’

  ‘No. But you can find out just how little room there is.’

  ‘Okay, well, when do you want me to start?’

  ‘You can start now.’

  ‘But what are the terms?’

  ‘The terms?’

  ‘You know... payment.’

  The old man thought for a moment. ‘Five an hour.’

  ‘How about six an hour?’

  ‘Done.’ The old man turned to leave.

  ‘Wait, what’s your name?’

  ‘Phillips.’

  ‘I’m Edward Glass.’

  ‘Okay, Glass. I’ll be upstairs.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Edward said, letting out a little sigh as his eyes surveyed the mess. He listened to Mr Phillips’s slow ascension up the stairs.

  Many of the books were crushed and crumpled, and many were deteriorating, especially those that lay buried under the weight of a thousand books. And out from everything emanated an overwhelming stench, cultivated over time. He searched for a window and true enough he found one, a small, dull square by the ceiling, impossible to reach for all the books and boxes that lay in Edward’s way. Observing the mess, he wouldn’t be surprised to find objects other than books buried amongst the mess, such as abandoned bicycles or old boots, not to mention infestations, nesting amongst the pages. He was now certain that the Paradise Bookshop was a literary cemetary, a place where books came when they died: old, decrepit and discarded. All the ugly books had ended up in one place and he was the gravedigger hired to exhume them.

  He began by picking up a single paperback lying at his feet, examining its cover and condition before putting it to one side. He picked up another and again examined it and put it aside. In this way he accumulated his own little pile of books. He figured that this was a logical method: stacking books into piles, merging one pile with another, shifting dead books from here to there. And when that was done, he thought, he would most likely have to move them all back again until the moving about of books resulted in their final alphabetisation.

  But he hadn’t got very far, managing to only create a small empty space at his feet before he heard Mr Phillips’s footsteps creaking down the stairs.

  ‘Time’s up,’ he said, ‘be back tomorrow.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Be here at eight.’

  And without so much as looking over the progress Edward had made during the past eighty-seven minutes, Mr Phillips was making his way back up the stairs. Edward soon followed. He had planned on saying goodbye to Mr Phillips but when he emerged from the basement Mr Phillips was nowhere to be seen. Instead he said a general ‘Goodbye’ out into the shop before he left, the antique bell ringing as he walked out onto the street.

  The sky was now dark and a cold wind blew fiercely through the streets. Edward walked back through this weather, gripping his jacket firmly in place, and when it began to rain, Edward faced it like a challenge. At first it was only a light rain made harsh by the wind, but soon it became vicious. Edward felt it streaming from his wet hair and down over his face. He shivered uncontrollably, his teeth chattering, his eyes squinting. He could feel the cold air blow up through his jacket from the gaps at his waist. His fingers were so cold he could not feel them, as were his cheeks, nose and ears. The water penetrated his shoes and he could feel his damp socks as he walked. His mind was fixed with fantasies of blankets and radiators and hot cups of coffee, and the sound of his footsteps against the pavement and in the puddles resonated. He watched his feet as they stepped one in front of the other, but the wind, flowing furiously past his ears, almost drowned out their sound. His walk soon became a run.

  When he reached his apartment block his numb fingers had difficulty removing the key from his pocket and fitting it into the keyhole. He escaped from the world, shutting the door quickly behind him and wiping the rain out of his eyes. He again observed the corridor. The bicycle remained but the boots had been removed. As he ascended the stairs, he heard the flat echo of his shoes as well as the soaked squelching of his socks.

  His own apartment appeared colder than the corridor, as though the wind from outside was blowing right through the walls. He quickly changed his clothes, hurrying anything warm on he could find: an old pair of tracksuit bottoms and an old jumper, dotted with holes. He then paced around his apartment, scrambling for
ways to keep himself warm. He turned on the radiators but they remained stone cold. The only thing to do, he figured, was take a hot bath and stay there for the rest of the evening. He opened the tap and watched the water rush. He checked the temperature with his fingertips, adjusting it so that it was as hot as he could bear. It comforted him to see the steam rising, the heat radiating off the surface of the water. He removed his clothes and dipped his toe into the water, burning it. He yanked it out and readjusted the temperature, stirring the hot water with the cold as he stood naked and shivering. He lowered himself into the water, feeling an icy burn as his body turned from freezing to burning, a sensation that utterly engulfed him. He closed his eyes, emptied his mind, and wished that the rest of his life could be spent underwater.

  He could feel himself drifting into sleep, his body pleading to sink under. He took a short breath before immersing his head underwater, remaining there until the world disappeared from around him. He took comfort in how the water held him so warmly, and when he shut his eyes music began to run through the water, leaving an echoey trail behind it. Edward opened his eyes: he could see the ceiling through the water. The music continued, chord after chord shooting through the water and into his head. He knew the music from somewhere; he had heard it before. He sat up, the water streaming down off him, and sat very still. His head turned towards the doorway. From it came a music so familiar that it was both at once comforting and disturbing. He hurried out of the bath, running water all over the linoleum. He quickly dried himself and rushed into the front room. The music seemed to fill his apartment, as if it was coming from all the walls surrounding him. But he made his way to the farthest wall for it was from there that the music was emerging. He put his ear up to it and felt the music pass through him, and as he tried to remember where he had heard the music before, he looked down at his body. Only then did he notice the icy chill of the room attacking him. And in that moment, everything came back: he saw himself naked as he had tried to make it to the door; how he had slipped at the handle; how the door had opened slightly; how he had fallen face-down onto the carpet. And he remembered the darkness and the colours and the music, and the music, and the music, and the music.