Exchange

by Paul Magrs

  ‘Leave him a message then,’ said Winnie, touching her hair. Would Ada think Winnie’s perm a very old-ladyish style? Ada’s own hair was hanging loose, mostly — unstyled, but not unbecoming. She gave the appearance of being above the thought of such things. Still though, when you examined Ada close to, you could see that she was wearing some very discreet and probably expensively tasteful jewellery. There was nothing flashy or obvious about Ada.

  ‘He’s not answering,’ Simon shrugged. ‘I’ve left a message, saying we don’t know how late we’ll be. I’ve said that we’ve gone off on an adventure…’

  ‘That’s what it really feels like, doesn’t it?’ Winnie grinned.

  ‘Are you sure you want me coming along, too?’ Kelly asked awkwardly. ‘I feel a bit out of place…’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Winnie said. ‘You’re as much a part of this as any of us.’

  Outside the hotel it was dark by now. The sky had swirled deep blue and purple, like poster paint and glitter dropped into a jar of water. Snow had begun to fall in earnest, and the teatime shoppers were pulling up collars, winding on scarves and hurrying their pace. Some of them slowed to stare at the sleek, bulky form of the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that floated to a halt at the main entrance of the King’s Arms. The car moved almost silently on the thin carpet of snow. Its engine purred softly, and it arrived like something out of the distant past.

  Ada headed towards it as if it was nothing special. It was just her wheels, her way of getting about. Eric was waving out of the window at them, his hands firmly on the steering wheel, looking ruddy-faced, avuncular. He hurried out, bustling up to Ada, stopping to take her arm as she made tiny steps towards the car.

  ‘My,’ said Winnie. ‘This is the high life, isn’t it?’ She tutted and blinked up at the falling snow, hoping that all the passers-by would notice her getting into this limousine. ‘I feel like I’ve won some kind of competition…’

  ‘Stop your blethering, woman,’ called Ada, now installed on the back seat. ‘Get inside here. I want to go home!’

  He couldn’t stay inside the bungalow. Not for much longer. Not for this evening. He’d been stuck in there for days on end and, now that he was on his feet, he felt how oppressive it was. He felt like the magnolia walls were closing in on him. Even with a good number of the books now gone. (Don’t think about that. Don’t let her make you feel guilty. It had been the right thing to do.) Even with some space opened up now, the place still felt tiny and cramped, oppressive and dark.

  He pulled on his long, herringbone coat. He’d sent himself a bit woozy, in that stuffy atmosphere, wolfing down cans of lager, standing by the fridge. He’d spilled beer froth down his coat, but he’d knocked the edge off his thirst and that was when he’d decided he was going out.

  Not off down the Legion. Though that would be easy. Sitting with the old cronies, as Winnie called them. Talking the same old rubbish in safe surroundings. But he’d have to explain to them why he’d been away for a week. He’d have to say why he’d been lying down all that time, coughing away, having Winnie look after him. They might laugh at him, or commiserate with him, or — worse — they might even treat him like an invalid.

  He didn’t want to go to the Legion.

  When he was out in the street he found that it was dark, and the yellow sodium lights made the road sparkle buttery gold. The chilling wand plucked and seized at his clothes and the cold went straight into his bones. It was snowing and the flakes were shooting off in all directions, which was disorienting to the old man. He made his way, confusedly, towards the town square. He realised he was holding something in his hand, inside his deep coat pocket. He remembered: Winnie’s membership card. He’d brought it out with him. Her membership of the place where she felt at home, like he did down the Legion. Well, that’s where she was, was it? Even in all this blizzard? This blizzard that felt like being inside someone’s raging headache? Even in this she was out and about, dressed up smart. Well, he would have to see about that.

  Those kids at the phone box were calling after him. He felt the impact of a snowball on his back — whumpf — against his billowing coat. They were laughing at him and yelling crude names, just like Simon reckoned they did to him. The wind whipped away their voices then and he couldn’t quite make out what they were shouting. Stupid kids, hanging about outside a phone box, on a day like this.

  Ray found his way to the meagre shelter of the bus stop. It was perspex-sided, vandalised, and the seats there were those flip-down bars that were more hazardous than comfortable. But he was happy to have a sit-down as he waited for the bus to Kelly’s town.

  Later, as he watched the snowstorm intensify, sitting warm and safe on the bus, he momentarily forgot where he was meant to be going. He shook his fuddled head to clear it and he almost panicked. He looked around himself, at the other seats on the bus. He was the only passenger aboard. Who else would think of coming out today? The driver was taking the treacherous country roads very carefully, bringing his single passenger closer — very gradually closer — to his destination.

  And the old man remembered then, where it was he had wanted to get to. The address on the grey card in his coat pocket. The Great Big Book Exchange. That’s where he was going to now.

  Ada’s car moved swiftly and surely through the storm, towards the coast. It was a long journey to make in such conditions, but to those sitting in the back, on the spacious, grey leather upholstery, it was as if the weather out there didn’t touch them. They could barely feel the wheels beneath them, touching the frozen road. They didn’t get a hint of the bitter cold out there. In the warm, dry belly of the silver beast, it felt like they were flying.

  Ada had gone quiet now. She was conserving her strength after her public appearance this afternoon. Once, she had called out to Eric, who was happily chauffeuring them along. ‘We did OK, didn’t we, Eric? We put on a good show?’

  ‘Yes, of course you did,’ he laughed. ‘You always put on a good show, old moo.’ Ada had looked satisfied then, closing her eyelids and Simon had marvelled once again at her daring in sporting silver eyeshadow.

  Winnie, Kelly and Simon went quiet, too — watching the dark, dramatic hurly-burly of the storm, and then the thrashing of the sea as they pulled closer to the coast and hemmed along the cliff tops towards Ada’s home. They were content to surrender themselves and go along inside her life for a while.

  This day will never end, Simon found himself thinking happily, drowsily in the false heat of the limousine. This day will just go on and on for ever.

  After a while, Ada’s piercing eves were open again, alert and fixed on her three guests.

  ‘I’m looking forward to seeing your house, Ada,’ said Winnie. ‘I’ll bet it’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

  Ada sighed. The breath rattled in her throat. ‘I’ll be embarrassed, to tell you the truth, Winnie. Oh, it’s beautiful, by anyone’s standards. It’s rich and expensive and all of that. But it’s a hoarder’s house. A silly, vain, rich old woman’s house. I’ve spent my time amassing all this stuff. All this… tat. Just you wait and see. But what good has it done me, eh?’ She coughed miserably.

  ‘Nearly there,’ called Eric, with a little laugh. He chortled, thought Simon. That was the perfect word for the way that Eric laughed.

  ‘I’ve spent my life hoarding things’ Ada said sourly. She glanced, almost shyly, at Winnie. ‘And it’s people I have left behind. People like you, Winnie.’

  Simon sensed a shiver going through his gran. They were approaching some tall iron gates, which were beginning to open automatically at the approach of the Silver Ghost.

  ‘Do you feel like you’ve wasted your life, Winnie?’ Ada asked urgently, and more quietly. The car wheels were crunching on the snov and gravel of the long drive up to the house. ‘Do you feel like you’ve lived your life doing all the wrong things? Collecting up all the wrong things?’

  Terrance was having a quiet day at the Great Big Book Exchange.

  No one came
by, but he didn’t mind. With his jazz playing and all the lights turned just so, and the shadows of the falling snow scrolling through the rooms, he was having a perfectly relaxed day. He brewed up coffee, he nibbled dark chocolate, he flipped through an ancient, outdated atlas of the world. He did everything as he liked to — unhurried, unflustered. When he could go at life at his own pace, it didn’t bother him that he had two plastic arms. He hardly noticed. When there was no need to hurry, even fiddly things were manageable: flipping over the Miles Davis LP and putting the needle onto the vinyl; stirring ravioli in tomato sauce with a spatula on the hot plate and eating it straight from the pan. With time, skill, patience, all things became possible.

  Terrance spent his lonely Friday in daydreams. He pictured Winnie and Kelly and Simon at their lunch today, all festive and celebratory, wildly applauding the famous author. He tried to imagine Winnie’s pleasure this morning, when she’d opened his parcel of books and read his message. He was going back, he knew, on all the things he’d once said, and once insisted upon. He’d tried to impress on Winnie the need to give books away and to return them to the Exchange. Yet now he was urging this whole collection on her: Look! Here are fifteen novels for you to keep for ever. I want you to treasure these, and never to part with them and always to think of me when you look at them or read them.

  That was the nature of presents. You kept them in the giver’s stead. They were a small part of that person for you to keep.

  He found himself longing to dance with Winnie. How strange. Dancing was something he had never imagined doing for years. Something about her brought out everything quaint, old-fashioned, gallant in him. He wanted to be at a tea dance with her, shuffling and counting steps, one-two-three, on a parquet floor; as the mirror ball sparkled and sent roving dots of brilliance drifting down. Terrance imagined holding Winnie in both his arms — his arms going round her back as they danced close, cheek to cheek. But he would have no feeling in his arms, would he? They would be lifeless, as usual, no matter how much he longed for them not to be. He’d never really touch her, would he? Not really.

  What was that?

  A great clatter at the front door of the Exchange. The huge whoosh of wind, like a frightened gasp, as the door flew open. It was a gale by now, sucking out all the warmth of the shop’s interior, and bundling in… who? A stumbling, shambling figure in a scruffy greatcoat. He was wrestling to get the door closed behind him, the newcomer.

  Terrance sighed and went to tend to him, wishing he’d locked up already. It was too late for customers, too late for visitors. But now he had one and he’d better see what he could do for them.

  The old man was florid, desperate, out of breath. The snowstorm had just about battered the life out of him.

  ‘You’d best sit down…’ Terrance began.

  The old man’s eves were blazing, wild. ‘She’s here, isn’t she? You’ve got her in this place with you, haven’t you?’

  Ada accepted all of their compliments with a shrug of her tiny shoulders. As they went through the large, echoing rooms of her home she shuffled ahead, leading the way, looking nonplussed, looking quite at home. She was dwarfed by all the tall doorways, antiques, objets d’art.

  Her guests lagged behind, oohing and aahing as if they were on a private tour of a stately home. Their feet tapped loudly on the vast marble floors and Simon was blushing, for some reason. He tried to move very carefully, quite sure that he would knock something over in his nervousness. He would destroy something priceless: this vase, this statuette.

  Room after room. It seemed that Ada’s house went on for ever, deeper and deeper into the cliff face. It was a series of complicated, luxurious tentacles, tunnelling far into the earth. Its turrets and towers made it look like a palace, Simon thought: it should have been gilded and encrusted with emeralds and rubies, so that it shone in the darkest of nights. It was a beacon, up on that cliff top, staring out to sea.

  ‘Oh, Ada,’ he heard his gran say. ‘I never dreamed it would be as grand as this.’

  They filed through dancing rooms, music rooms, reception rooms, games rooms. It seemed that Ada had brought them the longest way round, to show off how many rooms she had. They passed through a library and even Simon and Winnie gasped. Even Kelly — who was quite used to the Big Book Exchange — was amazed at the sight of those shelves going up to the ceiling. There must have been thousands of books there. Too high to see — much too high to clamber up and fetch down. Books that nobody had touched in decades.

  ‘See?’ said Ada. ‘I hoard things. I keep them safe, here, all to myself. How useless! How ridiculous! What’s the point? If no one can read them?’

  ‘This place is wonderful, Ada…’ said Simon, in a hushed tone.

  ‘It’s a mausoleum,’ Ada said. And at last they arrived at the kitchen, deep in the heart of Ada’s mansion. It was modern, but homely and comfortable, with a broad table of old wood, where Ada immediately took up position, amongst a nest of scribbled-over papers and opened books and blotchy pens.

  Eric was waiting for them there. Somehow he had arrived in the kitchen ahead of them. He was being the perfect, bearlike host: popping on a pinny, opening bottles of wine and asking whether they felt like something to eat…?

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I couldn’t cat a thing,’ Winnie said. ‘That lunch was huge.’

  ‘Eric is a fantastic cook,’ Ada said. ‘He tends to cook things that are too rich for me. It’s very good though, if you like that sort of thing.’

  Eric stood waiting in his pinny.

  ‘Maybe later,’ smiled Winnie. Her face fell suddenly. ‘Actually, I’m a bit worried about my Ray. He won’t have eaten this evening. He’ll have looked at all the weather. It might have panicked him, us still being out in the snow…’

  ‘I’ll try him again on the phone,’ Simon said. He moved away to the window, which was a huge plate of glass filling the whole of one wall, offering a spectacular view of the sandstone cliffs; the black sea and the snow tumbling down, showing no sign of stopping.

  Ada had started Hipping through papers as her guests settled down with glasses of wine. She was reading things, making corrections, signing her name. She was also catching her breath back, after the walk through the house. ‘I’m tying up loose ends,’ she told Winnie. ‘Like I say. I’m not a well woman. I have to sort things out. I don’t want things left messy at the end.’

  Winnie looked flustered and embarrassed.

  ‘That’s why it’s good we’ve met up again now,’ said Ada. ‘Right at the end. It’s only right. It’s… symmetrical. You were with me right at the beginning of everything, too.’

  Winnie burst out: ‘So… Are you really dying?’

  Ada laughed and wound up coughing. ‘Sooner rather than later, I think. But not tonight, anyway. Don’t worry.’ A look of impatience crossed her alert and pouchy face. ‘Eric? Where’s my special drink?’

  ‘Here, my sweet old moo,’ he burbled, sliding it deftly in front of her.

  ‘I’ve tried to tell you, she isn’t here. She hasn’t been here all day. Saturday is her day for coming here, not Friday. Anyway, she’s off today, seeing an old schoolfriend. She’s gone to have lunch. Didn’t she tell vou?’

  Terrance was attempting to talk rationally to Ray, but could see that his calm, measured speech was having little effect. The old man was working himself up. Terrance could smell the cheap lager on him. There was a manic gleam in his eye, too — and a sinewy, bristling strength to his skinny old limbs. For just a moment Terrance felt menaced by this old man.

  It hadn’t taken Terrance long to realise who his visitor was. He had arrived shouting and cursing Winnie’s name, wanting to know who had spirited her away. Blaming Terrance for turning her head, giving her ideas.

  ‘She’s not been right for weeks,’ Ray was ranting. ‘Coming here. Mixing with strangers. Anyway, what do you mean, “old school friend”? She hasn’t got any friends. She’s never had any friends in years. She’s never needed to have frie
nds.’

  ‘Never needed friends?* said Terrance, astonished. ‘How can she not have needed friends? I’d have thought the very opposite was true. She thrives on company and conversation. What, are you saying it’s been enough, for her to be just with you? Being your wife?’

  Ray’s face went dark.

  ‘You think that’s enough?’ Terrance laughed hollowly. ‘You’ve been keeping her prisoner, man.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about my marriage,’ said Ray. ‘I’ll not have it.’

  ‘It’s you who’vc kept the two of you locked up. It’s sheer brutality. And what you did to her books…’ Terrance shook his head disgustedly. Now he was losing his temper. ‘Burning them! Like the Nazis did! That’s barbarism.’

  Ray took two steps forward. ‘What did you call me? I’ll have you know I fought a war — aye. I’m older than you — I fought a war against the bloody Nazis. And not so that I could be talked down to by the likes of you. You big nancy wife-stealer.’ He pushed Terrance hard in the chest. Terrance was taken by surprise. He fell back a step, winded, knocking into a bookcase. Ray stepped forward again, intimidatingly close; his breath rank; panting into Terrance’s face. ‘Go on then, man. Punch me back. Go on. Take a swing. Oh, I forgot.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Armless, aren’t you? Completely armless.’

  Never had Terrance felt more vulnerable. His arms hung limply at his sides as Ray leered right into his face. All Terrance could do was talk. ‘Jealousy’s an ugly thing, Ray,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You. Scared I’ll take Winnie off you. Scared that she’s fallen in love with me.’

  ‘Ah. Rubbish. We’ve been together years.’ Ray swallowed thickly, his eyes wild and scared-looking.

  ‘So?’ said Terrance. ‘Anything can change. Anything at all.’

  ‘Why would she fall in love with you?’ Rav sneered. ‘You’re only half a man. That’s all you are.’

  Terrance shook his head slowly, sadly. ‘I’m more real to Winnie than you are, Ray. Really. Listen to me. It’s true. Maybe in the past you were real to her. Not now. You arw less than half a person.’