Exchange

by Paul Magrs

  ‘I’m going to take some books for Terrance,’ said Kelly. ‘For the Exchange. Nobody else seems interested in liberating them…’

  ‘Ada would like that,’ Winnie said. ‘I told her all about the Exchange. She really liked the sound of it. She loved the idea of keeping the books moving, from person to person, from hand to hand… keeping the stories in circulation…’ Kelly smiled. ‘I’m trying to convince Terrance to go one further. To set some of his own books free. We don’t get enough people coming into the Exchange. They get put off, somehow. I’m wondering what it would be like, if we set some of the books free… like a flock of doves or something. What if we let loose several hundred novels into the wild air…?’

  ‘I’ve heard about this,’ said Simon. ‘Where they leave them in cafes and on buses and you pick them up, read them, leave your message and liberate them again, for someone else to find… It’s like…’ He smiled. ‘Like an even bigger Great Big Book Exchange.’

  ‘New ideas,’ said Kelly. ‘Terrance will have to be talked into it.’ She looked at Winnie. ‘He misses you. He says that you never come to see him any more.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Winnie. ‘Maybe I will soon.’

  ‘He says you’ve shut yourself up in your house, with your old man.’

  Winnie looked annoyed for a second. ‘Maybe I decided I had enough books at home to catch up on. I don’t need to exchange any just now.’

  Kelly nodded. ‘Shall I tell him… that you might come back some day soon? He’d like to see you.’

  Winnie nodded sadly. ‘Soon, perhaps.’

  They wandered further through the books, stopping occasionally to examine intriguing titles. Kelly was filling an old-fashioned book bag with volumes that caught her eye.

  Winnie decided that she wouldn’t take any books at all. The resolution came over her all of a sudden. ‘It’s because of what Ada warned me. She said — don’t hoard things. She said — the stories aren’t in the books. They’re in your head and your memory. The actual books are just where they’re kept, in the meantime. She said… reading is what sets them free.’

  Simon glanced over the field of books and suddenly it seemed like a cemetery to him and each book was a tombstone.

  ‘The books themselves aren’t valuable, that’s what Ada said,’ Winnie mused. ‘She said that people and characters and stories are valuable, and it’s them we should hoard and look after. Not the objects.’

  They all thought about this. A particular edition of Grimms’ Fairy Tales snagged Simon’s attention. He plucked it up. ‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I like the actual objects, too.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Winnie. ‘I’ll not take any books. I’ll have a dawdle back towards the house. I saw some nice bric-a-brac things that way. Maybe I’ll pick up a fancy teapot as a keepsake. Shall I leave you here? And meet up with you later…?’ Winnie knew that Simon and Kelly wanted a word alone. He nodded and watched his gran pick her careful way through the aisles of books, across the grass, and back to Ada’s palace.

  ‘So…’ said Kelly, hefting her now quite heavy book bag, and giving Simon an appraising look.

  ‘You look great like that,’ he said. ‘Less severe. Happier.’

  She shrugged. ‘So, what are you saying?’ She smiled. ‘Do you fancy me more, now? Do you fancy me more than you did, now that I look a bit more normal?’

  He stumbled, confused. He wanted to tell her that yes, actually, he did fancy her more, now that her image was softer, warmer, and she was less like a gloomy fantasy version of herself. But he knew that this hippyish Karth Mother persona was a bit of a disguise, too Kelly was still making up her mind about who she was.

  And so was he.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I didn’t change myself in the futile hope that you’d come running after me.’ She gave a laugh, full of bravado. ‘Yeah, like that’ll happen.’ She turned away.

  ‘Kelly…’

  ‘I said, Simon — it’s OK.’

  He hugged the heavy Grimms’ Fairy Tales up to his chest, almost like protection. ‘So are we going to be friends, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said fiercely. ‘That’s what we both really want. I want you to be my mate. That’s what I need, more than anything. That’s what you need, too, Simon. We’re both still changing. We’re both still finding out stuff about who to be. We’re friends.’

  He nodded. ‘Like Winnie and Ada.’

  ‘Except,’ sighed Kelly, ‘they were apart all that time. Terrible. They weren’t there to badger each other and to tell each other where they were going wrong in their lives. They weren’t there to goad each other on. That’s what mates do. Only mates arc allowed to do that stuff.’

  ‘We won’t lose each other,’ he said.

  ‘Will you be happy to be that?’ she asked. ‘My best friend?’

  Simon nodded — very happily.

  Kelly pointed at the book of old fairy-tales he was clutching. ‘Are you taking that with you?’

  ‘Hm?’ He flipped through the thick pages, examining the gorgeous, tinted colour plates, kept fresh under slips of tissue paper. ‘I think so. A keepsake. I can’t believe Gran’s gone off to find some old teapot. No, it seems only fitting to take away a book of old stories.’ He turned and started walking back towards the house.

  Kelly walked along with him, swishing her long skirt. ‘Will you bring it to the Exchange, when you’ve finished reading it?’ she said. ‘Will you set it free, or will you keep it at home, all to yourself…?’

  ‘We’ll just have to see,’ said Simon.