Grey Matters (6 page)

It was a hard sell, and Dulcie was left with a new respect for Polly by the time she’d reached the top landing. No wonder the other woman always looked tired! Catching her breath, she looked around. One door was blank, a faint shadow where a name had been removed. The other wooden door still had its original label: ‘Gosham’s Rare Books’ in gold leaf, outlined in black. Dulcie reached to trace the old-fashioned lettering, still clear and proud, and then knocked softly beneath it. When no answer was forthcoming, she pushed gently. The door opened, and once again, she was in a magical land.

Gosham’s wasn’t large. Dulcie stepped into a front room that couldn’t have been bigger than twelve by fifteen. But it was beautiful, a gem of a workroom set up high in this nondescript Harvard Square building. The late afternoon sun streamed in the big front windows to light up a wooden contraption as big as a desk. A large corkscrew on top, leading down to a flattened block, suggested an ancient torture device, but Dulcie knew she was looking at a letter press, a basic technology that had remained unchanged for centuries. Behind it, by the window, a large work table was laid out with tools that Gutenberg would have recognized: a variety of awls and scalpels, their worn wood handles in sharp contrast to their polished metal blades. A smaller press and something that looked like a guillotine sat on a second table, which topped a chest of drawers. Drawn by the beauty of the ageless equipment, Dulcie stepped forward into the room and bent to read a label on one of the drawers.

‘May I help you?’ The voice was gruff, and Dulcie jumped. An older man stood in the doorway to her left. He was wiping his hands on the apron he wore and looking at Dulcie with a rather stern expression.

‘Oh, I’m sorry! The front door was open.’ She motioned to the door behind her. Of course, it had been unlocked because someone had been working. The man crossed his arms and waited. ‘I’m Dulcie Schwartz. I’m one of Professor Bullock’s students?’ She heard the rise in her own voice and kicked herself. Just because she’d been startled was no reason to feel cowed. ‘He asked me to bring a book to you.’

The man nodded, but continued to stare. ‘You’re new.’

‘No, I’m one of his doctoral students. Polly, his regular assistant, wasn’t available.’ The man kept staring at her, which gave her the opportunity to study him right back. Fortyish, probably, with grey amply sprinkled in his too-long wavy hair. He had the kind of wide-set eyes and large mouth that were probably once considered handsome. At this point, Dulcie found his unbroken gaze disturbing. It was time to turn the tables.

‘And you are?’ She leaned forward slightly, prompting him to answer. Suddenly the craggy face broke into a big grin revealing large, yellow teeth.

‘Gosham. Roger Gosham.’ He held out a hand and Dulcie took it. Whatever he’d been wiping off had left it dry and warm, with calluses that reminded Dulcie of Mr Grey’s paw pads. ‘Welcome to my lair.’

That was it, Dulcie realized. Between the hair, the teeth, and the generally lupine attitude, the older man resembled nothing so much as a werewolf. He led her into the back room, around a stack of large boxes. Behind them, rows of leatherbound books in various states of assembly covered another long wooden table top. In one of her books, Roger Gosham would be some kind of enchanted knight, forced to live apart because of some lycanthropic curse. But before she could follow the fancy any further, she realized she had a role to play. The bookbinder was standing by the table, waiting, and so – feeling more than a little like Little Red Riding Hood – Dulcie reached into her bag and carefully, with both hands, removed Professor Bullock’s damaged book. One corner was definitely crumpled, she saw as she handed it over. The top of the spine folded on itself in a way that couldn’t be doing the ancient leather any good.

‘Oh, my.’ Gosham took the book from her, his voice growing soft with concern. ‘Oh, oh, my.’

Cradling the injured volume in one large hand, he used the other to hold the front cover partially open. ‘Do you know how this happened?’ He looked up for a moment, then focused again on the book.

‘I believe it was dropped,’ said Dulcie, and watched the wolfish man wince. Muttering something under his breath, he brought the damaged book over to one of the work tables.

‘The spine.’ He sighed audibly. ‘And I believe this signature will have to be re-sewn, too.’ Clucking his tongue softly, he propped the book cover with a block of wood, holding it partly open. With one large hand he smoothed a page back, leaning close to examine the joint where it was bound to its neighbor. ‘Oh, my.’

Dulcie stood silent and transfixed. She could leave now, she suspected, but she was witnessing a transformation. The wolfish man had become as gentle as a lamb, and the attention he was giving the old volume warmed the young scholar’s heart.

‘Is it fixable?’ Her own voice sounded too loud, but she wanted to know.

‘Yes, yes.’ He didn’t look up. ‘Of course. It’s just such a pity.’ He reached for a small bag – it looked like a sandbag – and laid it on the page to hold it open. ‘The glue was barely dry.’

‘It’s new?’ Dulcie knew her question made no sense, but then neither did the bookbinder’s statement.

He looked up sharply, a trace of the wolf flashing in his eyes. ‘Of course not.’ Dulcie took a quick step back, and Gosham’s expression softened. ‘I simply meant that this was newly repaired.’ He forced a small smile. ‘I’d only handed it over to Polly yesterday.’

Of course, this must have been one of the books she’d dropped in the entranceway. ‘I’m sorry,’ she answered, moved by his tone.

He waved her sympathy away. ‘No matter. This is what I do. She usually comes by once a week, you know.’

Dulcie muttered something noncommittal and watched him get back to work. The stacked boxes hinted at a move. Was he being priced out of Harvard Square? He wouldn’t be the first, she thought, with regret. Seeing how he handled the book, reaching first for one wooden-handled tool and then rejecting it for something with a flat, rounded blade, rather like a spatula, she could see he was a true craftsman. And though a little old for her, not an unattractive man.

‘So, where is our Polly today?’ Gosham was still bent over the book, but a slight tightness had crept into his voice. Dulcie had a feeling that the question was more than casual.

‘She’s out.’ Dulcie didn’t know if word of Cameron’s death was common knowledge yet. ‘Out sick.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ The bookbinder looked up and Dulcie realized how large his deep brown eyes were. ‘Not home in bed with an early flu or anything?’

‘No, she’s fine.’ Dulcie realized she was making no sense. ‘She’s just taking the day off.’

He nodded, looking a little thoughtful. ‘Maybe I should bring this one back myself, when it’s done. Check in on her.’

As he spoke, an idea began to take root in Dulcie’s mind. It was probably a fiction, she told herself. That was a hazard of the trade – all those years spent in books – but the more she thought about it, the more she hoped it was true. Was there something going on here between the artisan and the academic? She took a fresh look at Gosham’s big, muscular frame, the gentle way his large hands cradled the book in front of him, and felt warmed by the thought. Why shouldn’t the quiet assistant have a little romance in her life? Just as quickly, another thought came to her. Had she deprived Polly of a chance to see her love?

‘I’m sure that’s not necessary.’ Dulcie spoke quickly, eager to make up for any misstep. ‘I bet she’ll be back at work tomorrow and will come by as soon as she can. Just to check in.’

‘Sly little minx,’ he said, as much to himself as to her, and returned to work. The comment only confirmed Dulcie’s impression that there was a connection between the two – and that she had not been the expected visitor this afternoon. After a few more minutes of watching him work, Dulcie excused herself. Gosham muttered something, not even looking up, and Dulcie took off, warmed with the feeling of a job well done.

But any hope Dulcie had of sharing her speculative gossip faded when she got back to the Central Square apartment she shared with Suze.

‘Anybody home?’ As she let herself into the front door of the duplex, Dulcie looked up the stairs that led to their first floor. At the top landing, a little face looked down. ‘Hey, kitten. Is it just you?’

But if she expected an answer, none was forthcoming. Instead, the kitten waited until she’d climbed up before throwing herself at Dulcie’s shins.

‘Hello to you, too, little one.’ Dulcie dropped her book bag and reached for the kitten. Plump as the kitten might be, compared to Mr Grey the tiny black and white cat barely made a handful. She pressed the little body to her face and heard a purr – but nothing else. ‘You ever going to talk to me, kitten?’

A wet nose pressed against her cheek as she carried the kitten into the kitchen. ‘Suze?’ she called, before spotting the note on the fridge:

Totally forgot Jeremy’s birthday dinner
, the note read. She tried to place the birthday boy. Jeremy? Wasn’t he someone’s roommate? That was it, she thought. Jeremy lived with Suze’s boyfriend, Ariano.
So sorry to leave you alone! Call or come join us – Burrito Villa – if you want!

‘Bother.’ Dulcie sank into a kitchen chair, depositing the kitten on the table in front of her. Burrito Villa was back in the Square, and while that was usually a manageable hike, tonight she didn’t feel like tackling it again. It wasn’t that she needed the company. Considering what had happened the day before, she felt surprisingly good. It’s just that she really could have used someone to talk to. And more and more often, she admitted to herself, Suze was not around. ‘It’s the university,’ her roommate had explained only the week before. ‘I’ve got to get away. I know you see your future in academia, Dulcie. But for me, it feels like some kind of very nice, very safe chrysalis. It’s served its purpose, and I’m ready to break out.’

Suze had meant well, and Dulcie could see the truth in her friend’s words. Even her choice of a boyfriend – Ariano, a non-academic – reflected her movement away from the tidy world that Dulcie loved. That they both had, for close to seven years. But Suze was moving on, and Dulcie felt abandoned.

In front of her, the kitten started to wash.

‘Join me in dungeon?’

The strange text-message invitation, tendered as it was by Chris, had considerable appeal. Although the idea of crashing someone else’s party hadn’t interested Dulcie, as the evening had worn on the apartment had grown a little too quiet for comfort. She’d tried settling in on the sofa with the Gunning, but the tight type and myriad footnotes had soon made her eyes heavy. Even when she exchanged the heavy research work for something lighter, the magic just wasn’t there. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, the last forty-eight hours had taken their toll. ‘Maybe,’ she’d texted back, but whatever reply she was hoping for, all she got was silence.

‘At least you’re here.’ She looked over at the kitten, who was busy battling one of Suze’s shoelaces. ‘Why don’t you come read with me?’ Cats don’t usually come when called, but when Dulcie grabbed her worn copy of
The Ravages of Umbria
and lay back down on the sofa, she was pleased to feel a light thump as the kitten landed by her feet. ‘Good girl.’

This was how it used to be with Mr Grey. She could think of him these days without even tearing up, and as his successor kneaded a pillow, Dulcie dove into her book. Not for the plot this time, although the adventure of beleaguered Hermetria and her duplicitous sidekick Demetria could usually suck her right in. Now she wanted to focus on the language. What were the hints – the idiosyncrasies – that might lead her to uncover the novel’s anonymous parentage? Were there any regional phrasings or odd colloquial bits? What about the landscape? Despite the gaudy cover illustration, there were no real mountain peaks in Umbria, no castles secluded on crags. Could they be a clue that perhaps the author had lived in a wilder area? Dulcie put down the book and looked over at the kitten.

‘It’s hopeless, isn’t it? The author was probably sitting in London the entire time.’ The kitten only blinked and then, suddenly, took off. Dulcie heard a thud and wondered what the feisty little creature had knocked over this time. When no howling followed, she dismissed it. This cat was crazy, and she had work to do.

A half-hour later, no further crashes had interrupted her and Dulcie had been able to trace the phrase that had popped up in her dream. Although in her sleep, she had placed the ‘emeralds’ in her late cat’s eyes, the word popped up in an entirely different context. Opening the second remnant of
The Ravages
, it seemed to follow a visitation by a spirit, one of the many ghosts that haunted Hermetria’s ancient home. This one may or may not have been friendly, but Hermetria had faced it down with her usual aplomb:

Such visitations taxed her not overmuch, drawing as she did upon an inner strength as cool as emeralds, as supple as the sword drawn from its sheath . . .

No wonder she’d missed it. It was an unusual phrasing: strength was usually described, even then, in terms of metals or of stone, not precious gems. Dulcie made a note of it and started leafing back, looking for other recurrences. The phrase had surfaced in her dream for a reason, and Dulcie wanted to believe that it was more than simply the way it evoked Mr Grey’s eyes. But another hour passed with no further discoveries. The fragments weren’t that big, and at times like this the magnitude of what had been lost was disheartening.

And so when Chris called to suggest again that she abandon her studies and come join him in the subterranean computer lab, she was tempted. He’d be on duty for several hours yet – as the semester drew to a close, the undergrads grew increasingly desperate – but there were no rules against a quiet visit. Or against the visitor bringing pizza.

Which was why Dulcie found herself buttoning her coat and detaching the kitten from her scarf – ‘Sorry, baby, I’m going to need this’ – and heading out into the frosty November night.

‘My heroine!’ Chris looked up from his terminal with unfeigned happiness. All around him, bleary-eyes looked up and blinked.