Quiet Neighbors (12 page)

“What grain of truth?” said Eddy. “How can there be a grain of truth about me being born here?”

Lowell gulped.

“But wait,” Jude said. “She reckoned you were travelling. She said you were in America. She was worried about you getting caught up in it. Were you?”

“What
is
an OJ trial?” said Eddy.

“Well now, dear me, yes,” said Lowell. “There's that grain of truth again. I
was
travelling. I came home and found Miranda waiting for me.”

“Oh, I get it,” Eddy said. “You mean that was the night I was conceived? But how can you be so sure?”

“Because it was the, ahhh
… It was the only, ahhh … ”

“Seriously? I was a one-night special?”

“And what about the cry of the newborn baby?” said Jude, trying to change the subject before Lowell's blush singed his shirt collar.

“Oh, gad!” said Eddy. “Which one of you is the squealer? Toxic vomit.”

“But I'd been in Plymouth at a maritime book fair,” Lowell said, doggedly. “Not in L.A.” He gathered their bowls and piled them in the sink on top of the morning's porridge pot and the chopping board from Eddy's cooking.

“I'll just show these the dishcloth,” he said.

Jude didn't offer to help. She couldn't bear to dry what he washed.
Showing them the dishcloth
was all too accurate. She just kept an eye on the rotation and made sure to use plates
she'd
been responsible for washing.

“I'm sorry you were subjected to Mrs. Hewston quite so soon, dear child,” he said.

Eddy shrugged. “It was nice to speak to someone who knew Mum, no matter what they say about her.”

“Oh? And what exactly did dear Mrs. Hewston have to say?”

Eddy sent a worried look over to Jude.

“Don't worry,” Jude said. “He's heard it all before.” She turned to Lowell. “Pretty much that your father was a saint and you were Hugh Hefner.”

“Who?” said Eddy.

“And Raminder was no better than she should be.”

“
Who
?” said Eddy.

Jude rolled her eyes, but this time Lowell joined in.

“Who's Raminder?” he said, and Jude felt the colour, all the rosy glow from the hot soup and shared laughter, leave her cheeks.

“Slip of the tongue,” she said. “I meant Miranda.”

“Although Raminder is a name, isn't it?” said Eddy. “Indian.”

“I've never heard it,” said Jude, recovering.

“Nor I,” said Lowell. “Not round here anyway. Wigtown is many wonderful things, but a melting pot? Dear me, no.”

“Well, if she's moved in, like you and me, Jude,” said Eddy, “we'll soon know. No secrets here, like you were saying.”

She spoke so lightly that Lowell, elbow-deep in suds at the sink, didn't even pause in his tuneless whistling, but Jude heard something under the tone and felt a chill crawl up her neck and shrink her scalp, leaving her tingling.

“Good luck at the doctor's,” she said and was sure she didn't just imagine the girl's face clouding over.

Twelve

Jude had only just
gone back round to the shop to start her afternoon's work when they returned. It was clear something had changed.

“Glad to see you opened up again,” Lowell said as he ushered Eddy in. He was holding an elderly golf umbrella over her, brought it right inside before drawing it away and shaking it out at the open door, shooting it into the umbrella stand when he was done. “Sandy at the doctor's said there's a coach load around somewhere.” He turned to Eddy. “Since
Jude's
here doing
her
duty, I can take you home.”

“I don't mind,” Eddy said. “I keep saying.”

“And actually, Lowell,” said Jude. “I could do with concentrating, not bobbing down every time the door goes.” In truth, she had been sitting blankly at the desk, summoning the courage to look at the Internet again and had only leapt up, grabbing her duster, when the handle rattled. She was aware of the desk chair slowly turning, one arm of the fawn cardigan hanging down.

“Ten minutes, then,” Lowell said, clipped speech for him. “I need to find something in Biography.”

Eddy took the chair and Jude settled on the bottom step. When his footsteps told her he was on his way to the top floor, she spoke.

“What happened?”

“I didn't like the doctor,” said Eddy. “I didn't sign on.”

“What was wrong with him? Her?”

“Him. I didn't like him. I don't want him delivering me and there's no practice midwife.”

“But what was
wrong
with him?” Jude said. “Was he rough?” Poke, poke. “Or did he give you what-for for being pregnant?” she added as a distraction.

Eddy screwed one eyebrow up and dropped the other one down. “What? They can't do that. It's none of their business.”

She was right, of course. Only, Wigtown was the kind of place where the doctor and the minister might well still dress you down for moral failings. With Nurse Hewston standing by, nodding.

“Is he a creeper?” said Jude. “We had a doctor when I was little called Dr. Goff and everyone called him Knickers Off Goff.”

Eddy giggled. “We never got that far,” she said.

Jude managed to sound surprised. “He never examined you?”

The girl had handled it beautifully. If she had quibbled about seeing the doctor from the off, Lowell would have wondered why and might have got suspicious, but going along cheerfully and then claiming to have changed her mind for a reason she wouldn't make clear … Who could argue? She was good at this. If she was really at it.

“How come?” Jude said.

“He wanted to muck about with me,” Eddy said. “Interfere for no reason.”

“Examine you, you mean?” said Jude. “Are you weird about people seeing your body?” Poke, poke, poke.

Eddy snorted. “What century were you born in?”

“Okay, so what's the problem?”

“He wouldn't let me sign up for a home birth,” said Eddy. “He was a right stuck-up shite about it, actually.”

“A home birth?” said Jude, thinking of Jamaica House, dusty and draughty, with its creaking, sprung beds and its long slippery bath, no handrails, no shower hose.

“Why not?” said Eddy. “I'm healthy.”

“You're nineteen!” said Jude. What she meant wa
s that nineteen-year-olds wore Playboy bunny tee-shirts and got Brazilian waxes and thought women's rights were for their grannies. She remembered a conversation in the staff room at the library when she said she wouldn't let a man pay for dinner, all the youngsters hooting with laughter and calling her a sucker.

But Eddy misunderstood her.

“Nineteen's when we should be pregnant,” she said. “Nineteen's normal. It's not natural to wait till you're God knows how old like everyone does now. No offence.” She paused, but Jude didn't respond with a
none taken,
so Eddy just stuck her tongue out and sailed on. “And I thought this was totally the kind of place they'd have all that water and chanting. I was dead chuffed when I looked him up and he was living here. Christ, it was like having Mum back again. ‘Go to the biggest hospital you can find and get everything modern medicine can give you.' On and on.”

“Really?” said Jude.

“Right? That's what I thought. I thought she'd be on my side because she was so … Never met a crystal she didn't believe in. And she hated official things instead of homemade things. We had three kids living with us for a year once when their mum was in the bin. Mum was adamant we could cope. Instead of them going to a fosterer or into a group home.”

“It's not really the same thing,” said Jude.

“I know,” said Eddy. “Anyway, Mum came from care, so that explains that. And apart from her one blind spot about me having this baby in a space-age laboratory, she was pretty sorted out about most things. At least, when I came looking for
him
I knew he wouldn't be an accountant or that. No offence.”

“I'm a librarian,” said Jude.

“Right,” said Eddy. “Exactly.”

“Speaking of which, I think I'll go and get on with it,” Jude said. “Shout up if the rush gets too much for you.”

She walked up the first flight making no effort to be quiet—making a bit of effort to be noisy, actually. Then she slipped off her clogs and padded as silently as she could up the second flight. A pregnant woman wouldn't climb these steeps steps if she didn't have to. A girl pretending to be one wouldn't, certainly.

Lowell was standing in the back room gazing around in dismay.

“What happened here?” he said. “There should be two shelves of military biography.”

“Have you just been standing there this whole time willing them to come back?” said Jude. “What happened is I put them downstairs with all the other Biography in the L-shaped bit.” She held up a hand to stem his protest. “Because they've all got the same Library of Congress and Dewey numbers, and I'm guessing the average age of the military buff is not twenty-five and I'm saving their poor old feet with corns from all the marching.”

“What about my poor old feet?” Lowell muttered.

“You didn't tell me what you were looking for, for one thing. And for another, this isn't what's bugging you.” She left a pause and then tried to turn her voice gentle. “What
is
bugging you?”

“What's
upsetting
me is I don't think Eddy's going to stay after all. As to what happened
… Well dear me, I have no earthly idea. Not a clue.”

“She doesn't think much of the doctor,” Jude offered.

“She refused to listen to reason!” Lowell exclaimed. Then they both, with a look at the floor, realised how loud he was talking. When he spoke again it was in a fierce whisper. “He's not against the notion at all—although why on earth any sensible girl would eschew medicine on the one day in her life she's most likely suddenly to need it … ” His exasperation had left him breathless and he heaved and puffed before starting again. “But the doctor was sweetness and kindness. He explained how far it was to either hospital—Ayr or Dumfries—and how bad the roads are, and if she'd been at all in the mood to listen she would have seen the sense of it. If things go wrong there's simply no
time
for the journey. He was very clear.”

“He doesn't seem to have been very clever, though, if he put her back up and made her dig her heels in.”

Lowell was shaking his head. “She walked in looking for trouble,” he said. “She made up her mind on the drive over.”

“Oh? What happened on the drive over?”

“Nothing!” said Lowell, and they both glanced downwards again. “She spent the whole time poking at the tiny tyrant.” Jude quirked her head. “The inevitable and dreary iPhone. One of your finest attributes, my dear, in my obsolete opinion, is that you do not possess one.”

Jude registered the compliment, undeserved, with an absent smile. Had Eddy found something online that changed her mind? Had she got an email that put her off? Or had she, as Jude thought, always intended to dodge the doctor in the end? Or perhaps they were both wrong and she really was a fledgling earth mother, stung by the condescension of the Wigtown GP.

As Lowell pottered off in search of his prey, she decided that, since she was here in what was destined to be the Crime, Horror, and Fantasy section, she might as well do some work and clear some floor space.

Years of shelving in her past had left her with an instinct for it. She knew to leave plenty room for Cs in crime, Ks in horror, and Ps in fantasy, and when she started in on the nearest pile, knee-high
and four-square, indeed there were endless Pratchetts, well-thumbed and grubby, endless Childs and Christies, and more Kings than she could believe.

Under a full set of the Inspector Wexford novels, she found a nice early edition of John Wyndham's
The Chrysalids
that got her thinking. A librarian doesn't consider value but, here at LG Books, was a subject-matter split enough? Should the tatty Pratchetts be shelved with that pristine Wyndham, or should there be a premium section for hardback, first editions, and rarities? What would something like this be worth anyway?

She flipped it open and felt a burst of warmth to see
T. Jolly
on the endpaper. Immediately she checked the back but was disappointed not to find any notes there.

Back on the ground floor, Eddy was sitting mulishly in Lowell's chair scrolling through messages, while he leaned awkwardly past her to look at something on the computer.

“Price, Lowell?” Jude said, holding up
The Chrysalids
.

“Ah, Wyndham,” Lowell said.

Eddy rolled her eyes and Jude bit her cheek to hold back a smirk. It was a classic father/daughter relationship already in some ways.

“Underappreciated these days of course,” Lowell said. “Dear me, now
The Day of the
Triffids
is a fine piece of story-telling but not flashy enough for—” He broke off and Jude was sure the words he had swallowed were
the youth of today
. “Fifteen pounds,” he said instead.

“For an old
book
?” Eddy squeaked.

“And look,” said Jude, ignoring her. “I'm glad to see not everything he owned ended up in the dead room.”

Lowell gave her a sheepish look and rubbed his jaw. “Well, dear me, yes, but you see he used to drop in. Bring me things, you know. He had none of the snobbery that leads a pedestrian mind to value the obscure.”

“What the hell are you
on
about?” Eddy said.

“And he was the kindest man,” said Lowell, absolutely ignoring her. “For instance, dear me, I had quite forgotten this and it's a charming story. When his daughter … Now what was her name?”

“Angela,” said Jude, and Lowell registered his surprise with a startled look that dislodged his spectacles from his forehead and deposited them towards the end of his nose, which startled him even more.

“I read his gravestone,” Jude said.

“Jesus,” said Eddy. “Is there anyone normal in this entire town?”

“So you see, dear me, yes, Angela
wasn't
a reader. And so one Christmas, when she gave old Todd a book-club membership as a present—very thoughtful—he was distressed whenever he was sent a duplicate. It happened moderately often because , as I say, of his populist tastes: Trollope, Brontë, Wyndham.”

“He wasn't exactly slumming it,” said Jude.

“So he would bring the original to me. In case, you understand, Angela saw that there were two and felt her gift had been unwanted. The kindest of men.”

“Sounds a bit uptight, if you ask me,” said Eddy.

“You're saying his first editions are in stock or sold, and Angela's are all in the dead room?” Jude said.

“Well, as I say, she wasn't a reader and she'd moved to Christchurch, and so you see the next chapter of the story unfolds. In his last years he signed up for yet another book club. One hundred books to read before you die.”

“Seems like the time to do it,” Eddy said.

“Along those lines anyway,” Lowell said. “Quite a few of the town's worthies joined, I think, since I've got multiple copies of some of the offerings. Of course, this was years before the true epidemic of book clubs, but it was annoying enough for a bookseller to notice.”

“And what sort of age would he have been by then?” Jude asked.

“In his seventies.”

“Jesus, good luck reading a hundred books!”

“And of course, my dear, among the hundred books to be read before—that is, while one
can
—were quite a few of the same again.
Barchester Towers
,
Wuthering Heights
,
Of Mice and Men
.”

“Sounds like enough to finish ‘one' off,” Eddy put in.

“And so we had a fair few of Angela's passing through our hands too,” Lowell said. “But yes, I'm afraid to say, his entire final library awaits your attentions, my dear.”

Eddy looked up, ready to protest, but when she realised that Jude was his “dear” this time, the scowl on her face dropped away, leaving it naked. She saw Jude noticing, though, and managed to close herself again, with a snap.

“Great story,” she said.

Lowell levelled a look at her. “When I disappointed my father,” he said, “which was often, he used to tell me that soon enough my son would be disappointing me. It strikes me, my other dear—my primary dear, my unexpected and utterly delightful dear—that as you sulk and mock, you can lay your hand upon the little one who, in days not far hence, will be sulking and mocking you.”