The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend (43 page)

The foot was twitching more now, until eventually it pulled back beneath the bush and a tall, thin and clearly worse-for-wear figure crawled out from beneath its branches.

‘Good morning, Father,' Josh said.

William grimaced. He wondered whether to correct him and point out that he wasn't Catholic, but then he looked at the young man standing in front of him and decided the theological discussion could wait. He was clearly shaken after an evening of … debauchery, William thought. There was something resigned in his eyes, which might of course have been a result of the usual rapid punishment dealt out by that particular vice, but seemed to have a deeper root.

William nodded to himself. ‘Coffee?' he suggested, walking back towards his little house next to the church without waiting for an answer. He heard Josh getting to his feet behind him.

‘Hardly the season for sleeping outdoors,' he said as the water was boiling. He took down the coffee and the sugar. Josh declined any cream, which was just as well because he didn't have any.

‘Sorry for intruding,' said Josh.

‘Not at all. I was just going to potter about in the garden while I went through my sermon for today.' He smiled, delighted. ‘A wedding! Here in Broken Wheel!'

‘Are you looking forward to it?'

‘Of course I am. Weddings are fantastic events.'

‘I would have thought … all things considered? The background …'

William simply looked blankly at him. ‘So,' he said eventually, ‘what can I do for you?'

‘I hadn't exactly been planning this visit,' said Josh.

‘Of course,' said William. ‘And does this have anything to do with … disappointments in love?' He had, of course, heard all about the evening at Madame Higgins's. No one seemed to have taken it seriously, but he hadn't seen Caroline for a few days now.

Josh didn't answer.

‘Giving up is never a good idea,' said William. ‘And in this particular case, if you'll excuse me saying so, it seems rather hasty.'

Josh laughed drily. ‘In this particular case, I think I should've given up a long time ago.' William looked so sorrowfully at him that Josh pulled a face and said: ‘Sorry.'

‘And have you talked to … her about it?'

‘It was more a case of her talking to me.'

‘Yes,' he agreed. ‘Caroline is a … formidable woman.'

Josh didn't seem surprised that he knew about it. He simply said: ‘But a bit too focused on what others think of her.'

William sipped his coffee while he tried to work out how he should answer. He turned the coffee cup absent-mindedly in his hands. ‘Yes,' he said hesitantly. ‘But the world can be so cruel to women who never marry. Even now, you know.'

Josh pulled another face, an apologetic, slightly self-reproaching grimace. ‘Don't worry, I'm not judging her for it. Sometimes I think she's actually right.'

He didn't say anything else after that. He simply drank his coffee, thanked the minister politely and left. But William imagined he had seen a new determinedness in his walk.

William had forgotten all about his gardening amid the unfamiliar feeling of euphoria which had suddenly materialised at the thought of being needed.

Maybe he had been born simply to take care of those who stayed behind.

George woke on the edge of a field, just outside Broken Wheel. Someone was kicking his feet. He could smell liquor and damp grass, and wasn't at all happy to discover that it was Claire standing there somewhere above his feet. She shouldn't have to see me like this, he thought, and would have lain back down on the grass again if Claire hadn't leaned over him and said:

‘For God's sake, George.'

He blinked.

‘Get up,' she said firmly. ‘Sara's getting married today. Now's not the right time to fall to pieces.'

He managed to drag himself up into a sitting position. She looked like some kind of goddess of revenge, he thought, though in a nice way, of course. Proper boots, jeans, a thick padded jacket, and flame-red hair, as though nothing could defeat her. It was hard to imagine she was the same person who had cried over a few clean dishes in his kitchen.

But he couldn't do anything for her now. She and Sara would have to cope without him. Maybe she needed an explanation. ‘Sophy left me,' he said.

‘And?' The shock almost got him back on his feet again. She grabbed his elbows and helped him up. ‘Sara's getting married today,' she repeated.

He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. The only thing that happened was he realised that his head hurt. ‘Sophy,' he said again.

‘Sure, sure,' said Claire. ‘Gone. Your bitch of an ex-wife has taken off again.'

He tried to get her to see the important part. ‘With Sophy.'

‘Of course with Sophy. And you've been drinking.'

She helped him to her car. He slumped into the front seat beside her without really knowing what he was doing. His clothes were cold and damp, but it felt good. Something practical to focus on. Maybe he would develop a really serious case of lung inflammation and never have to leave his bed again.

Claire looked at him with something that might have been sympathy. It was the first time that morning she had shown anything like warmth. Still, her voice was hard and determined. He leaned towards it like a drowning man to a lifebuoy, as though the sound of her voice would somehow keep him upright until he was home.

‘I know it seems tough,' she said. ‘We're gonna find her for you, but now's not the right time to get bogged down in it.'

He blinked. ‘Find her?'

He wouldn't make the mistake of believing her. Accepting his fate. That was the only way to get through this.

‘Jesus, this is the twenty-first century. We know what she looks like. It's got to be possible to find her. They're probably still living in Iowa, and the state's not that big. She's probably on Facebook, too.' He didn't even know what Facebook was. She seemed to know he wasn't convinced, because she continued: ‘We'll find her regardless of whether she is or not. We'll talk to Sara about it. She'll be able to work it out. There's probably a book about this –
Private Investigation for Dummies
or something like that.'

Maybe Sara
could
work this out. There didn't seem to be anything she couldn't do.

‘Or we'll just hire a real PI. A whiskey-drinking, chain-smoking detective.'

He smiled weakly.

‘She's almost grown up, George. Things are different now. She might well come and find you herself.'

He shook his head.

‘And anyways, you should've come to me for the liquor.'

‘Didn't think you'd have enough,' he said.

She drove him home, followed him in and waited until she saw he was going into the bathroom to shower ahead of the wedding. ‘I'll be back in an hour,' she said through the bathroom door, something between a threat and a promise.

He smiled again as he took off his clothes, but even more feebly now that she couldn't see him.

He should save his energy for something better, he thought.

Josh wasn't upset any more.

Enough now, he thought to himself as he walked away from the minister's house. Sure, the sex had been amazing, but there were other people to pick up. Go to Des Moines or Denver, ask Andy and Carl for help. Get over it.

He hadn't really thought she would open the door, but he still felt a pang of disappointment when he realised she wasn't even prepared to say goodbye to him face-to-face.

He rested his hand on the door and said: ‘Don't worry,' despite the fact that the door seemed completely indifferent, and not the least bit anxious. ‘I didn't come here to bother you. I'm going to Denver after the wedding. I just wanted to say goodbye.'

He waited a moment longer. The door didn't answer.

‘Goodbye, Caroline,' he said.

 

 

 

 

Broken Wheel, Iowa

July 17, 2011

Sara Lindqvist

Kornvägen 7, 1 tr

136 38 Haninge

Sweden

Dear Sara,

I know you think it seems impossible to pay me back in books when you can only take 20kg of luggage on the plane, but I already have all the books and money I need. If you really
have to
do it, then I won't accept anything more than $300. That's my absolute maximum, and only under the condition that we do something fun together with it. If nothing else, we can eat plenty of dinners at Andy and Carl's.

Write back and let me know when you're coming, and we'll meet you.

Best,

Amy

SHE WAS WEARING
the plain dress from Madame Higgins's shop. There was something sad about the ordinary material and the straight, simple cut, and the way it barely reached her knees. It wasn't a happy dress, that much was clear, but it was at least mercifully free of frills and lace.

George had dropped her off at the church, and she had changed in the little room at the back. There was still half an hour until the ceremony, and the inhabitants of Broken Wheel had already started to arrive. She glanced through a crack in the door but didn't go and see them. Instead, she snuck out by the back door.

She felt slightly ridiculous, creeping along Broken Wheel's main street in a wedding dress, a meagre bouquet of pink roses in her hand. She needn't have worried though – there wasn't a person in sight. The entire street was abandoned; the hardware store was in darkness, Amazing Grace was closed and her own shop as deserted as a shop filled with books could be.

As she unlocked the door and crept in, she still glanced about. She didn't want anyone to spot her and come over. This was something she needed to do alone.

She didn't quite know why she had to do it at this particular moment. Maybe she was simply trying to distract herself. She had almost managed to convince herself that she would tell them all she couldn't marry Tom, but she couldn't make her treacherous brain focus on the problem of
how
she was going to do it.

She didn't bother switching on the lights. She looked at the titles on the bookshelves and the counter, and everything else which, for a short while longer, was still hers. She stood for a moment, blinking away the tears which were obstinately trying to obscure her view.

Then she closed her eyes, as though she was trying to etch it all into her memory; the dry air, the smell of books and old armchairs, the light flooding through the shop window and dancing behind her eyelids.

She opened her eyes. She didn't have time for this. There were things that needed to be done.

She put the bouquet down on the counter and took out the marker pen and the last few sheets of cardboard. The card was slightly worse for wear now, but she found two pieces which didn't have any bent corners. She put them to one side and started moving books.

She wrote a new sign: AMY AND SARA'S BOOKS. Not all their books, obviously, just the ones that meant most to them. It felt fitting that it started with Louisa May Alcott. Their friendship, immortalised.

Until the bookshop closed and the books were moved back to the house, that was.

At least they would remember her, in the same way they all still remembered Amy, even when they weren't talking about her. A faint presence, yet another fate bound up in the bricks and the asphalt, still lingering in the abandoned buildings.

And perhaps there would be a miracle of some kind, something which meant she could stay. Perhaps Tom would convince her again, perhaps Jen would force her to get married, perhaps … she was struggling to gain control over herself again. She knew what she had to do. Somehow, she would be strong enough to make it through.

There was one last category. She started moving books again, in high piles which she leaned against her chest and steadied with her chin. She wrote the new heading on the best card, fetched a rickety chair from the little cubbyhole and balanced unsteadily on it while she hung it up, as high as she could, in direct line of sight from the window and the doorway.

Sara clung onto the new category as though the shiny new sign was the only thing keeping her going. The best books gathered in one place, the biggest section in the bookshop; everything which made books better than life.

HAPPY ENDINGS WHEN YOU NEED THEM.

When she made it back into the church again, the whole of Broken Wheel was gathered there. John was sitting on one of the pews at the back, looking serious. Sara forced herself to think of Amy, of the price Tom would have to pay if she didn't say no to them all.

As she passed John, she leaned over his shoulder and quietly said: ‘Don't worry, I'm not going to marry him.'

She was probably saying it as much for her own sake as for John's, but it didn't seem to make him feel much better, and she didn't even bother trying to smile. Instead, she walked slowly down the aisle.

When Tom eventually arrived, he looked just as serious as Sara, and his face was equally pale. He walked straight over to her without greeting anyone. He gave her hand a feather-light squeeze when he got to the front.

She wondered whether she would have been happier if she hadn't suddenly wanted things, if she hadn't felt like she belonged there. That was how people normally felt in books.

I wish I had never met you.

I wish I had never laid eyes on you.

If only I had never come here.

But she couldn't feel that way. Not even now.

The minister started talking in front of them, but Sara barely registered what he was saying. Would she have been happier? Or would the taste of wanting to belong somewhere make her happier later, once she was back in Sweden and reconciled with her loss? Maybe it had raised her ambitions, shown her alternatives which she could search for afresh, in another small town somewhere, perhaps in some other country. She knew there were countries which allowed you to stay and to work. They just weren't countries she had any desire to visit.