The Magus of Hay(51)

He looked around for a chair and there wasn’t one. He’d forgotten, once again, to bring a goddamn chair, and the only desk they had was too big, so they needed a new desk to sit at and take the money and discuss stuff with the customers. In two days there would be customers. Or not. Either way, in two days the sign would say open.

Robin pressed the tips of his fingers into his forehead, began to breathe very rapidly, each breath going like an old steam train starting up: fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…

Two days left. Too freaking days to get this place fit to open. No going back now. He’d designed small posters for The Most Mysterious Shop in Hay, taken them round to the newsagents and anyone with a noticeboard. They’d have a proper, formal opening when there were a whole lot more books, flag it up over a much wider area. Maybe even invite the King to perform the ceremony. Saturday – this was gonna be half-assed, but if they didn’t make some kind of start the holiday season would be over.

All Betty’s fault. These days, he only suggested stuff so she could talk him out of it. Betty, who right now was back at the bungalow, showing people around so they could sell it at the bottom of the market again. If this failed they’d be trapped in the rural poverty band, and he was horrified by the speed it had happened. An easy rental agreement, Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954 and before it even went through they’d been given access to measure up, test the lights, the plumbing, and Robin had come over, day after day, each time hoping it would look different.

And it had. Each time, despite the starry ceiling, it had looked a whole lot worse.

Worst of all, he didn’t like being alone here, now that he couldn’t run any more. He stared at the wall, the doorway to the kitchen and the stairs. The wall was solid, the doorway a shallow open space with musty air, which his imagination at once filled with some black, Lovecraftian needle-toothed denizen of chaos. He could’ve painted it for you in gouache, his medium of choice back in the days when he was seducer of souls, guardian of the softly lit doorways. The days before graphic artists been driven out of business by tightwad publishers and Photoshop.

The flash of anger took him to the door. He’d bring in another box of books. More shelves in here than he’d figured. In his head, all the shelves had been bulging after three truckloads had gotten unloaded, but whole boxes of books seemed to fill no space at all. Even though it seemed so cramped in here, the books had gotten swallowed. All his beloved books. The books he hated to sell – what kind of a start was that?

The truck was wedged into the corner, where the top of Back Fold merged with the track to the Castle across the road from the big parking lot. Loading, right? He’d put a sign to that effect on the dash. It also said, SAD CRIPPLE AT WORK.

The rain was holding off, and he stood and gazed across the cars on the scenic parking lot, all laid out like shiny-back molluscs on a beach, over to the sweep of the hill which hardened into the Black Mountains. Not black at all, and the view made his spirit rise a tad. So much here to paint.



He tossed his stick into the truck’s box, let down the tailgate and hauled over one of the book bags, a black bin liner. They’d actually found more books than expected, close to a couple thousand, some rarities, kind of, but he wouldn’t bring these till Saturday morning. Dragging the bag of books until it tipped over the tailgate, Robin squatted down. If he could get underneath it…

‘Shit!’

The binsack had split. He tried to hold the books in, but the bastards were spilling over the road. Robin stumbled and the pain ripped into his hip. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck…

‘Hold on, boy…’

A man was under the sack, taking the weight. Robin leaned back against the cab, breathing hard. The guy had the sack back on the truck. Bent to pick up a few of the books and then gathered the whole mess into his arms.

‘You OK?’

‘’Cept for feeling like a dick.’

The guy who’d rescued him was much older, a tall, narrow man in a drooping tweedy jacket and a flat cap, hands behind his back, head tilted, peering.

‘Mr Thorogood, I think.’

Robin looked up, blankly at first, into a half-remembered, half-moon face. Then the past was around his shoulders like a greasy old coat.

‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘You shaved off your moustache.’

Dumb response, but despite all the hours the guy had spent by his hospital bed, he couldn’t recall the name. Pretty clear now, though, why the whole damn town had access to his and Betty’s history.

‘Jones,’ the guy said. ‘Gwyn Arthur. Former detective superintendent of this parish and others either side of Brecon, and now… after an undistinguished but sporadically interesting career… retired.’