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CHAPTER ONE
In 1959 Florence Green occasionally passed a night when she was
not absolutely sure whether she had slept or not. This was because
of her worries as to whether to purchase a small property, the Old
House, with its own warehouse on the foreshore, and to open the
only bookshop in Hardborough. The uncertainty probably kept her
awake. She had once seen a heron flying across the estuary and
trying, while it was on the wing, to swallow an eel which it had
caught. The eel, in turn, was struggling to escape from the gullet of
the heron and appeared a quarter, a half, or occasionally
three-quarters of the way out. The indecision expressed by both
creatures was pitiable. They had taken on too much. Florence felt
that if she hadn't slept at all -- and people often say this when they
mean nothing of the kind -- she must have been kept awake by
thinking of the heron.
She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it
comes to the matter of self-preservation. For more than eight years
of half a lifetime she had lived at Hardborough on the very small
amount of money her late husband had left her and had recently
come to wonder whether she hadn't a duty to make it clear to
herself, and possibly to others, that she existed in her own right.
Survival was often considered all that could be asked in the cold
and clear East Anglian air. Kill or cure, the inhabitants thought -- either
a long old age, or immediate consignment to the salty turf of
the churchyard.
She was in appearance small, wispy and wiry, somewhat
insignificant from the front view, and totally so from the
back. She was not much talked about, not even in Hardborough,
where everyone could be seen coming over the wide distances and
everything seen was discussed. She made small seasonal changes
in what she wore. Everybody knew her winter coat, which was the
kind that might just be made to last another year.
In 1959, when there was no fish and chips in Hardborough, no
launderette, no cinema except on alternate Saturday nights, the
need of all these things was felt, but no one had considered,
certainly had not thought of Mrs Green as considering, the
opening of a bookshop.
`Of course I can't make any definite commitment on behalf of the
bank at the moment -- the decision is not in my hands -- but I think I
may say that there will be no objection in principle to a loan. The
Government's word up to now has been restraint in credit to the
private borrower, but there are distinct signs of relaxation -- I'm not
giving away any state secrets there. Of course, you'll have little or
no competition -- a few novels, I'm told, lent out at the Busy Bee
wool shop, nothing significant. You assure me that you've had
considerable experience of the trade.'
Florence, preparing to explain for the third time what she meant
by this, saw herself and her friend, their hair in Eugene waves,
chained pencils round their necks, young assistants of twenty-five
years ago at Muller's in Wigmore Street. It was the stocktaking she
remembered best, when Mr Muller, after calling for silence, read out
with calculated delay the list of young ladies and their partners,
drawn by lot, for the day's checking over. There were by no means
enough fellows to go round, and she had been lucky to be paired,
in 1934, with Charlie Green, the poetry buyer.
`I learned the business very thoroughly when I was a girl,' she
said. `I don't think it's changed in essentials since then.'
`But you've never been in a managerial position. Well,
there are one or two things that might be worth saying. Call
them words of advice, if you will.'
There were very few new enterprises in Hardborough,
and the notion of one, like a breath of sea air far inland,
faintly stirred the sluggish atmosphere of the bank.
`I mustn't take up your time, Mr Keble.'
`Oh, you must allow me to be judge of that. I think I might
put it in this way. You must ask yourself, when you envisage
yourself opening a bookshop, what your objective really is.
That is the first question needful to a business of any kind. Do
you hope to give our little town a service that it needs? Do
you hope for sizeable profits? Or are you, perhaps, Mrs
Green, a jogger along, with little understanding of the vastly
different world which the 1960s may have in store for us?
I've often thought that it's a pity that there isn't some
accepted course of study for the small business man or
woman ...'
Evidently there was an accepted course for bank managers.
Launched on the familiar current, Mr Keble's voice gathered
pace, with the burden of many waters. He spoke of the
necessity of professional book-keeping, systems of loan
repayment, and opportunity costs.
`... I would like to put a point, Mrs Green, which in all
probability has not occurred to you, and yet which is so plain
to those of us who are in a position to take the broader view.
My point is this. If over any given period of time the cash
inflow cannot meet the cash outflow, it is safe to predict
that money difficulties are not far away.'
Florence had known this ever since her first payday, when,
at the age of sixteen, she had become self-supporting. She
prevented herself from making a sharp reply. What had
become of her resolve, as she crossed the market place to
the bank building, whose solid red brick defied the prevailing
wind, to be sensible and tactful?
`As to the stock, Mr Keble, you know that I've been given
the opportunity of buying most of what I need from Muller's,
now that they're closing down.' She managed to say this
resolutely, although she had felt the closure as a personal
attack on her memories. `I've had no estimate for that as yet.
And as to the premises, you agreed that 3,500 [pounds
sterling] was a fair price for the freehold of the Old House
and the oyster shed.'
To her surprise, the manager hestitated.
`The property has been standing empty for a long time
now. That is, of course, a matter for your house agent and
your solicitor -- Thornton, isn't it?' This was an artistic
flourish, a kind of weakness, since there were only two
solicitors in Hardborough. `But I should have thought the
price might have come down further ... The house won't
wall; away if you decide to wait a little ... deterioration ...
damp ...'
`The bank is the only building in Hardborough which isn't
damp,' Florence replied. `Working here all day may perhaps
have made you too demanding.'
`... and then I've heard it suggested -- I'm in a position
where I can say that I understand it may have been
suggested -- that there are other uses to which the house
might be put -- though of course there is always the possibility
of a re-sale.'
`Naturally I want to reduce expenses to a minimum.' The
manager prepared to smile understandingly, but spared
himself the trouble when Florence added sharply `But I've no
intention of re-selling. It's a peculiar thing to take a step
forward in middle age, but having done it I don't intend to
retreat. What else do people think the Old House could be
used for? Why haven't they done anything about it in the past
seven years? There were jackdaws nesting in it, half the tiles
were off, it stank of rats. Wouldn't it be better as a place
where people could stand and look at books?'
`Are you talking about culture?' the manager said, in a
voice half way between pity and respect.
`Culture is for amateurs. I can't run my shop at a loss.
Shakespeare was a professional!'
It took less than it should have done to fluster Florence, but at
least she had the good fortune to care deeply about something.
The manager replied soothingly that reading took up a great deal of
time. `I only wish I had more time at my disposal. People have quite
wrong ideas, you know, about the bank's closing hours. Speaking
personally, I enjoy very Little leisure in the evenings. But don't
misunderstand me, I find a good book at my bedside of
incalculable value. When I eventually retire I've no sooner read a
few pages than I'm overwhelmed with sleep.'
She reflected that at this rate one good book would last the
manager for more than a year. The average price of a book was
twelve shillings and sixpence. She sighed.
She did not know Mr Keble at all well. Few people in
Hardborough did. Although they were constantly told, by press
and radio, that these were prosperous years for Britain, most of
Hardborough still felt the pinch, and avoided the bank manager on
principle. The herring catch had dwindled, naval recruitment was
down, and there were many retired persons living on a fixed
income. These did not return Mr Keble's smile or his wave out of
the hastily wound-down window of his Austin Cambridge. Perhaps
this was why he went on talking for so long to Florence, although
the discussion was scarcely businesslike. Indeed it had reached, in
his view, an unacceptably personal level.
Florence Green, like Mr Keble, might be accounted a lonely figure,
but this did not make them exceptional in Hardborough, where
many were lonely. The local naturalists, the reedcutter, the
postman, Mr Raven the marshman, bicycled off one by one,
leaning against the wind, the observed of all observers, who could
reckon the time by their reappearance over the horizon. Not all of
these solitaries even went out. Mr Brundish,
a descendant of one of the most ancient Suffolk
families, lived as closely in his house as a badger in its sett. If he
emerged in summer, wearing tweeds between dark green and grey,
he appeared a moving gorse-bush against the gorse, or earth
against the silt. In autumn he went to ground. His rudeness was
resented only in the same way as the weather, brilliant in the
morning, clouding over later, however much it had promised.
The town itself was an island between sea and river, muttering
and drawing into itself as soon as it felt the cold. Every fifty years
or so it had lost, as though careless or indifferent to such things,
another means of communication. By 1850 the Laze had ceased to
be navigable and the wharfs and ferries rotted away. In 1910 the
swing bridge fell in, and since then all traffic had to go ten miles
round by Saxford in order to cross the river. In 1920 the old railway
was closed. The children of Hardborough, waders and divers all,
had most of them never been in a train. They looked at the deserted
LNER station with superstitious reverence. Rusty tin strips,
advertising Fry's Cocoa and Iron Jelloids, hung there in the wind.
The great floods of 1953 caught the sea wall and caved it in, so
that the harbour mouth was dangerous to cross, except at very low
tide. A rowing-boat was now the only way to get across the Laze.
The ferryman chalked up his times for the day on the door of his
shed, but this was on the far shore, so that no one in Hardborough
could ever be quite certain when they were.
After her interview with the bank, and resigned to the fact that
everyone in the town knew that she had been there, Florence went
for a walk. She crossed the wooden planks across the dykes,
preceded as she tramped by a rustling and splashing as small
creatures, she didn't know of what kind, took to the water.
Overhead the gulls and rooks sailed
confidently on the tides of the air. The wind had shifted and
was blowing inshore.
Above the marshes came the rubbish tip, and then the
rough fields began, just good enough for the farmers to
fence. She heard her name called, or rather she saw it, since
the words were blown away instantly. The marshman was
summoning her.
`Good morning, Mr Raven.' That couldn't be heard either.
Raven acted, when no other help was at hand, as a kind of
supernumerary vet. He was in the Council field, where the
grazing was let out at five shillings a week to whoever would
take it, and at the extreme opposite end stood an old chestnut
gelding, a Suffolk Punch, its ears turning delicately like pegs
on its round poll in the direction of the human beings in its
territory. It held its ground suspiciously, with stiffened legs,
against the fence.
When she got within five yards of Raven, she understood
that he was asking for the loan of her raincoat. His own
clothes were rigid, layer upon layer, and not removable on
demand.
Raven never asked for anything unless it was absolutely
necessary. He accepted that coat with a nod, and while she
stood keeping as warm as she could in the lee of the thorn
hedge, he walked quietly across the field to the intensely
watching old beast. It followed every movement with flaring
nostrils, satisfied that Raven was not carrying a halter, and
refusing to stretch its comprehension any further. At last it
had to decide whether to understand or not, and a deep
shiver, accompanied by a sigh, ran through it from nose to
tail. Then its head drooped, and Raven put one of the sleeves
of the raincoat round its neck. With a last gesture of
independence, it turned its head aside and pretended to look
for new grass in the damp patch under the fence. There was
none, and it followed the marshman awkwardly down the
field, away from the indifferent cattle, towards Florence.
`What's wrong with him, Mr Raven?'
`He eats, but he's not getting any good out of the grass.
His teeth are blunted, that's the reason. He tears up the
grass, but that doesn't get masticated.'
`What can we do, then?' she asked with ready sympathy.
`I can fare to file them,' the marshman replied. He took a
halter out of his pocket and handed back the raincoat. She
turned into the wind to button herself into her property.
Raven led the old horse forward.
`Now, Mrs Green, if you'd catch hold of the tongue. I
wouldn't ask everybody, but I know you don't frighten.'
`How do you know?' she asked.
`They're saying that you're about to open a bookshop. That
shows you're ready to chance some unlikely things.'
He slipped his finger under the loose skin, hideously
wrinkled, above the horse's jawbone and the mouth gradually
opened in an extravagant yawn. Towering yellow teeth stood
exposed. Florence seized with both hands the large slippery
dark tongue, smooth above, rough beneath, and, like an
old-time whaler, hung gamely on to it to lift it clear of the
teeth. The horse now stood sweating quietly, waiting for the
end. Only its ears twitched to signal a protest at what life
had allowed to happen to it. Raven began to rasp away with
a large file at the crowns of the side teeth.
`Hang on, Mrs Green. Don't you relax your efforts. That's
slippery as sin I know.'
The tongue writhed like a separate being. The horse
stamped with one foot after another, as though doubting
whether they all still touched the ground.
`He can't kick forwards, can he, Mr Raven?'
`He can if he likes.' She remembered that a Suffolk Punch
can do anything, except gallop.
`Why do you think a bookshop is unlikely?' she shouted
into the wind. `Don't people want to buy books in Hardborough?'
`They've lost the wish for anything of a rarity,' said Raven,
rasping away. `There's many more kippers sold, for example,
than bloaters that are half-smoked and have a more delicate
flavour. Now you'll tell me, I dare say, that books oughtn't to
be a rarity.'
Once released, the horse sighed cavernously and stared at
them as though utterly disillusioned. From the depths of its
noble belly came a brazen note, more like a trumpet than a
horn, dying away to a snicker. Clouds of dust rose from its
body, as though from a beaten mat. Then, dismissing the
whole matter, it trotted to a safe distance and put down its
head to graze. A moment later it caught sight of a patch of
bright green angelica and began to eat like a maniac.
Raven declared that the old animal would not know itself,
and would feel better. Florence could not honestly say the
same of herself, but she had been trusted, and that was not
an everyday experience in Hardborough.