Kissing Alice Read online

  ‘Unique,’ said Maggie, pleased with the word.

  ‘Absolutely. Unique.’

  ‘But you know it’s one of those, or like one of those?’ said Eddie, waving faintly at the librarian’s reference volume.

  ‘Well, we can use this to assist us in tracking down your copy. We can piece things together, like a jigsaw, if you like, or some splendid kind of mystery. We can confirm what we do know and attempt to surmise the rest. Like I say – conjecture.’ The librarian looked up at them. ‘And what we do know, certainly, is that there are fifty-four plates in a complete copy. And you don’t have that. There are not fifty-four plates here.’

  ‘That’ll be Alice,’ hissed Maggie, ‘I told you, that’ll be her.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not a problem. I can see there are one or two pages missing here, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean,’ said the librarian, ‘is that you don’t have a full book of Songs. You never had a full book of Songs. You don’t have Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. You just have Experience. Look.’ He read quickly from the directory in his hand. It was nonsense. ‘The first copies of the combined Songs in which the two sections were printed together were A and R in 1795. That same year, Blake printed eight sets of Innocence and nine sets of Experience impressions to form Innocence copy N, the “Innocence” section of combined Songs copy J, the “Experience” sections of combined Songs copies J, O and S, and both sections of combined Songs copies I, L, M and BB. “Innocence” of combined Songs copy O was once joined with “Experience” of combined Songs copy K, and untraced Innocence copy W was probably once combined with “Experience” of combined Songs copy N.’

  He did not take a breath but Eddie blew hard through his teeth as the recital ended and then, because he couldn’t help it, he laughed. Maggie thought she was annoyed with him, but found herself laughing too.

  ‘Let’s look at the pages themselves,’ said the librarian.

  And it was easier then, with the book in front of them, to understand. Maggie thought she grasped it.

  ‘So what we have is just the Songs of Experience, from 1795, printed by Blake,’ she said, her hands flat on the table to hold things tight.

  ‘Yes, I would think so,’ said the librarian.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, I suppose, which copy it is, though, precisely,’ said Eddie, from his post at the edge of the room.

  The librarian thought it did. ‘Well, sir, it does make a difference – to know for sure,’ he said.

  ‘And it’s a shame,’ said Maggie, ‘not to have the whole thing.’

  ‘It is the whole thing, in its way,’ said the librarian. ‘There may once have been a Songs of Innocence attached to it, but we don’t know that for certain. It’s speculation. Quite possibly this was all there ever was. Quite possibly it’s exactly what Blake intended. What you have is very special.’

  ‘And valuable?’ asked Maggie.

  He nodded.

  Maggie asked then what would happen about the missing pages. ‘We gave them away to someone. And we can’t get in touch,’ she said, still not quite believing they had failed to find Alice. It seemed her father’s fault.

  ‘Well, I think you’ll have to do without them. I can’t see what alternative there is. It’s part of the book’s history, I suppose,’ the librarian said, but there was regret in his voice. ‘We could bind in blank pages, so that it’s correctly configured, and you could write a note, explaining what happened, to create a full provenance. I think that’s the best you can do. I can’t see any alternative.’

  Maggie felt she had disappointed him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  He shrugged.

  The librarian carefully gathered up the pages, taking a long time. Maggie picked up her bag to leave, pulling out a cardigan. Without the light from the sun the blinded room seemed colder than it was. Eddie had not moved, but he turned now slightly to reveal what they had left behind.

  ‘And what about this one, with the writing? What’ll we do with that?’

  Afterwards, when he was sitting in Maggie’s back room watching the cars pulling in and out of the garage forecourt opposite and thinking about things, he wondered why he had said anything at all. He did not want the letter taken away from him. He wanted to keep it. It was his. But by then it was too late.

  ‘You’re sure this is the same?’ asked the librarian warily as he picked the sheet up in his gloved hands and brought it to the table.

  ‘I am,’ said Eddie. ‘I cut it from the book myself, you see.’

  The librarian nodded. He had read the first lines of the text. ‘It does look the same, the same folio size, the same texture. I just thought, for someone to have done this…’

  ‘It was my Aunt Alice,’ said Maggie, but of course this did not mean anything.

  ‘Well, it’s just as before,’ said the librarian briskly, in an effort to keep distaste from leaking into his words. ‘It’s a question of provenance. In a strange way it may add value. You never know.’ He handed the paper to Eddie. ‘It’s up to you, of course, but I can only recommend that you reconstruct as much of the original book as possible, whatever the condition.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Maggie. ‘We can put it in, can’t we, Dad?’

  The days seemed short and melodic and Maggie tiptoed through them, waiting for the book to be finished. When it was ready she went with the librarian to the binders’ workshops, a skein of concrete cabins that felt as if they might be underground and were more industrial than she had imagined. There was the dry, unromantic reek of ink and plastic, and blue-overalled men chewing gum.

  When she saw the book again, there was a moment of disappointment. She had expected more. The calfskin binding that her father had unrolled from his pocket shone falsely in the strip lights and the slim brown book sitting on the binder’s table, pushed up towards an uneven skyline of newly covered theses and library catalogues, looked unassuming and lifeless and unremarkable. They provided a supermarket carrier for her to take it home, and a lengthy itemized bill for the reconstruction. She doubted, then, that things would come right.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Mags, in the end,’ said Eddie, from far away.

  ‘Oh, but Dad, all that money.’

  ‘It’s a speculation,’ he said. He thought he heard the sniff of a tear. ‘What comes next then? What do we do with it now?’

  ‘We have to get it authenticated properly.’

  ‘Hasn’t he done that already – the man at the library? I thought he knew what it was.’

  ‘He does, I hope he does. But everyone has to be sure. It has to be a world expert. That’s why I’m wondering. What if we’re wrong? What if he got it wrong after all?’

  And the doubts stayed with Maggie, pricking through her days.

  But the librarian was not wrong. His word was endorsed by a woman from an American university who travelled, first class, to the library to see the book and who, either because of jet lag or the excitement of what she found, had to sit for a long time in the corner of the room sipping a glass of British tap water. She signed a great many papers before she left, and had her photograph taken with the book, for posterity. All this too, Maggie had to pay for. And then, finally, after a much longer time than either Maggie or Eddie had envisaged, the book was put into auction.

  ‘Why can’t it happen here in Plymouth? Why does it have to be London?’ moaned Eddie when he found out. ‘I can’t come to London.’

  Maggie snapped at him. ‘Of course you can come. I’ll sort it out. Someone will sort it out. Dad, they’ll want us to be there.’

  But she found she could not discuss accommodation for her ageing father with the staff at the auction house. She also found that the train from the West Country was expensive, that Eddie had less money than she had ever imagined, and that the amorphous, slippery fear of something going wrong with the sale of the book incapacitated her.

  ‘The book’ll sell, my love, whether we’re there or not,’ Eddie pointed out. ‘It’s not like we
can do anything.’

  ‘But Dad, I want to be there. I want to see it sold. It’s just I can’t seem to sort it out.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mags,’ said Eddie.

  ‘It’s a big thing, Dad. We should be there.’

  On the other end of the phone, Eddie cleared his throat, covering the receiver with his flat palm. ‘I’m not sure it’s worth going all that way for,’ he said in the end, still gruff.

  A photographer from the Plymouth Herald came to take a photo graph of Eddie on the steps of his garden shed, a large pair of scissors in his hand and some sheets of rather flimsy A4 paper clasped in the other. The photographer was on his way to an under-11s netball match and could not stay when Eddie invited him in for a coffee.

  ‘Still,’ he said, as he packed away his camera, ‘it’s history being made, isn’t it, something like this. Plymouth heritage. Like the Armada.’

  Eddie could not shake the thought of this. That evening he told Maggie what the photographer had said.

  ‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with Plymouth,’ said Maggie, fiddling with the tight-coiled wire of the telephone. ‘It’s just where you live, that’s all. It just happened that way.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know – it’s something to be proud of,’ said Eddie, flicking open the edge of the curtains as he spoke, looking beyond. ‘If I’m doing something like that, contributing to the heritage, making history…’ Eddie puffed into the handpiece, a sound that reached Maggie like distant waves. ‘Well, it makes everything worth while, doesn’t it?’ Eddie saw nothing of what passed in the bright street. He let the curtain fall back.

  ‘I don’t see, Dad,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Well, it’s like everything I’ve done, it would be something, wouldn’t it? You and Florrie, the navy, all those rules: it’d not be lost, would it? I’d be doing something that would matter; that would last. Heritage, he called it, you see, the man from the Herald.’

  ‘Does this mean you want to go to London after all?’

  ‘I think maybe I should, Mags, if you don’t mind. If it’s going to be a big thing, in all the papers.’

  But it was unlikely that the story would have surfaced again, had not someone happened to mention to reporters that there was also the curious handwritten note, rather alarmingly erotic, the evidence of lost love. This was enough to spark things. The Plymouth Herald ran a spread and soon there were headlines blazing with speculation, and more photos of Eddie, taken indoors with soft lighting or with the sweeping prospect of the sea behind him. In some of these he appeared to be wearing makeup to soften the blemishes of his skin, and in one he was blowing forlorn kisses on the wind. The story was picked up for a moment by tabloids and talk shows, on local radio stations and in bulletins beating across the globe, everyone wanting to know who she was, this woman who had written so passionately.

  Eddie did not give out her name. He wanted to keep Alice to himself. The clamour of public attention drew her away from him, further and further, fading, and all he was left with was his image in the newspaper photographs looking old and dazed. He could hardly remember the phrases in the letter and Alice’s voice was lost in the din. It was as though he had never known her. It seemed to be just what the Herald had predicted, an event larger than them both, momentous, remote. He saw, too late, that this was the defeat of him. He felt the terrifying strangeness of it, travelling up to London on the train, and as he looked out at the flat land passing, smooth in the inland heat, it seemed that his substance was draining from him and only the steady rhythm of the tracks beneath was holding him together.

  Maggie was bright in the void of the station, her red jacket and matching shoes beckoning to Eddie through the din of the diesel and the garbled announcements. She hugged her father with unabashed vigour.

  ‘It’ll be fine, Dad.’ She touched his arm as she took his case. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I just hope they let us alone, Mags.’

  ‘You could have worn a disguise.’ Maggie laughed. ‘A wig or something. If you had more hair they’d never recognize you.’

  She seemed busy with things, his case and her purse, a slip of hair across her eyes. Eddie had to interrupt her.

  ‘Mags, about the book… and Alice. I know you’ve read things in the paper, about when the letter was written…’

  She kept walking, threading through the gathered travellers at the front of the station.

  ‘I know there’ve been things written, about me and Alice – about how it was going on even before I married your mother…’ Eddie was puffing slightly at the determined trot of her pace. ‘But Mags, I don’t want you to think… it’s just talk, Maggie – it’s nothing. I never knew – until I saw the letter, I never knew, and that was much later, after your mother had died. Mags, there was just Florrie and me.’

  In the blank light between the high brick buildings, alongside the drone of the taxi rank, Maggie stopped. She turned back to him. ‘Do you really want to talk about it, Dad, here?’

  Eddie raised his eyes to the heavens in the hope of finding a suitable answer but saw only pigeons circling haphazardly in the hazy summer sky.

  ‘It’s nothing; a fuss about nothing,’ he said.

  Maggie flicked her eyebrows fiercely. ‘It doesn’t matter, Dad. It’s good for the sale.’

  Eddie could not look at her. ‘Oh Mags,’ he groaned.

  They waited in the line for a taxi. They could hear the howl of pan pipes somewhere within the noise of the traffic.

  ‘It was your Auntie Mary who told the papers,’ Eddie said, pulling his suitcase close. ‘It was her who said about the letter.’

  Maggie blinked at him. ‘Mary?’

  ‘She saw the photo of me in the Herald and rang them up.’

  Maggie edged him up the queue. ‘What on earth would she do that for?’

  ‘It’s the whole idea she’s never liked, the whole idea of me and Alice. It’s not really anything to do with her…’ Eddie shrugged. ‘But still…’

  ‘She must be jealous of all the attention. And the money. She must feel left out.’

  ‘Charlie says the whole thing’s made her cry. She’s in a state. They’re not talking to me,’ said Eddie.

  Maggie looked away to where the taxis were turning into the bay. Eddie touched her gently, on the firm ridge of her back, and she turned to him.

  ‘It’s you, Mags, that’s important. That’s the thing. If you don’t mind…’

  Maggie smiled with spare lips. ‘I can’t see how it’s your fault,’ she said.

  They had lunch together, buying a sandwich and sitting on a bench in Trafalgar Square amid the spirals of birds, and then they took another taxi, when it was time, to the auctioneer’s. Eddie was surprised at the speed with which things were moving.

  ‘We’ll keep out of the way,’ he said as the taxi slowed. ‘Just tuck in somewhere at the back.’

  Maggie smiled at him. ‘Don’t be scared, Dad. It’ll turn out fine.’

  And because they had arrived early, they were shown to seats quite near the front of the saleroom, but no one took any notice of them and Eddie sat quietly with his hands folded. He was grateful for the air conditioning.

  In time the esteemed and portly Mr Theodore Wilcox PhD, auctioneer, shook their hands, slightly sweaty, and wished them luck. They were given a complimentary catalogue and a glass of wine each. Eddie put his wine under his pink-plush chair and, much later, found his glass had tipped and a puddle of chardonnay was leaking into the fine pile of the carpet. They felt as if they should whisper, even though the crowd that was gathering slowly around them was full of crisp voices, and when the auctioneer climbed on to his dais and began to shuffle papers, Eddie took Maggie’s hand and squeezed it. Everything was bustle and noise and not quite identifiable.

  ‘There’re a lot of bow ties,’ whispered Maggie, and they both laughed at this because it was so obvious.

  It was a relief when the librarian, unequivocally plain and familiar, tucked through the row of c
hairs in front of them and reached across to shake their hands. He, too, kept his voice low and was pink in the cheek and chin. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief before he spoke, but did not mention the heat swelling outside the room.

  ‘It’s rather a mêlée, isn’t it?’ He smiled. ‘Lots of American interest, I hear. And Japanese. We’ll do well to keep it. But it should be good for you; it’ll push up the price. There are silly prices being paid at the moment. Nothing the libraries can compete with.’ He remembered the hours he had spent alone with the book in the cool quiet, studying it with a magnifying glass, and the days on which the thought of it had sustained him. ‘Still,’ he added, before he moved away.

  Eddie, turning to watch the librarian make his way down the side of the room, was not quite sure about what he saw next. Maggie had her eyes fixed on the auctioneer who, having arranged his papers was, in turn, intent on following the hands on the wide-faced clock as they ticked around the final minutes. She thought Eddie had nudged her by accident and did not respond. But Eddie prodded her again, hard in the ribs, because he could not be sure by himself, among the perfumed swarm of buyers and their consorts, among the tweeds and silks, among the excitable smart set of the arts sales market, whether the woman in a summer suit of bright florals and with her metallic hair cut short was indeed who he thought.

  ‘Mags,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Look!’

  But Maggie still did not turn.

  Alice stood for a moment at the back of the room to catch her breath. She felt her new skirt stiff around her waist. The murky heat of the city lay heavy on her lungs and she was disorientated by the bustle of the saleroom. Around her, people were taking the last seats, even the hard-bottomed chairs pushed against the wall, but she did not try for a place. She watched as the auctioneer, taking his final position on the podium, raised his hand for quiet, and then she walked swiftly down to the front, banging her large document case against chairs, knees and outstretched ankles as she passed.