The Bermondsey Bookshop Read online

  He seemed mollified. ‘All right, then. When are you going?’

  ‘Saturday afternoon and Sunday. He’s coming to the Sunday lecture, so he’ll be driving me back in time for that.’

  Johnny shifted awkwardly in his seat and pulled at his collar. ‘I’ve got to say something, Kate. I know you’ve not had much experience with other fellers…’

  ‘No? What’s Stan, then?’

  ‘Stan’s an animal. I mean smooth-talking blokes like North.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Or like you?’

  ‘What? Leave off.’

  She waved the sheets of paper. ‘Actually, I have read your first article…’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It was OK.’

  He smiled into his beer.

  Johnny stayed in the Marigold till closing time and then walked her home. But instead of stopping at her house, they carried on till they reached East Lane river stairs. With the coal store looming to one side and the council’s refuse wharf to the other, it was a grim and smelly spot, but still, it had once been their playground, and they stopped at the wall where they had so often larked about as children. She remembered the games they’d played on the foreshore, looking for treasure.

  ‘Do you remember our mudlarking?’ she asked.

  ‘And the barge hopping.’

  Kate remarked that he’d been the most fearless of the gang, leaping from barge to barge far out into the river.

  ‘Oh, I just never learned to be afraid. Never had anyone to tell me off, did I?’

  ‘I always felt like the odd one out,’ Kate said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Because everyone used to take the mick – about the rags Aunt Sylvie made me wear and my dirty hair. They used to call me gyppo. You really don’t remember?’

  ‘No. I was too busy feeling the odd one out myself!’

  ‘You?’ she laughed. ‘All the girls were after you and all the boys wanted to be you.’

  ‘Didn’t seem that way to me. I just thought everyone was laughing behind me back ’cause Mum made such a show of herself coming home drunk every night.’

  He looked at her in the darkness and slipped his arm around her. ‘Two misfits. We should do all right together.’

  She leaned against him. Allowing the secret dream of her youth to play out. Testing to see if she really did love him, now that she was grown up. And when he turned her into his arms and kissed her – she found that she did.

  *

  However unconcerned she pretended to be, she was worried about going to Martin’s studio. She didn’t think he’d try anything on, but he was a complete unknown. Just like the place he lived. Fitzroy Square. It might as well have been the back side of the moon. He was cool and in control and she thought he’d probably mock her to his friends. She wished she could just see this as another job. She could solder a tin, mop a floor, serve a pint, but the idea of sitting still while a stranger stared at her for hours felt more dangerous than a stamping machine without a guard. Life had taught her the precious lesson of how to hide and disappear and stay out of people’s way. Being on show would be the hardest job she’d ever done.

  His car looked just right. It was dark green, with shiny chrome headlights and leather seats. But the man driving it was all wrong. It should have been Archie Goss, not Martin North, whisking her away from Boutle’s gates, for that had always been the dream. She squashed the feeling, trying to enjoy her small celebrity. To be picked up in any car would make her an instant object of envy among the soldering shop girls, but to be picked up in a Rolls-Royce had set the factory buzzing and now she could see the van drivers and young apprentices craning their necks to get a better view, not of her but of the vehicle that she was now seated in. One young boy called out cheekily, ‘Drive on, my good man, take me down the Blue to get me muvver’s shoppin’!’

  Conny and Marge, with huge smiles on their faces, were waving their arms as if she were leaving on a ship for America. Martin grinned. ‘Wave back at your friends!’

  ‘This is a bit of a show up,’ she said, pretending to be annoyed. ‘You should’ve met me round the corner. And you never said it was a Rolls!’

  ‘Does it make a difference?’

  She gave the girls a wave as the engine started up. ‘A few hundred quid’s worth, I should think.’

  He laughed. ‘It’s not mine! It’s my mother’s. She lets me have it because when I’m not painting I’m expected to be everyone’s chauffeur!’

  ‘I told you I could get the bus! You didn’t have to drive me.’

  ‘I meant my family – not you, Kate. I was dropping Aunt Violet at the bookshop and besides, this is entirely a pleasure trip.’

  He wove through the Saturday afternoon traffic, obviously an experienced driver. She was sure he was breaking a great many rules of the road as he cut across tramlines and shaved the sides of carts, drawing curses from cartmen. Once over Tower Bridge they cruised along beside the river, and she began to enjoy the experience. In the Strand, buses, cars and carts were so tightly packed they were forced to a standstill and Martin turned his attention from the road to her. Now that she knew he was looking at her as an artist, she supposed she should feel less self-conscious about his cool gaze. She didn’t, but she’d have to get used to it, just as she had to the flux fumes and intense heat of Boutle’s coke ovens.

  ‘Do you like working at the tin factory?’ he asked, as if reading her thoughts.

  ‘It don’t really matter whether I like it or not. It’s a bit like hell – but it’s saved me from starving and it’s saved me from living with me aunt, so you could say I love it.’

  ‘You don’t like your aunt? I adore mine. Aunt Violet’s a sweetheart. Hard to credit she’s Mother’s sister.’ He tapped a finger on the steering wheel and for the first time Kate saw him rattled. She didn’t think it was the traffic that was bothering him.

  ‘Don’t you like your mother?’

  He barked a short laugh. ‘Doesn’t really matter whether I like her. You could say I love her.’

  She began to warm to Martin North. He’d just told her he thought as much of his mother as she did of Boutle’s the tin basher’s. And he hadn’t been guarded or cool at all in letting her know it.

  When they turned into Fitzroy Square and he helped her out, she wished she’d been able to afford a new coat. Two ladies walked past arm in arm, immaculately dressed, with fur collars turned up and hats so wide they touched. Kate had borrowed Marge’s best coat, which swam on her and smelt of mothballs. Although the pedestrians were smart enough, the buildings in the square were soot-streaked and the railings around the central circular garden were peeling.

  He followed her gaze. ‘The garden is beautiful, isn’t it?’ She inhaled the smell of rain-washed grass and heard the sound of dripping trees. It softened the straight, sooty lines of the once-grand houses.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  Inside Martin’s house, a stone staircase curved up four flights. ‘My flat’s on the second floor.’

  Every inch of wall in the stairwell was covered in paintings. Some were huge, others tiny. Many were nudes: the male ones made her look away and the female made her glad she’d insisted to Martin that she wouldn’t be one of them.

  ‘Are these all yours?’ she managed to ask.

  He nodded, unlocking the door to his flat. ‘Yes. The other residents let me use the staircase as a gallery. Very useful for prospective buyers.’

  She followed him into a room whose walls were covered in painted friezes and panels. The colours reminded her of a fruit stall in Tower Bridge Road. Oranges and plums fought with apple greens and lemons, all against a background of tin blue. None of the furniture was new. The velvet cushions were faded and worn and a sagging sofa had been disguised with what looked like an old tablecloth.

  ‘Oh! I didn’t think it’d look like this!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Like what?’ he asked, fl
inging his cap onto a hook in the corner.

  ‘Like the bookshop!’

  ‘Ah! You have a good eye! Of course, the bookshop walls are largely my work.’ He glanced pleased that she’d noticed. ‘This is where I live and sleep.’ He glanced towards a wooden screen, painted with flowers, and she saw the end of a bed. ‘But this is where the work happens.’ He flung open two tall connecting doors and she walked into a bright, spacious room. In spite of the grey day, the floor-to-ceiling windows let light into every corner. He walked to a paint-spattered easel and took down a smock.

  ‘Here’s my working attire, did you bring yours?’ He rubbed his hands together, looking as excited as a child eyeing a jar of sweets.

  She nodded and wrapped the brown overall around her. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me in a frock?’ She’d bought a cheap second-hand dress at the old clo’ market. It was ridiculous, she knew, to be spending money she didn’t have, but she just couldn’t face coming here in her old dress.

  ‘No! Just as you are, and now, put on the bandana.’

  The red bandana covered most of her hair.

  ‘No. Too much hidden. Like this – may I?’ he asked. ‘More curls.’ He teased dark ringlets from beneath her scarf, placing them artfully, as if they’d fallen over her forehead while she was working.

  ‘Such beautiful hair,’ he said to himself. ‘Black with a flash of blue – a magpie’s wing.’

  The bare boards of his studio floor were dotted with a few rugs and now he kicked one aside, replacing it with a zinc bucket and scrubbing brush. ‘I borrowed these from Aunt Violet’s maid!’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘I want you like this.’

  He knelt, picked up the scrubbing brush in one hand and leaned on the bucket with his other, as if so tired he needed to prop himself up. He looked over his shoulder, a startled expression on his face, as if he’d been caught in some guilty act. As soon as she took up the pose she knew it was one she adopted when she was sure she was alone and she was so bone tired she needed a rest. And if someone had come up on her silently, she might well have looked guilty. She wasn’t being paid to rest.

  ‘I’ve decided to do a triptych. Cleaning. Reading. Resting. I want to start with cleaning.’

  He gave her a small cushion for her knees, which she hid beneath the folds of her overall.

  ‘Once I start I never like to give up till I’ve got the outline done. Just tell me if you get uncomfortable,’ he said reassuringly.

  Then it was as if he disappeared altogether. Kneeling wasn’t hard and she could rest on the bucket, but it was difficult to be under such intense scrutiny and yet feel entirely alone. He worked with such fierce, sharp brush strokes that she heard and sometimes felt the slate-blue paint splashing onto the canvas. She’d expected him to look at all those sketches and then make a more perfect copy now that he had her here. But he seemed to be painting the outline straight onto the canvas.

  She lasted an hour before her thighs turned to burning stone and her back muscles to taut agony. The edge of the zinc bucket felt as if it might slice through her palm. She was used to hard work, she was good at shrugging off pain. But this was excruciating.

  ‘Martin, can I move now?’

  He hadn’t heard her, but he’d said to let him know, so she said more loudly, ‘Martin, I’m a bit uncomfortable, can I stretch yet?’

  He seemed suddenly to realize she was there. ‘What? No!’

  He carried on for what felt like another hour, until she collapsed onto the bucket, then rolled into a ball, hoping if she stayed there the agonizing tightening of her muscles would stop. Then she pulled her legs under her, but an unbearable cramp seized her so that all she could do was yell, ‘I don’t want your money! I’m going home.’

  He put the paintbrush down and without any warning flipped her onto her back and pulled out her leg, shoving her foot up towards her head until she heard a crack.

  ‘You keep your bleedin’ hands to yourself! I told you, I’m not that sort of girl!’ she screamed, kicking him in the stomach so that he staggered back against his paint table, scattering paint tubes, brushes and a full palette onto the floor.

  ‘Ow! I promise I was only trying to help with the cramp.’

  Now she felt stupid for mistaking his intentions. ‘Well, you’re a bloody torturer. I’m on me feet all night at the Marigold and I don’t get cramp as bad as this!’ Her calf muscles were rock hard. She got to her feet and grabbed her coat and bag. She was almost at the door when he caught her.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Kate. I was thoughtless. I’m used to professional models… I just forgot you’d never done this before. Please, stay. We’ll have a rest in the sitting room… Here, sit in this chair, it’ll support your back.’

  She felt as if he were talking to his Aunt Violet. ‘I’m not an invalid – I just wanted to stretch a bit – but you wouldn’t let me!’

  ‘Sorry.’ He scrubbed at his thick hair with paint-covered fingers.

  She pointed. ‘Now you’ve got a flash of blue as well!’

  He teased out a long, blue-stained strand of hair over his forehead, going cross-eyed as he tried to see it, making her laugh in spite of herself.

  ‘I’ll get us some tea.’

  ‘You’re useless in a kitchen. Where’s the kettle?’

  ‘No! I insist, you stay there. We’ve got at least another hour’s work. I shall wait upon you, mademoiselle!’

  While he was brewing up on a gas ring in his studio, she rubbed her aching muscles and took a closer look around the room. Family photographs in silver frames lined the mantelpiece. She recognized his aunt in one, and there was a photo of a younger Martin in his army uniform. He looked so youthful she was surprised he’d been old enough to serve in the war. Perhaps he’d lied about his age. Next was a middle-aged couple she guessed were his parents. The man looked like an older Martin and the woman was a shorter, more forbidding version of Mrs Cliffe. She picked up the photo just as he came back in.

  ‘Yes. She is just as terrifying as she looks. Pray God you never have the dubious pleasure of meeting her,’ he said drily.

  It was an awful cup of tea, though presented beautifully, with bone china and sugar lumps and tongs. She added as much sugar as would fit into the tiny cup. At least he’d made an effort. ‘It’s a shame you don’t get on with your mother,’ she said. ‘I lost mine when I was little.’

  ‘Yes, Ethel told me you were an orphan.’

  ‘Did she?’ She was surprised to have been the subject of their conversation. ‘Why would she tell you that?’

  ‘Ethel is a remarkable woman. She is exactly what she seems. She’s kind, generous and she has a vision. She really does see her bookshop as a model for how things should be between the classes. To her we are all family.’

  ‘But I’m not even a member.’

  ‘I’ve heard that you’re invaluable – and I’m not talking about sweeping floors.’ His voice had taken on a gossipy tone and he offered her another tea. ‘Apparently, Lucy tells me, you give very good advice about matters of the heart…’ He winked at her.

  ‘What’s she been saying?’ And soon, with the tea and the chat, her tired muscles relaxed and she found herself agreeing to undergo another hour of torture.

  *

  The following day there were more breaks and Martin worked slowly. She saw that his palette was dotted with mounds of oil paint, so she assumed he’d successfully captured her outline in blue, as he’d wanted to. He seemed more relaxed now, and during one of the breaks he showed her some of his paintings that had been covered by cloths and propped against the studio walls.

  ‘These are commissions, waiting for clients to collect them.’ Most were large portraits of fashionable ladies, generally seated. But one was so stunning it caught her attention. It was almost monochrome, with the woman’s beautiful features chiselled by light, the dark hair framing an expressionless face, the white gown folded by shadows. It sent a chill through her. It was so cold.

  She cro
uched to look at it more closely, just to make sure. ‘I thought so – it’s the French teacher! Do you know her?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she’s a friend of my aunt. Her husband wanted a portrait… but these lot just pay the rent,’ he said dismissively. ‘Here are the ones I do for love.’

  He led her to another stack of paintings. They were in a different style altogether, with broader, more textured brush strokes. The subjects were mostly working women, mothers and children, people going about their everyday business on buses, in shops or their workplaces. His expression softened as he looked at them. But then she saw one larger than the rest that had been covered. Curious, she lifted the cloth. It was of a woman standing by a window, head lowered, looking at what appeared to be a photograph.

  ‘Oh, here’s another one of Nora!’

  ‘Yes, her husband rejected it. So, I painted that one.’ He nodded back to the cold-looking portrait. ‘Apparently, it was more to his taste.’ He was about to cover the picture again when she stopped him.

  ‘But I’ve seen her with that exact same look!’ It was astonishing to Kate that although the likeness didn’t really show off Nora’s exquisite beauty, he’d managed to capture her expression perfectly.

  ‘What “look” would that be?’ he asked in a cooler tone, making her wonder if she’d overstepped some invisible boundary of manners or class.

  ‘Sad.’

  ‘Really?’ He gave her a searching look and drew the cover back over Nora.

  She didn’t comment further, but let him flick through more canvases until it was time to go back to work. She could understand why any husband wouldn’t like that painting. It was as revealing as that sketch Martin had done of Kate herself reading Johnny’s article. But however Martin North had come to know Nora, the painting was so tender Kate couldn’t help suspecting she was more than just ‘a friend of his aunt’.

  *

  Towards the end of the day he told her he wanted to work on the Resting painting.