666 charing cross road, p.4
666 Charing Cross Road, page 4
Shelley hurried over to her bemused colleague. ‘Hey, what was that about? Who was she?5
‘Beats me.’ Ruthie shrugged. ‘Your Scotch lady is getting some pretty strong reactions. They mostly love her, though. There’s no denying it. She’s become, like, the most popular thing in the place, almost immediately.’
Shelley felt a little glow of pleasure at that. It had been she who had found her, lying neglected all this time. No one could deny her that small piece of success.
‘We could have merchandising for my shop,’ Ruthie said, her eye — as ever — on the business and touristy end of things. ‘T-shirts and mugs. Posters.’
‘Really?’
‘Honey, I know what tourists will buy. They’ll all love her. Listen up, she needs a name.’
‘You’re right. What about. . .’
‘Crazy lady told me what her name is. Just then, by the door.’
‘She did, huh?’
‘She said — get this — she said that the Scotch woman whispered it to her. Crazy lady leaned forward and touched her cheek and the effigy told her her name.’
Shelley shook her head. Daniel was right. They were attracting the wrong sort. And at the mention of patrons physically touching artefacts, she felt her own prissiness rising up. ‘Go on then. Hit me with it.’
‘Crazy lady says that our new guest of honour’s name is… Bessie.’
Chapter Four
Dear sir or madam,
Your advertisement in the back pages of Title Tattle was pointed out to me quite recently by a young friend in the book trade. I was delighted to see it.
My tastes tend to the esoteric and the somewhat slightly weird and macabre end of things. I desperately want to get my clutches on a number of elderly — mostly English — ghost stories and novels dealing with supernatural themes. All of them are out of print and mostly unheard of by the general reading public. None of them are available here in the Big Apple. Don’t ask me why. You’d think there’d be some kind of specialist bookstore somewhere on the whole of Manhattan island that could slake my fervid desire, wouldn’t you?
Fervid desire — you like that? Pretty Gothic, huh? Well, the thing is, every bookstore I have patronised for decades has turned its attention to the all-new and the all-shiny. Even the establishments that used to keep a dimly lit and select corner for used-and-second-hand have cleaned up their acts and made way for the new. As a lady of a certain age I could take it as a personal insult — this decluttering and despoliation of the detritus. It sends shivers through my very soul, this lack of respect for the redundant and the old.
I’m just so pleased to see that — judging by your lack of a website or even a phone — you have steadfastly refused to enter what is laughingly known as the twenty-first century. Seriously, guys, how do you manage that? How do you keep afloat in the modern world, doing enough business to survive, if you ignore the usual means of communication? Don’t get me wrong — I am agog with admiration at your bloody-mindedness. Blessings on your anachronistic behaviour, 666 Charing Cross Road!
Your address is so evocative to me. I’ve never been to London, though I would dearly love to visit. It is the home of so many of my favourite purveyors of spook stories. I fondly imagine the gloomy streets that Sir Oswald Arthur tripped up and down as he thought out his spectacular plots. Wandering about in a thick peasouper. Wearing an Ulster and a deerstalker, probably. And Lady Lucretia Noggins, that well-bred floozy. Her tales of torture and depravity are among my earliest loves in the genre. Fox Soames, of course, too, that great debunker of black magicians — his books, also, are unavailable here in NYC. Is this some great conspiracy, do you think? Is this the concerted efforts of the puritanical New World — keeping out the feverish and magical nightmares of the Old? I could heartily believe it.
So — I enclose a handful of American dollars. Go to it! Those three names I mention above — these are where I wish to start on my dark odyssey back into the creepy and not-so-remote literary past. I would be grateful if you could furnish me with volumes by these three luminaries — not expensive editions. (My tastes are cheap. I want reading copies. Paperbacks with the tackiest covers you can find. Pan paperbacks from the 1950s would suit me down to the ground.)
My eternal thanks, sir or madam! I am risking my dollars to the vagaries of our postal systems and flinging them upon your mercy. You might simply ignore this letter of mine and pocket the cash. I fervently hope you will comply with my request and hunt out the volumes I dreadfully desire. I lie here panting and delirious on this frosty November afternoon high above 84th and 2nd — dreaming of ghostly English writers. Don’t let me down, you guys!
Yours very sincerely,
Elizabeth Bathory
Liza wrote her letter the morning after the bookshop party. She had what she would have called a towering inferno of a hangover, and vague recollections of having been in some sort of terrible argument the previous evening. She took an Alka-Seltzer and tried to ignore the stirrings of her conscience. She used an old-fashioned nibbed pen and purple Indian ink to compose her letter to London.
When she finished, she read it back with great satisfaction, imagining the delights to come by return of international post. She made fiendishly strong coffee and wolfed a banana, which always helped her with hangovers. Then Jack rang from his bookshop.
‘I meant to call, to thank you for inviting me last night,’ she said. Though she couldn’t remember great swathes of the evening, she did recall Jack bundling her roughly into a cab at some point. Had there been a falling-out between them somehow?
Right now he sounded a bit off with her. ‘I wanted to make sure you hadn’t died in your sleep. Maybe swallowing your own forked tongue or something.’
‘What?’ she gasped. ‘Whaddya mean?’
‘I mean, my job’s in jeopardy here because of you. Everyone knows that you were here on my invite last night. Mr Grenoble says he’s very tempted to fire me on the spot.’
‘Fire you? But the place was packed for Moira whatsit’s party. It was a huge success, wasn’t it? With her launching her Anguished Juices, or whatever it was called.’
‘Oh, sure,’ hissed Jack. ‘It was going great. Until you decided to pick a fight with the celebrated author.’
Liza gulped. ‘I did?’
‘You don’t remember, do you?’
‘Erm…’ Actually, it was starting to come back now. She remembered coming face to face with the primped and painted clown, that dreadful Moira Sable person. She remembered feeling her blood begin to boil. She had groaned aloud all the way through Moira’s reading from her vampire novel, drawing strained looks from fellow partygoers. And then she had marched up to Moira and told her she was a phoney.
Moira Sable was a faded glamourpuss. Liza decided that she had put her bosoms on show in a misplaced attempt to distract her audience from her godawful prose - and told her so. ‘The thing is, I can tell,’ she had said. ‘I can sniff out phoneys and fakes. And you, my dear, have faked it. You’ve never had any true, first-hand experience of magic or mystery in your entire life, have you?’
The novelist stared at her. ‘What? Why should I? I… I use my imagination
‘And a pretty poor one it is too!’ Liza barked. ‘Well, I have lots of experience of real magic and mystery, as it happens, and I’m here to tell you, lady, that the stuff you put about is all lies. It’s dangerous lies. What you’re doing is glamorising the undead and those awful necrophiliacs who mess about with them. They’re filthy cadavers! Monsters! Trust me, I know all about this stuff! And you’re playing a despicable game, making them seem desirable.’
Moira Sable was starting to look alarmed by now. Of course it had fallen to Jack to sort out the situation. He prised Liza none too gently away from the famous novelist and guided her to the door. What was she yelling about? Real vampires and monsters? Where was she getting this stuff from?
Mr Grenoble had announced that he was banning Liza from his store for a month.
‘A month!’ gasped Liza, hearing this awful news now. ‘What am I gonna do?’
Jack gave an audible shrug down the line. ‘You should be glad it’s not even longer. Mr Grenoble is still furious this morning. Moira Sable says she’ll never darken our door again.’
‘Pah.’ Liza reflected that it was a good thing she’d put her order in with the shop at 666 Charing Cross Road. If she kept on getting banned from places, she would need all the new outlets she could find.
And what had she been thinking of? Blurting out to all and sundry about her actual experiences with the world of monsters, demons and dark forces? She’d have them all laughing at her. They’d think she was a mental case, some mad old coot.
She had vowed never to let any of that stuff slip past her lips. Not in public. Not to anyone.
Liza had seen too much. Too many spooky things.
And she had to keep quiet about them. She certainly wasn’t meant to rant about them drunkenly in the middle of Greenwich Village cocktail parties. Those days were far behind her now.
‘And you never said what you thought of Ricardo,’ said Jack, bringing her out of her reverie.
‘Who?’
‘My date. At the book party last night. He was enthralled by the whole thing. He thought you were fabulous, by the way, for starting a fight like that.’
‘Oh!’ Liza tried to picture him. Jack had a date? Jack had introduced him to her? She couldn’t remember at all, so she pretended. ‘He seemed very nice.’
‘You told me last night that he didn’t look very much like a reader to you.’
‘Did I? I’m such an awful snob.’
‘But he is! He’s a big Moira Sable fan. In fact, it was Ricardo’s strategic grovelling that calmed Moira down, after you attacked her for being such a phoney.’
‘Don’t remind me! I’m so ashamed!’
But something in Liza’s tone alerted Jack to the fact that she wasn’t ashamed one bit. In one way, he looked forward to getting old, if it meant behaving appallingly and getting away with it.
‘Did you really mean it?’ he asked. ‘That the only supernatural stories worth anything are the ones with some basis in reality?’
‘Of course!’ she said. ‘Don’t you think so too?’
‘But… but none of it’s real, is it? Isn’t it all made up? All the spooky stuff?’
‘Oh dear, Jack,’ she chuckled. ‘Do you really think that?’
‘Well… yes, I guess I do.’
‘Ah. Hmm. Well you’ve got an awful lot to learn, sweetheart.’ There was something very dark in her voice. There was so much lurking beneath the surface of everything she said, he realised. Yeah, I’ve got a lot to learn, he thought.
And this was the season that Jack’s education really began.
Chapter Five
November was well and truly with them now, making early mornings harsh and difficult. Especially for Shelley, she felt.
She and Jack met up a couple of times - having found out that they got on. Liza had brought them together as friends. They found they had things to discuss. Jack had a brand-new boyfriend, and there was lots to talk about there. Shelley’s relationship was a little older and she was thinking about taking it to what she called ‘the next level’.
They took a walk in the park to chew it over. The trees were putting on one last burst of glorious colour. The two new friends ate spicy nuts from a twisted paper bag, sitting on the grey granite rocks, watching the city at play.
‘It’s too cold to sit for long,’ Jack said.
Shelley smiled at him for being an old woman. They had a loose sort of arrangement, about heading to Dog Hill later in the afternoon and meeting Liza. For now they were content to wander and gossip about their boyfriends. Actually, Shelley had heard enough about the marvellous Ricardo by now. She hadn’t met him yet, but she felt like she knew way too much about him. Like many gay men, Jack could dish far too much information about some things.
It was as they were walking down one of the broader boulevards, luxuriating under the stirring shadows of the dying leaves, that she came out with her news.
‘You can’t!’ Jack gasped.
‘Why not? I’m sick of going back and forth on public transport. And it was Daniel’s idea, anyway. It’s not like I’ll be imposing… or moving too quickly
‘But moving in with the guy.’ Jack whistled. ‘And giving up your own place.’
‘My place is crappy. You’ve never seen it. It’s a single room and it’s damp and cold. It’s like sitting in a drowned woman’s handbag.’
He stared at her. ‘That line’s one of your Aunt Liza’s, right?’
‘Yeah, it’s what she said the one time she came to visit. About a year ago. The depths of winter is when my place is at its best. When the mould on the four walls is glistening and black.’
‘It sounds charming.’ Jack was thinking of his own place on Thompson Street, and how proud he was of it. How long it took him to get it. And how he wouldn’t let it go, no matter what.
‘So it’s pretty spiffy, I’m guessing, Daniel’s place?’
‘Five-storey brownstone in the West Nineties. He’s got two floors. He must have some serious money behind him. Family money.’ They meandered on a bit, stopping to stare at red squirrels as they dive-bombed and caromed about on the grass. Shelley was mentally kicking herself for sounding like some money-grabbing whore and wondering how to make herself appear better to her new friend.
‘I’m glad to hear it’s love as well,’ Jack said at last. ‘Not just, like, shallow greed.’
They both laughed.
‘Love him?’ She thought about this. ‘I suppose I must do. To want to take it to the next level like this.’ But really, she thought, I’m thinking less about love than I am the shortened commute to work. Or his beautiful polished wooden floors. She didn’t think much of the creepy paintings he had on the walls, or his rather masculine furniture…
‘Don’t do it, Shelley,’ Jack suddenly burst out. ‘It’s a huge mistake.’
‘What?’
‘I mean it. Your aunt would say the same, I bet. You try her out. She’d be appalled at you giving up your independence, just for an easy life.’
‘How do you know? You hardly know her…’
‘Just look at her! Your Aunt Liza has been independent all her life. She’s lived alone in her own place for over forty years. She’ll be horrified at you meekly moving in with your snobby boyfriend.’
‘Snobby!’ she gasped. ‘Meekly! Who says I’m moving in meekly?’
A family were passing them. Father with a toddler sitting on his shoulders, the older kid on a little bike. The mother raised both eyebrows. Shelley was sounding just about hysterical, Jack thought, as she defended herself.
He shrugged at her. ‘It’s up to you. But I wouldn’t trust him. I’m sorry. I’ve held off saying so, but I don’t think he’s right for you.’
‘What?’
‘I know I haven’t known you for long…’
‘You’re right there, buster. What gives you the right…?’
‘But I just have this feeling. And so does your Aunt Liza!’ He looked triumphant for a second. Then he saw Shelley’s face fall and felt instantly ashamed.
‘What? She doesn’t like Daniel either? She said that?’
Now he tried to wriggle out of it. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s up to her to tell you what she thinks.’ He started walking on ahead, hoping the crunch of dead leaves on gravel would drown out his guilty qualms.
‘But she’s confided in you? About Daniel? And me?’
He stopped. ‘Yeah. She did. I’m sorry, Shelley.’
‘Oh!’ Shelley looked as if she’d been slapped. Her long hair blew about around her face, some of it sticking to her mouth. She had a kind of careless, guileless look that made his heart go out to her. ‘How come you were talking about me like that?’
‘Because…’ He sighed. ‘Because we were both talking about Daniel and how we…’
‘How you what?’
‘Don’t like him much, I guess,’ he mumbled. ‘I guess that was the tenor of the conversation, yeah.’
They carried on walking in silence for a while. Their Sunday peacefulness was ruined, even though the sky was a bright, impeccable blue as they strolled purposefully, deeper into the park. Soon they would catch up with Liza, who’d be out with Rufus now, letting him off the lead in their special place, even though she wasn’t really supposed to, according to park rules. When they caught up with her, Shelley thought, her aunt would have some tricky questions to answer.
*
Dear madam,
We are very glad to have received your letter and your order. We hope that the books that we have chosen for you go some way to rewarding your faith in our ability to fulfil your needs. Please find enclosed four books. Three are by the authors you mentioned in your letter. We have chosen the three rarest of their works, all in pleasingly gaudy paperback editions.
We have taken the liberty, also, of including something we thought you might enjoy. A bumper volume of macabre stories edited by Fox Soames, The Best of the Books of Mayhem. Altogether the price of these first purchases from our humble shop comes to the equivalent of seven dollars ninety-six. This leaves you with a surplus of thirty-two dollars and four cents. Should we hang on to this and consider it credit for your next order? Please advise.
We, the staff at 66b Charing Cross Road, hope you will be pleased with this first foray into our endless stock. We hope you will remain a good customer of ours. We find that we have very loyal customers, with whom we have longterm and interesting relationships. Do note, however, madam, that our address is 66b Charing Cross Road. You appear to have misread it in our advertisement as 666. The satanic implications are amusing but not, I’m afraid, hugely practical. Our postal service has gone very downhill in recent years and any little mistake on the front of your envelope might result in it going astray for ever. So please do watch out. Some of the staff here did have a little chuckle with me, however, when I showed them your tiny slip. As it turns out, no one has ever made that connection before, between our address and the infamous number of the beast.
