“So you have never heard of Lever?”
“Never in my life. I know my grandfathers and my great-grandfathers. I assure you there were no English novelists among them. One fought for a time in Garibaldi’s red-shirted army, but that is as near to fame as we have ever got.”
“And your husband? You never heard him talk of a writer in his family tree?”
She laughed, almost merrily.
“Never! Not a chance of it. My Aldo, he fought the Germans all the way up Italy, and was wounded in Pisa. Perhaps one day those brave Italians will be as famous as Garibaldi’s men. But he and his family were shopkeepers, men of commerce. There was not a literary person among them.”
“So you have no copy of Malcolm Merrivale, no first edition?”
“No, alas. I have never heard of it, yet it must be famous for you to come all this way in search of it.”
“Not famous at all. Almost unknown, even to specialists in Irish literature. But we collectors — we must have our holding complete: a first of every title.” He saw incomprehension in her gaze. “I am wasting your time.”
“What else can I do with my time but waste it?”
Terry stood up and fumbled in the back pockets of his jeans.
“I must pay you for it nevertheless,” he added hurriedly, in case she was insulted. “Please regard this like any other commercial transaction, like selling a pair of gloves.”
But she was not insulted, and sat fingering and looking at the note.
“Oh, it’s the new stuff. So shoddy-looking...”
“But much the best stuff for buying things: food, coffee, medicines.”
“Oh, I know that. But the old stuff was so much more like real money, and the price looked so good on a pair of gloves in the window — so many lovely noughts in it, you felt like a millionaire if you sold anything.”
Terry escaped from the room, feeling as if he had escaped from a very classy sort of madhouse.
Declan Donnelly got out of bed, after two eventful hours. Every part of him seemed exhausted, and his legs seemed to have gone off on a separate existence. He pulled on his trousers and then put on his shirt, buttoning down the front in the wrong buttonholes. He tried to tie his tie, failed, and threw it down on the floor in disgust. He grabbed his coat and pulled it on. He was aware of a movement from the bed.
“You want to see the library?”
“Delightful and exciting though the last few hours have been,” he said in his suavest voice, “the library was part of our deal, as I’m sure you remember.”
“It is very good. You like,” said Signora di Spagna, jumping to the floor and leading him from the bedroom. They went back to the sitting room, the signora fetching a key from the mantelpiece and throwing open a door in the corner of the room and switching on a light.
Declan found himself looking into something between a large cupboard and a small room. It was packed with books, almost all paperbacks. The first title that met Declan’s eye was Kane and Abel. Then he saw a whole shelf-ful of Wilbur Smith. Then Riders, Joanna Trollope, Andy McNab. Another shelf-ful, this time of Barbara Cartland. Gaudy Night, which Declan had often thought the dullest book he had ever read. Goldfinger and Casino Royale. Several James Hiltons and The Blue Lagoon.
Declan Donnelly turned to his hostess.
“I ought to recommend you to take up reading,” he said. “There is a lifetime of experience awaiting you here. However, I am loath to direct you away from the activity which clearly you do best.”
And he turned tail and fled the flat.
There were many small bars between the Via Dante and the railway station. Terry went into several of them, and began to lose sight of which direction the railway station lay in. It was as he was coming out of the bar in the Via Rossi that he saw a familiar face.
“Scellerato! Ladro! Traditore!”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Declan, putting out a hand to steady Terry’s wavering body (though the hand itself shook). “Perfectly normal behaviour between competing collectors.”
“I saw you talking to that bloody Finn.”
“Why shouldn’t I talk to a Finn? Particularly one with information for a Leverite.”
“Ha! Information! Well, I can save you a bit of time if you’re on your way to talk to Signora Spagnoli.”
“To who? Never heard of her. I’ve been talking to Signora di Spagna. I can save you a bit of time if you’re on your way to talk to her.”
“I’m not.” They looked at each other. “That bloody Finn,” said Terry. “He couldn’t even remember her name, he was so drunk.”
“Finns are always drunk,” said Declan. “I wouldn’t mind betting there’s no descendant of Lever here, legit or illegit... Here’s a bar. Have another drink. Then we’ll get a taxi and take the last train home.”
So they had a last drink, swore eternal friendship, swore the finding of a first edition of Malcolm Merrivale was a game not worth the candle, and they’d give it up pronto. Then they went back out into the street, hailed lots of taxis, none of whose drivers wanted to pick up two drunken Brits (for they were both, in their different ways, respectable and casual, very recognizable) then began to make their way on foot to the station.
By chance, as they made their way like silent-film drunks, they walked along Via d’Orti, where at number 46, in a neat little upstairs flat, Valentine della Spanna was eating from a large box of chocolates, drinking from a bottle of finer wine than she had drunk for years, and contemplating a small gap in the dusty books on a high shelf in a dim part of the room — books written by some old geezer who somehow or other was connected with her, and which the slightly tipsy man from a country she had barely heard of had bought from her for a price (for he was a fair-minded man, this Finn, drunk or sober) which was a bargain for him and a prodigious windfall for her. He was a nice man, she thought, as she took another soft centre. And he had a lovely sense of humour.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: It should be emphasized that there is no resemblance in the characters or events in this story to the characters or events at the International Conference on Charles Lever in Pisa in September 2006, which the author attended.
Dead Close
Lin Anderson
Doug Cameron stared wide-eyed into the darkness, his heart racing, fear prickling his skin. The dream. As fresh now as it had been seventeen years ago. For a few moments Rebecca was alive, the swell of her pregnancy as clear as her terrified expression, then she was running from him as though he was the source of her fear.
A police siren wailed past in tune with his thoughts, its blue light flickering his rain-splattered window. He rose and went to watch the squad car’s progress, leaning against the window frame, reminding himself that in forty-eight hours that sound would belong to his past. Just like the view from the bedroom window. Just like Rebecca.
When he felt steadier, he went through to the kitchen and began the process of making coffee, glancing at the photograph on the fridge door as he fetched out the milk carton. He’d taken the picture from the garden of his future home. A view of the flat-topped slopes of Dun Caan on the Island of Raasay instead of Edinburgh Castle. Not a bad exchange, he decided.
Cameron settled at the kitchen table, pulled over his work box and began the intricate task of tying a new fishing fly. The only thing that helped him forget the dream, and the past.