Wish Upon a Star (20 page)

She turned a corner and was hit with a scent-wall of incense, which was being sold by a couple who, between them, had more face piercings than Claire had seen on all of Staten Island. She tried not to stare, but the next table had vendors with multi-colored punked-out hair. And though they weren’t pierced—at least not in a visible place—one had a spider-web tattoo across his face.

Here, however, in the sort of medieval market-day atmosphere, no one seemed particularly freaky or freaked out. The spider man was wrapping a purchase, handed a middle-aged lady in a crocheted hat a bag and her change and said, ‘Thank you, luv.’

In fact, everyone seemed very polite. Whenever she was jostled, someone excused themselves. She did make sure to keep her bag tight under her arm but happily wandered from stall to stall examining everything from Peruvian sweaters (very loosely knit) to hand embroidered saris from Bengal.

After more than an hour she wandered out of the enclosure and on her way back along Chalk Farm Road she found an entirely separate entrance to a market even more interesting. It was in a far less tidy warehouse, and the interior was musty, filled with room after room of stalls. They had the sort of clutter that Claire used to see at Tina’s school, Our Lady Help of the Christians, Christmas bazaar—ashtrays, vases, figurines, and dishes—but all of it seemed so much older and quainter. There were stalls that specialized in fifties memorabilia, ones with antique dolls and toys, tables and tables of old costume jewelry, then to Claire’s surprise and delight she found a small table in one corner with nothing but old knitting bags, needles, and patterns. Thinking of her two skeins of wool and the needles back in her room made Claire feel comfortable, as if she had someone at home waiting for her. But these new, or rather old, needles were so tempting.

‘They’re vintage,’ a young woman with her hair in a forties snood told her. ‘The ones there are Bakelite. Collectors’ items, really.’

Claire looked at the dozens of colorful needles—yellow, green, magenta, and baby blue—each with a different colored cap that had the needle size inscribed on it. It would be wonderful to have another pair or two, and when Claire thought of the hands that must have held these needles, knitting with them decades ago, she felt such a strong yearning to own some that…

‘How much are they?’ Claire was prepared to hear any number, not that she could have afforded much.

‘Two pounds the pair,’ the woman told her. ‘I could do you three pairs for five pounds.’

Claire couldn’t believe her good luck. Somehow it seemed like an omen. She fished in her purse, found five pounds in coins and handed it over. While the needles were being wrapped, she looked with longing at a cretonne knitting bag with a stand. But didn’t allow herself to even think about another purchase.

‘Are you a collector?’ the woman asked. Claire smiled. The idea of collecting something as practical as knitting needles never occurred to her.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m a knitter. Do you know where I could buy yarn?’

‘Haven’t a clue, I’m afraid,’ the woman told her. She handed her the needles wrapped in a bag. ‘Most people want them for their looks.’ Then she turned to talk to another browser and Claire walked away to continue looking round the market.

But the day grew cooler and she became tired. She also felt the beginnings of hunger. Well, she would have to learn to feast her eyes instead of her stomach. She told herself, quite sternly, that she had spent enough money for the day. She would walk back to Chamberley Terrace.

It was twilight, and this time the walk seemed very tiring. As the light waned so, again, did her courage. She had been with Michael Wainwright for such a short time, just a few days. But she had had the week of looking forward to going away with him and the year before that of fantasizing. Now, she realized she had nothing. For even the fantasy had been exposed as ridiculous. Any time Mr. Wonderful had spent with her had merely been time that Katherine Rensselaer had denied him.

Alone in the twilight in a city she did not know, among strangers, Claire felt loneliness again engulf her, almost as physical as the cold damp that came up from the sidewalk. She shivered. For the first time she asked herself what in the world she had done. She had whimsically turned her back on everything that she knew. She looked around her at the darkened street, the houses with lights just going on. Nobody in the whole world knew where she was right now, and there wasn’t a house anywhere with lights on and people waiting for her. What had she done?

Just then, and only twenty feet away, a door opened and two women, one of them pulling a little grocery trolley, walked out into the street. They were chattering and, though Claire couldn’t hear what either of them were saying, she heard one of them laugh. Clearly, they were friends, and she reminded herself she could make friends too. She straightened up, fastened the top button of her raincoat and stepped into the darkness with the determination of making a new life for herself.

Chance plays a large part in life and—though given lip service—is rarely acknowledged on a daily basis. The smallest thing—the change of a traffic light or the twitch of a muscle—can alter everything. The next morning Claire was greeted by the noise of wind rushing through the branches of the trees on Chamberley Terrace. Claire wondered if it was an east wind, the magical one that blew in Mary Poppins.

She dressed and felt both very hungry and very cheerful. Tired the evening before, she’d consulted Abigail’s guide and already knew how she would spend the day. But it wasn’t the scheduled sights that changed her life. It was a single glance.

Claire was walking down a charming street of shops and was about to pass a small doorway when the cat sitting in the window beside it caught her eye. Had the cat not swung its tail at that moment, Claire never would have met the man who became so important to her.

The store was a used bookshop and almost unnoticeable. Claire was by no means the only person who had walked by without registering its existence. The windows—for there were two—were on either side of the door that was several steps down from the sidewalk. Now Claire noticed a hand-lettered sign over the door that said ‘Books For Sale’ and so, partly because of the cat and partly because she had nothing more to read, she stepped down into the gloom.

A little bell jingled as the door banged against it. It was a surprisingly large store with long shelves of books running from front to back but, oddly, there was no sales counter or register in the front. Claire wondered for a moment what would stop a shoplifter from picking up any of the volumes on offer, turning around and walking back up the stairs.

The shop was quite dark, but as she stood hesitantly a switch must have been flicked and one of the seven rows of books was lit. Claire thought of Mary Poppins and her visits with her charges to the strange and magical shops that disappeared when Jane and Michael came back alone to look for them.

‘Hello,’ a voice called and Claire was reassured enough to move down the dimly lit corridor of books to the back. There, Poppins-like, was a tiny living room of sorts. Two armchairs, a desk, a small table set for tea and a glass-fronted cabinet made a pleasant little room. The threadbare Persian rug was piled with books, but that only increased the charm for Claire.

Most charming of all was the long thin man standing at the table pouring tea out of a tarnished silver teapot. ‘Oh, hello,’ he said. ‘Cup of tea?’ He looked like a line drawing, perhaps by Modigliani: sloping shoulders, long arms, long legs, and a long but handsome face with a very long nose. If the Pied Piper ran a bookstore he would look like this. His hair, almost the sandy brown color of Claire’s own, was fine as thread and cut in a surprising bowl shape that Claire hadn’t seen on a child over the age of five. It was almost medieval. The haircut, however, suited him and under the bangs—which she was to learn was called a fringe—round eyes looked mildly at her as if she had been expected.

‘Yes, please,’ Claire said. There were four or five teacups on mismatched saucers on the tray. The colors and patterns fought madly amongst themselves, as if a small flock of hummingbirds were perched there. He surveyed her mildly then looked back at the cups and saucers, obviously selecting based on some formula known only to him. For a moment Claire was reminded of the Mad Hatter’s tea party but this man looked far too gentle to be mad. And all the cups did look clean.

‘Shall I be Mum?’ he asked, a tone of irony in his voice. She couldn’t imagine why he would want to be silent, so she didn’t respond, though she thought perhaps it was best for her to simply shake her head and leave. But then he picked up the milk pitcher and poured out some milk into the cup. Claire wondered again what one had to do to get tea without cream, but it was obviously too late to ask for it now. He poured milk into a second cup and in a moment had added tea. He put a tiny silver spoon on each saucer and handed one to her. Then he folded his long legs into one of the chairs. ‘Are you looking for something special?’ he asked.

Claire looked down at the teacup. It was very beautiful. Birds holding garlands darted over an azure ground. On the saucer roses and lilies of the valley alternated up to the gold rim. ‘Not really,’ Claire said in response to his question.

‘Wonderful. I hate people looking for one specific book, one author. There are thousands to peruse. It’s not as if these are first editions.’

Claire, for lack of a better thing to do, took a sip of the tea. It was strong and hot. She realized it was not only dim but also musty in the shop. The shopkeeper wore a sweater and a sports coat over it along with fingerless gloves. She shivered, and wished she had her scarf finished.

‘Do sit down,’ he offered. She gingerly obeyed him, sitting at the edge of an old leather-covered armchair. Looking around she realized the ceilings were at least twelve foot high and shelves ran not only up and down the aisles but they also covered the walls right up to the ceiling.

‘How do you organize these?’ she asked, her library science-self coming to the fore.

‘Rather casually, I’m afraid,’ he told her, as he turned to the tray, picked up a little silver tongs and dropped a lump of sugar into his cup. ‘I had a plan, and adhered to it quite religiously for years, but I seem to have lost my faith.’ He gestured to the right with his long hands. ‘Originally, it was fiction to the left and non-fiction to the right. Fiction by authors, and alphabetical. Non-fiction by subject. But that plan began to bore me. I admit the practical virtue of it, but consistency being a hobgoblin and all I decided that time should play a factor and reorganized by eras.’

‘Errors?’ Claire asked, doubting his sanity more than ever. Was he talking about some organization based on misprints? She glanced at the thousands of volumes again. How many misprints could there be?

He took another sip of tea. ‘Yes. You know, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, Pre-World War One, Between the Wars…’ He stopped.

She realized he had been talking about eras and was glad she hadn’t spoken. She was finding that here in London her slight reticence served her well. She looked at the darling mismatched cup and saucer and then noticed that her tiny teaspoon was shaped like a palm tree with a monkey cunningly holding onto the top of the tree.

‘Of course,’ the man continued, ‘I saw the flaw of that system almost immediately. I mean what about nationality? The Great War was seen very differently by the American expatriates in Paris and the English at home. And you couldn’t consider Flaubert Victorian. So then I thought…’ he paused. ‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ he said. ‘Would you care for sugar? And am I boring you?’

‘No and no,’ she said. ‘Actually, at one time I planned to be a librarian.’ Expecting praise or at least some positive acknowledgment he surprised her by shuddering.

‘Oh, that library science stuff. Dewey Decimal? Do we care? What monstrous nonsense that was,’ he said. ‘Absolute subjectivity posing as objectivity. Keeping and arranging books is an art, not a science. I have worked out several different schemes for my non-fiction, all much better than Thomas Dewey’s. By the way, I’m Toby Stanton.’ He put his teacup down and reached forward, putting out his hand.

‘I’m Claire Bilsop,’ she said and shook his half-clad hand.

‘Bilsop? English name I think. But you’re from the States. New York?’

‘Yes,’ Claire told him. ‘I never liked the Dewey Decimal system in the Tottenville library,’ she admitted. ‘When they taught it to us in grade school they said it was scientific but even then I thought it was subjective.’

‘A woman of sense!’

The more she looked at Toby, the more Claire liked what she saw. He wore long but shapeless corduroy trousers and had one leg casually crossed over the other, showing brown socks with what looked like little embroidered lines from the ankle up. His eyes were very blue and his cheeks and the end of his nose quite pink.

‘But, of course, the problem with creating a new categorization is that none is perfect and, in the end, each becomes deeply personal and arbitrary.’ He smiled, then sighed. ‘I reckon no one could find a volume here unless they had either psychoanalysed me for decades or dissected my brain.’

‘Both options seem rather extreme,’ Claire said. ‘Perhaps just a card catalog to begin.’

Toby laughed. ‘Aah, a rationalist. I like that.’ He looked around again. ‘The problem is, I’m so busy trying to perfect the arrangement that I haven’t time to catalog them. And then, of course, people buy them, and that can completely change the relationship between one book and the next on a shelf. Are you in London long?’

Claire was taken by surprise. She supposed it was not a personal question, as most people had a clear answer: a week for holiday, term at school, a short visit to family. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been here before. I’m seeing if I like it.’

‘And how long have you been here?’ he asked.

‘Five days,’ she said.

‘And how do you like it so far?’

‘I love it,’ Claire said. ‘I can’t think of one thing I don’t like. At least not yet.’