The Apothecary Page 0,13

studied the board. “I told you I wasn’t any good.”

“When English people say that, they don’t mean it,” Benjamin said.

“Well, Americans do!”

“What’s Shiskin doing?”

I looked. “A man just sat down on his bench,” I said, and then I stared. “Oh, Benjamin, he took the newspaper!”

“What does he look like?”

“Plump. Nice coat. He has a black walking stick. How did you know that would happen?”

Benjamin peeked over his shoulder at the man, who moved lightly away, like a much smaller man, sauntering as if out for a Sunday stroll. He didn’t seem to need the walking stick, and swung it once in a circle. “I’ve never seen that man before,” Benjamin said.

“Do we follow him?”

Benjamin seemed unsure. “What’s Shiskin doing now?”

“Still reading the rest of his paper.”

Benjamin swept the chess pieces into his bag. “Let’s follow.”

We set out in the direction the man with the walking stick had gone, and I cast a glance back at Mr Shiskin, who looked up at me over his newspaper. I quickly turned around. Benjamin was ahead of me, and beyond him our target was waiting to cross a street.

We followed at a distance, down side streets to a handsome brick building with white trim, where the man went inside. A sign over the door said CONNAUGHT HOTEL. I thought the doorman gave us a suspicious look as we hesitated outside.

“Act rich,” Benjamin said. “Pretend we belong.” And he strode with a burst of apparent confidence and entitlement towards the hotel door.

I followed, having to take a few quick, not-so-confident steps to catch up to him. He nodded curtly to the doorman, who opened the door for us. I tried to think what Sarah Pennington would do: smile at the doorman? Flirt? Condescend? In my sudden shyness, I stared straight ahead, as if the doorman wasn’t there, which I knew wasn’t right at all.

There was a hush in the lobby. Plush carpet absorbed sound, the voices were muted and polite, and there were high notes of clinking glass from a bar somewhere. A carpeted staircase led up to the right of the dark, polished wood reception desk, and the man from the park bench was nowhere to be seen. Benjamin went to the desk.

“I’m meeting my uncle here,” he said. “He’s a bit fat, I’m always telling him, and uses this silly walking stick. Have you seen him?”

The long-nosed clerk at the desk gave Benjamin a level stare. “Many people use walking sticks,” he said. “May I ask your uncle’s name?”

“Oh, I just call him Uncle.”

There was a pause. “I’m sure you do. But that wouldn’t be what we call him, would it?”

“I suppose not.”

The clerk gave him a tight smile. “It’s not my place to determine which of our guests is more corpulent than others.”

“Well, I didn’t mean that—” Benjamin said.

“Good day, young man.”

“Oh!” a voice from behind me said. “It’s Jane from California.”

I turned to see Sarah Pennington standing in the lobby. It was as if, by trying to imitate her rich girl’s entitlement, I had summoned her into being. She wore a blue raincoat the colour of her eyes, and she stood with an older version of herself, a blonde woman with a dove-grey hat perched on one side of her elegant head.

“This is my mother,” Sarah said. “Jane is a new student at St Beden’s.”

“How do you do?” Sarah’s mother said.

“It’s really Janie,” I stammered. “I’m fine. And—this is Benjamin.”

“I know Benjamin,” Sarah said, smiling at him and then meaningfully at me. “Quick work, Janie.”

“Sarah!” her mother said.

I was shocked, too. I could feel myself blushing up into the roots of my hair. And Benjamin wasn’t acting rich anymore, in the presence of actual rich people. He seemed very interested in the buckle on his satchel.

“Are you staying here?” I managed to ask.

“Oh, no, we were only shopping,” Sarah said. “And we stopped for tea.”

“Thank you, your excellency,” the clerk said behind us.

All four of us turned to see who was so grand. I noticed that Sarah and her mother turned more subtly than Benjamin and I did, and then my heart skipped. The man at the desk, who’d been called “your excellency,” was the one we’d been following! He nodded to us and walked in his effortless way to the front door, swinging his black walking stick.

“Do you know that man?” Benjamin asked Sarah’s mother, when the door had closed after him.

“I don’t,” Mrs Pennington said.

“What does it mean that the clerk called him ‘your excellency’?” I asked.

“I suppose he