Michael’s asked me to do.
‘Why?’ she asks him.
‘My reasons are no longer your concern,’ he tells her, and gives me permission.
I tape a notice to the front window – The Letter Library is closed for cataloguing. Howling Books is sorry for the inconvenience – and then start work.
I’d lose all sense of time if it weren’t for George and Martin, who keep walking over to put notes in The Broken Shore. I’ve decided the restriction on the Letter Library doesn’t apply to the staff, so I don’t say anything. At first George shyly places her letters in the book, but after a while, she’s angrily shoving in paper.
To give her some privacy, I concentrate on recording the notes in Prufrock and Other Observations. It takes a long time to catalogue everything people have written, and in the end I have to leave out some small notes.
From what I can tell, the poem that Henry read to me that night is the love song of someone who doesn’t think very much of himself. He’s a man debating whether or not he should tell a woman how much he wants her. The notes along the side are mostly from people worrying that life has passed them by. Or, to quote Henry, people who feel a bit shit about themselves.
‘Is that why you like it?’ I ask Henry when he’s on a break.
‘I think you’ll find a lot of people like T.S. Eliot for reasons other than that they feel a bit shit about themselves. Read the language. It’s beautiful.’
‘But it’s basically about him wanting sex isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s about him debating whether or not to take a risk.’
Henry stays with me this afternoon to help and to argue more about Eliot. There are so many comments on the book that my hands are tired, so I read out the comments and Henry types. Eventually we get to the last one and Henry walks back to the counter.
I’m too tired to start cataloguing another book. I proofread what I’ve done today, and make sure it’s formatted. Then I save the database and shut down the computer. Martin’s not ready to go yet, so I pass the time looking through the books.
The one I really want to look at is Mark Laita’s Sea. I noticed it on the first day. It’s one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen and I can’t believe someone would leave a copy of it in the Letter Library for people to write on.
I take it off the shelf today. The creatures are hypnotic, glowing off pages in brilliant light. I sit on the floor and look through. I stop when I get to page with the North Pacific Giant octopus, a red spectacular creature, with no eyes that I can see, the end of its body a mouth, open in a kind of blind wonder. I’m staring at that mouth for a long time before I notice a tiny hand-drawn arrow in the margin, pointing to the creature. There’s a word next to that, written in small neat letters, the kind of letters that Cal used: this I love.
I know before I’ve hardly had time for thought that it’s Cal’s handwriting. I know from the way the tail of his ‘e’ kicks upwards, and the way the arrow is drawn, a tiny arch in its back. I know because he loved this octopus, because he loved this book. I know it in a way I can’t prove.
I think about that arrow for the rest of the week, the love next to it, the small arch in its back. By Sunday I decide the feeling it gives me isn’t sadness, exactly. It’s too complicated to easily name. It has something to do with Cal being in a library along with other people who no longer exist in the world. The traces of them are hidden, small lines in books. In a library from which no one can borrow.
The Broken Shore
by Peter Temple
Letters left between pages 8 and 9
16 January – 22 January 2016
Hi Martin
I’m writing to explain some things about last night. I was wrong about you – you’re a nice guy. I liked talking to you in the bathroom. I liked hearing about Rufus, who’s no particular breed that you know of. I like that you chose him because he was the strangest dog at the shelter and you thought no one else would take him. I meant what I said – I’d like to meet