Words in Deep Blue(28)

Martin



Martin

You hang out with a girl who calls me a freak.

George



Dear George

I’ve never called you a freak. I don’t think you are a freak. In fact, I’ve been trying to be your friend at school since you started. You’re the one who ignores or insults me on a regular basis. Do you have any evidence that I’m a bad guy?

In the whole time that I’ve known you, I’ve always told Stacy that you’re an interesting person. It seems to me that you’re treating me like Stacy treats you. I think, at the very least, you should give me a trial as your friend, as well as your employee. It’s summer. Can’t we forget how we are at school? Maybe we could call a truce?

Martin



Martin

Okay. Since you seem like you’re about to cry, you can write to me. But NOT in this book. Write to me in Peter Temple’s The Broken Shore. I saw you reading it and there’s a copy in the Letter Library – leave your letters between pages 8 and 9.

George



Dear George

I’m absolutely overwhelmed by your offer of friendship. Thank you. Really, thank you. It’s almost too much. I look forward to all future correspondence.

Martin





Rachel




a constant rain inside

I leave Howling Books, making sure that Henry sees my raised middle finger. I raise it again for impact and sound the horn so Martin knows I’m ready.

I don’t want to drive him home but on my first day Sophia offered to fill my car with petrol if I took him because he has to be home by six so he can look after his sister until his mums finish work. That means we have to leave by five, which is a plus for me.

I’m ready to leave Howling Books when I walk in the door each morning and start the job of cataloguing the random, boring thoughts of every person who’s passed through the pages. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, drums through me every minute of every day, a constant rain inside. I. Don’t. Care.

There are five hundred books in the Letter Library. Maybe more. Five hundred is my estimate. Ten shelves, roughly fifty books on each one, maybe sixty. There are marks on almost every page of every book: some are wordless underlines; some are notes in the margins. Most of the books have a note or a letter left in them, and for some reason, Michael wants a record of every one.

‘First I need you to alphabetise them,’ Michael had said on Monday. ‘And enter their details – title, author, publisher, date of publication. Then I’d like a record of all the letters in the books, the contents of the letters, and a record of the main markings in the margins. If it’s possible, I’d also like a record of the main words and quotes that are underlined.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’ I looked around but Henry was busy serving and George was busy ordering Martin around. ‘It’s not a joke on the new person?’

‘Not a joke, no,’ Michael said, running his eyes across all the books. ‘It’s a big job, and it’s not what Sophia hired you for exactly. But this is what I’d like you to catalogue. Martin can do the rest of the shop, but this is important.’

I’ve known Henry’s dad all my life, so I felt like I could be honest with him. ‘It’s insane, Michael. It’s completely insane. Not to mention impossible.’

‘Not impossible,’ he said calmly, taking a sip from his Howling Books coffee mug, the one that has a picture on it of a book baying at the moon. It looks out of place at the lips of a man wearing a blue cardigan and slippers for shoes.

‘No, not impossible, I guess, but it’ll take at least a year and you’re selling soon. You don’t have a year,’ I said, trying to sound reasonable.

‘At most we have six months,’ he agreed. ‘Less, probably, so I’ll pay you overtime.’

‘I don’t want to work overtime,’ I said, but he was already walking away.

He left me standing there, feeling the way I did at school after the funeral, when everything the teachers asked me to do seemed stupid and overwhelming, and all I wanted to do was sleep.




Martin finally gets in the car and puts on his seatbelt without saying a word. I told him on our first trip that I’m a new driver and he shouldn’t take it personally, but I need total silence to drive. ‘The radio doesn’t bother me. Just actual voices in the car.’

I introduced the ban because it’s easier than answering his questions about Cal. I’ve been dodging questions all week about the beach, Year 12, Cal, Mum, university. It turns out even Martin knew my brother because they went to school together.

I wasn’t planning on keeping the lie I started at Laundry last Friday night going. But when Amy was in the store that Saturday morning she asked what course I’d been accepted into and there was no way I was telling her I’d failed. George was listening when I told her I was taking a year off. I haven’t been able to walk it back since.

Even if I wanted to tell Henry, there’s been no room in our conversations – he talks constantly about Amy. What’s worse than having to catalogue pointless love letters that won’t ever arrive because they’ve been mailed into the pages of a book? Having to listen to Henry talk about his love for Amy while I’m doing it.