Page 65 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
‘Are youwhat? No! It’s, well, I hope it’s more amazing than that,’ Noah said hesitantly as if he wasn’t sure how Nina would react to this latest surprise.
She was definitely intrigued and yes, a little nervous, as they headed back down the stairs.
Then Noah led her through to the back of the parsonage and into an exhibition room. Like everywhere else in the Parsonage, at this time on a damp, grey Friday afternoon off-season, it was empty apart from one member of staff who smiled as they entered the room.
‘Noah Harewood?’ she asked with a friendly smile. ‘And Noah’s friend?’
‘This is Nina,’ Noah said, pulling Nina forward. ‘We’re not too late, are we?’
‘And I’m Moira. You’re just in time. We’re closing in fifteen minutes.’ The woman gestured at the table in front of her, then at Nina. ‘Would you like to take a seat?’
Nina was desperate to sit down, mostly because she’d been on her feet forhours. Her curiosity was like a restless beast that couldn’t be caged. ‘What is going on?’ she asked, her voice quite squeaky with suspense.
‘Next year is the bicentennial of Emily Brontë’s birth and to commemorate it, we’re asking visitors to the museum to each write a line fromWuthering Heightsin a specially commissioned hand-written book,’ the woman explained.
‘And you get a special pencil to keep,’ Noah added as if Nina might need an incentive, which she didn’t. Her bottom was already in the chair.
‘I’ll do it!’ she yelped, hands in the air, fingers outstretched. ‘Look! I’m limbering up!’
‘Let’s create a little ambience, shall we?’ Moira suggested. She switched off the main lights so that the room was almost in darkness, apart from the desk lamp in front of Nina which cast a warm glow.
Now that she’d calmed down a fraction, Nina could see a huge but neat pile of paper to her left, an old copy ofWuthering Heightsopen about two thirds of the way through with an old-fashioned slide rule marking the page, and an open wooden box with curved corners filled with black pencils.
Nina dipped her head so she could see that each one was inscribed,Wuthering Heights – A Manuscript.
‘You’ll be needing one of them,’ Moira said, and with great care Nina chose a pencil, even though they were all identical. ‘Now, here’s the manuscript and this is your line:I put on my bonnet and sullied out, thinking nothing more of the matter.’
Never in her life had Nina concentrated so hard on her penmanship as she copied the words in her best, her nicest, joined-up writing. All her muscles were tensed until she was done and found that, oddly, she felt close to tears.
‘It’s quite emotional,’ she said in a husky voice. ‘To sit here, in this house, and write the very same words that Emily Brontë wrote in this same house nearly two hundred years ago. Never knowing that the story she was telling would be read and loved two centuries later. God, it’s doing my head in!’
‘Lots of people have had a similar reaction,’ Moira noted. She looked at Noah. ‘Now, your turn.’
‘Oh yes! Noah! You should!’ Nina exclaimed, but he was backing away, hands held up.
‘No, I don’t want to rain on your parade,’ he said firmly. ‘This is your thing.’
‘But I want to share it with you,’ Nina said just as firmly, pushing the chair back and standing up. ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal. He can write a line too, can’t he?’
‘Of course you can.’ Moira smiled a little at the determined expression on Nina’s face as she tugged at Noah’s arm.
‘Sit!’ she demanded. ‘Go on, sit!’
‘I’m not a dog,’ Noah grumbled, but he was sitting. ‘You know, I have terrible handwriting. I’ll have to write in block capitals, otherwise it will be completely illegible.’
‘No judgement,’ Moira assured him. ‘Take a pencil and this is the line you need to copy out:She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound.’
Nina wanted to keep a respectful distance while he worked but she was distracted by the way Noah laboured with pencil and paper. He held the pencil as if he were expecting it to suddenly make a break for freedom and he came at the paper like it was a mortal enemy.
‘Oh my God! I’d forgotten about the time you sent me that note and I could barely read it. You really weren’t joking about your handwriting,’ Nina blurted out, then cursed her lack of tact. Even Noah’s block capitals looked like they were having a nervous breakdown across the page.
‘Now, now, Nina. I can’t be good ateverything,’ Noah said and Nina waited until he’d finished his last letter, though it looked more like an insect had just died on the page, and dug him in the shoulder.
‘I was going to tell you that you’re amazing at arranging surprise road trips but it would only go to your head,’ she said, as Noah got up from the chair. She turned to Moira. ‘Thank you so much for letting us do this.’
‘Well, you really have your young man to thank but I think that would go to his head too,’ Moira said. She ushered them towards the door, a regretful smile on her face as if she’d have liked nothing more than to stay there and watch them banter back and forth. ‘I’m sorry but we close at five and you’ll be wanting to visit the shop before you go.’
‘Yes!’ they both said in unison and Nina took hold of Noah’s hand and hustled them away. God, she’d packed more exercise into one day than she had in a whole year.
