Page 34 of The Truth About You and Me
I watch the headlights lead the way away from my home town, the sea to the right a constant companion as we talk more about the film. I tell him about Tess and her comedy and he laughs as I land one of her jokes.
When he pulls up outside a quiet row of shops, I blink, surprised. We’re in Bayside. I’ve been here before during off-season – charity shop hauls, mostly.
Jack parks outside a row of shops. One looks empty; next to it is a kebab shop. ‘Wait here, I’m going to get us dinner. Any allergies?’
‘Besides people?’ I joke. ‘No. I’m pretty easy to please. And you don’t have to do that. I can pay,’ I say, heart pounding, knowing my bank balance is only skimming into the black.
‘My treat. I suggested it and you haven’t lived until you’ve tried one of these.’ He smiles and leaves the car. I lean back in the comfortable leather seats. I bet these babies heat up. I lean towards the window, watching Jack as he laughs and jokes with the man behind the counter. Christ, he’s gorgeous. I groan. I can practically already feel the way my heart is going to rip open when I tell him the truth and he bolts. My eyes graze over the shop next door. It’s a shame it’s empty. It has an old-world charm about it, the kind that speaks of a building once loved. The front window is rounded, the glass splintered into small rectangular panes, with dark forest-green paintwork flaking away in places. The step that leads up to the door is uneven; the glass pane in its centre boarded up.
Jack exits the shop, a plastic bag in hand, but rather than join me inside the car, he walks past and hesitates outside the empty shop, beckoning me. I join him on the kerb as he pulls out a set of keys. I recognise the pendant on the keychain, the small silver book that he flicks open and shut when he’s thinking.
‘You have the keys?’ I ask, brows furrowing. He looks over at me as he turns the key, gives a small nod as the door opens, and then he steps inside and flicks on a light switch. The low-lit lamps on the walls catch the dust motes in a warm glow.
The deceptively wide room is scattered with boxes – some with brown tape hanging forlornly – others unopened. There is an overturned bookcase in the centre of the room, and slabs of wood and a workbench stacked in the back. It smells like sawdust and aches with potential.
‘Wow…’ I look around the room, my gloves touching a box. I can make out the spine of a book through the small opening. ‘This is yours?’ I ask.
‘It’s… yeah. Kind of.’
He fiddles with the key fob again and walks further inside, setting the bag down on a stack of unopened boxes.
‘What do you mean?’
He turns and leans against the wall, hands in his pockets.
‘I took out the lease before…’ He scratches the back of his neck. ‘It was going to be the second Chadwick’s. Another bookshop by the sea, a new one based around building a community, but this time I was going to add a bar, figured it would be good for business, and sales might go up after a few pints?’ He huffs a laugh, but it doesn’t land.
My eyes roam around the room taking in the boxes, the books suffocating under large polythene sheets.
‘What happened?’ I question gently. ‘You said “before”: before what?’
I brace myself. Whatever he’s about to tell me will be hard for him; I’d felt first-hand the pain and loss and confusion it has caused him.
He pauses, opens his mouth like he’s about to answer, then avoids the question, grabs the bag and rummages for the polystyrene boxes. ‘Lamb kofta and mint sauce for you. Trust me, it’s the best.’
I take it with a thanks, still watching him. ‘Jack?’
He stops, eyes focused on taking out another takeaway box.
‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘Because I wanted to tell you a bit more about me. About who I am.’ He takes a beat, then sits on the windowsill, flipping open the box in his hands.
‘I… I had a stroke. Last October.’
I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but having a stroke wasn’t it. I look for the signs we’ve all been warned about – slurred speech, loss of movement in one side – but there is none of that, then again, some of the most debilitating illnesses are invisible to outsiders. That explains the gap in his thoughts, the void I’d felt. ‘I’m sorry.’ I inwardly wince at the words. They’re so loose, so lacking in texture.October.It’s the right month. My mouth dries.
He gives a small smile – an ‘it is what it is’ expression that doesn’t match the hurt behind his eyes. ‘That must have been terrifying.’ I want to say something more,dosomething more. If I was normal, I would take his hand. I still could. I want to. My hand tingles with the possibility.
‘I can’t read.’ His words are delivered bluntly, but each one is sharply edged. I register shock on his face, as though the words have been hidden backstage and have crept up on him:boo. I stay silent, giving him space to pilot the conversation. ‘It’s called alexia?’ He waits, questioning if I know the term. ‘I hadn’t heard of it before. I can see words but my brain can’t process them. It’s like they’re hidden, no… not hidden…’ He looks upwards at the ceiling, at the cobwebs hanging like eighties Christmas decorations. He drags his eyes back to me. ‘They’re there, but they’re not in a language I can understand. That’s why I ended up at Flicks that night. I tried to go to the awards, but it was filled with people from my old life: writers, publishers, agents.’ He looks back at me. ‘I couldn’t stay. I felt like a fraud. Like I was in the same room as those people but outside of them. Does that make sense?’
‘It does.’ The real reason why I can relate to being an outsider thuds against my ribcage. He looks out the window; a woman walking her dog passes by. ‘Do you ever feel like you’re watching your life from the outside? Like, you know you’re in it, but it’s almost like it’s happening to someone else?’ He shakes his head. ‘Ignore me – that made no sense whatsoever.’
‘It does actually.’ The moment I stood outside his shop, the night I met him, shimmers in my mind.
His face kind of lifts at that. ‘It was like that at the awards. Like I was living someone else’s life.’ His eyes cast around the room slowly. ‘I used to be able to run the shop myself. I would read three, four books a week… now, trying to read a street sign is like reading Shakespeare, harder in fact.’
‘So…’ I gesture to the room.
