The Ice Cream Parlour: Part 10

The next morning dawned rainy and grey. Mist hung in the air and raindrops rattled on windowpanes. The gulls were sulkily silent, furious at the change in the weather. Stella woke early again and slipped out into the chilly damp. This time she walked past eight shops, savouring the cooling sensation of the rain seeping through her clothes and beading in her hair. When she reached the eighth shop, the Post Office, she stopped to look across the street. There stood the library. Shuttered and silent. Stella turned and went back to the flat. This time, she lay down on Caterina’s bed. One thousand, one hundred and two steps,she whispered to herself before she closed her eyes and slept.

On the third morning, John was amazed to find Stella dressed and sitting at the kitchen table. She was usually still in the girls’ room when he left for work. She was often still sleeping when he came home. ‘When I am asleep, there’s no pain,’ she said simply. She had not told him that often the girls appeared in her dreams, corporeal and beautiful and happy. The supernatural world of dreams, in which the girls still laughed and lived, was a precious refuge from the dryness of the real world. Stella craved sleep the way an addict craves drugs or alcohol.

John felt that something was different about Stella that morning, but he did not comment. He lived in fear of doing or saying something that might cause his wife more suffering. She was as delicate and ethereal as one of those shimmering soapy bubbles the girls would blow through little plastic hoops. He kissed the top of Stella’s head tenderly, ‘See you tonight, flower.’

After he had left for work, Stella pulled on a coat and went downstairs to the ice cream parlour. The shop was empty of customers. Her parents were getting ready for the day, drying crockery, wiping tables. ‘I’m going out. I won’t be long,’ Stella said. She did not wait for a reply. The door banged behind her with the finality of a full stop.

Once in the street, her legs turned to jelly. There seemed to be people everywhere. They streamed around her like a flock of taloned hawks. Not looking at anyone, not listening to anything but the voice in her head counting steps, she moved forward. What else was there to do in the face of such sadness, but to keep moving forward, one step at a time? It was all she had. It was all there was. 

Those who saw her that morning remembered how she held her head high and moved with such surety, such a focused determination that they reverentially stood to one side to let her pass. Several friends and neighbours opened their mouths to call her name, but were silenced by the intensity of her expression. She looked as if she were walking in another time, another dimension and that if someone were to try to touch her, they would find that she was not there at all.

When Stella reached the Post Office, she had to cross the road. She would need to stop walking, stop moving forward to check for traffic. Her breath quickened at the thought and she began to tremble. She did not want to stop. Someone might speak to her. She might lose her nerve altogether. She might dissolve right there in the street. If the road is clear of cars, it is a sign you should keep going, she told herself. She quickly glanced up and down the street. There were no cars approaching. She sighed with relief and crossed the road to the library. If the library is empty, you should go in, the voice in her head told her. She pushed open the weighty glass door and stepped inside. Entering a library was just like entering a church, she thought. They both instilled a sense of stillness and reverence. Miss Partridge was at the desk, peering disapprovingly at pile of returned books through her little round glasses, but other than that, the room was empty, hushed and rich with the scent of aged books. Anita loved the smell of the library: leather and amber and dust and sunlight. She closed her eyes and breathed it in. A calmness washed over her. She had crossed deserts of perilous darkness and had now reached her oasis. She was safe.

Miss Partridge, looked up from her books and was amazed to see Stella standing there, eyes closed, resting on the library door as if it was the only thing holding her up. She was so frail, Miss Partridge thought. And pale. She looked almost translucent in the sharp spring light, as if her veins and heart and bones must surely be visible through her milky skin. At first, Miss Partridge felt the urge to rush to the young woman and embrace her tightly, but there was something about the way Stella held herself that suggested this would not be at all welcome. ‘Good morning, Mrs Coxon. Lovely to see you, my dear. Are you here to look at our art books again?’ 

Stella moved towards the desk gratefully. Miss Partridge was not going to ask any difficult questions. She was going to speak to her in her brisk and matronly way about the comfortingly solid topic of books.

‘Yes. I think I’ve borrowed everything you’ve got, but I may take some of my favourites out again, if that’s alright.’

‘Go ahead, my dear. Take what you like. I’ve got a notepad here, before you go you can tell me about any artists or styles you’d like to know more about. I can borrow from other libraries. I have missed your visits and our chats about art.’ She noticed Stella flinch. The oblique reference to her absence had been clumsy, she realised. She chirruped on swiftly, ‘We do have a new book on Matisse. Beautiful coloured illustrations. I’m sure you’ll like that. I thought of you when it came in.’

Stella nodded and moved over to the art shelf. She was allowed ten books at a time, but she probably wouldn’t manage to carry ten heavy hardback books home. She found the Matisse and flicked through. She laughed at a painting of a bright yellow cat with her paw in a bowl of vermillion goldfish. It looked like something the girls would paint. The flamboyant colours sang on the page. She selected three books and went to the desk where Miss Partridge was vigorously sorting through a drawer of cards. She tutted as she worked, as if to let the recalcitrant cards know they were a great disappointment to her.

 ‘I’ll take these please, Miss Partridge.’

‘Ah, Mrs Coxon. You’ve found the Matisse, I see. Library card, my dear?’ Miss Partridge looked up and could see the question had utterly confounded Stella. All her composure had dissipated and she seemed to deflate in front of Miss Partridge’s eyes like a defective balloon. 

‘Oh, how stupid. I forgot it,’ Stella said, furious with herself, tears prickling in her eyes. ‘It took me such a long time to get the courage to come at all,’ she whispered with an honestly that took both women by surprise.

‘No matter. You are one of my best customers, Mrs Coxon. You take the books. How about I ring round the other libraries and see what other treasures I can find for you? Is there anything in particular you’d like me to track down? I love a challenge.’

‘No. Not really. Just something with lots of pictures, lots of colour, not lots of words. I don’t seem to be able to process words at the moment. They don’t seem to stay still on the page.’ Stella was so grateful to Miss Partridge. The old lady had given her a much-needed reason to venture out again. She held the books across her chest as if they were a shield of protection for her perilous journey home.

‘Excellent. I’ll do that. To be honest, you are a breath of fresh air. I get mightily sick of dishing out Catherine Cookson all day long. They’re Catherine Cookson daft round here.’ Miss Partridge confided wickedly, her eyes sparking. ‘You come back whenever you feel up to it. I’ll keep your books under the counter,’ she let out a surprisingly bawdy laugh, ‘Dear me! Doesn’t that sound sordid?’ 

Miss Partridge came to look forward to Stella’s visits. She enjoyed locating beautiful books and Stella was always so appreciative. One afternoon though, just before closing, she received a troubling telephone call from Central Durham Library. ‘The book you borrowed from us about the Post-Impressionists. Well, it’s come back damaged. Some pages are missing. Just a couple of the colour plates. They look like they’ve been cut out.’

Miss Partridge frowned. Stella had made a point of telling her how much she loved that book. Especially the works of Gauguin. Miss Partridge carefully removed her spectacles before answering, as if she were child anticipating a schoolyard fight. Her tone was one a of steely disapproval. It would have unnerved a sociopath. 

‘And I suppose, young man, before you sent me this book, this DEFECTIVE book, you had personally checked every single page?’

The voice on the other end of the phone faltered, ‘Well, no. I can’t say that I did. But, no one has complained about it before. Only since it was returned by you.’

Miss Partridge continued. She would give herself permission to enjoy this moment, she thought. ‘I see, yes I do see,’ she said with the assurance of an elderly swami. ‘I see exactly what you are saying. You leant a book to a small library in a mining village and are assuming that we do not know how to look after books, given that we are all miscreants and dunderheads.’

‘No, not . . .’

‘When by your own admission, you can’t even assure me the damage wasn’t done before.’

‘Well, it’s not got anything. . .’ 

‘I mean, whatever next. Will you be telling me there are smudges of coal dust on the pages? I assure you, we might not be fortunate enough to live in a leafy university city, but are not vandals!’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean. . .’

‘If I were you, young man, I would reflect very carefully on the assumptions you make about working people. Good afternoon.’ 

After the phone call, Miss Partridge calmed her nerves by making herself a cup of China tea. As she sipped, her eyes strayed over to the art section of the library. She put down the cup and went over to look for the new book about Matisse. When she found it, she sat at one of the tables and flicked through. Sure enough, two pages of the book appeared to have been very neatly and very carefully removed.

‘Oh, my dear.’ Miss Partridge whispered. ‘My poor, dear.’

The next day, Stella came to the library to return a book about British landscape painting. She felt so comfortable speaking with Miss Partridge, who never pried or intruded into anything and whose constant expression was one of benign stoicism and composure. ‘Thank you for finding this, Miss Partridge. I enjoyed looking at it.’

Miss Partridge nodded. She had expected nothing less. 

‘Tell me, was there any picture you particularly liked, Mrs Coxon.’

 ‘Yes, yes there was. It was a sun setting behind a castle. Turner, I think. Silvia, my daughter says, said, that God is behind the clouds when the sky is full of light like that. It made me think of her.’

Miss Partridge felt gushing waves of empathy for the fragile young woman who was standing front of her. ‘I’d love to see that picture, Mrs Coxon. Could you show me?’

Stella’s face flushed instantly. ‘Oh, I am not sure I could, Miss Partridge, it’s such a big book. I might not be able to find it.’

Miss Partridge reached over the desk and grasped Stella’s shaking hand. ‘No matter at all, my dear. No matter. Don’t you worry.’ She bent down to retrieve a book from the below the counter, using the opportunity to briskly dab her eyes with the cuff of her sweater. ‘Anyway, I’d rather show you this book I’ve found about Scandinavian painting. I’ve had a look through and it’s rather lovely. Lots of pictures of empty rooms and curtains blowing in the wind, that sort of thing. The paintings are so still and quiet and the colours are so soft. I think you’ll enjoy it.’