And they particularly enjoyed discovering that my move to my aunt and uncle’s home had coincided with the conception of the child who had followed Rachel. Presumably they suspected, not unreasonably, that the family farmhouse would have been growing a little full.
So, to cut him off at the start, I asked again, ‘Which stop are you travelling to today?’
‘Stow-on-the-Wold. I like to catch up with family too.’ Doctor Bates smiled at me. And then he made it clear that he had never been interested in probing the wholesomeness of my current relationship with my siblings because it turned out that the doctor was perfectly normal and self-centred, and had merely been thinking about his own concerns.
In the next moment he was ducking his head to be heard over the roar of the bus, and saying with a sheepish kind of charm, ‘So, I know I shouldn’t expect you to tell me, but I can’t bear the suspense. What does your Mr Underhill think of my landlady’s little story?’
His barefaced determination to oversee his landlady’s project amused me. It suited my mood this morning. Suddenly it was easier to see what Amy liked about this man – and it mattered what she thought because Amy had to be one of the kindest women I knew, even if she didn’t value bits of ribbon that came out of advent calendars.
The dim lights that studded the ceiling of this bus were making his hair shine. It was very fair and drooping over his brow to cast a soft shadow across his eye. And the only part that didn’t quite suit him was that I couldn’t help thinking that eight o’clock – the time of his expected arrival in Stow – would be a very early hour to be bestowing visits upon any family.
I told him flatly, ‘I don’t know what Mr Underhill thinks, or at least nothing beyond the fact he recommended that I should take a look. But I—’
‘He’s read it already has he? Or do you do the reading for him?’
I let my eyebrows rise at that, quite pointedly. It made him grin. ‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘If you won’t let me examine the balance of work between you, your uncle and this other editor, what can you tell me?’
‘That Mr Underhill read the manuscript over the weekend? And now it’s my turn?’ I offered. And that amused him too.
The doctor had a good smile. It offset the way he was one of those men who was more self-assured than generally suited my tastes. This was because, to be frank, in a north Cotswold town, his sort of cultured good looks tended to run hand in hand with a person exuding a certain degree of wealth and class, and expecting the same from his friends.
In short, Doctor Bates was handsome without my finding him absolutely attractive, which was a terrible thing to admit, really. Although, I didn’t imagine the doctor was thinking seriously of me either.
He probably saw a woman with wavy hair and a decent figure, but wearing an office girl’s idea of slacks beneath a winter coat and lacking quite the right manner for higher calibre society. And that last thought was where my embarrassment crashed in.
It rushed all of a sudden into my skin, and it came from the disconcerting realisation that I was thinking in this way at all – that I was thinking about my own attractiveness, I mean.
I was acting as though it were natural to see my body as more than a mere count of limbs, when in truth my recent years had been consumed by a numb sort of sexlessness. And I couldn’t have entirely said at this moment which extreme I preferred.
Either way, the effort of discovering this part of myself made me thoroughly self-conscious. I was even more thoroughly afraid that this man would notice my blush. He might think it was for his benefit.
And in the space between one uncomfortable heartbeat and the next, the pressure of containing all this tipped me into saying recklessly, ‘Actually, I’ve just got to the part of Miss Prichard’s manuscript where she lists the chemical properties of nettles and sets them against a seventeenth century remedy for improving mobility. Miss Prichard is wonderfully scientific really, isn’t she?’
‘Well, yes. Her book is impressive. But you’re speaking to a doctor. I’m better qualified to give an opinion about treatments that have been founded in modern science, not the kind of quackery that stems from potions and lotions and old wives tales.’
His reply was given in a way that made me think he believed we were speaking about a herbal recipe book. Clearly, he hadn’t actually read the manuscript.
Now he was worrying if the distant gleam of light from a house ahead was a sign we were approaching his stop. We weren’t. The building was merely a farmhouse, grey and sagging.
The farm flashed by and left me to notice belatedly that the doctor was saying in a very different kind of voice, ‘So when you make this sort of book, how much does the author get?’
His sudden change of manner helped me to settle my self-conscious flush back to a sensible colour. I asked him, ‘How do you mean?’
He had his hat set upon his knee with his fingers gripping its brim. His thumb smoothed a ruffled patch on the felt. ‘Well, if for example you sell one book, how much will Miss Prichard get from it?’
It was a common enough question from our new authors or, indeed, their friends so I tried to meet him with equal steadiness. ‘It rather depends on where we sell it. If we sell it through our own shop, the costs for us are lower so she’d get marginally more. If it gets sold by another bookshop or if a wholesaler takes a box full or something, they have to take their cut too. And we have to send the books out in the first place. All those costs have to be accounted for.’
This sounded unattractively dry, even to me as the woman who would be typing up the publisher’s letter, so I added, ‘Our authors do get a very good royalty rate from us though.’
‘So what you’re saying is that if the book sells for a few shillings, you’ll take your fee, the bookseller takes theirs and so will the postman and anyone else who claims to have a stake in it. And after all that, Miss Prichard will have to make do with the penny or so that is left over. Is that right?’
My companion added on a wistful note, ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing, Mrs P, but it does seem to me that authors really are the last person to make any money from their books.’
It was remarks such as these which made me wish that more people looked at the books in their hands and tried for a moment to sense all the human lives who had contributed to the task of bringing it to them.
I replied calmly, ‘If we’re recognising the bookseller and the postman and so on, you might also think of the typesetter, who will lovingly lay out all those lines of text. Or the hands that will direct the binding.’ I hesitated. ‘I don’t know if I should tell you this because it will sound too sentimental, but I think books are a beautiful monument to unity.’
Whereas, by contrast, the bus driver’s handling of the road was rattling my teeth, and Doctor Bates had no idea of anybody’s united effort.
My neighbour was only saying blankly, ‘Are you referring to Mr Lock?’
Then he admitted, ‘If I’m honest, I’m really worrying about the fee your uncle is planning to charge Miss Prichard for the pleasure of seeing her book finished.’
‘In that case, I don’t know if I should tell you that none of us makes a lot of money out of selling books,’ I replied gently. ‘It’s perfectly true, though.’
‘Your uncle seems to be making enough to pay your wages. And for that man Underhill.’
‘Because without us, Uncle George couldn’t possibly manage all the work himself.’ I shouldn’t have said that. A painfully defensive note was creeping in as though I too thought it exploitative to expect our authors to pay their way when surely this might all be done simply for the love of books.
I added feebly, ‘We’re a very small book press, Doctor Bates, and the war