Flam’s fear of attention translated into a doggedly undistinguished academic record. In reality, having sucked his books dry of, not only their factual content, but also their artistic soul and spiritual essence, he was capable of excelling far beyond the rudimentary level of his peers. Yet he purposely avoided the spotlight of scholastic stardom, having learned the hard way it would not provide him redemption at home, and would simply serve to further fuel the antipathy of the schoolyard terrorists.
With each passing year of her lamentable marriage to Steve, Mary too retreated, becoming progressively more devoted to her church and religion, finding there the inner nourishment that could not be provided by her husband and the strange, quiet child who was the fruit of their sinful union. She eventually returned, full of atonement and remorse, to her old parish of St. Ernest’s, even though she no longer resided within its geographical boundaries.
Not only did she renew her worship with an almighty fervour, often attending several church services a day, but she also threw herself, body and refurbished soul, into every volunteer activity the parish promoted, plus any other good work she was able to conceive by herself. So invaluable did Mary become to the priests and parish officials, they ultimately made her a paid employee, albeit with a mere stipend of a salary, in order to permanently secure the rights to her zealous labours.
It was Mary who started Flam’s addiction to books, supplying him with children’s Bible stories and illustrated histories of the Holy Land that she brought home whenever she was filled with a guilty need to extend her missionary fervour to her own family. Eventually, Flam exhausted all the available Sunday school books, and Mary began to feed his literary cravings with assorted offerings culled from the parish’s second-hand thrift store, mostly books with their covers torn off, or otherwise dog-eared to death.
Beyond selflessly choosing only merchandise too worn or damaged for the parish to resell, Mary never screened the content of the volumes she brought home, other than avoiding anything with clearly trashy or sinful subject matter, using steamy titles and cover illustrations of scantily-clad women as her barometer.
As a consequence, Flam’s randomized readings proved quite varied and sophisticated—even for an adult, let alone a child. They ranged from ancient classics to modern masterpieces, but also included a regular diet of pulp fiction (whose titles were sufficiently obscure or cover art abstract enough for their violent or risqué nature to escape Mary’s censorship). The only criterion was that the books had to have been abused or reread often enough to be in unsalable condition.
Flam’s hiding place under the dining room table soon became a walled fortress of books, just large enough for him to lie in, buttressed by stacks of yellowed paperbacks and half-destroyed hardcovers. He would crawl into the refuge to escape from the cruelties of his life, pulling an old table lamp in after him to read by, its cord trailing behind like some electrical rodent’s tail.
The problem evolved of what to do with Flam after school. Mary’s schedule was being crammed progressively fuller with myriad errands and administrative responsibilities, to the point where there was now no predicting at what point precisely she would return home. Steve was of no help in taking up the slack. Although he was sometimes known to lie around the house for days in between his cross-country trucking runs, his absences were far more acute, his schedule wholly unpredictable, and even when he was at home, his contributions, both financial and parental, were nothing upon which Mary could depend.
Flam had been issued a key to the flat at a very early age, something originally intended for use in emergencies only, but it now became typical practice for Flam to find his way home and to occupy himself until his mother’s return. Mary was fairly confident Flam would immediately stick his nose into his latest literary adventure and keep himself safely occupied, but she was constantly fearful some disaster would befall her son or their flat in her absence. It was not just concern for Flam’s welfare that troubled Mary; it was also the thought of what damage might be done to the lily-white reputation she enjoyed among the clergy and parishioners if she were found to have allowed harm to come to her son through neglect.
A solution presented itself naturally when Mary arrived later than promised one evening only to find the flat dark and empty. She went rushing back outside to begin retracing the path to the school in search of Flam, panic rapidly mounting that the darkest of her inner fears had been realized. No sooner had she careened down the steep stairs out onto the street, than she spotted her son in the front window of the bookstore that lay directly below their flat. The youngster was perched calmly on a stool and totally lost among the pages of an illustrated history of ancient Greece.
Mary burst into the shop and lunged over the counter to grab her son by the front of his jacket, startling him from his book-induced trance.
“Flam, what in heaven’s name are you doing here? You know damned well you were supposed to come straight home,” Mary railed, a crimson sunrise of anger spilling over the snowy paleness of her face. “You stupid boy, how dare you worry me like that? When I found the flat empty, my heart almost stopped!”
The familiar sharpness of her tone left little doubt in Flam’s mind about the extent and imminent consequences of his mother’s anger. He instinctively recoiled and tried to squirm his way out of her grasp, suddenly wishing he was laid out safely among his books under the dining room table.
Flam’s silent attempt at escape only served to fuel Mary’s anger, and she tightened her grip. “Well, you little brat, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“It’s my fault, Mrs. Grub,” a basso voice countered from behind her, “I told him he could wait here.”
Mary turned to confront the speaker, whom she recognized as Page Turner, the proprietor of the bookstore. He was a middle-aged roly-poly man who sported a chest-length beard and long hair, now faded grey and pulled tightly back over a substantive bald spot into a ponytail that flopped halfway down his back.
Turner was attired in a garishly patched blue jean vest worn over a colourful and wildly emblazoned T-shirt, and sported sandals over mismatched socks, a style he adhered to even in winter. Despite the fact she and her family had been living above the bookshop for a decade, Mary had never actually been inside the store before, disliking the dishevelled, unorthodox look of its proprietor. Although she’d passed by the store window on countless occasions, and had noted Turner’s washed-out grey eyes staring at her curiously over top of half-moon bifocals, she had never returned that gaze, let alone exchanged a single word with the man.
Now she had plenty of words for anyone in her field of fire. “And just what business is it of yours, mister?” she demanded. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you lured the boy in here. I’ve heard of men like you.”
Turner laughed, which was not the reaction Mary had been aiming for.
“I can assure you there was no luring involved . . . I doubt if anything could have kept the boy from coming in and wallowing in the wares. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Flam has a penchant for books.”
The statement was so blatantly obvious it served to instantly disarm Mary. She took in the array of books crammed onto the shelves and heaped into stacks in every spare corner, and saw a macrocosm of the jumble under her own dining table.
Turner’s manner was also proving reassuring—he had an articulate politeness, and the almost theatrical quality of his voice reminded her of a priest and belied his somewhat unkempt appearance. “I can promise you he’s perfectly safe here, Mrs. Grub. I have him sit right up front behind the counter, and suggest books that will help him with his schoolwork. I wish I could say I was also teaching him how to use my computer, but the truth is he’s such a quick study that he’s long ago eclipsed me in that area, and has become quite a young wizard