Read Online Ghostheart by R.J. Ellory - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: R.J. Ellory
Tags: USA
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store?’
She nodded. ‘Was my father’s … now it’s mine.’
David Quinn took a few moments to look up and around the racks and shelves of books once again, and then said, ‘Hell of a place Annie O’Neill … hell of a place.’
He stayed close on an hour. He bought three books.
Provinces Of Night
by William Gay,
A Confederacy Of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole and
Cathedral
by Raymond Carver. The total was thirteen dollars; he gave Annie a twenty and told her to keep the change.
‘You know something?’ he said as he started towards the door.
Annie looked up.
‘Apparently the average book passes through twenty pairs of hands in its life.’
Annie shook her head. ‘I didn’t know that.’
David Quinn held up the bag with his three books inside. ‘Sixty lives will connect with what’s in this bag … makes you think huh?’
And with that he smiled, nodded, and then turned and left the store.
Annie came from behind the counter, crossed between the stacks of hardbacks and reached the window just as Quinn disappeared at the junction.
She shook her head and sighed. She thought of every person who’d ever wandered into The Reader’s Rest over the years, every person who’d browsed, who’d asked for help, who’d perhaps been looking for nothing more than someone with whom to share a few moments of their life before they moved on. And she’d let them move on, every single one of them, and had never once considered that there might have been something in those moments for her. She had created her own loneliness, and but for Sullivan she could go from one week to the next without ever sharing anything but the time of day or the cost of a second-hand paperback with a real honest-to-God human being.
But why? she asked herself as she turned from the window and made her way out back to prepare coffee. What am I afraid of? Of gaining something only to see it slipping away? But then isn’t it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?
She smiled at her own clichéd thoughts and busied herself with the percolator.
She closed a little before five. After David Quinn there had been two other customers – one who bought a dog-eared and battered copy of
Being There
by Jerzy Kosinski, the other who asked if she had any early edition Washington Irving. She did not.
She walked quickly, the wind was cold, and she was home by quarter after five. Jack was out, more than likely playing chess with a couple of guys from his bar, and once inside her apartment she made a salad, doused some cold chicken in vinaigrette, and sat in the kitchen with a glass of white wine and Frank singing from the front room. ‘Chicago, Chicago …’
She smiled. She thought of her father, she thought ofForrester, and once again she sensed that fleeting moment of identification when she thought of them together. She shook her head. It could not be … surely it could not be. She shrugged such a consideration aside, and she remembered the events of the afternoon, the moments after David Quinn had left.
I will meet with Robert Franklin Forrester on Monday, she thought. Jack can come down there to protect me
…
She stopped mid-flight.
Protect me from what? An old man in a worn-out topcoat who wants to ease his own loneliness by reading stories and bringing letters written by my father?
And with that she considered the possibility that Forrester might bring another letter … that he would open up something of her own life by sharing a little of her father’s. And that was what clinched it, clinched the decision that whatever vacillation and uncertainty she might experience over the weekend, she would have Forrester come down on Monday and she would talk about the manuscript he had brought, ply him for further details of her father’s life, and see what came of it. She had to do it if only to somehow keep alive the memory of her father. Her parents were her past, they were her life in some way. He deserved that much. At
She nodded. ‘Was my father’s … now it’s mine.’
David Quinn took a few moments to look up and around the racks and shelves of books once again, and then said, ‘Hell of a place Annie O’Neill … hell of a place.’
He stayed close on an hour. He bought three books.
Provinces Of Night
by William Gay,
A Confederacy Of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole and
Cathedral
by Raymond Carver. The total was thirteen dollars; he gave Annie a twenty and told her to keep the change.
‘You know something?’ he said as he started towards the door.
Annie looked up.
‘Apparently the average book passes through twenty pairs of hands in its life.’
Annie shook her head. ‘I didn’t know that.’
David Quinn held up the bag with his three books inside. ‘Sixty lives will connect with what’s in this bag … makes you think huh?’
And with that he smiled, nodded, and then turned and left the store.
Annie came from behind the counter, crossed between the stacks of hardbacks and reached the window just as Quinn disappeared at the junction.
She shook her head and sighed. She thought of every person who’d ever wandered into The Reader’s Rest over the years, every person who’d browsed, who’d asked for help, who’d perhaps been looking for nothing more than someone with whom to share a few moments of their life before they moved on. And she’d let them move on, every single one of them, and had never once considered that there might have been something in those moments for her. She had created her own loneliness, and but for Sullivan she could go from one week to the next without ever sharing anything but the time of day or the cost of a second-hand paperback with a real honest-to-God human being.
But why? she asked herself as she turned from the window and made her way out back to prepare coffee. What am I afraid of? Of gaining something only to see it slipping away? But then isn’t it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?
She smiled at her own clichéd thoughts and busied herself with the percolator.
She closed a little before five. After David Quinn there had been two other customers – one who bought a dog-eared and battered copy of
Being There
by Jerzy Kosinski, the other who asked if she had any early edition Washington Irving. She did not.
She walked quickly, the wind was cold, and she was home by quarter after five. Jack was out, more than likely playing chess with a couple of guys from his bar, and once inside her apartment she made a salad, doused some cold chicken in vinaigrette, and sat in the kitchen with a glass of white wine and Frank singing from the front room. ‘Chicago, Chicago …’
She smiled. She thought of her father, she thought ofForrester, and once again she sensed that fleeting moment of identification when she thought of them together. She shook her head. It could not be … surely it could not be. She shrugged such a consideration aside, and she remembered the events of the afternoon, the moments after David Quinn had left.
I will meet with Robert Franklin Forrester on Monday, she thought. Jack can come down there to protect me
…
She stopped mid-flight.
Protect me from what? An old man in a worn-out topcoat who wants to ease his own loneliness by reading stories and bringing letters written by my father?
And with that she considered the possibility that Forrester might bring another letter … that he would open up something of her own life by sharing a little of her father’s. And that was what clinched it, clinched the decision that whatever vacillation and uncertainty she might experience over the weekend, she would have Forrester come down on Monday and she would talk about the manuscript he had brought, ply him for further details of her father’s life, and see what came of it. She had to do it if only to somehow keep alive the memory of her father. Her parents were her past, they were her life in some way. He deserved that much. At
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