The Northern Clemency (98 page)

“I think it got in by mistake,” Daniel said, showing her the cover. He had his thumb in the book, a hundred or so pages in. “I only asked for tasteful-looking old books. This is a new one.”

“What’s it about?” Helen said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Daniel said. “It’s sort of about people like us, I think.”

And he showed her the first page. “‘So the garden—’” she read.

“I can’t be sitting around all day, love,” Helen said. “I’ll read it when you’re done. Is my dad finished upstairs?”

“Must be nearly,” Daniel said, and yawned and stretched, watching her go, the movement of her rump, a dancer’s movements, with still that old pleasure. “I’ll not be putting up the bookcase,” he called after her. “I thought about it. It was a stupid idea, really.” She kept on going, and it was only by a sort of satisfied, approving movement of her head
that he saw she’d heard him. He picked up the book, and weighed it in his hand. Soon the first customers would be arriving. His mum and dad had said they were coming down this evening with Jane and Scott and baby Archie, up for the weekend. He’d recommend the fish pie, and get Helen to sit down and eat with them. All those books: all made from what people remember. Memory, in a block, six inches by four by two. Maybe Helen was right when she said she knew why the second-hand bookshop was so glad to be shot of them. Or perhaps that was just in her fit of rage with him for spending the money so ineffectually and thoughtlessly. He watched her coming back from the bar, with a shining glass for him in her hand, a slice of lemon on top, and he smiled. And she smiled back. What he’d wasted today; it was only money, after all. And time, of course. There had never been any real doubt in his mind that she would forgive him.

London—Khartoum—Topsham
March 2007

A Note About the Author

Philip Hensher’s novels include
Kitchen Venom
, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, and
The Mulberry Empire
, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Chosen by
Granta
as one of its best young British novelists, he is professor of creative writing at Exeter University and a columnist for the
Independent
. He lives in London.

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright © 2008 by Philip Hensher
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com

Originally published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, London.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-307-27140-2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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