The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [39]
“You live here.”
“Illegally, as you guessed. This building is condemned for human habitation. They used to store DDT here and it’s totally contaminated. The guy who owns the building thinks I just work here. He’d like to paw me too. You’re the first person my own age I’ve been with in, I don’t know…years.”
Who is also dying to paw you, thought Crosetti, but said only, “Gosh, that’s sad.”
“Yes, pitiable. And you’re decent to me and I treat you like shit. So typical! If you were a complete shithead I’d probably be slavering at your feet.”
“I could try to be a shithead, Carolyn. I could write away to the Famous Shitheads School and take a course.”
She stared at him and after a moment laughed. It was an odd barking sound not too distant from a sob. “But you hate me now, right?”
“No, I don’t,” said Crosetti with as much sincerity as he could cram into the phrase. He was thinking about why she should have chosen to isolate herself so. She was not a fatty, not disfigured, presentable, “classy” as his mother had observed, no reason for someone like that to skulk in the shadows of the city. And she was, if not actually a beauty, a…what was the word? A fetching woman. When her face was together, as now, when she was not scowling or scarily vacant, she could have fetched him from Zanzibar.
“On the contrary,” he added. “Really.”
“No? But I’ve treated you so badly.”
“Yes, and now I’ll give you a minute to think how you’re going to make it up to me.” He hummed and looked at his watch, and tapped his foot.
“I know what I’ll do,” she said after a moment. “I will introduce you to a real expert on Jacobean manuscripts, one of the best in the world. I’ll call him and set it up. And you can come with me on my errands and be bored stiff while I talk about split calf and marbled endpapers and then we’ll go see Andrew.”
“Andrew?”
“Yes. Andrew Bulstrode. Sidney introduced us. That was who I took that course on English manuscripts and incunabula from.”
“Does he want to feel you up too?”
“No. You, maybe.”
“I can’t wait.”
“You’ll have to, a little. I need to visit the bathroom and then I’ll make the call. Why don’t you wait for me downstairs?”
THE BRACEGIRDLE LETTER (4)
Despyte his unseemlie lyfe Mr Matthews workes did prosper mightilie for he knew his art welle, better they sayde than any iron-maistre in the Weald of Sussex. He had contract with the Royal Ordnance & that wase oure chief labour: makeyng of iron & casting gonnes. I was first put to loading & hauling & such donkey-taskes being as I was ignorant of all arte & if I grieved for my lost ease & tyme to studie that which I loved, still I balked not for as God speaketh: whatsoever thy hande findeth to do, do it with thy might: for there is no worke nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdome in the grave whither thou goest.
Now you can onlie caste iron from winter through springe: for in summer you have not the flow of water to werke the mills that empouwer the bellowes that maketh the blaste for the furnaces & the hammers for the forging of your bar-iron: & in summer must you bryng ironstone & charcoal & tayke away what you have mayde, before the roades myre. Soe they muste werke us like dogges in those few moneths: & in every werke we did whether hoisting pigges or carrying iron-stone & charcoales to feed the furnace, or clayeyng the mandrel, or layyng the mould, or heavinge the coolled peeces from the pitte, or knockyng off the sprues, or fileing smoothe, the maistre poynted out mee for being the moste laxe or a blockheade or clumsy withal & maney a harde blow I got from his hande or staffe, & called Sloppy Dick & Malhand Dick & other like naymes or worser. Yet I rebelled not & turned the othere cheeke, as commanded by oure Lord Jesu Christ & I vowed I would learne the worke, all though it went hard gainst my graine, so that he would have no cause for despising mee or but a little. And in the heate & smoakes of that place which wase the nearest