The Book

“Just take it! Please!”

The rain bounced off the bus stop, splashed aggressively off the pavement, and pelted relentlessly from the sky. Isolated in this watery shroud, Hannah tried to decipher the sign on the Chinese doctor's opposite. Psoriasis, infertility, obesity and… what was that word? Could it be grief? Could the Chinese doctor, a sweet man who walked his poodle in the field behind the flats, actually cure what was ailing her? IBS, arthritis, stress..? She was still trying to work out the missing word when her hands recoiled instinctively from an object being thrust into them.

"You take it. You please take it!”

“No, sorry no. I don’t want to”. Hannah dragged her mind back. An old man, barely her height, was pushing a book into her hands.

“Just take it! Please! I go now.”

One minute his pungent, wet wool smell was invading her space, the next the rain had wrapped round her again and she was alone holding the book. She glanced around her, momentarily embarrassed to have been so importuned, but there was no-one to see what had happened. She was still holding the book when she made it back to her house.

“You in, Love?“ Hannah called up the stairs, not expecting an answer. “I’ll put the kettle on!”

She peeled off clammy layers of wet clothes. The book sat in a little puddle of its own on the kitchen counter. It was a plain black notebook, with a soft cover held in place by elastic.

“This weird thing happened to me at the bus-stop,” she called again. “You’ll never guess what? A bit of a mystery really. Oh!” Her son was standing a few feet away from her in the doorway. She smiled nervously. He didn’t always get up and now he was up, she wasn’t sure she could navigate the conversation without upsetting him. “I got given that. By a complete stranger”.

She nodded towards the book, but her son was already there, flicking through it.

“It’s blank. Why’d someone give you a blank book?”

“Is it?” Hannah reached over. Her son flinched and she felt that familiar stab in her chest. “Sorry. Can I..?”. He passed her the book.

“So it is. Well, maybe we can use it, once it’s dried out. Any use to you?”

But he had already left the kitchen and she heard his soft tread climbing the stairs. A wave of hot sorrow hit the back of her eyes, but she resisted. “No point” she muttered softly. No point.

*************

The next morning, porridge on the go and a brighter day promised, she went to retrieve the book from the mantlepiece. Her husband David was smiling guilelessly from his photo, unaware that this was his last summer holiday, that this was the image that he would be forever remembered by. The book, however, was not there, her son had it. He was sat on the sofa. Actually dressed. Unbelievably wearing shoes. And he was flipping through the pages of the book, holding up the blank pages to the light.

“Found anything?” Hannah asked.

“It smells of lemon, I think. You know lemon juice is an invisible ink. Dad and I tried it once”.

“Did you?” Hannah felt her chest gripped by a giant fist as her son casually mentioned his Dad.

“Yeah. I mean, ages ago, when I was a kid”.

“You’re still a kid.” Hannah didn’t say it out loud.

“I’m going to try to read it. I need a flame”.

“You think there’s something written there?”

“Got to be. No-one hands over blank notebooks. He’s trying to communicate. Probably needs to get a message to someone. Or a cry for help. You got a candle?”

A week of experimentation into the mysteries of invisible writing began. First candle flames, then sunlight, then UV light, then steam and heat and every possible alternative was tried with museum-like gentleness on the pages of the notebook. But the book remained blank.

“You need to go back to the bus-stop. See if you can find him again,” her son told her on day five.

“I go there every day, Love, on the way to work. I’ve never seen him there”.

Her son gazed at the notebook intently. He had started taking the book into his bedroom at night, sleeping with it by his pillow. He still wasn’t leaving the house, but now moved more freely around it, always holding the book. Sometimes Hannah would wake in the early hours and be aware of movement in the bedroom next door, her tall son moving around, the sound of pages turning.

*************

After a week she arrived back from work to find the house empty. A note informed her that her son had gone for a walk. The house felt so quiet with just her breath to keep her company. David grinned from the mantlepiece and she felt a flash of irrational anger. What the hell did he have to smile about? She was halfway to the door before she consciously registered that someone had knocked. Behind the door was a rabbity-looking man in a grey suit, holding a square cornered leather briefcase that seemed to have been directly lifted from the 1980s.

“Mrs Ash?”, the man had a trebly voice and a bright smile. “Mrs Hannah Ash? Is that right?”

“Yes”

“Ah. Right. Yes. Well, you are a very lucky lady”.

Hannah tried to summon an encouraging smile. The man continued, “You have come into a rare piece of good fortune!”He attempted a small gesture of reveal, as if summoning a magical outcome. It petered out. “This briefcase contains a significant sum of money that I am empowered to give to you”.

“Why?” Hannah leant heavily on the front door frame. Why, when you were at your limit, when there was so little left to give, did unutterable arseholes like this little man turn up to torment you. “What do you want?”

“Ah yes, well. You see, we want to purchase the black book you found. And this is a large sum of money, in the briefcase, you see, which we have to give to you. For the book.”

Hannah looked up to see her son tramping back up the garden path. He wasn’t holding anything in his hands, but the pockets on his jacket were large and she had no doubt he had the book with him.

“What’s up, Mum?” he asked as he approached. The man transferred his weight foot to foot, seemingly unclear whether to turn his back on the approaching lad or engage him as an ally. Hannah blew his cover.

“This gentleman says he’ll give us some money for the book”.

Her son looked coldly at the man who again tried the magical gesture.

“Yes. Yes. That’s correct. I have a briefcase here full of cash. I’m permitted to offer up to £20,000.” He turned back to Hannah, a little more firmly. “Perhaps we could talk about it inside?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I really think we should discuss things…” The man leaned in. Hannah’s spine stiffened as she heard the hardening in his voice.

Her son pushed past the man and through the door. “We don’t have anything to sell you. You need to leave”.

“Well, perhaps I can just hand over the money, it’s a big sum. I’m sure you could make use of it in the current…”.

Her son put his head back round the door frame. “In the current what? We don’t need it. You can go now”.

“Well, you see, that’s what I can’t do”. The man had changed now, his body filling the door frame and his foot on the step. “There’s no point in beating about the bush. We do need the book and do have to insist…”

“Insist on what?” Hannah tried to intercede her body between her son’s and the man’s. He was holding the briefcase inches from her face.

“This is a very generous offer. Very, very generous” he hissed at her. She tried to push her son back out of harm with one hand behind her, whilst trying to catch his eye behind the door.

“Shouldn’t we…?”.

It wasn’t just that they needed the money. The book had started to be an obsession, it had a hold on her boy. “Couldn’t we…?”. Hannah didn’t want to suggest handing it over, but she wanted rid of this strange man. And rid of the book.

“It’s a lot of money, madam,” the man persisted.

A moment of communication between mother and son behind the door.

“Fine. I’ll get it”. Her son stomped upstairs and the man on the doorstep visibly softened, once more a harmless office worker with a bad briefcase. He remarked pleasantly on the state of the bulbs in her front garden. Upstairs, aggressive noises suggested her son was searching for something. Finally, he returned and put a black notebook in the man’s hands. The man opened his briefcase. It was lined with little packets of money, all held in paper sleeves, like a ransom.

“That’s 20, 000”. The man confirmed. “I’m so glad you agreed to take it”. He handed it over and waved the book at them. “Tada”. He waved again as he got in a small white car.

Hannah sat on the sofa directly opposite her son. She gazed at him firmly.

“That wasn’t the notebook you gave him. That was a different one”.

“Well, I wasn’t going to give him the real thing, was I?”

“But we took the money.”

They stared at each other in silence. The briefcase, open to reveal its contents, lay on the floor between them.

*************

The next day her son didn’t get up. Hannah didn’t push it, but she did make him a sandwich for lunch and delivered it to his bedroom. She stood in confusion at the door. No son, a tidy room, and a made bed. He wasn’t there and probably hadn’t been there all night. She had placed the briefcase under her bed the previous night. It too had gone.

“Oh Daniel, what are you doing?”.

She watched as a small white car drew up in front of their house. At the same time, her mobile buzzed in her pocket. Danny was calling.

“Mum? Are you there? You need to leave, Mum. Meet me where Dad’s photo was taken. Be careful. But come.”

Hannah made her way downstairs. Out the back of the house was a gate that led directly to the road behind. At the front of the house someone had started pounding on the front door. Hannah knew if she thought about what she was doing, she would probably stop. So she kept walking.

On the train north, she ate a small piece of fruitcake and stared out of the window. It took all day to reach Edinburgh, another long ride to reach Fort William, an age again to reach Arisaig. The next morning the ferry took her over to Eigg and the 4-mile cycle ride to the Singing Sands. A figure was walking the beach, for a moment it looked like David. He was gripping a black plastic bag against the wind and stooping to fill it with pieces of plastic. Hannah walked towards her son. His eyes were shining and his skin pink and wind-chapped.

“You made it. The money will last ages up here. I got us a caravan.”

“How long will we stay?”

“Until we work out what is in the book”.

They sat that night under the northern stars and stared at the blank pages of the notebook. For six weeks they cleaned the beach, gazed at the stars and searched the book. For six weeks they breathed more, talked more and moved more than they had in a year.

On the morning of the seventh week, Danny picked up a pen. “Mum. I think I’m going to write in the book”. And he grinned.