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She had to say, tinged with despair as the thought may be, the guy was persistent. The afternoon crowds were thick even on this lesser used street, but still, the guy had followed her since she had left the pub.
Stupid pub. Rose had had only enough money for a single, quick pint. The barkeep hadn’t asked her for an ID, which was part of the reason why she had chosen a place so far from home. In all, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes spent inside, downing the beer in a far corner. She hadn’t greeted anyone else or even saw familiar faces. Why the hell did this guy notice her and latch on?
When he first started following her, Rose had been scared he knew her, but this was a different kind of bad. Not better or worse, just different.
She still wasn’t used to that different.
“C’mon, love, give us a kiss,” he said, as he had been saying for the last block.
Rose flicked him off over her shoulder.
“Now, that’s not very nice! I’m only trying to get to know you, you stupid bint!”
She walked as fast as possible in her dearly bought heels, one trembling hand in her jacket pocket. She had a very small knife that would not be appreciated by any person of authority. If she dared to use it at all. The people carefully not looking at the familiar scene in the street would be more than happy to tell any pig who had had a knife and who didn’t, forgoing the man’s dogged persistence in following her. That’s just how life was, especially around here.
But she had to keep going. She wasn’t yet close to her home turf, where there were queens and bears in equal measure that would run the guy off. She tried to catalogue the guy as she went: white, closely shorn medium brown hair, dark eyes, approximately six foot two and heavily muscled, with a local accent and local tattoos. The kind of guy who might build up the clearly accidental working cut on his left hand as some kind of daring adventure.
Her neighbors would love to run this guy off.
God, how she wanted to be home .
“Leave me alone,” Rose dared to say, voice squeaking between fear and her reflexive attempt to modulate it. Speaking tended to infuriate strange men, she knew, but if she said her clear refusal, maybe someone else would notice?
“Just a kiss! You look so pretty, you can’t give a guy a little kiss?”
“Fuck off!” Perhaps direct was better.
“Hey, I only want to talk to you,” the guy snarled, lunging forward to grab at her shoulder.
Rose turned to shake him off, nearly over-balancing, trying to pull the knife out and unfold it at the same time.
A portly man stepped out from the crowd and casually shoulder-checked the guy out of the way.
“Hello, dear!” the stranger said to her, as cheerful as a meeting in the park and not at all like a man who had just sent another man straight into a brick wall. “What luck is it, to have spotted you in all this crowd. I haven’t seen you for ages!”
“I -” she started before closing her mouth with a snap. She didn’t know what to say; the man was an absolute stranger.
The guy staggered to his feet, forehead bloodied, distinctly bewildered.
“I know, I know, you haven’t seen me either. I’ve put on a few since then,” the portly man teasingly lied, patting his own rounded stomach. He smiled at her like a private joke, inviting and sweet. “You know me, of course. I can’t say ‘no’ to good living.”
“Who could?” she tried, grabbing onto the least important bit of her abruptly interrupted thoughts. Belatedly, she closed her knife by practiced feel. It was still in her stupid pocket, fat lot of good it had done her.
“What the fuck,” said the pub guy, holding a sleeve to his forehead.
“Would you care to take the air with me? To ‘catch up’ a bit?” asked the portly man, ignoring him entirely.
“Take the air?” squeaked Rose. She felt adrenaline rushing about her blood, seeking release. The man was wearing a bow tie and he just body-checked a guy. A guy who seemed a lot less terrifying now than a minute ago, but still. Not someone to be pushed aside quite so easily, tall and built as he was.
“While it lasts, of course.” He looked up at the overcast sky. “A rain is coming.”
“I don’t-”
“Hey ,” barked the pub guy, now trying to grab the man’s shoulder.
Who turned, still cheerfully casual, and gripped his wrist in such a way that the guy screamed, face white.
Rose expected him to scream expletives next, throw a punch, anything. She did not expect him to fall to his knees with all the inevitability of a building collapse. He was helped along the way with that uncompromising grip, so that the fall wasn’t quite as bruising as it could have been.
It still looked painful, judging by his face.
“Anton Trevor Matthews,” said the portly man, formal and polite as the pub guy stared up at him with fear-sweat beading his brow. “You are going to sober up and go home, and think of how sorely your mother would weep to see you harangue a woman on the street, like you were some common jackal and not the son she loves dearly.”
As he spoke, Rose became aware that they were surrounded by a bubble of space in the crowd, silent and serene, but no one was looking their way. The eeriness of people sliding their gaze over what was happening as they passed pricked the hairs of her neck. There was nothing of the previous careful disinterest in their blank eyes. It was as though they couldn’t even see it.
Rose found her hand on the knife again. Her heart beat in a desperate bid to leave its encircling chest.
Her pursuer couldn’t speak. Tears leaked freely down his face, seemingly unconnected to anything. He nodded a tentative agreement..
Sound rushed in like a dam bursting as the portly man let go.
“Now,” he breathed, taking Rose’s arm. “Where were we?”
“Taking the air,” she said, unbalanced even as she stepped in time with his surprising stride. She was being spirited away, it felt like, leaving the pub guy kneeling on the sidewalk. Someone tripped over him and swore, she could hear, before they got too far away to pick out the argument from the city buzz.
“Ah, of course. Before the rain.”
“Who are you?” asked Rose. She was frightened by the calm that suffused her limbs, for all that a stranger was touching her. He had tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, like some kind of old gentleman on the promenade of Hyde Park, but kept a polite distance. Her skirt didn’t even whisk against his striding legs.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon. How silly of me, not introducing myself! You may call me Mr. Fell,” the portly man said with a regal incline of his head.
He was white and pale; pale blonde hair to pale blue eyes, pale blue shirt covered with a rosè velvet waistcoat - reminiscent of grandmothers’ couches - and a pale coat. The entire look spoke of old money. The kind that had been depleted at some point and remained only through strange mannerisms and worn clothing, dusty and familiar.
If anyone else noticed how odd it was that this clearly upper class man was walking arm and arm with a leather jacketed goth girl, she couldn’t see them staring. Not immediately, anyway.
Hyper-aware of the strangers of the sidewalk, Rose bit back the questions that trembled on her tongue. She was suspicious of how she wanted to trust him. She had learned to listen to her gut feelings at a young age, but those were usually grumbles and portents of bad things to come. This was a calm that couldn’t possibly be real.
“And how may I address you?” he asked once the silence went on for too long, looking at her from the corner of his eye.
She hesitated.
“You’ve no obligation to tell me,” he said, waving a ringed hand. “I ask only to pass the time before I take my leave. Simple conversation can do wonders to take one’s mind off of more complicated troubles.”
“You… you can call me Rose,” she said, trying to be confident and failing miserably.
She had barely said it out loud before now.
Mr. Fell nodded, deep and acknowledging.
“Rose,” he mulled, putting unfamiliar spices into the simple sound. “It’s such a lovely name. The flower itself holds so many loves, from sweethearts to family to friends. It’s full to bursting with it.”
That wasn’t why she had chosen it, but it sounded as good a reason as any.
“I live in Soho,” he continued as the two paused briefly at a zebra crossing. He patted her hand when it was safe, a gentle permission to go. “I’ve a bookshop there, actually. You seemed to be going the same direction, but I wouldn’t wish to presume.”
Rose, realizing it was a sort of question, answered, “Yes, I - I live there. With some friends.”
“Friends! How excellent. People to wait for you, make sure you make it home alright?”
Her shoulders tensed. “Yes,” she said again, curt and sharp. A desire to make sure the stranger knew what he was messing with prompted her to add, “They would miss me.”
“It’s just as to be expected,” agreed Mr. Fell with a bright smile.
“Sure.” They would miss Rose paying what rent she could.
“One really cannot overstate the benefits of good friendship.”
“I guess.” Flatmates weren’t exactly the same as friends, but she wasn’t about to explain that to this man. In case he turned out to be a weird dandyish killer.
At least they were getting closer to Soho. She recognized a couple of old illegal sex shops that were now very legal sex shops. She worked at one of them, though not on this end. If the pay was better, she might not have had flatmates that would await her arrival.
There. That was a positive. Given enough time, she might even be able to think of a second one for the low pay and grumpy-at-best flatmates.
“Well, here’s me,” said Mr. Fell, stopping them both with another hand pat. They were in front of an old corner shop that Rose was only vaguely aware of in relation to her own home. The neighbourhood rumor was that it was in business, but not often, and was probably haunted with jilted lovers, aged spinsters, and accident prone children. The signs were faded and the old blown glass windows grimy in a manner more sordid than the adult bookstore next door. Whatever the corner shop sold was behind several layers of dust. Some of the aged lettering - looking like they hadn’t been repainted since the 19th century - said something about ‘antiquarian and unusual books’.
It was exactly the kind of murder house that Rose would have expected for a movie, not for real life.
“Would you care for a cup of tea? Or shall I call you a cab?”
“Look, what do you want from me?” she asked, disturbed by the serenity of her gut in comparison to the absurdity of the situation. Men like him weren’t nice without wanting something in return. She had learned that at the same time as learning to listen to her instincts.
“Want?” repeated Mr. Fell, taken aback. “Why, nothing.”
“Then why talk to me at all? Why…” She bit back a breath, frustrated with the clamoring of her warring logic against the sheer sincerity wafting off the man. “Why knock that guy over and guide me back to Soho?”
Mr. Fell’s smile increased. He seemed to be perpetually smiling, as though something truly amusing was just beyond reach. But this turned up the wattage of his mischief to eleven.
“Why not?” he asked.
The first raindrops pattered down the sidewalk, a heraldic call before they dotted the top of her carefully brushed hair. She lifted a hand to it. It was easier to confirm the distinctive clearing chill than the notion of some random man seeing her distress and actually doing something about it just because.
It was either endearing or incredibly creepy. The latter largely depended on the potential for murder if she walked into his shop.
“Would you like a cab, or tea?” asked Mr. Fell once more, pulling a ring of keys from his pocket. “You can have both, should you truly desire them.”
“I have a knife,” she blurted.
“As well you should.” He had found the key he wanted; old as the shop and made of iron, just like in the movies. “It was a sad day when ladies no longer wore such fashionable hats with their delightfully sharp hatpins, but a knife will do in a pinch.”
He left the door open behind him, a cat’s beckoning.
Helpless to the good feeling of her gut, Rose followed.
***
The shop smelled as bad as could be expected, given first impressions: dust and yellowed paper, faint tobacco and wood smoke, the myriad ghosts of perfume from readers long gone. Gloom itself twitched across her senses, as persistent as a cat stropping itself against shins for a treat. Yet despite the grime of the windows - and closing the front door against the rain - she had no problem seeing. Mismatched lamps let out gentle light, guiding her around books piled on the floor, on tables, on shelves, on the age marked walls - or so it seemed by dint of being alarmingly overstuffed. She had never been in a place that seemed so utterly given over to impulses of passion rather than use. And all of it was his, as Mr. Fell told her with no small amount of pride, hanging up his coat. (She declined the same courtesy.) He had been there for decades.
“Or somewhat decades, really. You’re too young to truly know, but as one gains enough age, the years just run together!” laughed Mr. Fell.
He sounded like her mother, who still talked to her, and who was a bit patronizing about most things. But, Rose knew, that was likely because it was easier to remember hurt than joyful moments.
“That’s something people have been known to say,” she said when he seemed to expect a response. She kept her mouth shut against any harsher words and her hands in her pockets to avoid touching temptations. At least she couldn't smell mice. She hated mice.
“And it holds true for centuries beyond meaning,” Mr. Fell said with a wave. His pace was still quick as he led her towards the back of the shop; she had to trot to keep up. “Now, please, sit, sit, and I’ll start the kettle.”
There was a small table - surprisingly bare of books, with only two chairs in differing conditions - tucked in an area that might have been lovely if not for the crowding shelves on all sides. Rose gingerly sat in the chair the colour of verdigris. It looked like it ought to have broken at the weight of a living person and not a ghost, but it was sturdy and comfortable.
“I’ve a number of teas,” Mr. Fell was saying as she leaned cautiously back, “and while black tea is all well and good, nothing is more invigorating on a rainy evening than a bit of green. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Agreement is a possibility,” said Rose as carefully as possible, still looking around with curious eyes. A mound of books nearby turned out to be a divan with only some novels stacked on its cushions, and another mound was actually a desk covered in knick-knacks and tomes in various states of study. The little area was a living space carved out in time.
“Sugar or cream?” asked Mr. Fell, already speeding away again, presumably to the upstairs.
“No, thank you.” Was there an upstairs? The building was tall enough, but she couldn’t see any stairs. She could barely see anything. Just books scattered everywhere, a good deal covered in gentle dust, with bare spots of idle fingers exposing their covers. It was as though they had been acquired, set down, and not dealt with again since.
It this place sold books as the sign suggested, that didn’t seem to happen often. Her own fingers itched with the desire to tie back her hair and clean.
“Oh, excellent,” said Mr. Fell, far away but still on the level. “Good tea needs no such distracting additions.”
There was kitchenly clattering and the high whistle of a ready kettle. Looking around once more, Rose pulled a handkerchief from an inner jacket pocket and dusted off the table. She had to push aside a doily to do it. The table itself was fine, with delicate carvings that one of her flatmates would have drooled over, but covered in faint scratches and stains. It was as well used as the threadbare and comfortable chairs.
She was careful to put the doily back exactly. Maybe Mr. Fell wouldn’t notice.
The remaining dust tempted her terribly. She sat back down, this time with her hands tucked under her legs.
Somehow, the poor condition of the man’s shop made her feel better about his kindness. He was obviously weird. She could deal with weird. And she still had a mostly clear path to the front door, if she needed it.
“Ah, can you hear it?” Mr. Fell came around a different corner than he had left, holding a silver tray with a genuine tea service in both hands.
“Hear what?” said Rose, springing to her feet to help.
“Sit! You are my guest, please, sit,” he chided, stepping out of reach with a stern frown that might make a marshmallow wobble. Rose sat. The frown disappeared. Mr. Fell continued setting down the service and his thoughts.
“The rain, it’s falling heavier now.” The china set matched; there were faint cracks highlighted in repairing gold on a number of pieces. She hadn’t ever seen anything like it. “Quite lovely, to be inside as everything else is drenched, with a spot of tea and company.”
“Do you ask people back here often?” said Rose. It came out sharper than she intended. She ducked her head, struggling to hide her suspicion.
“No,” he answered easily enough. He poured the tea, fragrant and steaming in the chilly air. “People like to touch what they ought not, I find, and very few appreciate lectures on proper archival care.”
Rose snuck a glance at the mess of dusty books on the nearby divan.
“I haven’t been home in some time,” said Mr. Fell, brow furrowed at the same mess. “And those aren’t very good. Mostly anachronistic nonsense, I’m afraid.”
“You don’t get a lot of business?” It seemed polite to ask after business, especially since her thoughts were running a bit more critical..
“If I’m lucky, no,” said Mr. Fell.
"Oh." Maybe business wasn't safe? Maybe he was a hoarder. She knew about hoarders. Her Aunt Jackie 'collected' plush animals regardless of condition. There had been several blazing rows between her and Rose's mother over the years when the plushies threatened to over take the house. The rows never seemed to resolve anything.
The tea, she found, was wonderful. She had never had freshly brewed green tea. It was like slipping into a warm bath, but full of that greenhouse smell of plants reaching towards the sun. And the drink itself was just under this side of burning, nice and comforting. That helped immensely with the increasing need to dust off all the many surfaces she could see
"The shop needs tidied more than anything," Mr. Fell said, seemingly to himself. He sat upright with his threadbare vest rubbing against the table's edge; it seemed used to the treatment. "Goodness, but it's been too long…"
"Were you on holiday or something?" Rose asked her teacup rather than risk further offense by making the wrong expression.
Mr. Fell picked up his own cup and inhaled the steam.
“Of a sort,” he answered, sounding wary for the first time. “If one could take a working holiday.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a holiday.”
“No, I suppose it wasn’t.”
They fell into a silence filled with the noise of the rain and bare swishing of traffic in the street. It would pick up again soon, as tourists and people started to flood in to gawk at shop facades and populate current nightclubs that were so far from the fleshpots of old as to be from a different planet entirely. Rose was familiar with that uptick in traffic. Her evenings at work usually involved maintaining a polite-but-not-interested smile as strangers looked at vibrators and avoided eye contact with everyone else. She could tell who were tourists by their giggles.
This silence was better than the loud noise of that nonsense. It was comfortable, in a distinctly unfamiliar way.
“Would you…” she started, half of an idea on her tongue.
Mr. Fell turned his inward attention outward. “Would I?”
“Would you want a hand or two, in the tidying? I can help,” she offered, feeling like they were the exact wrong words. If he was a hoarder - he probably was a hoarder - he wouldn’t want her anywhere near his things. Aunt Jackie exploded if a plushie was moved, and she claimed to love Rose. Mr. Fell was a stranger.
She didn’t want to mess with his books. She wanted a double handful of that confusing silence. The want blossomed in her throat with a sudden ache, fierce and choking.
“You’re very kind to offer,” said Mr. Fell with a deep nod as he refreshed her teacup. He patted her arm as he set the teapot down, as light and careful as the grandfather she didn’t have. “ And I’ve no doubt that you are more than capable, but I’ll manage by myself. It wouldn’t do to keep you from your studies.”
“Studies?”
“Aren’t you a student? You seem to be about that age.”
“I’m nineteen,” she said stiffly, sitting straighter in her chair.
“Really?” He stressed the word like a professional bullshit detector: carefully bland of any condemnation, but ultimately not accepting the lie.
“Next week,” she amended, giving up the fight. “My birthday is next week. Technically.”
“Technically, of course. ‘Next week’ being only a few days away.”
“But I work up until then,” she continued, the words springing free with their own haste. “So today was supposed to be a sort of, I don’t know. A ‘me day’?”
Rose shrugged and hid her wince behind the teacup. The excuse for a couple hours to herself seemed so pathetic when she said them out loud. It would be worse to explain the why behind it.
Mr. Fell nodded. It was a very understanding nod.
“An acquaintance of mine has explained that concept to me.” He finished his cup with a contented sigh, shoulders relaxing into the warmth. “It’s one that I could entirely enjoy. Why else occupy the same flesh for so long if one isn’t going to appreciate it?”
“That’s a way of putting it,” Rose agreed. If only that horse’s ass from the pub hadn’t ruined the whole plan.
Although - and second positive of the day - she wouldn’t have had this quiet chance in this likely haunted bookshop otherwise. The flat was noisy, work was noisy, and the pub had been noisy. This was the first peaceful moment she had had in some time, sweet and tempting.
She should be going, she knew, as she set down the gold-lined cup.
She didn’t want to be going.
“I should go,” said Rose.
Mr. Fell gave her that secret smile again. It wasn’t as though he was laughing at her, she decided. It was the smile of noticing something fun and waiting for your companion to notice.
“Thank you for your company,” he said, formal in the words if not in the sincerity of his tone.
“You’re welcome?” She shook the phrase out of her head. She had been tiptoeing around her internal worries since walking in the door. Now was not the time to be snarky. “No, I’m sorry, that’s not the right thing to say, is it?”
“You have a choice in the matter. What do you want to say?” said Mr. Fell, perfectly serious around that increasing smile.
Rose stared at him.
He stared back, eyebrows raised for an answer.
Well, if he was asking what she wanted to say.
“I’m super glad you’re not a murderer,” she told him, half an eye on that path to the front door. “Though if you were, you’d be a crummy one, because this place is riddled with potential evidence.”
Mr. Fell threw back his head with laughter.
“A crummy one indeed!” he chuckled, patting her arm again. “I should hope so. It’s not exactly a pursuit that a nice person should want to excel in, is it?”
Rose wasn’t really sure what to say to that. She had already said more than she would to her mother or Aunt Jackie, both of whom were likely to pinch her ear if they thought she was being mischievous. And nothing was more humbling than being dragged by the ear by a older-presumably-wiser woman, especially when the woman in question was determined that it was deserved.
When Mr. Fell started collecting the tea service, Rose helped. He didn’t chide her assistance this time. That was probably a good thing. Having said the words out loud, she was becoming increasingly convinced that he actually was a murderer - despite the everything she was seeing - and would soon introduce her to his torture basement. Or attic. If there were even multiple floors to the building and it wasn’t just a box stuffed with books and dust and very small areas for quiet contemplation.
But he didn’t chide. He thanked her instead, standing neat and graceful in his home.
“Shall I walk you out?”
“Yes? Yes. Sure.”
She had never been ‘walked out’ socially. It seemed to be just following Mr. Fell back to the front door, a journey in reverse. The only difference was that the sky outside had deepened with twilight, pollution making it unpricked by stars. Light pooled under the lamps and streamed in through the windows. They were oddly clear. She had been certain they were grimy before, but that was when the sun was still peering in.
“Should you desire it,” said Mr. Fell, one hand on the front door knob. “My home is always open for those in pursuit of a bit of tea.”
“And books?”
He paused with a quick frown of contemplation. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “As long as they are careful with them.”
A minicab was waiting on the street outside. Despite his probably illegal corner parking, the driver seemed neat and friendly, with a familiar wave for Mr. Fell that was returned just as cheerfully.
“Good evening to you, Miss Rose.”
“Good evening,” she said. Everything felt slightly unreal. She left on light feet, stomach flopping with the strangeness of it all. If - if - it turned out that Mr. Fell was a murderer type, which her gut instinct had given up convincing her head was not the case, he must be one of the weird classy ones. Like a… Or maybe a…
She couldn’t think of any classy ones. Her head was occupied with how she had walked into a very real stranger’s shop and stayed there, with no one else knowing, for nearly an entire half hour.
Rose wanted to visit again.
“Where to, miss?” the cab driver asked, elbow hanging outside the car window.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t book a ride,” she said, tension snapping her form into ramrod straightness, familiar and annoying.
“That’s alright, miss. Mr. Fell called it in. We have an understanding with him,” he assured her, still cheerful. “He’s a right genteel cove, not the kind you see around here anymore, feels like, if you take my meaning. If he calls for a guest, we’ll get them exactly where they need to be, tout de suite .”
She glanced back to see that the front door was closed, but Mr. Fell remained in view, peering through the dingy panes. He gave a thumbs up when he saw her look.
A gut check assured her that, though it was determined that Mr. Fell was safe, she still had a knife in her pocket. And the minicab had all the signs of legitimacy. The worst that could happen was death, which would be annoying, as she had no idea what went into planning for one’s death, and so wasn’t prepared in the slightest.
“Alright,” she said, accepting the small-huge gesture. A quick ride would keep her off her increasingly pained feet, at the least. She liked the look of heels, but they were annoying, even for just a few ‘me’ hours.
It was only later - safe at her flat while practicing a recently learned recipe - that she realized the goal of her day had been met. She went out in public exactly as she was and had been treated accordingly.
It was a dizzying realization, one that felt too big for her body to contain.
She set it beside her heart and bent her attention back to cooking.