Page 82 of Strangers in Time

She looked at Charlie, who was intently watching the nervous expression on Oliver’s face. Unlike Molly, who was so focused on finding the means to reach her mother, he could evidently sense the man’s misgivings on the subject of paying wages for “tidying up.”

“And Charlie could work here, too,” said Molly brightly.

“For room and board,” said Charlie. “But I’ll work someplace else for pocket money.”

Molly looked confused by this and Oliver said, “Charlie, there’s really no need. I’m sure I can find the means with which to pay you both.”

Charlie shook his head. “You should only pay us, Mr. Oliver, if you need us to work for you. Otherwise, it’s just charity, and Gran never liked to take charity and she taught me the same. And you only got the one ration book for the three of us. Gran had both of ours, and it still weren’t enough food.”

Molly looked crestfallen. “I can find work elsewhere too, I’m sure.”

“But you’re just children,” protested Oliver.

Molly said briskly, “I’m no longer a child, Mr. Oliver. And there’s a chemist’s shop down the street. I did a great many prescription fillings at the hospital in Leiston. I can see if they need an assistant.”

“There are age requirements surely, Molly,” pointed out Oliver.

Her voice rose to a tremulous level. “I just saved a man’s life tonight, for God’s sake. And I can make inquiries, can’t I?”

“Of course you can,” conceded Oliver. “But for now, I think a good night’s rest is required after all the shocks you’ve endured. Things will look better in the morning.”

Neither Molly nor Charlie looked like they thought that was remotely possible.

And neither, really, did Ignatius Oliver.

THETRUEBEGINNINGS OFSOMETHING

IT WAS DAWN ANDOliver had barely slept. Wearing a tattered robe, he moved through the shop touching this book and straightening that one. He removed a bit of dust from a shelf, and a finger mark from the front window with his sleeve.

He then looked down and saw water coming in under the door as the poorly draining cobblestones flooded from all the rain and then sought a pathway into his shop. He hurried to the toilet, seized an old towel, and stuffed it against this gap.

He next walked down the flight of steps, moved over to the doorway, took out the key, unlocked his wife’s study, and went inside.

Some writers preferred early mornings to work their craft, others were inspired with the lateness of night. Still other ambitious scriveners wrote all the time.

Imogen had preferred the late afternoon or early evening to work on her novel, when a day’s other labor had been completed and the events during that time and her corresponding thoughts comingled into a stream of inventiveness that would make the prose resonate, the characters compel, and the story spark. This did not always happen, she had told him. Indeed, it often didn’t, but that did not defeat the logic of her approach.

Writing is often drudgery, she had told him. And no matter how long you did it, the process never became easier. It simply became more bewildering, as though you knew there was a secret to it all, and you’d come close to finding it at times, but right when you thought you had it, the bloody thing just skittered away into the dark recesses of your mind, like the remnants of a slippery dream. But, she had said, in that perplexity and frustration one could sometimes see growth, improvement, and a desire to keep going, which was more than ample reward. Though she had attended lectures where prominent writers claimed to always be in a “perfect” state of self-confidence, Imogen had noted, “such a foolish conviction is like a loaded gun to one’s head, and you are but a single false belief away from never placing credible thought to paper again.”

Overconfidence in his storytelling abilities was not something with which Oliver was the least bit concerned.

He sat down at the desk and stared at the blank page in the Crown typewriter, his longtime nemesis. Having the presence of two children with him now had no doubt added to his anxiety to produce something of worth.

He lifted his gaze to the ceiling, where directly overhead Molly and Charlie were hopefully in peaceful rest. It was quite ironic. Imogen had never wanted children, perhaps more out of insecurity than anything else. She had confided in him her utter disbelief that she could ever measure up to the standard her mother and father had set with her.

Oliverhadwanted to be a father, but he wanted Imogen as his wife even more. And now he had a son and a daughter. At least for a bit.

I suppose it’s fortunate that they’re not small children, as you would be sorely out of your depth. But people their age are not an easy lot to deal with, either. Indeed, they are infinitely more complex than the youngsters. They make the most intricate encryptions pale by comparison.

He stared at the paper and it stared contemptuously back. Indesperation, Oliver turned to the tin of typed pages and picked up the first few.

The early chapters had been riveting. The war, the struggles and hardship, the deaths, the unending anxiety from looking to the sky every few minutes awaiting the shriek of the air raid siren and then later the scream of the falling bombs.

Further into the story, he read about families divided and lost. Hope gone, day-to-day survival with a dwindling amount of resources available. Anger and dissatisfaction grew, particularly among those who had never felt the government, even in peacetime, could do anything worthwhile. If the state could not help when its citizens most needed it, what use was it? That was a straightforward and thus powerful argument, and was thematic throughout the unfinished novel.

Imogen had taken on that issue deeply and sensitively, and ultimately pushed back against the notion that anarchy or dictatorship was better than a government made up of the will of the people. They had both heard the talk at the shops, pubs, church, and in myriad other places where one listened and learned about what was on people’s minds. There were more than a few here who grudgingly admired the brutal efficiency of the German war machine, the superficial advantage of having one strongman dictate everything for all, in lieu of the unwieldy ebb and flow of compromise required in a democracy.

But for Oliver, as even a casual observer of history could say with complete confidence, such one-man governing structuresneverended well for anyone, not even the strongman.

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