Page 14 of The Meaning Of You

Slipping my glasses back on my nose, I went back to work. Ten minutes later, I pulled the linen thread through the final hole and finished with a double kettle stitch.

Done.

I stretched my back and glanced over to where Gazza was swaying to whatever awful music was playing through his headphones as he worked on a first-edition copy of Moby Dick. I balled some Japanese tissue paper and threw it his way. It hithim on the nose, and he startled and looked up from his mission of gluing layers of fabric paper and leather to the book’s spine.

Gazza shook his head. “You are such a child.” He slipped the headphones from his ears and reached for his water. “What do you want, oh great one?”

I grinned. “Just letting you know I’m clocking off when I’m done sewing this section. I’m gonna take a run to check on Shirley.”

Gazza frowned. “That’s three times this week. You didn’t visit as often when she was living alone in her own home.”

I set about removing my book from the sewing frame—unpinning the tapes from the crossbeam and removing the boards from underneath. “Last time I looked, I was the boss,” I reminded him. “I’ll just glue the endpaper and start rounding and backing tomorrow. Easy.”

Gazza rolled his eyes, not intimidated one jot by my grumpy response. “Last timeIlooked, youneverleft early. I thought Shirley was doing well. I’ve been imagining her hiring buses for outings to the local pub and driving the staff crazy.”

I glanced his way. With a Pakeha father, whom he spoke little about, and a Samoan mother he clearly adored, Gazza was an achingly beautiful young man with bronze features, a trendy asymmetric haircut that sported a variety of colours, depending on his mood, and intriguing tawny eyes above a white goofy grin that always made me smile. He eyed me quizzically, the intricate vine tattoo that climbed his throat standing in stark contrast to the white tee that hung in a lacklustre fashion from his narrow shoulders.

“You’re not wrong,” I admitted. “I’ll pull back on the visits soon. I just don’t want her to feel like she’s been dumped there.”

“It washerdecision,” Gazza pointed out. “She did all the organising and then told you once it was settled and you couldn’t argue with her.”

I frowned at the sharp outline of his clavicle visible through the thin cotton.He’s lost weight again.“You’re looking a bit skinny.” I called it out bluntly because that’s how we rolled.

Gazza snorted. “Yes,Dad. Andyou’rechanging the subject.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He sighed. “Fine. I’ve lost a couple of kilos if you must know. It’s this new insulin. It’s better in some ways, but it’s fucking with my metabolism and I can’t seem to eat enough to hold my weight. If it makes you any happier, I was about to make an appointment with my endocrinologist.”

I eyeballed him. “See that you do.”

He gave me a mocking salute and went back to his work.

For as long as Gazza had been my apprentice, the cheerful, achingly handsome, thirty-five-year-old had been lean to the point of just plain skinny. After the first six months, I’d been worried enough to raise the issue only to find he was a brittle diabetic who struggled to maintain his weight. It didn’t help that he was singularly focused when it came to his work and would forget to eat if the complicated series of alarms on his phone didn’t remind him. He was pretty diligent about sticking to his eating program, and his transdermal glucose monitor alerted him if he went hypo or hyper. According to Gazza, the real time monitoring system had changed his life.

I transferred the book to my workbench and set about gluing the endpaper in place. Then I placed it between weighted boards, pulled off my dustcoat, and began tidying my workspace.

When I was done, I wandered over to Gazza’s bench. “How’s it going?” I studied the book he was working on. “Need any help?”

Gazza shook his head. “Not right now. I’ll let you know.”

I nodded, content with the answer. Gazza was the best apprentice I’d ever had, even if it wasn’t really the right term.Following in my footsteps, he’d travelled to the UK for his training and was top of his class. But education wasn’t nearly enough to set you up for a career as a book conservator. It was a world where word-of-mouth accolades meant far more than a piece of paper. Theoretical knowledge and skilled workmanship didn’t always go hand in hand. Years of working alongside reputable experts was needed to achieve any sort of legitimacy.

Museums and collectors weren’t about to entrust their valuable books and documents to anyone based on qualifications alone. Respect as a conservator came from who you’d worked with and what books and documents you’d been exposed to. It took years to build a reputation, and Gazza had only been with me for two. A couple more and he’d move on to broaden his experience—a day I wasn’t looking forward to.

He graciously sat back so I could take a closer look.

I nodded, impressed. “This looks pretty damn perfect.”

Gazza shot me a broad grin, clearly pleased. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I patted his shoulder. “You’ve got real talent.”

He visibly preened. “Thanks.” Reaching for my wrist, he pulled my arm closer to examine the four-centimetre line of sutures above my wrist. He grunted, seemingly satisfied. “How’re they feeling?”

“Sore, if you must know.” I pulled my arm free only to have him stand and cup my ears instead, pulling me forward to inspect a second line of sutures that ran vertically down the middle of my forehead to the bridge of my nose. There was a third line on my right shoulder.

He poked gently at the clear film. “They look clean enough.”

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