The library is a
focal point of east Marwick. Astonishing building, recently renovated art-deco
beauty, boils with people hungry of good literature, chat and coffee. Spacious
and bright lobby serves as a meeting point for all these bohemian intellectuals,
who walk, dress, smell and are stylish, somehow en passant. They sink in the lobby’s sofas like teeth into the
fresh doughnut. They are deep into anything they do, mesmerised by the
experience of this post-modern melting pot.
Somewhere between
book shelves Ben enjoys the privilege of combining passion with earning for a
living. As a librarian he has access to nature literature of all kind, and he
passionately studies it, filling his spare
time with knowledge about wood life of Ireland, birds of Marwick and
decreasing population of hedgehogs. By the way, his work colleagues call
himself a hedgehog, because he is the only male in the staff. They laugh they
need to protect him and this is how he feels among these caring Italian mothers
– safe, cosy and well fed.
But outside
library womb Ben feels lonely. The relationship with his last girlfriend was
like a drooped stitch in a knitted scarf. He lives alone in his cosy flat, surrounded
by books and trinkets which cumulated in his life like a dust behind the piano
in old lady’s house.
Ben is standing in
front of the mirror, carefully studying his face expressions and body posture.
His brother always teases him, calling Ben the man with deeply hidden but not
unnoticeable charm. Does it refer to his odd way of dress code: retro corduroys
combined with pastel shirts with wide collars, or to his funny tummy, always
standing out against thin sticks of his arms and legs? Probably both of those
characteristics, and add many other things which in fact made his brother
description very accurate. In his mid 40s, he feels healthy and full of life. He
likes and nurses his oddity with tenderness of the child treating its
favourite, oldest teddy bear.
Ben just finished
shaving and found an exact description of how he feels now. He is a kite
without strings – staying on the ground, motionless and useless, waiting for
someone who would pick him up and make his colourful shirts dancing with the
wind.
Maybe she is the one, he told to himself at the end of morning ablutions,
and it was the voice of hope and excitation; the voice of debuting baker
pulling the cake out of the oven.
He met Peggy two
weeks earlier in the library and she invited him for an opening of her friend’s
art exhibition tonight. They bumped into each other in the library, when she
was looking for publications about poplars and he was organizing books on top
shelves. She was focusing on her search through the titles and stumbled against
the ladder standing on her way. Ladder shaken and Ben almost lost his balance
on the highest step. She looked up, embarrassed and felt wave of blush flooding
her face. This is how they met the chance to sit together on lobby’s sofa and
discover mutual passion for the nature.
Peggy is a
gardener, working at the Marwick University Botanic Garden. Gardening is a
family profession, passed from generation to generation, like a shape of nose.
She has blooming imagination and her mind is like magnolia taking spring
sunbath in her mother’s conservatory. This is at least, how her friend Rachel
described it, after reading her last story, written for children. Luckily for
Ben, Peggy is the kind of a person, who spots unobvious charm in people and
objects. She has an eye for detail and always enjoys imagining what’s behind
the tree bark.
If you would ask
Ben to share association about Peggy’s appearance he would say Bramley Apple.
The first impression of her brought a mixture of feelings, as she is not a
classic beauty, but sparkles interest which he could not resist. Her unusual
way of being, her patchy dress, her shyness – he adored it from the first time
they talked to each other.
Now, getting ready
to work and looking forward for this evening meeting, he wants to be a sugar
cane, mixed with her in a lovely apple crumble.