The young woman handed the tiny red book to her husband, as if she was presenting him with a precious gift. Taking it from her, Lachlan opened the nondescript little publication; one of many they had acquired on the island of Samoa and definitely not one of the better ones, in terms of condition. As he opened the book to write in the price, a strange look came over the face of his partner. Dark menacing storm clouds rolled up the valley turning the green meadow to a monochrome grey. Lachlan had witnessed this transformation before and knew it preceded bad things.

Continuing to leaf through the early pages to find a place to pencil in his valuation, he came across the dedication the author had written to his cousin, the writer Katharine de Mattos. At that very moment, his wife let out a gasp of shock as if something cold had touched her skin.

“No, wait. Leave it, please,” she rasped, her black eyebrows forming a deep “v” over her dark, troubled eyes. Tearing his attention away from this picture of an exquisite combination of anger and panic, Lachlan stared at the page with renewed curiosity. This turned to fascination as he lifted the book to the light of the shop window.

“There’s something under here – writing – these pages are stuck together,” he said, as the yellow dawn light penetrated the old paper. The page containing the single verse of prose had a strange, mottled staining about it but more interesting than that, there was indeed a faint trace of handwriting embedded in it, almost like a watermark.

“No, no NO!” His wife cried as the young Scot tried to separate the pages at the corner with a letter opener. He dropped the blade and book onto the desk in shock and leapt up to take her in his arms. She buried her face into his copper locks and gave out a tiny sob.

“Please, leave that until our visitors have been,” she pleaded as Lachlan stroked her jet black hair to comfort her. She leaned over his shoulder and picked up the book, stepping back as Lachlan loosened his embrace. Turning towards the bookshelves, his wife placed the tiny book on top of the tallest shelf and pushed it out of sight with the tips of her fingers.

“There, they won’t see it now,” she said, reaching her full height to hide the book, “but it wont discourage them, they’ll be back”.

“What do you mean, my love, ‘they’ll be back’? We’re not even open yet”. The young man responded, placing his arms around her waist. She relaxed into them and leaned her head back onto his shoulder. For several minutes they revelled in each other’s closeness in total silence. Lachlan cleared his mind as he knew that his wife could see right into it like a cat into a goldfish bowl. He loved these intimate, silent periods once he’d got used to blanking everything out. She also revelled in these moments of almost platonic expressions of love which kept them so close as a couple.

***

Lachlan finished labelling the remaining books and they prepared for the grand opening. The small town was lacking a good bookshop, the alternative being the long list of charity shops that did a brusque trade in well thumbed paperbacks and huge unwanted cookery books. However the couple’s, and particularly her, happiness was more important than commercial success. Lachlan idolised his young wife and no amount of money could replace seeing the look on her face when holding a good book. He approached the door, as the little clock signalled nine, and undid the three bolts. There was a healthy, orderly queue waiting out in the street. The young shopkeeper was pleased to see a broad range of ages and backgrounds represented in the line of folks snaking down the street. Then, someone caught his eye. In the queue, about half way along, standing out like a knot in a rope, stood two men. Talk about chalk and cheese? These guys were Gorgonzola and marble, physically together but a world apart in every other sense.

The first man, standing at over two metres, was dressed completely in black from his Homburg hat to his immaculately polished brogues. In between were a pair of black chinos and a heavy overcoat, all totally inappropriate for the July weather. His partner, at least thirty centimetres shorter, looked like a refugee from a 1990’s Euro Disney queue. His shiny, luminous green shell suit was visible from the International Space Station. He wore matching green Nike Airs and, a luminous green sweatband around his black curly hair. As Lachlan welcomed the customers into the shop, his wife offered coffee and biscuits. When it was the odd couple’s turn to enter the shop, the young woman dropped the plate of biscuits, uttered a hushed “excuse me,” and made for the kitchen.

“Your wife looks unhappy Mr McClain” growled the tall man, leaning into the face of the young Scot. His breath was rancid and Lachlan stifled a gag at the obnoxious odour. “We are interested in one of your books.”