By the Thames

Isabelle sat in her room and stared at the computer. The quiet was too quiet. Which wasn’t a bad thing considering when her room mate was in the room, they talked and had a hard time getting any work done. Her room mate’s name was Ellen. Ellen was a city girl who had grown up in a part of London called Notting Hill. Her parents owned a book shop there and lived in a flat above it. Ellen had read everything and had been wonderful to have as a room mate because she could explain some of the things around Oxford that Isabelle just did not understand. It seemed that even though Isabelle spoke English, that it was a different language all together because the British had so many phrases and words that meant different things.

Isabelle laid on her bed with the book of Shelley and noticed that it wasn’t his long poems that moved her as much as his poems which were more brief. She read his words:

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

As she thought about the poem, she imagined what it would be like to climb heaven and escape all of the pain she had seen in her life. Then she wondered about how stars were born. Had Shelley wondered about the origin of stars as he wrote this poem? Since he also had gone to Oxford for one year and was thrown out because he was an atheist, she wondered what it would have been like to be ostracized like that, just because you believed something differently. Had he written the poem while he sat by the Thames? As she pondered, Ellen opened the door.

“Hello, Isabelle,” Ellen said.

“Hi,” Isabelle said, still looking out the window.

“You’re still working on that?”

“Yes. I just can’t come up with the right words. This is the fifth draft–dammit!” Isabelle pushed her laptop aside.

“Let’s get out and take a walk,” Ellen suggested.

Isabelle grabbed her sweater and they headed out through the quad and down by the Thames. The brown water moved placidly along beside them and the early Autumn wind seemed to carry her heaviness on its back. What if she shouldn’t be here? What if she wasn’t good enough?

“Ellen, do you ever wonder if you can do the work here? If it is too much to handle?” Isabelle watched her feet smash the grass underneath her.

“Yes, sometimes. But, I remember that I won’t let the side down if i make a mistake or two. It is about learning here. Remember that. You aren’t going to be the best at everything you do. Sometimes, there is something amazing to be found in the ordinary or in the flawed things, Isabelle.”

A silence fell between them for a while and Isabelle thought about the fact that she had never really had a girl that she could really talk to before. Ellen was a few years older and was in her last year at Oxford. She didn’t want her to leave. She wondered what Ellen’s relationship with her mother was like. Did her mother listen to her ideas and support her dreams of becoming physicist? It sounded like her parents had encouraged her to explore ideas just like Isabelle’s father did. Suddenly, Isabelle felt very empty, like there was a black hole going right down the middle of her. She was the whole of her two parents’ halves. But she didn’t understand her mother’s half at all. She had no memories of her mother’s voice or her mother’s eyes or anything. She felt the need to attach herself to something, to anything…

“Isabelle, why don’t you come to Notting Hill with me this weekend…I will show you London.” Ellen said.

…………………………………………..

They took Ellen’s car to London and as they drove through the city, it seemed that every row house had lace curtains in the windows. Once they reached Notting Hill, things began to change. The shopfronts looked old fashioned, covered in brick and like they had been painted over for several centuries. Ellen parked the car on Portabello Road and they got out, walked a block and crossed the street. They stopped in front of a bookshop whose storefront was a large bay window with leaded glass and surrounded by brick. It was called the Curiousity Shoppe and, when they went inside, a tiny boll jingled as they entered.

A middle-aged woman with a medium build in a pair of dress pants and a long gray sweater came out of the back and hugged Ellen.

“Mum, this is Isabelle, my roomate.”

Ellen’s mother looked at Isabelle and smiled warmly.

“Isabelle, this is my Mum, Anne,” Ellen stated rather formally.

Anne led them over to a table in the corner of the shop that had books piled on it and she set them aside.

Gesturing to the clock on the wall, she then said to Ellen, “Tea and sandwiches? you girls must be hungry after the drive?”

“Yes, let me help,” Ellen got up and went into the back with Anne. Isabelle stayed in the front and perused the shelves. Once she reached the poetry section, the bell jingled on the door. Isabelle did not look up.

“Hello Miss, I was wondering if you could help me find a copy of Marx’s Communist Manifesto?”

Ellen looked up and raised her brow at the request. Before her, stood a man of about twenty five with shaggy brown hair and a gotee. His tweed blazer showed some wear as did his faded blue jeans. He had the smell of clove cigarettes on his fingers as he gestured

“I can try to help. Let’s see…” Isabelle mused.

Just then, Anne came out from the back and smiled at Isabelle, “Wow, you’re helpful! Maybe we’ll have to keep you on,” she winked.

The young man smiled at Isabelle and followed Anne over to the political section. Isabelle saw Ellen come out with the teapot and then headed back to help her bring out the sandwiches. Once the two were seated in the back, they watched Anne as she helped the young man.

“Mmm. He’s a fine bit, isn’t he?” Ellen noted.

“Yes. He was looking for the Communist Manifesto,” Isabelle smiled,” I wonder what THAT says about him?”

Ellen snickered. They sat, drank tea and ate sandwiches. Isabelle picked up one of the books piled on the table. It was a copy of Keats’ love letters. The book had a worn blue cloth cover on it and the words were stamped in a dull gold. As Isabelle opened the cover, she read an inscription written in faded black fountain pen:

To my Love,

May these letters express what I cannot: that I will miss you when I am away at war. Think of what Keats
said when I am not with you:
I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three
summer days–three such days I could live with you
I could fill with more delight than fifty common years
could ever contain.

Ever yours,
James

“Oh wow! This book has the most beautiful inscription in it! I need to buy this from your mom,”Isabelle gasped. With that, she got up from the table and brought the book over to where Anne was and set it on the counter.

“I must buy this!” she smiled.

Anne looked inside for the price.

“Ah yes, the one with the lovely inscription. That is what made me decide to get it when I was at that estate sale. It is 35 p.” she chimed.

Isabelle pulled out her wallet. She had always felt a connection with books, but this one had a special pull. She had a feeling that it would be opened many times.

“We should go out tonight and I will show you London,” Ellen said.

“Yes!” Isabelle beamed.

**********

The streets of London were worn and the rows of shops and pubs that lined Notting Hill were lit up. Ellen led Isabelle into a small pub around the corner from her parent’s flat. It’s walls were lined in dark wood and the plaster on the walls was painted in a hunter green.

Isabelle and Ellen sat in a wooden booth and the barkeep came over.

“We’ll have two ales and two fish and chips, please, thanks,” Ellen said.

As Isabelle looked around, she noticed a man in the corner, considerably older than her, he had thick wirey black hair and a full beard. His glasses here of the black fifties variety. He wore jeans that had a worn look to them, a black blazer and black doc martens. He held a pipe in one hand and a book in the other. The barkeep went over to him and spoke to him and they began to laugh. Isabelle didn’t mean to stare, but he reminded her of someone from her old days at Cranbrook –one of the MFA students that liked to shop at the Bargain Box in Birmingham and liked to look as if they had been transplanted from the 1960’s. Ellen noticed Isabelle’s fixation.

“His name is James, Isabelle, he owns the pub and he is too old for you,” she laughed.

As she laughed, James looked up and smiled, then walked over to their table.

“Ellie, so you came home to slum did ya now,” he cooed in a thick Scottish accent, “And who is this?”

“This is Isabelle my roomate from Oxford,”Ellen smiled as James hugged her from the side.

“Hi, “Isabelle breathed out. James had the scent of cherry tobacco and patchouli. James looked at her and smiled. Isabelle looked right into his eyes. From what she could tell, behind the glasses, his eyes appeared to be a carmel brown. “I like your pub,” she said quietly.

“What?” James asked

“I like your pub,” Isabelle repeated loudly. Shortly thereafter the barkeep brought the pints and food. The girls sat and ate and James joined them and prodded Ellie, as he called her with questions about Oxford. Apparently, he had attended there long ago. Isabelle found out that he was the ripe old age of thirty. He had bought the bar about six years ago and it had become a huge success.

After the girls hung out with James, they headed down Kensington High Street and then took a cab to Picadilly Square and hung out listening to buskers with their guitar cases out, as they sung old Beatles or U2 covers. Finally, at 1 am, they headed back to the flat and crashed in Ellen’s room.

“So you fancy James, do you?” Ellen teased Isabelle, “He is from Edinburgh originally and is very good friends with my parents. Maybe we should have him to dinner on Sunday.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” Ellen murmured with the opened Keats book resting on her chest.

**********

Sunday morning came and the streets of Notting Hill were lined with artist and vendor stalls. Isabelle went with Ellen to pick out some produce for the supper with James. It had rained the night before and the streets seemed to steam with fog. As they went past the pub, Isabelle noticed James leaning against the entryway smoking his pipe talking with an elderly gentleman. He looked at Isabelle and nodded. She smiled back.

After they had finished shopping, they headed back to the flat and Anne was in the kitchen waiting.

“Will you girls help me with the salad?”she asked

“Sure,” they said in unison and began washing and chopping the produce. The kitchen began to fill with the scent of squash and parsnips as Ellen sauteed them. Soon, the bell rang and James came in with a bouquet of orange and pink dahlias. Anne hugged him.

“Thank, James! I will put them in water,” Anne got a vase and put it on the table,”Look at all this lovely color, ” she exclaimed.

There seemed to be an ease among them as they spoke over the meal about everything from the local eccentrics in Notting hill to the Keats book that Isabelle had bought. Isabelle discovered that James was a poet as well as a pub owner. He had studied poetry at Oxford before he picked “a career where he could make a living.” He mused about the fact that owning the pub had given some of his best material to write about. Isabelle found James to be warm and down to Earth, not at all prone to exaggeration. The afternoon went by quickly and it was time to return to studies.

As they drove back to Oxford, Isabelle remained quiet in thought about James. Her attraction to him surprised her. It was not something that she had considered at all. His age alone made him a bit of a taboo. Maybe they could become good friends.