The Thirteenth Tale

are they not kept with their natural companions on our neatly labeled shelves? The cabinet is where we keep the esoteric, the valuable, the rare. These volumes are worth as much as the contents of the entire rest of the shop, more even.

The book that I was after-a small hardback, about four inches by six, only fifty or so years old-was out of place next to all these antiquities. It had appeared a couple of months ago, placed there I imagined by Father's inadvertence, and one of these days I meant to ask him about it and shelve it somewhere. But just in case, I put on the white gloves. We keep them in the cabinet to wear when we handle the books because, by a curious paradox, just as the books come to life when we read them, so the oils from our fingertips destroy them as we turn the pages. Anyway, with its paper cover intact and its corners unblunted, the book was in fine condition, one of a popular series produced to quite a high standard by a publishing house that no longer exists. A charming volume, and a first edition, but not the kind of thing that you would expect to find among the Treasures. At jumble sales and village fetes, other volumes in the series sell for a few pence.

The paper cover was cream and green: a regular motif of shapes like fish scales formed the background, and two rectangles were left plain, one for the line drawing of a mermaid, the other for the title and author's name. Thirteen Tales ofChange and Desperation by Vida Winter.

I locked the cabinet, returned the key and flashlight to their places and climbed the stairs back to bed, book in gloved hand.

I didn't intend to read. Not as such. A few phrases were all I wanted. Something bold enough, strong enough, to still the words from the letter that kept going around in my head. Fight fire with fire, people say. A couple of sentences, a page maybe, and then I would be able to sleep.

I removed the dust jacket and placed it for safety in the special drawer I keep for the purpose. Even with gloves you can't be too careful. Opening the book, I inhaled. The smell of old books, so sharp, so dry you can taste it.

The prologue. Just a few words.

But my eyes, brushing the first line, were snared.

All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.

It was like falling into water. Peasants and princes, bailiffs and bakers' boys, merchants and mermaids, the figures were all immediately familiar. I had read these stories a hundred, a thousand, times before. They were stories everyone knew. But gradually, as I read, their familiarity fell away from them. They became strange. They became new. These characters were not the colored manikins I remembered from my childhood picture books, mechanically acting out the story one more time. They were people. The blood that fell from the princess's finger when she touched the spinning wheel was wet, and it left the tang of metal on her tongue when she licked her finger before falling asleep. When his comatose daughter was brought to him, the king's tears left salt burns on his face. The stories were shot through with an unfamiliar mood. Everyone achieved their heart's desire-the king had his daughter restored to life by a stranger's kiss, the beast was divested of his fur and left naked as a man, the mermaid walked-but only when it was too late did they realize the price they must pay for escaping their destiny. Every Happy Ever After was tainted. Fate, at first so amenable, so reasonable, so open to negotiation, ends up by exacting a cruel revenge for happiness.

The tales were brutal and sharp and heartbreaking. I loved them.

It was while I was reading 'The Mermaid's Tale'-the twelfth tale-that I began to feel stirrings of an anxiety that was unconnected to the story itself. I was distracted: my thumb and right index finger were sending me a message: Not many pages left. The knowledge nagged more insistently until I tilted the book to check. It was true. The thirteenth tale must be a very short one.

I continued my reading, finished tale twelve and turned the page.

Blank.

I flicked back, forward again. Nothing.

There was no thirteenth tale.

There was a sudden rush in my head, I felt the sick dizziness of the deep-sea diver come too fast to the surface.

Aspects of my room came back into view, one by one. My bedspread, the book in my hand, the lamp still shining palely in the daylight that was beginning to creep in through the thin curtains.

It was morning. I had read the night away. There was no thirteenth tale.

In the shop my father was sitting at the desk with his head in his hands.

He heard me come down the stairs and looked up, white-faced. 'Whatever is it?' I darted forward. He was too shocked to speak; his hands roused themselves to a mute gesture of desperation before slowly replacing themselves over his horrified eyes. He groaned.

My hand hovered over his shoulder, but I am not in the habit of touching people, so it fell instead to the cardigan that he had draped over the back of his chair.

'Is there anything I can do?' I asked. When he spoke, his voice was weary and shaken. 'We'll have to phone the police. In a minute. In a minute… ' 'The police? Father, what's happened?' 'A break-in.' He made it sound like the end of the world. I looked around the shop, bewildered. Everything was neat and in order. The desk drawers had not been forced, the shelves not ransacked, the window not broken. 'The cabinet,' he said, and I began to understand. 'The Thirteen Tales.' I spoke firmly. 'Upstairs in my flat. I borrowed it.' Father looked up at me. His expression combined relief with utter astonishment. 'You borrowed'it?' 'Yes.' ' You borrowed it? ' 'Yes.' I was puzzled. I was always borrowing things from the shop, as he knew. 'But Vida Winter…}' And I realized that some kind of explanation was called for.

I read old novels. The reason is simple: I prefer proper endings. Marriages and deaths, noble sacrifices and miraculous restorations, tragic separations and unhoped-for reunions, great falls and dreams fulfilled; these, in my view, constitute an ending worth the wait. They should come after adventures, perils, dangers and dilemmas, and wind everything up nice and neatly. Endings like this are to be found more commonly in old novels than new ones, so I read old novels.

Contemporary literature is a world I know little of. My father had taken me to task on this topic many times during our daily talks about books. He reads as much as I do, but more widely, and I have great respect for his opinions. He has described in precise, measured words the beautiful desolation he feels at the close of novels where the message is that there is no end to human suffering, only endurance. He has spoken of endings that are muted, but which echo longer in the memory than louder, more explosive denouements. He has explained why it is that ambiguity touches his heart more nearly than the death and marriage style of finish that I prefer.

During these talks, I listen with the gravest attention and nod my head, but I always end up continuing in my old habits. Not that he blames me for it. There is one thing on which we are agreed: There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.

Once Father even told me about Vida Winter. 'Now, there's a living writer who would suit you.'

But I had never read any Vida Winter. Why should I when there were so many dead writers I had still not discovered?

Except that now I had come down in the middle of the night to take the Thirteen Tales from the cabinet. My father, with good reason, was wondering why.

'I got a letter yesterday,' I began.

He nodded.

'It was from Vida Winter.'

Father raised his eyebrows but waited for me to go on.

'It seems to be an invitation for me to visit her. With a view to writing her biography.'

His eyebrows lifted by another few millimeters.

'I couldn't sleep, so I came down to get the book.'

I waited for Father to speak, but he didn't. He was thinking, a small frown creasing his brow. After a time I