CHAPTER TEN G: THE MAN FROM THE GARAGE

Arthur Baines arrived at Peter’s bookshop on a Tuesday with grease beneath his fingernails.
He had received Florence’s message and taken a day off from the bus depot.
Peter greeted him with an awkward handshake.
The two men had not seen one another since the hospital visit decades earlier.
Arthur looked around the shop and said that Peter had built something beautiful.
Peter answered that he had built something he could manage.
Nora introduced herself and offered to leave them alone.
Arthur asked her to stay because Florence had said she was trying to understand the accident.


Peter brought out the sketch of the stage.
Arthur studied it and pointed toward the service cavity.
He said that he had never entered that space.
Peter asked about the support bolts Arthur had mentioned in the hospital.
Arthur remembered carrying a small tin of bolts from the stage to a delivery truck.
He had returned to the theater after his dismissal because he wanted to collect a borrowed coat.
A supervisor he did not recognize asked him to help move equipment.
Arthur agreed because he hoped the favor might earn him another job.
He remembered the bolts because they were unusually long and coated with dark grease.


Peter asked whether Arthur had seen the broken scenery frame.
Arthur said that it stood on a trolley beneath a canvas cover.
He had not known that anyone had been injured until another worker told him.
Nora asked whether the truck belonged to Harrow Works.
Arthur said that he remembered a faded name on its side, but he could not identify it confidently.
Peter asked who had been supervising the loading.
Arthur said that Malcolm had stood beside the rear door speaking to a man in a dark cap.
He remembered Malcolm because the supervisor had ordered him away from the building earlier that week.


Nora asked whether Arthur would tell Celia what he remembered.
Arthur said that he would.
He warned them that memory could become unreliable after so many years.
Peter said that he understood the danger.
Arthur looked at Peter’s scar and asked whether he still experienced pain.
Peter said that some days were worse than others.
Arthur admitted that he had avoided visiting again because he felt ashamed of helping move the equipment.
Peter told him that a dismissed apprentice could hardly have understood what was happening.
Arthur said that he had known enough to realize the work was secretive.
Nora watched the men sit with that uncomfortable truth.


Peter finally asked whether Arthur had found a good life at the bus depot.
Arthur said that he had spent thirty years repairing machines that carried people home.
He was proud of the work.
Peter told him that he should be.
When Arthur left, he promised to give Celia a statement without embellishment.
Peter stood in the doorway until the bus mechanic disappeared around the corner.
He told Nora that he had imagined Arthur as a villain for years.
Now he saw a frightened boy who had grown old carrying the same unanswered question.
Nora said that the question still deserved an answer.


Peter agreed and went back inside to open his shop.