Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner

Author:Natalie Jenner [Jenner, Natalie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Published: 2022-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Rule No. 32

Staff shall not permit friendship to interfere with work.

Between the discovery of The Mummy! and the clandestine goings-on in Mr Dutton’s back office, Evie Stone was keeping even more to herself than usual on the third floor of Bloomsbury Books. Only Ash seemed to pick up on her change in mood whenever he brought her the occasional cup of chai. One day, in an effort to cheer her, he made the surprising suggestion that – as two people with a day off and no family in London – they meet for Sunday lunch at his favourite restaurant in the East End. Having never been to that area of London before, Evie was relieved to find Ash waiting for her on the pavement when she exited the Aldgate station at exactly noon. Wearing a suit instead of his usual wool jumper over an Oxford shirt and tie, Ash looked distinguished with his wire-rim spectacles and wavy black hair. Something inside Evie lightened at just seeing him. He didn’t move to greet her physically in any way, but instead gave a nod and a smile. Just then, Evie felt her heart make a small but perceptible leap for the second time in her life.

It was a rare crossing of the emotional and social chasm that Evie had created about her, after being forced to leave school at fourteen and fend for herself. She had learned the hard way that ambition must come from within, so that no one could take it away from you. The many years of study and absorption in old books had given Evie purpose and comfort; keeping to herself had given her the fuel to succeed.

But was a shopgirl’s existence worth the sacrifice, when the most she could hope for was the caring and dusting of books? Having mapped out her entire life upon matriculation, Evie was getting her first bitter taste of irony. She also wondered if she had built the chasm for another, less deliberate reason: because one always had to leave some of the past behind to make way for something new.

To reach the restaurant, Evie and Ash walked south from Whitechapel High Street, then turned right onto a quiet lane of Georgian residential buildings. At the intersection of Alie and Saint Mark Streets was the Halal Restaurant, in a house at the end of an eighteenth-century terrace. Ash explained that the restaurant, one of only six Indian ones in all of London, had been conceived out of necessity.

‘Originally it was the mess in a hostel for merchant seamen lodging in the rooms upstairs. They would cook different types of curry, and their mates would come round, and eventually it turned into the first Indian restaurant for the area.’

Evie had not been to many restaurants, her small childhood village having only one public house and her stipend at Cambridge providing little money for indulgence. A more pleasant irony of Evie’s young life was that her few times dining out had been by invitation of Mimi Harrison and at some of London’s finest establishments.

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