Chapter 18 Chapter Eighteen

It's a summer's day in Islington, surrounded by the wailing of antique restoration machinery. Fenchurch was so busy with work in the afternoon that Arthur wandered about looking at all the shops in Islington with a blissful ecstasy.Anyone in constant need of vintage woodworking tools, Boer battle helmets, tug boats, office equipment, fish and more will find this row of shops especially handy. The sun falls over the roof garden, on the builders and plumbers, on the lawyers and burglars, on the pizzas, on the estate agents' projects. The sun fell on Arthur, and he went into a furniture restoration shop.

"It's a very interesting house," said the owner cheerfully. "There is a cellar connected by a secret passage to a nearby pub. It was obviously built for the Regent, so that he could escape if necessary." "You mean, lest he be caught buying these stripped pine furniture?" asked Arthur. "No," said the shopkeeper, "not for that." "Excuse me," said Arthur, "I'm just mad with joy." "I can tell." Dizzy, he continued to look around, and found himself outside the Greenpeace office.He recalled the contents of his letter marked "To Do—Urgent," which he never opened again.He swaggered in with a happy smile and said he would donate some money to save the dolphins.

"That's funny," the men said to him. "Go away!" That didn't quite match the answer he was expecting, so he tried again.This time the people lost their temper with him, so he left some money and went back to the sun. Just after six, he arrived outside Fenchurch's house in the alley with a bottle of champagne. "Here," said Finchchi, thrusting a thick piece of rope into his hand, and disappearing through a white wooden gate with a black iron bar and a large padlock straight up. rock. The house is a converted stable located in a light industrial lane behind the abandoned Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington.In addition to the huge stable door, there was a more normal-looking wooden front door with beautiful glass panels and a black dolphin knocker.The strange thing about this door is that its steps, built at a height of nine feet, were supposed to have been used for pulling up hay for the horses, as the door opened on the second floor.

Protruding from one of the bricks above the door was a pulley, on which was drawn a rope that Arthur held in his hand, and to the end of which was tied a cello. The door above him opened. "Okay," said Finchitch, "twist that rope and hold the cello steady. Come to me." He tugged at the rope.He stabilized the cello. "I can't pull the string any more," he said, "without letting go of the cello." Finchchi leaned forward. "I'm holding the cello," she said, "you pull the string." The cello stopped at the upper doorway, swaying slightly, and Finchitch got it in.

"Come up by yourself," she called out. Arthur picked up the bag and went in through the stable door, shaking slightly with excitement. The downstairs room, which he had glanced at before, was a little messy, full of rubbish.A huge old cast-iron bar stood there, and a surprising number of kitchen sinks piled up in one corner.There was also a pram, Arthur was startled when he saw it, but it was very old and full of books. The floor was concrete, faded with time, and cracked excitingly.Arthur was in a similar mood to the floor as he stared at the twisted wooden ladder in the far corner.Even the crumbling concrete floor seemed to him an unbearable emotional rush.

"A friend of mine who is an architect always tells me what a wonderful job he can do with this place," Finchitch said casually when Arthur appeared upstairs. "He always comes here. Come, stand in amazement, mutter about the spaces, objects, things, and the wonderful light, then say he needs a pencil, and then disappear for weeks. So those wonderful things have never been in the appear here." As Arthur looked around, the upstairs room was, in fact, rather wonderful.The rooms are simply furnished, decorated with things made of cushions, and there is a set of speakers with speakers, enough to impress the person who erected Stonehenge.

There are some elegant flowers and interesting pictures. The top floor was some sort of gallery structure with a bed and a bathroom, which, Fenchurch explained, was still roomy enough for a cat to turn around. "However," she added, "has to be a pretty patient cat, and not afraid to get bumped. Well. That's it." "That's right." They looked at each other. This becomes a moment, and then suddenly becomes a long time, so long that you can't figure out where it came from. If Arthur was left alone with a monstera long enough, he could usually wake up on his own.For him, this moment of eye-to-eye is a continual revelation.He suddenly felt like an animal that was born in a zoo and was kept in captivity. When he woke up one morning, he found that the door of the cage was quietly opened, and the colorful prairie stretched towards the rising sun. The sound of nature gradually awakened.

As he gazed into her frank, curious face and smiling eyes with equal wonder, he did not understand what these new sounds of nature were. He never realized that life speaks to you with a voice that brings answers to questions you've been thinking about, a voice he never found out until now it finally said something to him that never before To what he said: "Yes!" Finally Finchchi looked away, her head shaking slightly. "I know," she said, "I've got to remember that you're not one of those people who can't hold a piece of paper for two minutes and have to use it to claim an award."

She turned the other way. "Let's go for a walk," she said quickly, "Hyde Park. I've got to change into something that doesn't quite fit me." She was wearing a somewhat prim black dress, which wasn't particularly good-looking, and it didn't really fit her well. "I only wear it when I see my cello teacher," she said. "He's a nice guy, but sometimes I think he gets a little excited about playing the violin. I'll be down in a minute." She ran lightly into the corridor above, and then shouted to the people below: "Put that bottle of wine in the refrigerator and drink it later."

When he put it in the refrigerator, he noticed that there was an identical bottle inside. He walked to the window and looked out, then turned and flipped through her records.He heard the rustling sound of her clothes falling to the floor from above.He talked to himself about who he was.He said firmly to himself that at least now his eyes should be firmly and steadily on her record, look at the title of the record, nod in appreciation, and if not, count the bad ones.His head should be kept down. He utterly, absolutely, and vilely failed to do so. She stared down at him so nervously that Chance didn't seem to notice that he was looking up at her.Then she shook her head suddenly, put on a light sundress, and disappeared into the bathroom.

She reappeared a moment later, walking down the stairs very briskly, wearing a sun hat and smiling.It was simply the strange steps of a dance.She saw him notice this, turning his head slightly to one side. "Like it?" she asked. "It's so beautiful." He said honestly, because she was really beautiful. "Um..." she said, as if he didn't take her question seriously. She closed the second-floor front door, which had been left open, and looked around the cabin, sorting everything out.Arthur's eyes followed hers, and when he looked the other way, she took something from a drawer and put it in the rucksack she carried. Arthur turned to look at her again. "Ok?" "Do you know," she asked with a slightly puzzled smile, "that something is wrong with me?" Arthur was a little bewildered by her bluntness. "Well," he said, "I've heard vaguely a little..." "I wonder how much you know about me," she said, "and if you're getting it from where I guess it's not what you hear. Russell's going to make up some stories because he can't take it." The actual situation." A wave of fear ran through Arthur. "So what's the truth?" he asked. "Can you tell me?" "Don't worry," she said, "it's not a bad thing at all. It's just unusual. Very, very unusual." She touched his hand, leaned over and kissed him lightly. "I'd really like to know," she said, "if you can figure out what's going on with that tonight." Arthur felt that if someone tapped him at this moment, he would make a chorus, like the continual rising and falling chords that his silver-gray fishbowl made when tapped with his thumbnail.