I opened the door into the shop part of the bindery. Across the counter that divides it from the workshop I saw Penny. She was standing over a stitched book, rounding out the spine ready for backing. She was using the little old Victorian hammer I found at a bindery sale and bought for her, and she rolled and banged away at the stitching to make exactly the right swell that would form the spine of the bound book. She was so immersed in the job that it took several seconds for her to register the sound of the door opening and closing. But then she looked up over her half-moon glasses and saw me. ‘Hi,’ she said.

I walked round the counter end and took my apron off its hook, winding it round my middle and tying the strings without looking or thinking about it, the actions being so familiar.

‘I’m glad that’s over.’

My job was lying at the end of my bench. The dark-blue cloth-covered book boards for Ronaldshay’s three-volume Life of Lord Curzon that we were restoring for a regular customer of ours. The finishing, the gold lettering on the spine, still remained to be done, ready for the bound books to be collected tomorrow.

‘Are you okay?’

I picked up the first boards and stroked the cloth with my thumb. It was a good job, clean but nothing flashy. ‘Yes.’

I opened the as yet unbound book and automatically checked the title page. Then I put the board in the holder and adjusted the screws to position it correctly.

Penny was still standing with her hammer resting on the bench. ‘You needn’t have come in tonight, you know. Not straight from your father’s funeral. I could have done Curzon.’

‘I know.’ I smiled at her. Penny’s a good finisher. ‘But I wanted to.’

It was the truth. The concentration on a defined job, technically demanding but finite in scope, was just what I needed. And the bindery, with its ordered clutter and smells of glue and skins, is a soothing place. I always find it easy to be there.

Penny nodded and went back to her tap-tapping with the hammer. I switched on the heating element in the Pragnant machine and reached for a drawer of type. I decided that I would do the title in two pulls, and then put the author’s name and the volume number together in the third panel. Using tweezers, I picked the type from the drawer, dropped the letters and spacers for The Life of one by one into the slot of the type holder and checked them. The characters have to be placed upside down and although I can read as quickly that way as the right way up, it is still too easy to make mistakes.