The Librarian Read online

  ‘Would you like to see if there’s something you might like better than Treasure Island?’ Sylvia asked. ‘How about this?’ She took down a Dr Dolittle from the nine–twelve shelves but Sam was examining the books in General.

  ‘What’s this about?’ It was a book that Sylvia recognised at once from the jacket, Chess for Beginners, the first book she could remember her father giving her after he came home from the war.

  ‘It’s about chess, Sam. It’s a game.’

  ‘I know that!’

  ‘I don’t really know what else to tell you,’ Sylvia said. ‘I started to learn to play it about your age.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  Sylvia considered this. ‘I was mostly fascinated by the way the pieces looked. I can show you if you like. I’ve got a set at home.’

  Sam put the book back at once and pulled out one on sailing knots. He drifted about the library pulling books out from the shelves and putting them back again. Sylvia looked over to the twins, who seemed utterly absorbed.

  ‘Would you like to take your books home?’ she asked, kneeling down beside them.

  But the interruption only caused difficulties. ‘I want what she’s reading!’ one twin demanded.

  ‘It’s mine!’

  ‘They can’t read,’ their brother called from the other side of the room.

  The twin with the desirable book got up, shouted, ‘I CAN READ!’ and ran out of the room, at which the other twin threw herself lengthwise on the floor and began to howl.

  ‘Sam, can you go after her?’ Sylvia begged. ‘What was it your sister was reading?’ she enquired.

  ‘I DON’T KNOW!’ the deprived twin roared. ‘I CAN’T READ. I DON’T KNOW WHAT SHE WAS READING.’

  ‘I tell you what,’ said Sylvia. ‘Let’s find another book for you.’

  She looked along the bottom shelf and pulled out a large illustrated Cinderella. ‘Here, look at this. There’s the fairy godmother with her wand, and the mice and the pumpkin coach.’

  The twin sat up, still shaking with sobs, and eyed the illustration suspiciously. ‘Maureen Allan says fairies aren’t true.’

  ‘Maureen Allan doesn’t know what she’s talking about,’ said Sylvia firmly.

  The absconding twin was carted back struggling in Sam’s arms. Sylvia wrote out envelopes with the children’s names and address on them and showed them how the library card had to be inserted inside. ‘That’s to show us who has got the books.’

  ‘Can we keep them?’ The Cinderella twin was clutching her book to her chest, guarding it from her sister.

  ‘’Course, not, stupid,’ Sam said.

  Fearing another outburst of tears, Sylvia said, ‘You can keep it for three weeks. And then if you want to keep it longer you can come back to the library and have it stamped again.’

  She allowed Sam, who was borrowing a volume entitled Basic Morse Code, to stamp all three books.

  ‘Are you sure that’s what you want to take home? You can take out three books at a time, all of you.’ But the children had had enough.

  They walked home along the towpath, passing the lock, where the twins made as if to dart across the lock gate.

  ‘No!’ Sylvia cried.

  They stopped and looked reproachful. ‘Our mum lets us.’

  Sylvia turned a querying look on Sam.

  ‘Don’t listen to them,’ Sam advised. ‘They’ll say anything.’ He raised his voice at his sisters. ‘Don’t you play Miss Blackwell up now!’

  But the girls were ready for this. ‘She said we could call her SYLVIA!’ they bellowed in return.

  6

  A clement April passed into a warm May and the children of East Mole Primary due to move on to secondary school began to feel nervous or defiant about the impending 11+ exams.

  Sylvia’s suggestion that the schoolchildren be allowed to visit the library had yet to be put to the Library Committee but the WI had done its work. One Saturday morning Mrs Bird appeared, pushing before her a basket on wheels and a child.

  ‘I wasn’t able to come to the WI meeting where you spoke but I heard good reports. This is my Dawn’s Lizzie.’ She shoved forward a round-faced bespectacled girl wearing over-large shorts.

  ‘Hello, Lizzie.’

  Mrs Bird smacked the girl’s shoulder. ‘What do you say?’

  The girl’s voice was so muted that Sylvia guessed rather than heard the reply. ‘’lo.’

  ‘She’s a bag of nerves over these blessed exams. I told her mother, Miss Blackwell might be able to help. I hope all’s well at number 5.’ Mrs Bird levelled a look at Sylvia as if to remind her that exam coaching was included in her rental contract.

  Sylvia said, ‘Yes, thank you. Though I’ve not really had time to see to the garden.’

  ‘My husband’ll give you a hand. I’ll leave Lizzie here, then, while I get the shopping.’

  ‘I suppose that’s all right. But I will have to see to the other borrowers.’

  ‘Lizzie’ll be no trouble. You won’t be any trouble, will you, Lizzie?’ Not waiting to see if her granddaughter had plans to make trouble, Mrs Bird hurried away, expertly manoeuvring her basket.

  Sylvia directed Lizzie to the nine–twelve shelf and continued looking through a publisher’s catalogue. After quite a bit of prevarication, Mr Booth had finally revealed the precise budget for the Children’s Library.

  ‘It seems an awful lot of money,’ Sylvia had said to Dee.

  ‘Poor little Smithy never touched the budget so I reckon it’s mounted up.’

  As a result of Miss Smith’s negligence Sylvia was able to indulge herself with a long list of additions to the library. Post-war publishing was under way and any number of new children’s books were coming on to the market. She had already ordered her own childhood favourites: Beatrix Potter, Mary Plain, Moomintroll, The Just So Stories, Puck of Pook’s Hill, Huckleberry Finn, The Princess and Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind, Emil and the Detectives, The Wind on the Moon, all E. Nesbit, and, in addition, Ferdinand, the Blue, Brown, Olive and Lilac Fairy Books, Swallows and Amazons, all the Borrowers and Mary Poppins, The Magic Pudding, The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm, Trust Chunky, Little Pete Stories, The Minnow on the Say, the Katy books and the collected Narnia.

  This last choice was vindicated when she looked across to see Lizzie sitting cross-legged, engrossed in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

  Thanks to Sylvia’s prompting, Mrs Bird was not the only one who had taken a renewed interest in the Children’s Library. Saturdays were a half-day and now the library’s busiest, so it was not until nearly closing time that Sylvia had time to talk to Lizzie. Mrs Bird had ‘popped in’ then ‘popped out’ again on some unspecified errand.

  ‘Are you enjoying that?’ Sylvia asked.

  Lizzie lowered the book. Her blue eyes behind her round spectacles were large with wonder. ‘It’s smashing!’

  ‘You’ve met the White Witch?’

  ‘And the faun, Mr Tumnus. But the White Witch’s got him. Is he going to be all right?’

  Sylvia hesitated. She herself always enjoyed a book more if she knew how it would end. ‘Do you want me to tell you or would you rather find out for yourself?’

  ‘Please, Miss, I want to know.’

  ‘He’s all right in the end. It’s that sort of book.’

  Reassured, Lizzie took up the book again, unwilling to suffer further distractions.

  The Saturday borrowers had chosen their reading and had gone home to lunch. Looking at her watch, Sylvia saw it was twelve thirty, only a quarter of an hour till closing time. She hoped that Lizzie’s grandmother would be back in time. There was something unreliable about Mrs Bird.

  She had tidied all the books and filed all the borrowers’ envelopes when the door was pushed open and a man came in with a child. A girl perhaps around Lizzie’s age, taller than Lizzie and with none of Lizzie’s abjectness.

  On the contrary, this girl carried herself unusually upright and was visib
ly assessing the shelves of books. In her prim floral frock and with two gleaming plaits she looked to Sylvia for all the world like a child in a book illustration.

  The man began to apologise. ‘I hope we’re not too late. We’ve come to register Marigold.’

  ‘You’re just in time.’ Sylvia got out a form to take down the girl’s name and the contact details for her parents.

  ‘It’s Dr and Mrs Bell. I’m the new GP.’

  ‘I’m comparatively new, too,’ Sylvia said.

  He smiled down at her, a tall, dark-haired man wearing glasses. ‘We newcomers must stick together. I’m told East Mole is a close community.’

  ‘I’ve found it very friendly, so far,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘Well, you’re in the right place to meet its most vital members.’ He looked fondly across at his daughter.

  It was apparent that Marigold had none of Lizzie or Sam’s unfamiliarity with books. She had gone straight to the twelve–fourteen section and was exploring the shelves.

  ‘She’s only ten,’ her father said, ‘but her reading is quite advanced.’ He shrugged slightly to indicate that he took no credit for this.

  ‘What does she like to read?’

  ‘Pretty much everything. She read my Grey’s Anatomy when she was down with bronchitis last winter. I think she’s probably consumed more of it than I have.’

  ‘I’m in the lucky position of having a generous budget to buy new stock with,’ Sylvia volunteered. ‘So if there’s anything she’d especially like to read do let me know.’

  Marigold came over to the desk with White Fang, Ballet Shoes and T. H. White’s The Sword in the Stone. She stood a moment, apparently considering, then returned Ballet Shoes to the shelf and came back with White Boots.

  ‘I see your game, scamp.’ Dr Bell patted his daughter’s copper-coloured hair and she grinned up at him.

  ‘It’s as good a way of choosing as any,’ Sylvia said, unaware that she was made a little jealous by this example of family concord.

  It was past twelve forty-five when Mrs Bird reappeared, full of excuses about someone who had stopped her on her way back and wouldn’t let her go.

  Lizzie had presented three Narnia books for stamping. ‘I’ve read more than half of this one already, Miss.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you can bring it back the moment you’ve finished it and take out more books,’ Sylvia reassured her.

  Mrs Bird, about to march her granddaughter away, suddenly remembered why she had come. ‘We came to ask you about the exam. I’ll forget my own head next. But Lizzie can come round to number 5 next Saturday. You can go round to Miss Blackwell’s, can’t you, Lizzie?’

  ‘I’d like to help, of course, Mrs Bird,’ Sylvia said cautiously. She was not yet immune to the common tendency to placate the practised tyrant. ‘But you see I never sat the 11+.’

  Mrs Bird’s method with dissent was to choose simply not to register it. ‘There’s too many in her class and they only help the ones in the A stream they reckon’ll get to the Grammar.’

  Lizzie looked mutely at the floor and Sylvia, noting the child’s worn plimsolls and odd socks, unconsciously made an inner decision. ‘Perhaps Lizzie could come round next Saturday after I’ve finished up here?’

  ‘I told my Dawn you’d help,’ Mrs Bird declared. ‘ “Miss Blackwell’s the girl to help our Lizzie,” I said. You can ask my husband when he comes over to see to the garden.’

  Mr Bird brought Lizzie round the following Saturday while Sylvia was sitting outside finishing her lunch in the garden. He parked his van by the donkeys and ducked under Mr Collins’ apple tree.

  ‘Nearly had my eye out on that branch.’ He stared at Sylvia’s plate. ‘The wife said to say she couldn’t ring when you’ve no phone,’ as if, Sylvia noted with amusement, the lack of a telephone was the result of her own negligence.

  It had in fact slipped her mind that she’d been inveigled into bargaining away her Saturday afternoons in return for Mr Bird’s help with the garden and her first reaction was resentment. But the sight of Lizzie’s ardent little face melted her.

  ‘Miss, I’m on to Prince Caspian. They come back to Narnia, Lucy and the others.’

  ‘Do you know, Lizzie,’ Sylvia said, ‘I’ve only read the first one. You’ll have to tell me what happens next. And you can call me Sylvia. You don’t have to call me “Miss”.’

  She brought out lemon-barley water in the glass jug she’d discovered at the back of a kitchen cupboard and offered Lizzie a biscuit.

  ‘My nan said I wasn’t to take anything.’

  ‘She could hardly mind you having a biscuit, Lizzie.’

  Lizzie gingerly extracted a broken Digestive from the package and a small bird with a slate-blue head flew down to peck at the spilt crumbs.

  ‘That’s a chaffinch,’ Sylvia said. She had borrowed one of the library’s books and had been teaching herself to recognise the garden birds.

  But Lizzie merely looked alarmed at this sudden exposure to new information. She rummaged in her shorts pocket and produced a crumpled sheet of paper. ‘This is what I don’t understand, Miss. Our teacher said they had it for Comprehension in last year’s exams.’

  Sylvia read the purple ink. A poem, one very familiar to her, though it had been set out very badly so that all the verses ran into each other.

  ‘They’ve got the last line wrong anyway,’ she said.

  Lizzie perked up. ‘How have they?’

  Sylvia read a verse aloud.

  ‘ “In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,

  “I kept all my limbs very supple

  By the use of this ointment – one shilling the box –

  Allow me to send you a couple?”

  ‘It should be “allow me to sell you a couple”. That’s not half so funny. The point is Father William is offering to sell his son this ointment, which isn’t what you’d expect between a father and son.’

  Lizzie looked bewildered so Sylvia went on. ‘They don’t seem to have given you the whole poem. It’s from Alice. You know Lewis Carroll’s Alice?’

  Lizzie said that she thought she had maybe heard of it but she still didn’t understand the questions.

  ‘I don’t blame you, Lizzie. They’re pretty banal – silly, I mean. Father William seems to be a queer old fellow. What are the queer things he gets up to? How patronising! You could answer that, though, couldn’t you? What are the odd things we are told he does?’

  Lizzie looked blank and fiddled with a gold cross that hung round her neck. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Try reading it out aloud.’

  Lizzie, looking even more alarmed, began to read, faltered and dried up.

  ‘They haven’t helped by running all the verses together in that annoying way,’ Sylvia said kindly. ‘Listen.’

  She knew the poem by heart and recited it through, throwing in the missing verses.

  ‘ “You are old, Father William,” the young man said,

  “And your hair has become very white;

  And yet you incessantly stand on your head –

  Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

  “In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,

  “I feared it would injure the brain;

  But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,

  Why, I do it again and again.”

  “You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,

  And have grown most uncommonly fat;

  Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door –

  Pray, what is the reason of that?”

  “In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,

  “I kept all my limbs very supple

  By the use of this ointment – one shilling the box –

  Allow me to sell you a couple.”

  “You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak

  For anything tougher than suet;

  Yet you finished the goose, with the
bones and the beak –

  Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

  “In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,

  And argued each case with my wife;

  And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw

  Has lasted the rest of my life.”

  “You are old,” said the youth, “one would hardly suppose

  That your eye was as steady as ever;

  Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose –

  What made you so awfully clever?”

  “I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”

  Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs!

  Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

  Be off, or I’ll kick you down-stairs!” ’

  Explosive laughter signalled the arrival of Sam. ‘ “Be off, or I’ll kick you down-stairs,” ’ he carolled ecstatically.

  ‘I expect you two know each other,’ Sylvia said, relieved that she didn’t have to continue with the Comprehension.

  ‘She’s in 4B. They go to the Secondary Modern.’ Sam swung on the gate with the nonchalance of one who belongs to an elite.

  ‘Well,’ said Sylvia, ‘that’s what you think. Lizzie and I are practising for the exam. I except she’ll pass with flying colours.’

  Sam jumped off the gate and came over to inspect the poem.

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘You can read it for yourself.’

  He did so and then, wrinkling up his eyes, said, ‘It’s about an old geezer and his son.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘The old geezer gets one over on his son. The son sounds like a twit. I liked the bit you said about his dad kicking him downstairs.’

  ‘I agree, the last verses are the funniest. I can’t see why they left those out.’ Sylvia recited the final two verses again and was gratified when Lizzie laughed.

  ‘I like the bit about the eel, Miss.’

  Sylvia was close enough to her own childhood to be aware that any educational venture is less daunting if tackled collegiately. ‘Shall we see if we can answer the questions together?’ She read out the other questions appended to the poem.