The Librarian Page 8

  ‘Are you all right locking up? Only you know how fussy –’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know the drill.’

  On the towpath home Sam remarked, ‘You know that man with the bow tie?’

  ‘Mr Booth, you mean?’

  ‘He was hiding from us in the hall. He thought I didn’t see him.’

  ‘Really, Sam? Hiding?’

  ‘Yep.’ Sam kicked a stone neatly into the canal. ‘He’s an arsehole. Did you know a peregrine falcon dives at 180 miles per hour? That’s faster than Stirling Moss.’

  12

  The week after the Stonehenge trip was the last week of term and June invited Sylvia to the end-of-year primary-school show. The twins were appearing as the children who lived in Mother Hubbard’s shoe. They skipped about on the way to the performance, chanting, ‘She baked them some BROTH without any BREAD and writ them all soundly –’

  ‘It’s “whipped”,’ Sam corrected them but to the twins the very idea of their being whipped was an absurdity.

  Sam had already disclosed to Sylvia that he was being made to play one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table.

  ‘Which one?’ Sylvia had asked.

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Galahad?’

  ‘Nah. He’s a sissy.’

  ‘Parsifal?’

  ‘Nah, he’s a twit.’

  ‘Kay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’s the matter with Kay? He’s Arthur’s adopted brother.’

  ‘He’s got a girl’s name.’

  Perhaps it was the indignity of this but Sam’s performance as Sir Kay was wooden. When it was 3A’s turn to perform he swung his cardboard sword in a lacklustre manner and mumbled his few lines.

  The twins had shown no such inhibitions. They had scrambled nimbly around the cardboard silhouette of a huge shoe and squealed delightedly when they were whipped by one of their classmates dressed in a sun bonnet and brandishing the school caretaker’s broom.

  The Infants were permitted to come and join the audience after their performance. The twins sat between Sylvia and June, whispering and sucking Spangles, which they displayed to each other on their tongues.

  Class 4A were to perform the show’s finale. As the top class, about to make the crucial crossing to secondary school, they commanded respect and even the twins quietened as the audience waited for curtain-up. A slight bulge in the faded velvet heralded the appearance of a small girl wearing red, white and blue ribbons on her plaits.

  ‘Class 4A present The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II,’ she announced in an attempt at a BBC accent and bowed and then retreated back through the curtains.

  Sylvia had been woken early by her parents on that damp June morning of the Coronation. She had stood amid the heaving, cheering crowd, valiantly trying to wave the little Union Jack flag that her father had bought, trembling with excitement at the spectacle she was too small to see. Some time later she had watched on a newsreel at the cinema the new Queen caped in gold, sitting on the ancient throne, her expression grave, her head on its slender neck erect to receive the crown, a slight, lonely-looking figure, not much older than the age she, Sylvia, was now – surely too young to bear the endless duties that lay before her.

  By contrast, Marigold Bell looked supremely up to the job. The picture of self-confidence on a chair draped with a curtain and wearing a fancy lace petticoat, she held her cardboard sceptre magisterially aloft.

  A boy in a dressing gown placed on her head a painted crown. He spoke words copied from the actual ceremony, at which the new-crowned monarch rose from her throne.

  ‘My subjects,’ she began, bestowing a radiant smile upon the assembled cast and audience.

  There followed a lengthy speech, during which the young Queen repealed a number of Acts of Parliament and instated a new Act reducing the age of suffrage to twelve. There was to be a special endowment for those who had pets, and books, the monarch announced in conclusion, were henceforth to be free for children.

  The cast adjusted their socks and whispered to each other while this revamping of the laws of the land was being delivered. Some of the audience looked disapproving and one brave soul laughed, which earned him a glare from the Queen.

  ‘That went on a bit,’ June said to Sylvia. ‘I was getting worried the twins mightn’t be able to hold on and might wet themselves.’

  ‘We DIDN’T wet ourselves,’ the girls shouted, furious at this aspersion.

  ‘You’d best go now or you will,’ their mother said, propelling them towards the toilets.

  Outside the hall Marigold was being congratulated. ‘I wrote it all myself,’ she was explaining to her admirers. To Sylvia’s surprise Sam seemed to have joined these. He caught sight of Sylvia and said in respectful tones, ‘Did you hear what she said about abolishing fox hunting?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And about suffrage – that means when you can vote.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Can I ask her round to yours?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to ask her to your own house?’

  Sam frowned. ‘The twins’ll act up if she comes round ours.’

  Gwen stopped her on her way out of the school. ‘Wasn’t the coronation killing? Fancy coming down to the Troubadour Saturday lunchtime?’

  The Troubadour, by the canal, was the more social of the two East Mole pubs, boasting a beer garden, hung about in summer with strings of coloured lights. Inside, cases containing varnished catches, supposedly from local rivers, were displayed about the walls.

  ‘ “What a mercy that was not a pike!” ’ Sylvia remarked, noting a long fish with spiky teeth.

  ‘I think it is a pike,’ Gwen corrected her. ‘What’ll you have?’

  Sylvia said she would have a lemonade shandy. They went outside to sit by the canal.

  ‘Have you thought any more about the holiday?’ Gwen asked.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you were serious.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t. Like I said, we need help with the petrol so you’ll be doing us a favour.’

  Sylvia had, in fact, written in her head several tactful letters to her parents but had not found the courage to translate into pen and ink her excuses for missing their customary family holiday. For years now she had been frankly depressed by the chilly Norfolk beaches, the dreary boarding house with pallid food, swirl-patterned carpets and candlewick bedspreads. But she was aware how important her presence was to her father.

  When she got home, fuelled by the lunchtime drink, she took the pad of Basildon Bond outside.

  Dear Mother and Dad,

  Thank you for your letter with all your news. I am so glad you have finally solved the problem with the twin tub. I have spent most evenings in the garden as no doubt you have too (if Mother’s hay fever has permitted).

  This was dreadful. She screwed up this attempt and, with the intention of clearing her head, decided to take a walk.

  She passed her immediate neighbour aggressively mowing his front lawn and the twins swinging on number 3’s gate.

  ‘Hello, Jam, hello, Pem.’

  ‘We AREN’T Jam and Pem.’

  She stopped to look at the white horse, recalling how on her previous walk to the foundry she had met Marigold and her father. So she was not altogether surprised to see Dr Bell as she climbed over the gate.

  ‘I was just thinking about you – and Marigold.’

  ‘Were you? Well, as I say to Marigold, thought is real.’

  The gold-brown spaniel appeared and rubbed herself against Sylvia’s legs.

  ‘Hello, Plush. She’s a King Charles, isn’t she?’

  ‘They’re sweet-natured but very dim. She’s Marigold’s really but I tend to end up walking her.’

  ‘I was never allowed a dog. How is Marigold?’

  ‘Relieved the exams are over.’

  ‘I don’t imagine she had much cause to worry.’

  ‘No.’

  Sylvia tried and failed to think of
something more to say. Looking around him, Dr Bell said, ‘I rather like it here.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I like these industrial ruins.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘It reminds me of a song by Ewan MacColl, the folk singer. Do you know him?’

  ‘No.’

  All of a sudden he began to sing.

  ‘I found my love where the gaslight falls,

  Dreamed a dream by the old canal,

  Kissed my girl by the factory wall

  Dirty old town, dirty old town.’

  Sylvia felt something happening to her bones.

  ‘MacColl does it much better.’

  ‘No. It sounded beautiful.’

  ‘I’ve got the record. I can lend it to you if you like.’

  Sylvia, who had no record player, said, ‘Thank you. I’d like that.’

  The spaniel ran up, panting, and stood there, alert by his side. ‘Mrs Harris’s back holding up all right?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘You should mind yours, lifting all those boxes.’

  ‘It’s an occupational hazard. I’m quite strong.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I remember.’

  A shyness fell suddenly and wrapped them around in its shady nets.

  She began to say, ‘If Marigold –’ but he was already speaking. ‘I suppose I’d better be getting along.’

  ‘Me too.’

  They stood there. The sun glinting on his glasses obscured the expression in his eyes.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I dare say I’ll see you at the library when Marigold comes to change her books.’

  Sylvia tried again to think of something intelligent to say. ‘I expect so, yes, if it’s Saturday. Well, I’m there all the time if you … but you’re only free on Saturdays, of course.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. No rest for the wicked.’

  Sylvia attempted a bright laugh. ‘I don’t think you can call what you do wicked.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Or not if I can help it.’

  ‘I’m sure not,’ she said, wishing she could take back her last remark. How gauche he must think her.

  ‘Well, so long, then,’ he said finally. ‘Nice meeting you again.’

  ‘Yes, it was. Thank you for the song.’

  ‘I’ve got a lousy voice.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said, and blushed. This was awful. Desperately, she blurted out, ‘Marigold was very good as the Queen, Dr Bell.’

  He smiled the ruefully proud parental smile. ‘She’s born to rule, I’m afraid, my daughter. And it’s Hugh, please.’

  ‘Dear Mother and Dad [Sylvia’s father read aloud over breakfast two days later], I realise that this may come as a bit of a surprise but I hope you will forgive me. A new friend I’ve made, a teacher at the local school, has invited me to go to France with her and another friend over the summer. They have a Morris Traveller and plan to camp in Brittany or the Dordogne. As you know, I’ve never been abroad and would like to take her up on the invitation. But it would be grand if you’d maybe come and visit me here.

  ‘I suppose it had to happen.’ He put the letter down and began buttering his toast.

  ‘Norman – butter knife! We’d better cancel her room at Mrs Banham’s.’

  ‘We might try somewhere abroad ourselves, Hilda, what d’you say?’

  ‘Mrs Banham would be dreadfully offended.’

  Since the end of the war, Norman Blackwell had nursed a desire to visit the country he had helped to liberate. ‘I’ve a fancy to see Paris.’

  But Mrs Banham’s position was inviolable. ‘Another year, Norman, when we’ve had more time to plan.’

  13

  ‘How were the froggies?’ her father asked before he was through the gate and Sylvia had had time to greet her parents. ‘Parlez-vous français?’

  Sylvia, who loved and pitied her father and was aware that he was putting a brave face on her having missed their usual holiday, tried not to mind this.

  Her mother made a dab at her daughter’s cheek. ‘We had a very pleasant stay with Mrs Banham. She sent you her regards.’

  ‘Did you get the deposit back?’ Sylvia couldn’t resist asking. The matter of a ‘deposit’ for the room she no longer required had been referred to in her mother’s letters.

  Her father began to make reassuring noises but her mother interrupted. ‘We got your postcard. Just the one.’

  ‘I only sent one, Mother. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I expect you girls were too busy enjoying la belle France. Were there any grands amours?’ Her father twirled an imaginary moustache.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Dad,’ Sylvia said, managing affection. ‘There was nothing like that.’

  (The holiday in France had not, in fact, been entirely satisfactory. Gwen and her friend Chris, though amiable enough, tended to stick together, leaving Sylvia feeling something of a gooseberry. The pair of them shared a tent, where she could hear them chattering and laughing at night, while she couldn’t help feeling left out in a tiny narrow tent that Chris had used as a Girl Guide.)

  Her father took in their luggage while her mother surveyed the garden. ‘Better get your father on to those weeds.’

  Inside, she turned her criticisms to the sitting room. ‘Smells damp. I hope she’s not charging much, your landlady.’

  ‘The rent is very reasonable, Mother. It’s bound to be a bit damp. It’s the country. Let me show you upstairs.’

  ‘Those stairs look a liability.’ Breathing hard, her mother laboriously climbed the stairs to Sylvia’s bedroom. ‘That bed’s not big enough for two.’

  ‘That’s all right, old girl.’ Her father winked very dreadfully, at her mother. ‘Nice and cosy!’

  Her mother closed her eyes.

  ‘Dad can have the other room and I can sleep downstairs on the sofa,’ Sylvia hurriedly offered. How could she have forgotten the separate bedrooms? ‘I’m sorry, I should have –’

  ‘No, no,’ her father began to protest as her mother said, ‘If you don’t mind, dear, it might be best …’

  Sylvia had prepared supper with garden produce donated for the occasion by the Hedges. Her mother had found their radishes ‘indigestible’ and the ham ‘fatty’ and Sylvia had run out of topics for conversation. The evening was fine and, slightly out of desperation, she suggested a walk.

  ‘I’ve no shoes to walk in. Your father will go with you.’

  ‘I’m game,’ Norman Blackwell said, and he and Sylvia were about to set off when Sam appeared at the garden gate.

  Sylvia welcomed him enthusiastically. ‘Sam, these are my parents. I’ve told them all about you.’

  Sam eyed Norman Blackwell. ‘Did you fight in the war?’

  An acute observer might have noted Norman Blackwell’s shoulders slightly broaden. ‘I was a tail gunner in the RAF.’

  Hilda Blackwell had long ago heard all her husband’s wartime reminiscences. ‘Is it me or is it getting chilly?’

  ‘My dad was in the army. Did you shoot down many Nazis?’

  ‘You bet we did. Best time of my life.’

  Hilda Blackwell sighed. ‘I’ll need my cardigan. Norman?’

  ‘I hate the Nazis,’ Sam said, turning on her blazing eyes.

  ‘I think we all do, dear.’

  ‘My grandpa’s a Jew,’ Sam said. ‘I’m not because my mum’s not. Her mum wasn’t. You’re only Jewish if your mother is,’ he explained to Hilda Blackwell, who blinked nervously and said, ‘Well, I never knew that.’

  ‘The officer I flew with was Jewish,’ Norman Blackwell said. ‘Great chap. He taught me how to play chess.’

  ‘A bomber pilot playing chess?’

  ‘He was a demon at it.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Norman!’ Hilda Blackwell warned. ‘Sam doesn’t want to hear all this.’

  ‘Shot down,’ Sylvia’s father said, avoiding his wife’s stare. ‘One of the best, old Prager. He taught me to swear in Czech too. Jdi do píči!’


  ‘What does that mean?’ Sam’s interest was now firmly captured.

  Sylvia’s father looked shifty and said that it meant buzz off.

  ‘You and Sam could maybe have a game of chess, Dad,’ Sylvia suggested. Her father was in the habit of airing this expression at moments of exasperation and research had revealed to her that the literal translation was ‘go into a cunt’.

  ‘D’you fancy having a go, old chap?’ Her father sounded eager.

  Sam thought about it. ‘Don’t mind.’

  Sylvia fetched out the wooden box and her father set up the chessboard on the upturned barrel. Sylvia’s mother was pacified with an old copy of Woman’s Own that had been lining the chest of drawers until June came round, ostensibly to make sure that Sam wasn’t ‘being any bother’ but in fact, Sylvia guessed, to get a look at her parents.

  Sylvia’s mother complimented June on her garden produce, making a special point of commending the radishes. She was persuaded to go round to the Hedges’ to watch their TV.

  ‘See, Norman, the Hedges have a TV,’ Hilda Blackwell said.

  ‘It’s only one my dad rescued from being chucked out,’ June apologised. ‘He’s an electrician so he got it to work for us.’

  ‘It still goes hazy sometimes,’ Sam said.

  Norman Blackwell settled down to instructing Sam in various chess moves so Sylvia went inside to wash up and turned on the wireless.

  ‘And now we have folk song’s famed couple, Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl, with the song that Ewan MacColl wrote at the end of the war.’

  And from the radio issued two voices …

  I found my love where the gaslight falls,

  Dreamed a dream by the old canal …

  It was as if, she reflected later, lying on the lumpy sofa listening to her parents’ reverberating snores in the rooms above, Hugh Bell had sent her a coded message through the ether.

  The week of her parents’ stay went by with surprising ease. They visited her at the library, where they met Mr Booth, who surprised Sylvia with unusually cordial behaviour.

  Hilda Blackwell was very taken with him. ‘He’s good-looking, isn’t he, your boss?’