The Book Stops Here: A Mobile Library Mystery

by Ian Sansom

'A what?' said Ted.

  'A training centre,' continued the salesman. 'Or perhaps as a dedicated children's area.'

  'What, here?' said Ted.

  'Yes,' said the salesman.

  'Upstairs?'

  'Yes.'

  'How are all the mums going to get their buggies up and down the stairs?' said Ted.

  'He's got a point,' said Israel.

  'Thank you, gents,' said the salesman, spying other people coming up the stairs. 'Are you currently in the market for a new mobile vehicle?'

  'Yes,' said Israel defensively. 'We are.'

  'And how much do these cost?' asked Ted.

  'This particular vehicle, gentlemen, which is the Double D number 3, at this sort of spec, starts at around one hundred and twenty thousand pounds.'

  'How much?' said Ted.

  'What's the budget Linda's working on?' said Israel.

  'About a tenth of that,' said Ted.

  'Thanks for your time, then, gentlemen,' said the salesman, realising that with Ted and Israel he was dealing with bona fide twenty-four-carat time-wasters. He ushered them briskly back towards the stairs.

  'One more,' said Israel, as they stepped outside.

  'Ye said the last one was the last one,' said Ted.

  'Yes, but, you're enjoying it really, aren't you? Be honest?'

  'No,' said Ted.

  'Woof!' said Muhammad.

  'All right,' said Ted.

  'Hi!' said the salesman on the steps of the next vehicle. He wasn't wearing a suit or tie. He was wearing jeans, and sandals, and a T-shirt which read GREENOLOGY™.

  'Hi,' said Israel.

  'Hi,' repeated the T-shirted man. 'I'm Steve, from Greenology Coach Builders in Bristol.' Steve from Greenology Coach Builders in Bristol spoke with an inflection which made every statement sound like a question. 'We call this our EnviroMobile?'

  'Would that be because it's environmentally friendly?' said Israel.

  'Yes?' said Steve, inflectingly.

  'Environmentally friendly?' said Ted. 'A thirty-foot mobile vehicle?'

  'We're the country's first environmentally friendly coach builders? We're totally different from anyone else out there in the market at the moment? Come inside and see?' said Steve. 'You'll notice straightaway this light—'

  'And airy cab area?' said Israel.

  'That's right?' said Steve. 'Up above this light and airy cab area there are small roof-mounted solar panels, which obviously contribute to reducing your carbon footprint?'

  Ted sighed.

  'Every little helps,' said Israel.

  'The vehicle runs on bio-fuel, obviously?' said Steve.

  'We mostly run on red diesel,' said Ted.

  'And this is an all-round low emission vehicle, without going all the way to a hybrid?'

  'Great,' said Israel.

  'And you'd have noticed from the outside that it's streamlined, to minimise fuel consumption, and that inside here we have a low allergy-risk interior?'

  'Ugh,' said Ted.

  'You okay?' said Steve.

  'I feel sick,' said Ted. 'It must be the…what did ye call it?'

  'Low allergy-risk interior?'

  'That'd be it. Excuse me.'

  'Ted!' said Israel, as they made their way back to the van.

  'Hippies,' said Ted. 'Weirdoes. Conmen'

  'They're only doing their job,' said Israel.

  'Well, they can do their job with someone else,' said Ted. 'I'm not buying a new van from any of these shysters.'

  'We don't say "shysters", Ted.'

  'We don't?'

  'No, of course we don't.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because it's…can be construed as anti-Semitic.'

  'Ach, Israel, don't get me started again on all that PC World stuff again, I've had enough for one day.'

  'It's PC, Ted. Politically correct. PC World's a shop.'

  'Aye. One of me cousins bought a computer there up in Derry. Had to take it back. It was the wrong one. Bunch of shysters.'

  'Ted!'

  Back at the van the judges had arrived and they were standing among the crowd, gazing at the daubings.

  'Ach,' said Ted.

  'Oh God,' said Israel.

  There were four judges: a woman who was about double the width of an average woman, and half the height, and who wore half-moon glasses, and who dressed all in brown, in a brown shawl, and a long brown skirt, and brown boots and a contrasting bright pink pashmina; and another woman, taller, thin, with her hair cut in a frightening bob; and a young man in a leather jacket and jeans, with a shaven head and a T-shirt that read BOOK LUST; and another man, middle-aged, in a suit with a pink pin-striped shirt and a thick turquoise silk tie.

  'Are these the judges?' whispered Ted to Israel as they approached the van.

  'I fear so,' said Israel.

  'God help us.'

  'Ah, here they are!' said Israel's mother, with some relief. 'Just in time! Israel, Ted. These are the judges. The chairman of the judges—'

  'Chair, please,' said the little wide woman. 'Do I look like a man?'

  'Well—' began Israel's mother.

  'Ooh,' the scary bob lady was saying, fingering one of the swirling rainbow patterns on the van, 'this is nice. I like this.' She was wearing a Little Red Riding Hood sort of coat, with a hood. '"The Odyssey", that's a very good name for a mobile library, isn't it? Very inventive.'

  'And is that an Eye of Horus round the front, above the cab?' asked the shaven-headed judge.

  'Yes, I'm afraid so,' said Israel. 'But if I could just explain what's happened—'

  'No need,' said the short little lady, waving her hand in dismissal, not even bothering to look round. 'It's perfectly clear.'

  She pursed her lips and started to move around the van, peering at the paintwork, scribbling notes on forms attached to a clipboard.

  'No,' said Israel, 'you see—'

  'I see, thank you, I see,' murmured the woman, marking her forms. 'I. See.'

  'It's unique, this is,' the bob lady was saying, also making notes on a clipboard, following in the shorter woman's considerable wake.

  'That's one way of putting it,' said the little woman.

  'It's not very modern, is it?' said the leather-jacketed man. 'Not really.' Israel couldn't quite see if the man was marking ticks or crosses on his sheet.

  'That's its appeal though, isn't it?' said the bob lady. 'It's retro.'

  'It's certainly a period piece,' said the man in the suit.

  'Excuse me?' said Israel, peering over their shoulders.

  'It may be a period piece,' said the little lady. 'But which period exactly? The Dark Ages? The 1960s?'

  'I think it's very unusual,' said the bob lady.

  'If you like that sort of thing,' said the little lady.

  'I do.'

  'Well, I'm not impressed I'm afraid.'

  'It's interesting, you've got to grant it that,' said the suited man. 'We've nothing like this in Darlington.'

  'Well, do please let me explain—' began Israel, who was circling the van with them.

  'It's all right,' said the woman. 'I can see what this is.'

  'Yes,' said Israel, 'it's—'

  'A labour of love,' said Israel's mother, who was circling also. 'That's what it is. They've worked very hard on this.'

  'Good,' said the suited man patronisingly. 'Good. Well done you.'

  'I don't care how hard they've worked on it,' said the little lady, tapping her clipboard. 'We've criteria to meet.'

  'And I suppose imagination is not one of your criteria?' said Israel's mother.

  'Certainly not,' said the little lady.

  'Which is a shame, because that's exactly what you lot need, isn't it?'

  'Is it?' said the little lady fiercely.

  'Yes! Look around you,' said Israel's mother, using her always expressive hand gestures to great rhetorical effect. 'Everything else here looks exactly the same—horrible, municipal. White, yellow. Boring, boring, boring
. But this, though, the…Odyssey…is completely unique.'

  'You've certainly got people talking,' said the suited man. 'I'll grant you that.'

  'She's right,' said the shaven-headed young man.

  'And who are you, so keen on special pleading?' said the little lady, fixing her gaze on Israel's mother. 'Somebody's mother?'

  'No!' said Israel.

  'Yes!' said Israel's mother.

  The little lady fixed both Israel and his mother with a withering stare and moved on round silently. Israel could see her marking thick black crosses on her clipboard.

  Inside the van things got worse.

  'There's not a lot of storage,' said the little lady, making another furious cross on her notes.

  'But it's so cosy,' said the bob lady.

  'Cosy is not a criteria,' said the little lady.

  'Well, perhaps it should be,' said Israel's mother.

  'Please, madam,' said the little lady. 'We are trying to concentrate here.'

  'Sorry,' said Israel.

  'Don't apologise on my behalf!' said Israel's mother.

  'I'm not!'

  'Yes you are.'

  'Please!' said the little lady. 'I shall have to bar you from the competition if this sort of behaviour continues. It is not the sort of thing we expect at all at the Mobile Meet.'

  'Don't ye talk to her like that!' said Ted.

  'I shall talk to her however I wish, sir!'

  'Not on my van, you won't, you rude bisim,' said Ted. 'That's it. Get off! Get out of here! Go on!'

  'Ted!' said Israel. 'Don't upset her! Sorry,' he said to the judges. 'Ted, what about the Concours D'Elégance?'

  'Ach, they know where they can stick their prizes. Go on, get off, the lot of ye.'

  'And take your clipboards with you!' added Israel's mother, unnecessarily, as the judges, cowed and shocked, hurried off the van.

  'Oh God,' said Israel.

  Israel could hear the judges as they walked away from the van through the crowds.

  'Well!' the little lady was saying, again and again. 'Well! Outrageous!'

  'They're certainly a wild card,' the suited man was saying.

  'Banned,' the little lady was saying. 'Barred! In all my…'

  'The van had character though,' the bob lady was saying.

  'Bunch of outlaws!'

  * * *

  'Well, that went well,' said Israel's mother.

  'I don't think we've got much chance of winning anything now,' said Israel. 'We might as well go.'

  'Nonsense,' said Israel's mother. 'We've come all this way. We'll stay to the prize giving. They're not running us out of town.'

  'Woof!' said Muhammad.

  'Fair play to ye,' said Ted. 'Ye've some spirit, girl.'

  'I like to think so,' said Israel's mother. 'You too,' she said, giving Ted a wink.

  'All right, knock it off you two, will you?' said Israel.

  When the prizes were eventually awarded, in the Nissen hut some hours later, Ted and Israel did not, needless to say, win the prize for State-of-the-Art Vehicle. Or the prize for Best Livery. Or indeed the Driver's Challenge, presented in memory of Noah Stanley, although Ted felt pretty confident that if he'd been there in time he'd have stood a good chance.

  And the prize for Concours D'Elégance?…

  Went to a van from Bexley with a Maisie the Mouse painted on the side.

  'Stitch up,' whispered Israel's mother. 'Bloody bitch.'

  'I owe you,' huffed Ted. 'One thousand—'

  'I think we'll call it quits,' said Israel.

  'And now,' announced the chairman—chair, rather—of the judges, the little brown-and-pink-pashmina-wearing woman with her half-moon glasses perched halfway down her nose, 'we come to the most hotly contested—and often the most controversial—prize, the Delegates Choice. I think you'll agree, we've had—on the whole—a very good turnout this year, and as always there have been so many different vans that are all so distinctive. But the ballot papers are in, they have been counted, I have the result here'—she waved a brown envelope—'and I can tell you that…' And she paused for a moment to open the envelope and then paused again as she read the result, catching her breath. 'We…Ahem…Well…We have an unprecedented unanimous decision by you, the delegates. I think we can certainly all agree that…none of us has ever seen a mobile library anything quite…like it. So, for…originality…the prize this year is awarded to…to our colleagues from across the water in Ireland—'

  'Northern Ireland!' yelled Ted. 'We're not Brazil, we're Northern Ireland! Yes!'

  'Northern Ireland,' said the little woman, who seemed close to tears. 'Ted Carson and Israel Armstrong, and—'

  'His mother!' said Ted.

  '—and their…mobile library from Tumdrum.'

  'The Delegates' Choice!' said Ted.

  Israel hugged his mother. Ted hugged Israel's mother. Israel hugged Ted, almost, and then thought better of it.

  And as they got up, triumphant, and walked forward to collect the prize the doors to the Nissen hut burst open and in walked Stones and Bree, closely followed by a dozen armed police officers.

  16

  The police decided that under the circumstances Israel and Ted could be released without charge, and Ted in return decided not to press charges against Stones and Bree. Israel's mother decided she could maybe do with some more adventure in her life, and that it was time to spread her wings a little.

  And Israel had made his decision also: he was going to go and surprise Gloria. Five days after arriving in England, five days without seeing her, five days in pursuit of the van. Now he was going in pursuit of her. He was going to the flat—to their flat.

  He'd brought flowers. And chocolates. He was going to do it right.

  He caught the bus. There was the little park opposite the flat. He went to sit in the park. To prepare himself. You could see the park from their window. He would sometimes watch people come and go in and out of the park. Parents with little children, how sometimes they'd be arguing or angry. And there was a man he used to see every day, always wearing a suit, the man, not much older than himself and he obviously got home every day and said, 'I'll take the children', and he'd go to the park, and he'd be absorbed in playing with his children: the sight of it, day in, day out; week in, week out. It became part of Israel's routine, coming home from the Bargain Bookstore at Lakeside, waiting for Gloria, watching the man watching his children. And then one day he wasn't there. He must have moved, or moved on.

  There was no one in the park today. It was a beautiful London summer's evening. He sat on the bench. If Gloria arrived he'd be able to see her. He could see their window.

  He waited. And he waited.

  But he couldn't sit waiting forever.

  The little patch of front lawn and the flower beds at the front of the flats; Mrs Graham, one of the old women on the ground floor, she kept it nice. Gloria had never liked her; she said she was smelly and weird, and she called her Grumps. But Israel quite liked her; she reminded him of his grandmother: she was balding, she chain-smoked, her hair was vivid with nicotine and she would occasionally post furious letters of complaint—too much noise, people leaving the main door on the snib—addressed to 'OCCUPANTS!' She was harmless.

  He stood on the doorstep and could feel himself shivering and shaking with nerves. He was excited also, as though having recently won something, or been awarded a prize. He'd washed his hair specially and shaved. He was wearing his smartest clothes: fresh cords.

  He was ready. He'd returned.

  Maybe it was a mistake, though, him coming. There was a great weight of the unspoken between them now. Why hadn't she rung? Why hadn't she written? Why hadn't she visited? What was he going to say? He held a hand out in front of him—he was shaking. Not like a leaf exactly. More like jelly on the plate. He felt sick. He'd taken all his Nurofen.

  The old entry system to the flats. The porcelain bell buttons.

  Should he stay or should he go?

&nbs
p; He'd come this far.

  He was determined that they weren't going to argue. They just needed to talk.

  The cool touch of the bell on his fingers.

  No reply.

  He rang again.

  Nothing.

  He checked in his pocket for the keys.

  Took a deep breath.

  Let himself in.

  They'd had it fixed, the main entry door—it used to jam halfway. The communal hallway was completely plain, magnolia, blue-grey carpets, the mirror. He glanced at himself in the mirror, wrinkled his brow, adjusted his glasses. His face was comic: there was nothing he could do about it; he always looked as though he weren't able to take himself entirely seriously, as though he were not entirely in control of his expressions. At best, he thought, you might describe it as charm. At worst…He tried to look sophisticated. He tried to look smart. But he couldn't. He was permanently dishevelled. Too big, too awkward. Not somehow…right. But, if he tried, he could carry it off. Shoulders back, head up—if it worked for Gérard Depardieu…

  Going up the stairs, it felt like he'd never been away. He could remember the day they'd moved in together, how they'd talked for months about moving in together, and then eventually it had just seemed like the right thing to do, and so they did: they'd got the deposit together somehow—mostly a loan from Gloria's father, nice man, wealthy, charming, bastard—and then hired a van for the day, and Israel had picked up his stuff from his mother's house, and Gloria collected her stuff from her house share, and they'd done it. That was it. It seemed so simple, looking back. All the future ahead of them. Names on the doorbell. Israel and Gloria. Adam and Eve.

  Up the last flight, and he looked at the walls, at the scuff marks where they'd carried up his old desk, and everything else; every stick of their furniture he'd carried up these stairs. Their bed: going to buy their bed together. IKEA. And Gloria insisting on buying the best mattress they could afford, and it was so heavy they'd had to ask their neighbours to help them up the stairs. Heaving their way up the stairs, and in through the door and into the bedroom. The fresh mattressy smell of it. The smell of their lives together. He could remember himself tingling with anticipation.

  He came to the front door. He thought it would be better to knock, just in case.

  He knocked.

  And knocked again.

  Perhaps he'd made a mistake in coming. Had he made a mistake in coming? He couldn't decide.