The Librarian

by Salley Vickers

  ‘b) What prank did Father William think might do him harm when he was young and why did he change his mind?

  c) What does “incessantly” mean? What is a back-somersault?

  d) How does Father William keep supple? And do you keep supple in the same way?

  e) What signs of age does Father William show?’

  It was agreed among the three of them that once you knew what ‘prank’ meant question b) was easy-peasy.

  ‘Why do they want to use words we don’t use?’ Sam asked.

  ‘I think that’s part of the test. It’s why it’s a good idea to read,’ Sylvia said cunningly. Then, seeing the children looking downcast, repented. The last thing she wanted was for reading to be perceived as the means to passing dull exams. ‘You can nearly always work out the meaning of words you don’t recognise from the context – from the rest of the sentence. For example, “incessantly” means …?’

  ‘All the time?’ Lizzie suggested.

  ‘Over and over,’ Sam said hastily, not to be outdone.

  ‘Exactly,’ Sylvia said. ‘You see, it’s not so difficult. A lot of this exam business is guesswork.’

  They were unanimous that the question about the back somersault was just plain daft. Sam was especially indignant.

  ‘How we s’posed to explain this?’ He crouched down, executed a back somersault and sprang up again, throwing out his hands in a theatrical gesture.

  Lizzie appeared transfixed and Sylvia said admiringly, ‘That was very neat, Sam. I agree. It’s a ridiculous question. The trick is not to get stuck on questions like this. Just bung down “a somersault backwards” or something.’

  ‘That’s daft,’ Sam said again.

  Sylvia said, ‘I suspect quite a lot of the questions will seem daft. Adults set these questions and children are generally too sensible to grasp the point of the nonsense they’re being asked.’ She felt indignant for Lewis Carroll having his wry, humorous parody turned into a clumsy educational hurdle.

  ‘Do you keep supple in the same way?’ Sam bent double, poked his face through his legs, leered up at them hideously and blew a loud farting noise on his forearm. He collapsed on the ground, overcome with mirth at his own wit.

  Mr Bird, who had been hard at it hacking down the brambles, stepped over Sam’s prone form announcing that he had a terrible thirst on him and was there maybe something he could drown it with. Eyeing the cut-glass jug, he said, ‘That belonged to my Auntie Val when she was still with us.’

  ‘Oh, you must take it then,’ Sylvia said hastily. ‘I found it in the kitchen cupboard.’

  Mr Bird said that his wife was in charge of number 5 and it was as much as his life was worth to meddle. He knocked back a glass of barley water and took a judicious look at Mr Collins’ apple tree.

  ‘Want me to take off that branch? You could do yourself a mischief on that.’ Sylvia looked at the tree, alight with pale pink buds and blooms. A clutch of mistletoe was visible in the cleft of the rogue branch which overhung her path. ‘The law says you can take it off if it overhangs your property,’ Mr Bird said, wiping his forehead. ‘The wife’s been down the Town Hall asking about it.’

  ‘It’s pretty,’ Sylvia declared. ‘Maybe we could leave it for now, Mr Bird?’

  Mr Bird said she must please herself and there was a fox’s litter down the back end of the garden so he’d not touched the brambles there.

  Father William was abandoned while they all hurried down through the cleared garden to inspect the cubs. But only a glimpse of the vixen’s ruddy coat and black prick ears could be seen through the remaining tangle of brambles.

  Lizzie said she’d like to have one of the cubs as a pet.

  ‘Your nan’d have something to say about that!’ Her grandfather winked at Sylvia.

  ‘It’d just be killed when hunting starts,’ Sam said.

  Sylvia saw Lizzie’s eyes well with tears at this piece of equivocal comfort. ‘The hunt doesn’t get them all, Sam. You can come up here, Lizzie, and watch the cubs grow up.’

  ‘Can I, Miss?’

  ‘Of course you can, Lizzie. And if you like we can maybe have a go at some more Comprehensions.’

  ‘I’ll watch them too,’ Sam said. He was concerned to protect his status with the new librarian and wasn’t having a B streamer colonise her on his home ground.

  7

  Although Sylvia had greeted Mr Collins when she passed him working in his front garden, so far they had had no further conversation. She was sitting one evening by the upturned barrel, observing the fox cubs cavort on what – since Mr Bird’s hard work – passed for a lawn when the gingery figure of her ‘immediate neighbour’ appeared at the gate. The cubs, with incremental boldness, had dared further and further towards the house and she had been flattered by their trust and enchanted by the little tawny creatures’ lively games. So she was put out when at Mr Collins’ arrival they turned tail and raced back to the bottom of the garden.

  She met him with what she hoped was a neighbourly smile. ‘Mr Collins?’

  ‘Miss Blackwell.’ His tone was hardly neighbourly.

  ‘Can I offer you tea? Or there’s barley water. I’m afraid I haven’t anything stronger.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’ His pale eyes raked over the garden and then turned on the house. ‘I see the buddleia is still with us.’

  Sylvia had looked up buddleia in the library and had learned that it was a favourite with butterflies. ‘It seemed a shame to pull it out.’

  But the buddleia was for the moment spared. ‘It’s those foxes I’ve come about.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Vermin.’

  Sylvia was surprised into indignation. ‘Surely not. They aren’t rats.’

  ‘I think you’ll find they are categorised as vermin.’ The pink rosebud mouth puckered tight.

  I shall check that, Sylvia resolved. Aloud, she said, ‘I’m not sure what I can really do about them, Mr Collins.’

  In reply, her neighbour placed a packet on the upturned barrel. ‘You dissolve it in water and then soak a piece of meat.’

  It took a moment for Sylvia to understand. ‘The trouble is, Mr Collins,’ she said, inspired by an adrenaline shot of rage, ‘the foxes are part of a project I’m participating in with the school. The children are making observations and recording them with the help of our reference books from the library. I think if anything happened to the foxes there would be an outcry.’

  ‘Does Ashley Booth know about this scheme?’

  I’m not surprised he and Mr Booth are thick, Sylvia thought. Thick as thieves – they even talk in the same way. She produced a fickle smile and her neighbour withdrew, leaving the package by her teacup on the upturned barrel.

  ‘CAUTION: POISON. Eliminates mice, rats and other vermin. Handle with care,’ the package read. She tipped away the remainder of her tea.

  Number 3’s door was permanently ajar and Sylvia found Ray and June in the sitting room watching the news. Sam was on his stomach on the floor with a copy of the East Mole Echo. He rolled on to his side and looked up at Sylvia. ‘Who was the next President of the USA after Abraham Lincoln?’

  ‘He’s done the crossword already,’ his mother said proudly.

  ‘I’m not sure, Sam. Ulysses S. Grant?’

  ‘Wrong! Andrew Johnson! And he never ever went to school.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to look it up. He’s got it all up here.’ Ray tapped his forehead.

  ‘Who was Prime Minister before Mr Churchill?’ Sam demanded.

  ‘I know that one. Neville Chamberlain.’

  Sam looked disappointed and began, ‘Who –’

  ‘Miss Blackwell hasn’t come round for you to show off,’ June interceded.

  ‘She’s SYLVIA!’ shouted one of the twins. They were each sporting, Sylvia noticed, one red and one green ribbon.

  ‘You must be Jam and Pem,’ she said, at which both twins began to giggle delightedly.

  Sylvia explained why she had come.
‘I was so livid I made up the school project on the spot. But now he’ll check up on me and he’s the Chair of the Library Committee, apparently – though heaven knows why, he doesn’t strike me as a reader – and very in with my boss.’

  ‘It’s not just the Library Committee,’ Ray said. ‘Word is him and your boss are’ – he pulled up one trouser leg and winked and when Sylvia looked puzzled said – ‘Freemasons, the pair of them.’

  ‘Grown men prancing around making secret signs and pulling up their trousers, for heaven’s sake,’ June said. ‘I wouldn’t worry about him. Samuel, didn’t you say your class was doing the countryside?’

  ‘The Wiltshire Countryside – Our Heritage.’

  ‘Can’t you suggest to your teacher you’re watching Miss Blackwell’s foxes for that?’

  ‘She’s SYLVIA!’ shouted the twins, not quite in unison.

  Their mother ignored them. ‘How about you go round to’ – she hesitated – ‘to Sylvia’s now and see what you can do about the little foxes for her?’

  ‘D’you want to hear all my answers to the quiz?’

  ‘I’d love to. Why don’t you bring the paper round to mine, Sam?’

  Sylvia was genuinely impressed by Sam’s answers to the Echo’s quiz. ‘How on earth do you know which mountain in Europe is the highest? And I haven’t a clue which the longest river in Africa is. I couldn’t have answered half of these.’

  ‘My grandpa’s got the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I read it when we’re round his.’

  ‘Your grandpa who shoots rooks?’

  ‘That was my dad’s dad. He died. Grandpa’s my mum’s. He doesn’t believe in shooting.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. And Sam, listen, I really need you if we’re going to protect the foxes. Do you think your teacher might help? What’s her name?’

  ‘Miss Williams.’

  ‘How old is Miss Williams?’

  Sam looked vague and then said his teacher was maybe fifty, he wasn’t sure.

  Sylvia had been hoping for a younger person, more likely to be an ally. ‘Do you think she’ll help about the foxes?’

  Sam said they had a nature table in their classroom with tadpoles and Micky O’Malley had brought in a jar of sticklebacks for it so she might.

  ‘It would be fun, wouldn’t it, to observe them? We could ask Lizzie to join in too.’ But at this Sam looked dubious. ‘Have you something against that, Sam?’

  ‘She’s a girl.’

  ‘I’m a girl too. You like me, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s different. You’re grown up. Anyway, she’s Catholic.’

  ‘Whatever’s that got to do with the price of eggs?’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘It’s a saying. But come on, Sam. Catholic? What does that matter, for goodness’ sake?’

  Sylvia herself was a little surprised to learn of Lizzie’s Catholicism. But Sam’s objection to Lizzie, Sylvia surmised after more careful probing, had less to do with religious prejudice than what an association with her might do to his reputation in the playground.

  ‘She’s in 4B,’ he explained.

  ‘You know,’ Sylvia said, ‘I can’t help feeling that all this streaming business is a mistake.’

  ‘We don’t mix with the B’s.’

  ‘Perhaps you should. You might learn something.’

  This piety got short shrift. ‘Yeah, I might learn what it’s like being dragged into the girls’ toilets.’

  ‘Is that what happens?’

  ‘If you don’t watch it, it does.’

  ‘You mean if you palled up with Lizzie Bird you’d risk getting dragged into the girls’ toilets?’

  ‘She’s not Bird. She’s Smith.’

  ‘If you palled up with Lizzie Smith, then?’

  ‘Yeah. If I don’t watch it.’

  ‘How childish,’ Sylvia decreed, and then laughed at herself. ‘I suppose you are only children.’

  But this sting to Sam’s pride effected a surprising volte-face.

  ‘I’m just saying. But if you like she can watch the foxes with me when she comes round yours.’

  8

  A loose arrangement between Sylvia and the Hedges children had developed so that on Thursdays Sylvia left her bike behind and went on foot with the three of them on their way to school. The following morning, when they parted at the library, Sam took with him a note for Miss Williams.

  When Sylvia got in Dee was up a stepladder dusting some plaster busts on the top shelves. ‘That’s going beyond the call of duty, Dee.’

  ‘There’s a package come for you from the publisher’s. It’s shocking, the dirt up here. These old boys, whoever they are, could do with a wash and brush-up.’

  ‘That one’s Gladstone,’ Sylvia said. ‘I wonder what he’s doing there. But who’s the other? He looks very stern.’

  ‘Lord only knows but whoever he is he needs a good clean.’

  Dee had begun to lug down the plaster bust when the doors were pushed open and Mr Booth came in. He stood staring and then rapped out, ‘May I ask what you are doing with Alderman Coot?’

  ‘Is that who it is?’ Dee looked arch and then addressed the bust. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Worship.’

  Mr Booth looked up at her coldly. ‘Alderman Coot was a patron of the library.’

  Dee began to mouth kisses at the plaster effigy, swayed, screeched and slid down the steps of the ladder. The bust met the parquet floor and fell into two neat halves.

  ‘Dee, are you all right?’ Sylvia ran over to her colleague, who was on her back, making protesting noises.

  Mr Booth snatched up the fractured pieces and marched out.

  ‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ Dee said. She attempted to rise, yelped and slumped back down again. ‘I’ve done something lethal to my back.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Sylvia said. ‘Shall I get somebody?’

  ‘You’d better. You’re not strong enough to haul me up and I’m not going to humble myself and have you ask His Lordship.’

  ‘I think you should have a doctor,’ Sylvia said.

  Dee said her GP was a Dr Monk and the number was in the book. Sylvia rang and got an elderly woman who said she would put Dee down on the doctor’s visiting list.

  ‘It’s quite urgent,’ Sylvia said. ‘Mrs Harris has fallen and she can’t get up.’

  ‘I’m not drunk, tell her,’ Dee shouted from the floor. ‘The old bat’ll go telling everyone I’m drunk,’ she explained when Sylvia had rung off.

  ‘Who was she? His wife?’

  ‘Mrs Eames, his housekeeper. He hasn’t got a wife, or not one we’ve heard of. She doubles as his receptionist. She’s a gossip. I’ve heard on good authority she reads the medical notes.’

  Sylvia, who had registered with Dr Monk, vowed to stay healthy.

  Luckily, the library did very little business in the mornings. A couple of mothers with toddlers came in, which was a distraction for Dee since it allowed her to reprimand the children. One of the mothers supplied some junior aspirin from her handbag. And Mad Mary, the local simpleton, who by general unspoken agreement had licence to go pretty much where she wanted in East Mole, drifted in and shared a jam doughnut with Dee, who said later that it had done her more good than the aspirin.

  Just after eleven the doors swung open and a man carrying a doctor’s bag came in. It was not Dr Monk but the new GP who had recently registered his daughter at the library.

  He nodded at Sylvia and squatted down beside Dee. ‘I’m Dr Bell and you must be Mrs Harris, the wounded soldier.’

  Dee, who had been lying legs sprawled, adjusted her skirt. ‘Fell down those ruddy steps.’

  Dr Bell made a sympathetic face. ‘Bad luck. Are you in pain?’

  Dee said, frankly, she could do with a treble scotch.

  Dr Bell laughed. ‘I know how you feel. Now, I’m going to examine you.’ He looked at Sylvia. ‘I might need your help to move Mrs Harris – if that’s all right with you, Mrs Harris?’

 
‘Oh, don’t mind me!’

  ‘We’ll do our level best to mind you. I’m sorry,’ he said to Sylvia, ‘I’ve a bad memory for names.’

  ‘Sylvia,’ Sylvia said, and blushed. ‘Sylvia Blackwell.’

  Dr Bell raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Blackwell? That’s a fitting name for a bookish sort. Now, we need to roll Mrs Harris very gently over so I can examine her back. If you could just lend a hand so that I don’t jolt her and add to her suffering …’

  Together they began to roll Dee over, who said, ‘I feel like a blimming beached whale,’ and gave a snort of laughter, which made Sylvia laugh too.

  ‘Cow!’ Dee said. And, as they laid her on her side, ‘I hope you’re having fun, you two!’ so that Dr Bell also smiled.

  He pressed his fingers down Dee’s spine. ‘Are you playing the piano on me?’ she asked coquettishly.

  Dr Bell appeared not to hear this. He made Dee move her legs and finally pronounced that he was going to send her to the cottage hospital for an X-ray.

  ‘I don’t like the idea of them,’ Dee said, in a childish voice. ‘Do I have to?’

  For a moment both Sylvia and the doctor assumed she was joking. Then Dr Bell said, ‘Best to see that nothing is broken,’ just as Sylvia was saying, ‘They don’t hurt …’

  Dee looked unconvinced. ‘It’s radiation, isn’t it? I don’t like the idea of those rays going right through you after what you read about Hiroshima.’

  Dr Bell, who had stood up, squatted down again beside her. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Those bombs were most regrettable. And worrying.’ He took off his glasses and polished them, looking thoughtful. Then he said, ‘But X-rays, though a form of radiation, are truly quite a different matter.’

  ‘It’s still radiation, though, isn’t it? I saw the pictures.’

  There was a telling silence. They had all had seen the newsreels of the aftermath of the two great atrocities done in the name of world peace.

  ‘Dee,’ Sylvia said. ‘Dr Bell is trained. He wouldn’t recommend anything harmful for you.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ Dr Bell said, patting Dee on the shoulder. ‘I’ll call an ambulance and hop in with you and take you to X-ray myself. I took you over from Dr Monk because his call-out list was full. So you’re my only call out this morning. Might that help?’