The Librarian

by Salley Vickers

  Sylvia, who was baffled by Mr Booth’s reputed success with women and found his ageing-matinee-idol looks repulsive, nodded.

  She treated her parents to a cream tea at Patsy’s Tea Shoppe, where her mother greatly admired the warming pans and her father flirted with the elderly waitress. And with June taking her mother under her wing and her father coaching Sam in chess the time passed so smoothly she was almost sad when it was time for them to leave.

  ‘You and I, young man,’ Sylvia overheard her father say to Sam, ‘have to stick together with all these womenfolk around.’

  Before he left he shyly handed Sam a book.

  ‘It was hers.’ Sylvia’s father nodded towards his daughter. ‘Chess for Beginners. I brought it from home for her but it strikes me you have more use for it now.’

  ‘But I’m not a beginner any more,’ Sam protested, and was ticked off by June.

  ‘Thank Mr Blackwell properly, Samuel, or he’ll take his book back. We’ll see you here again very soon, I hope.’ She handed Hilda Blackwell a newspaper parcel of earthy radishes.

  ‘Keep this one out of mischief for me, won’t you?’ Sylvia’s father said to June, thumping his daughter’s shoulder.

  A taxi had been ordered to take the Blackwells to the station and as it pulled away and Sylvia was waving her parents off Mrs Bird appeared. She ducked under the apple tree and settled herself by the upturned barrel.

  ‘It’s come back nicely, the garden.’

  ‘That’s thanks to your husband. Tea, Mrs Bird?’

  Sylvia made tea, wondering what her landlady’s visit boded. It was apparent that she had a surprise up her sleeve. She drank her tea and sat with a sphinx-like smile before ceremonially handing Sylvia a paper bag.

  ‘Black Magic. I prefer Milk Tray myself but I said to myself, “Miss Blackwell is a Black Magic girl.” ’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sylvia said, puzzled by this gift.

  Mrs Bird inclined her head and smiled still more. ‘Our Lizzie’s got into the Grammar.’

  ‘That’s terrific!’ Sylvia said, thrilled. ‘Good for Lizzie.’

  ‘Like I said to my Dawn, “Miss Blackwell’ll get her in.” We left school at fourteen but education’s important if you want to get on. That school! Our Lizzie’s quiet as a mouse so they didn’t bother about her but I knew she had it in her. A dark horse, is Liz.’

  ‘You were quite right, Mrs Bird,’ Sylvia said. ‘And I agree with you. Would you ask Lizzie to come and see me? We must celebrate.’

  Sam, when told of Lizzie’s triumph, said, ‘I helped her with her Arithmetic. And her Verbal Reasoning.’

  ‘You did, Sam. She’d never have passed without you.’

  He seemed genuinely pleased at Lizzie’s success and when she appeared, looking shy in a skirt and clean T-shirt, he whacked her on the back and said, ‘Well done, old girl,’ in a perfect imitation of Sylvia’s father.

  Sam supervised the shopping for Lizzie’s celebration tea. The children gorged themselves on Twiglets, Wagon Wheels and Playbox biscuits while Sam outlined to Lizzie what she could expect at her new school.

  ‘You might get some prejudice.’

  Lizzie looked scared. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re Catholic. The Grammar’s Church of England. Girl Catholics mostly go to Our Lady of Sion.’

  ‘I’m sure that won’t be the case,’ Sylvia said. ‘How will anyone know?’

  Sam looked at her witheringly. ‘Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays. I know about prejudice because my grandpa’s a Jew. And she’s from the B stream,’ he added, relentlessly heaping coals of fire, ‘so they’ll think she’s not as good as them.’

  ‘Sam,’ Sylvia said, ‘shut up. I have every confidence in Lizzie. She’s done extremely well in the exam and she’s going to show them all what’s she’s made of, aren’t you, Lizzie?’

  ‘I was just saying,’ Sam said. ‘I think you’ll be all right too, Liz.’

  They fed the donkeys cream crackers. Lizzie was nervous at first and Sylvia reassured her that she too had been nervous of them and described how at school she had acted the part of a donkey in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

  ‘It’s a play by Shakespeare. I expect you’ll be studying it at your new school. Bottom, one of the characters, is turned into a donkey by a naughty fairy called Puck and the fairy queen falls in love with him.’

  ‘Bottom!’ Sam didn’t know whether to be scornful or amused. ‘Like bum?’

  But Lizzie’s interest was caught. ‘Why does she fall in love with a donkey?’

  ‘Because her husband, the fairy king, has put a spell on her to make her fall in love with the first ugly-seeming creature she sets eyes on.’

  Lizzie looked puzzled. ‘Why does he do that?’

  ‘To get his own back because the fairy queen won’t give him what he wants. But, you see, Shakespeare believed that the donkey was worth falling in love with, even if he seemed ugly, and that in the end it did the fairy queen good.’

  ‘Sounds stupid,’ Sam said. ‘Fairies and bums.’

  The tea with Lizzie had reminded Sam of Sylvia’s promise that he could invite Marigold round. He pestered her about this.

  ‘Sam, of course Marigold can come but you will have to invite her.’

  ‘I don’t know where she lives.’

  ‘I don’t either.’

  ‘You do,’ Sam said. ‘It’s on her library card.’

  Sylvia knew, in fact, that the Bells were away in Cornwall for a fortnight because before she left Marigold had requested a double ration of library books and told her the date that they would be back.

  June caught Sylvia about to set off for work that Saturday morning.

  ‘I came to ask if you’d mind having the twins this afternoon. Only Ray’s at football and my mum’s poorly again so I said I’d pop over.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sylvia said, anxious to be on her way.

  ‘You look nice,’ June called after her as she biked away.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Dee asked, as Sylvia came back from the lavatory for the third time. She looked Sylvia over. ‘Nice lipstick. What’s that you’re wearing?’

  Sylvia blushed. ‘Coty L’Aimant.’

  ‘Meeting someone after work?’

  ‘It’s no one, really.’

  ‘Go on with you. You’re young, you should be enjoying yourself. Make hay while the sun shines.’

  Marigold and her father arrived just before closing time. He looked harassed and Marigold looked sulky. She banged down the books she was returning and went off wordlessly to examine the shelves.

  Her father raised his eyebrows. ‘Sorry about that. She’s up in arms about our decision to send her to St Catherine’s next term.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She wants to go to the Grammar School.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I’m actually with Marigold on this but Jeanette’s very keen and we’ve paid the fees for the first term. They’re not refundable so …’

  Marigold appeared with some books. ‘My happiness is of lesser importance to my parents than the state of their bank balance.’

  Hugh Bell sighed and Sylvia asked, ‘Why do you prefer to go to the Grammar School, Marigold?’

  ‘The St Catherine’s girls are all goody-goodies.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll make new friends there,’ her father suggested.

  Marigold stuck out her tongue at him and slammed down three books with ancient bindings. The books she had chosen were all boarding-school stories written for readers of an earlier era.

  Her father read out the titles. ‘The Youngest Girl in the Fifth, The Madcap of the School. I take it this is some sort of protest.’

  ‘If you propose sending me to that sort of school then I shall need to be adequately prepared.’ Marigold opened The Jolliest School of All. A smell of fungus rose from the brown spotted pages. ‘ “I say, Megsie, old chum. Wouldn’t it be a tremendous jape if we could snaffle old Greenie’s tuck box? She has some simply sc
rumptious buns stowed away there.” ’

  Sylvia couldn’t suppress a snort of laughter and her father asked, ‘Does it really say that?’

  His daughter banged the book shut. Dust flew from the pages and Sylvia sneezed. ‘I shall have to practise my vocabulary,’ Marigold announced. ‘Come on, Daddsie, old thing. Let’s roll home to jolly old Mummsie and see what simply super tuck she has got for our jolly old tea.’

  She gathered up the books and pushed open the swing doors, rather as if they were the doors of a saloon and she was the hero in a Western.

  Her father hovered a moment. ‘Might see you at the foundry this evening. Plush has been in kennels and she’ll be keen to resume her walks.’

  ‘There’s a little madam for you and no mistake.’ Dee was examining the books that Marigold had returned. ‘College-trained doctor and that slip of a girl’s got him twisted round her little finger. Mind you, it’s the wife wears the trousers in that household.’

  Sylvia tried not to look interested. ‘Really?’

  ‘She’s not too popular, the doctor’s wife.’

  ‘Oh dear. Why not?’

  ‘Snobbish,’ Dee decreed. ‘Thinks she’s a cut above.’

  With her mind on Marigold and her father, Sylvia had forgotten that she had agreed to look after the twins, who were waiting for her when she arrived back at Field Row.

  ‘Sylvia, Sylvia!’ they yelled, flinging their arms round her legs.

  ‘Girls, be careful of Miss Blackwell’s nice dress.’

  ‘She’s SYLVIA!’ they bellowed. ‘SYLVIA, WE LOVE YOU.’

  Impossible not to feel warmed by such enthusiasm. ‘It’s all right, June. You go off to your mother’s.’

  ‘They’ve had their dinner.’

  ‘It was yucky!’ the twins chorused. ‘Yucky, yucky, YUCKY.’ They pranced about the lawn, lifting up their skirts and showing off frilly knickers.

  ‘I don’t know what to do with them,’ June said. ‘They won’t touch their greens.’

  ‘They seem very healthy without. You get off to your mother’s, June.’

  Sylvia had been banking on help with the twins from Sam but the twins informed her he was at the football with their dad. ‘What we going to do?’ they asked, plumping down on the grass.

  ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘Cooking.’

  The little girls skittered about, gathering dandelion and daisy heads and a variety of leaves, which they mashed through a sieve with wooden spoons into one of Mrs Bird’s saucepans. Sylvia had to stop them adding some dubious-looking berries to the mix.

  ‘I wouldn’t put those in, girls.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They might be poisonous.’

  ‘They’s currants,’ one of the twins insisted.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Our dad grows them.’

  Sylvia inspected their crop of translucent scarlet berries. ‘I’m afraid they’re some sort of nightshade.’

  ‘Is they poisonous?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘If we eat them will we die?’

  ‘You’d certainly be very poorly.’

  ‘Would we have to go to hospital?’

  Sylvia sensed that she was being led into some trap. ‘All I know is that you would feel very, very sick and have very bad tummy ache and you would never ever be allowed to play here again.’

  ‘We won’t eat them,’ Pam decided. ‘We like playing with you.’

  Sylvia consented to being fed a banquet of wild flowers until the twins grew bored.

  ‘Would you like me to read to you?’

  ‘Is it Noddy?’

  Sylvia was learning that candour with children was an ally. ‘Actually, Twins, I don’t like Noddy.’

  ‘Noddy hasn’t got a willy,’ Jem confided. ‘We saw when the goblins took all his clothes off.’

  ‘How about Mary Plain?’ Sylvia suggested. She had read the little girls one of the books about the small bear with twin sisters and her bespectacled friend, the Owl Man.

  ‘No, we’re dressing up,’ Pam corrected her.

  Sylvia brought down some scarfs that her mother had passed on to her and attached them with safety pins to their dresses for wings.

  ‘I am Queen of the Fairies,’ Jem announced.

  ‘No, I am.’

  ‘NO.’

  Sylvia intervened. ‘How about one of you is Titania and one Queen Mab?’

  ‘Who is they?’ The twins looked suspicious.

  ‘Both very important fairy queens in very important plays.’

  ‘ “Plays” like we do?’

  ‘Plays by Shakespeare. He was what’s called a playwright.’

  ‘We know that,’ Pam said scornfully. ‘Sam said.’

  The twins zipped about the garden, casting spells and releasing prisoners taken by ‘old Gingernut’ next door.

  Sylvia tried to quieten them. ‘Shhh, Twins, please. Mr Collins might hear.’

  ‘Our brother’s going to get him,’ they assured her.

  ‘He tipped him the Black Spot,’ Jem said. ‘’Cos of what he did to the foxes.’

  ‘Means he’s going to die,’ Pam said, with satisfaction.

  The Town Hall clock had chimed five. The twins had set to racing snails but at half past five Sylvia made a decision.

  ‘Now then, you two. We’re going for a walk.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see the foundry,’ Sylvia asserted.

  ‘Our mum says we mustn’t go there ’cos a boy drowned.’

  ‘You’ll be all right with me.’

  ‘We won’t drown?’

  ‘Oh yes, I think so,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’m going to put you in a sack, weigh it down with stones and chuck you in.’

  The twins looked doubtful and then Pam began to shout with laughter.

  ‘You aren’t really, are you?’

  ‘Not really. But there are some very pretty flowers on the way. You can pick Mummy a bunch.’

  The twins danced along the lane, grabbing at flowers and dropping them when they encountered any flying insect. They insisted on struggling over the rusty gate unaided and clambered about on the crumbling brickwork.

  Sylvia sat on a wall, with a lift going up and down in her stomach, dreading and longing for the appearance of Hugh Bell.

  He appeared at last with Plush and raised eyebrows at the sight of the twins.

  ‘I see you have companions. Mine’s deserted me. She’s still sulking about her new school.’

  Side by side, they sat on the wall, their arms not quite touching.

  ‘I was wondering something,’ Hugh said at last. ‘I was wondering – but you must promise to say no if it’s inconvenient – I was wondering if I could ask you to look after Marigold for an afternoon. Not look after,’ he corrected himself, ‘if she could maybe wait in the library with you. Only I have surgery and her mother’s off to see her sister and we’re so new here that we don’t really know anyone well enough yet to ask if Marigold could go there. It’s a problem in the holidays.’

  Sylvia tried to sound business-like. ‘When would that be exactly?’

  ‘Next Thursday.’

  ‘That’s fine. It’s my boss’s afternoon off.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘Honestly, it’s no trouble.’ She looked away to conceal her pleasure. ‘Twins, where are you? Don’t go anywhere near the canal, please!’

  ‘We wasn’t.’ One small head poked out from a large earthenware pipe. ‘We was hiding to spy on you.’

  ‘I think you’d better come out of there,’ Sylvia said. ‘That looks like some sort of old sewerage pipe. Your nice frocks will get filthy.’

  Jem stared at Hugh Bell. ‘Are you the Owl Man?’

  ‘He’s in a book about a bear. The Owl Man’s her friend,’ Sylvia told him. She felt admiring of Jem’s conversational courage.

  ‘A good friend, I hope?’

  ‘Can we take your dog walkies?’ Pam asked.

  ‘I
’m afraid Plush and I have to go,’ Hugh said. ‘If you’re sure about next Thursday, Miss Blackwell …?’

  ‘She’s SYLVIA!’ Pam yelled delightedly.

  ‘ “Who is Sylvia? what is she,” ’ Hugh said, apparently to no one.

  They watched him walk away.

  ‘Why did that man say that?’ Pam asked.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Why did he say Sylvia what is you?’

  ‘It’s from a song,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘Can we sing it?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know the rest of the words. It’s a song from a play by Shakespeare, you know, who wrote about Titania and Queen Mab.’

  ‘We sing sometimes,’ Jem said. ‘When we’re in the mood.’

  They sang, ‘Here we go gathering NUTS in May, NUTS in May, NUTS in May,’ tunelessly all the way down the track from the foundry, as if, Sylvia thought, they had in their childish wisdom somehow caught a sense of her own disoriented mind.

  14

  Sylvia, in general a sound sleeper, slept fitfully the night before Marigold was to be entrusted to her care. She woke before five, tried on each of her three summer dresses and then discarded them all in favour of a skirt and blouse. As an afterthought she put on the pearls her mother had given her for her twenty-first birthday.

  Sam was hanging on the gate when she stepped outside.

  ‘You look like the Queen. I seen her picture in the papers. Can I come to the library with you?’

  ‘I’m in a hurry, Sam.’

  ‘I can ride on your handlebars.’

  Sam behaved beautifully all morning, replacing the water in the flower vases, fetching the steps for Dee. ‘You can dust up high for me, Sam,’ she said. ‘I can’t risk another undignified tumble.’

  Sylvia was too nervous to eat lunch so Sam ate her sandwiches for her. They sat outside on the library steps until Sam got bored and went to climb on the railings. She was just screwing back the top of her Thermos when father and daughter appeared, hand in hand.

  ‘Here we are. I’m delivering the cargo.’ Hugh Bell’s voice sounded suddenly hearty.

  ‘Sam Hedges is here too,’ Sylvia said, to have something to say. She gestured over to the strip of grass by the ornamental cherries, where Sam could be seen swinging along the railings.

  Marigold ran over to him and her father looked down at Sylvia, who, numb with nerves, seemed to be fixed to the stone steps. ‘This is really very kind of you, Sylvia.’