The Librarian

by Salley Vickers

  It wasn’t until the following Saturday that Sylvia heard again from Hugh. He arrived as the library was closing, carrying some books in a string bag.

  Dee, who was about to go home, suddenly found something that required her urgent attention so Sylvia’s conversation with Hugh was reserved.

  ‘Marigold has been grounded so I’m deputised to return these.’

  ‘There’s more than three books there,’ Dee said, pointedly looking at the pile he had placed on the desk.

  ‘I know. I’m very sorry. We found these in her bedroom. It looks as if, well, I’m sorry to say, it looks rather as if she’s been taking more books than she is officially allowed.’

  Sylvia examined the books. ‘These are from the Adults’ Library.’ She laid out Married Love by Marie Stopes and The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir and a new book by Ian Fleming.

  ‘That Dr No’s only just come in. I shelved it myself,’ Dee said. ‘Look, no date stamps.’ She picked up the Marie Stopes. ‘This is about, you know …’

  ‘Yes,’ Hugh said shortly. ‘I of course know that it’s about contraception.’

  ‘How old is your daughter, Dr Bell?’

  Sylvia had become aware that Dee’s favourable opinion of Hugh, occasioned by her fall, had been dwindling as her disapproval of his daughter had grown.

  ‘Dee, Dr Bell has returned the books. I believe a fine is in order but, as they’ve been returned …’

  ‘You’d better not let Mr Booth hear about this, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘Thank you, Dee. I’ll sort it out.’

  ‘Right,’ Dee said. ‘If I’m not wanted, I’ll be getting along.’

  ‘Christ,’ Hugh said, when Dee had finally left. ‘How do you cope, working with her – old battleaxe?’

  ‘She’s all right, really.’

  ‘Jeanette calls her the nosy parker. Look, I’m sorry about the books. Youthful curiosity, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s having the Adult section in here,’ Sylvia said. She wanted to let Marigold off the hook. ‘Hugh, the Hedges are in a bit of a state over all the business with her and Sam.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry about that too. I’ve no doubt Marigold led him on. As I say, she’s been grounded for the rest of term and her pocket money’s been stopped. It’s that wretched Clifford what’s-his-name they seem so mad about.’

  ‘Cliff, not Clifford,’ Sylvia said. ‘Cliff Richard. But I think it’s Marigold rather than Cliff who Sam is really “mad about”. He’ll be missing her.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Hugh said. ‘Just how private is it here?’

  ‘Dee will have gone. And Mr Booth goes with her these days.’

  ‘I see. So we have the library to ourselves.’

  Afterwards, Sylvia was never quite sure how much Mr Booth had seen when, some time later, he swung in suddenly through the doors.

  ‘Oh, Mr Booth.’ Sylvia was pulling discreetly at her skirt. ‘Dr Bell was wondering if his daughter could maybe join the Adults’ Library –’

  ‘She’s very advanced in her reading,’ Hugh intervened. ‘She’s rather outstripped all that Miss Blackwell has on offer in the Children’s section.’ Sylvia glanced at him sideways; only his shirt looked slightly rumpled.

  ‘Really?’ Mr Booth raised his eyes to the upper shelves, where the volumes of Dickens were ranged.

  ‘She’s read most of Dickens,’ Sylvia explained. ‘I told Dr Bell I would consult you but I thought you’d gone home.’

  The hard-boiled gaze ran over her body. ‘I shall give it due consideration. If you have a moment, please, Miss Blackwell.’

  He hurried out and Hugh said, ‘Phew, that was close. But worth it. I shall never look at a Dickens the same again. We can use it as code – Our Mutual Friend.’

  ‘More like Hard Times,’ Sylvia said. ‘I have to go and be talked at.’

  She skipped along the corridor, careless, after the interlude with Hugh, of whatever new wet blanket Mr Booth was about to produce.

  He was sitting at his desk, playing, as usual, with his papers.

  ‘Ah, Miss Blackwell. I have been in communication with the Library Committee, which is of the view that the resultant costs arising from devastations of the storm require that we take the necessary steps to obviate any unnecessary expense.’

  This took a moment to untangle. ‘You mean there’s a problem over the cost of the repairs?’

  ‘There are, shall we say, pressing financial imperatives. I must impress upon you, Miss Blackwell’ – Mr Booth cleared his throat – ‘that the Library Committee is obliged to make fundamental economies. I am sure’ – he smiled, showing a set of alarming teeth – ‘you would not want anything to threaten the continuance of your position here.’

  His glance seemed to settle around her midriff and, nervous now, she readjusted her blouse. ‘I’m not quite sure what you mean, Mr Booth.’

  Her boss dispensed with the smile. ‘In the current climate it is a not altogether impossible eventuality that the Committee may decide to curtail your hours.’

  ‘I don’t believe he’s sorry one bit,’ Sylvia said. She had gone round to the Hedges’ in search of sympathy and was drinking tea and eating custard creams in their kitchen. ‘I don’t believe he’s ever wanted me here at all.’

  ‘How’s he getting on with Mrs Harris these days?’

  Sylvia had been reticent about Dee when June had made veiled enquiries. Now she said cautiously, ‘They seem to be friendly enough.’

  ‘She’s not paid, is she?’

  ‘You mean he might suggest her in place of me?’

  June was putting a hotpot into the oven. She paused with the dish in her hands. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’

  ‘Dee wouldn’t stand for it.’

  June raised her eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t bank on that.’

  ‘It’s Mr Collins,’ Sylvia decided. ‘It’s him, not the Committee as a whole, I’m sure of it.’

  She didn’t say as much to June but she had been regretting introducing Sam to Treasure Island.

  24

  Sylvia met Mrs Bird with her basket in the High Street.

  ‘I hear there’s been trouble with the Hedges boy.’

  ‘I think that’s all blown over, Mrs Bird.’

  Mrs Bird’s sharp little features became shrewd. ‘Not so far as the doctor’s wife goes. You’d think the boy had deflowered her blessed daughter, the way she’s carrying on. What happened there, do you know?’

  Hoping to deflect this line of enquiry, Sylvia asked after Lizzie.

  ‘Funny you should mention her. She’s been on about some play she’s in she wants to tell you about. I’ll bring her round to you.’

  Lizzie had remained a regular at the library. Sylvia had encountered her reading the poems she had set out in the Poetry Corner and they had discussed The Way through the Woods, one of Sylvia’s girlhood favourites. Lizzie had volunteered that she liked the otters and became surprisingly eloquent on the subject of the ghostly lords and ladies who rode through the shadow woods of the past. But her shyness had resurfaced and Sylvia hadn’t had the time to recover their former intimacy with any real conversation. But there was no resisting Mrs Bird and the girl might be a distraction for Sam. Nothing of Marigold had been seen since the London escapade. And since their felicitous encounter in the library Sylvia had seen nothing of Marigold’s father either. Once again, she and Sam were comrades in the trials of love.

  The following Saturday as Sylvia began to close up the library Lizzie approached her to say she had been told to wait there for her grandmother. ‘I’m sorry, Miss.’

  ‘No, that’s fine, Lizzie. Shall I stamp your books?’

  Lizzie was reading the Anne of Green Gables saga. ‘I hope she marries Gilbert. She does, doesn’t she, Miss, only she’s gone and got engaged to someone else?’

  Recalling their shared dislike of uncertainty, Sylvia reassured. ‘She does in the end, Lizzie. And it’s still Sylvia.’

  Mrs Bird ar
rived just before one, pushing a basketful of shopping. ‘There you are! There was a queue as long as the Devil’s spoon at the butcher’s and then they were out of tongue. All right if Lizzie goes back with you? My husband’ll fetch her this afternoon.’ She hurried off again before Sylvia could suggest an alternative plan.

  Sylvia and Lizzie walked back to Field Row discussing how hiccups were necessary in the lives of the lovers of romantic fiction. ‘We’re doing Northanger Abbey at school this term, Miss.’

  ‘What d’you think of it?’

  ‘I like it but I think that Catherine Morland’s dim.’

  ‘I think Jane Austen’s laughing at her a little, don’t you?’

  Lizzie considered this. ‘I’m going to read Pride and Prejudice next.’

  The book she and Hugh had bought together for Marigold. Sylvia hadn’t heard how it had gone down. ‘It sounds as if you’re enjoying school, Lizzie.’

  ‘Oh, it’s smashing. And I’m in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

  ‘Yes, you said. Mustardseed.’

  But Lizzie had been elevated and along with the fairy in Titania’s retinue she was now also playing the part of one of the mechanicals.

  ‘It’s the one plays the wall. I can’t remember his name but I have to do this.’ Lizzie stuck out her hand and parted her fingers, making play of a chink.

  ‘I’m pretty sure that’s Snout,’ Sylvia said. ‘We can look it up when we get home.’

  Over lunch Lizzie became quite loquacious.

  ‘I don’t like it when the lovers laugh at Bottom and the others when they do their play, do you, Miss? I remember you said how Shakespeare liked him.’

  ‘I’m sure he does, Lizzie. I reckon the laugh’s on the grandees.’

  ‘That means the posh ones, doesn’t it, Miss?’

  For all her newfound confidence, Lizzie became agitated when Sylvia proposed they call round at the Hedges’. ‘Sam’ll have forgotten me.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Lizzie. Sam will be glad to see you.’

  ‘It was nice, wasn’t it, Miss, doing the Comprehensions and when we watched the foxes. It was fun.’ The appeal in her blue eyes behind the round wire specs was touching.

  Oh, Sylvia thought, why must love be so harrowing?

  Sam didn’t seem at all glad to see them when they went round to number 3. June called him from his bedroom and when he finally emerged he just said, ‘’lo,’ and stood in the doorway, looking blank.

  Lizzie stared at her shoes and June said, ‘Why don’t you take Lizzie into your room, Sam, and show her your Hornby set?’

  ‘She’s seen it.’

  Lizzie hung her head further.

  ‘Your Meccano then. I’m sure she’d like to see the funicular.’

  Sam gave an audible sigh and tilted his head at Lizzie, who followed him wordlessly out of the kitchen.

  June sat down, sighing in turn. ‘I don’t know what to do with him. He’s been like that since the blimming London caper. My mum says not worry, it’s his hormones, but he’s too young for it to be that.’

  No one is too young for love, Sylvia thought. She said, not really believing it, ‘He probably feels guilty about scaring you. Guilt makes people behave badly. I expect, underneath, he’s very sorry.’

  ‘You could have fooled me,’ June said. ‘I reckon it’s that Bell girl. She’s changed him.’

  For all her own reservations, Sylvia felt prompted to defend the girl. ‘Marigold’s very bright and she’s been good company for Sam.’

  ‘To be honest, I’m relieved her parents have put us out of bounds. Ray says she gives him ideas.’

  ‘Have the Bells really made you out of bounds?’

  ‘From what I hear, she’s forbidden to come round here.’

  ‘I dare say it will all blow over soon,’ Sylvia said, not quite believing this either.

  She was pleased to see that when, later, Lizzie emerged from Sam’s room Sam seemed more cheerful. He waved Lizzie goodbye in quite a friendly manner when her grandfather arrived for her in his van.

  ‘It was Thelma Bird who told me about us being banned by the Bells,’ June said when Mr Bird and Lizzie had driven off. ‘There’s some woman friends with the doctor’s wife who claims she’s telling all kinds of taradiddles about Sam.’

  ‘No one will believe them,’ Sylvia said, devoutly hoping that this was indeed the case.

  A couple of weeks later, Mrs Bird in her feathered hat called at the library, pushing the wheeled basket.

  ‘Miss Blackwell. May I have a word?’

  Her landlady’s usually expressive features looked oddly set and Sylvia suddenly had a premonition. ‘Is everything all right, Mrs Bird?’

  Mrs Bird bent laboriously over her basket and took out a brown-paper bag. She handed it to Sylvia. ‘Take a look at this.’

  The brown bag contained a book. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.

  ‘Is that your idea of a book suitable for children?’

  ‘No,’ Sylvia said cautiously, her mind working fast.

  ‘Look inside. East Mole Library. It says it there in black and white.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sylvia said. ‘I see that. But this book isn’t from the Children’s Library.’

  ‘Then explain to me how our Lizzie got her hands on it.’

  This was certainly a conundrum. ‘I can’t imagine, Mrs Bird.’

  ‘She got it from here, right enough. She told us as much.’

  ‘What else did she say?’ Sylvia had begun to feel scared.

  Mrs Bird became opaque. ‘She’s not told us. Just that.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is that I’m awfully sorry. With all the reorganisation it must have somehow found its way into the Children’s section. We have been in a tremendous muddle since the storm.’

  ‘It’s obscene.’ Mrs Bird pronounced these words in a voice that so startled a toddler who had just tottered into the library holding his mother’s hand that the little boy began to cry.

  Sylvia, who felt like joining the child in his tears, said, ‘I wonder if I could maybe have a word with Lizzie so we can get to the bottom of this.’

  Mrs Bird, her feathers nodding dangerously, had swollen into an angry turkey. ‘That girl is not setting foot in this place till we’ve had some answers. The book’s got words in it, words that no decent human being, never mind a child, should have to set eyes on. I had to ask my husband what some of them meant and, I tell you, that man didn’t want to have to face me explaining them. Call this literature? It’s disgusting.’

  ‘Look, Billy, Teddybear Coalman,’ the mother said to the toddler. ‘A book about a clever teddy.’

  Mrs Bird raised her voice. ‘It’s obscene,’ she denounced again.

  The toddler’s tears renewed and his mother, looking reproachfully at Sylvia, hurried him out of the library.

  The beastly woman’s enjoying this, Sylvia thought. She felt sick. The book was unquestionably the one that had been taken from the Restricted Access cupboard and she was sure now who had been responsible for the theft.

  ‘I can only say I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Bird. I will of course look into this.’

  ‘I shall be having words with your boss, don’t you worry.’

  Sylvia began to protest but Mrs Bird grabbed back the book and made to go.

  ‘May I have the book, please, Mrs Bird?’

  ‘Not on your life, young lady. I’m keeping that. It’s evidence.’

  She swept out, trundling her basket, which cannoned into Dee, who was coming through the door.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Dee said, rubbing her shins. ‘What’s got her going?’

  Sylvia described the essence of Mrs Bird’s tirade.

  Dee listened, frowning, and then said, ‘There no way you’ll persuade me Lizzie Smith took that book. That girl wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’

  ‘I wish I could speak to her,’ Sylvia said for the third time.

  ‘You’d better inform His Lordship before she gets her hooks into him. He’s off on on
e of his trips to the Trustee.’

  ‘What can she be planning to do with the book, d’you imagine, Dee?’

  ‘Search me. Show it to the police? I’d like to see young Tim Farmer reading Henry Miller.’ Dee laughed.

  ‘Don’t, Dee. It’s serious.’

  ‘I don’t see how anyone can blame us. Dawn Smith couldn’t care less about her daughter and she’s too bone idle to make trouble. Thelma Bird’s just throwing her weight around.’

  ‘The thing is …’ Sylvia halted. Dee was basically kind-hearted; she thought she dare risk it. ‘The thing is, I’m fairly sure that Lizzie was given the book by Sam.’

  ‘That sounds more likely. When? How?’

  ‘Lizzie was round at the Hedges’ a week or so back. Sam’s been missing Marigold – you’ve said yourself how smitten he is – and Lizzie’s in awe of him because he helped her through the 11+. I thought seeing her might give him a boost, cheer him up. It did seem to.’

  But maybe only because he’d managed to foist a dubious book on poor gullible Lizzie.

  Dee was considering. ‘It’s not him,’ she announced emphatically. ‘It’s the girl. The Bell girl. She’ll be behind this, you mark my words.’

  Sylvia reflected. ‘But then, if I’m right about how Lizzie got hold of it, how did it come to be with Sam?’

  Dee shrugged. ‘Any number of reasons. To impress him. Or she could have given it him to hide from her parents. Look at all those books her father brought in the other week she’d got hidden in her room. Highly unsuitable. I tried to say so at the time.’ Dee assumed the expression of the prophet without honour.

  ‘Marigold is a very advanced reader.’

  ‘I’ve not read any Henry Miller myself,’ Dee said. ‘But if you want my opinion, it was never for literary reasons that that book was nicked.’

  From what Sylvia pieced together later Lizzie held out for a whole evening before finally capitulating under the onslaught of her family’s grilling. Hysterical weeping accompanied the confession that was finally squeezed out of her that she had been given the book by Sam Hedges. Lizzie was reported to be ‘a bundle of nerves’ and ‘in a shocking state’ after reading it, though in Sylvia’s view that was more likely to be a result of the inquisition to which she had been subjected. The worst fallout was on the Hedges and Sam.