The Librarian

by Salley Vickers

  ‘It’s only what I’ve heard.’ Her hostess blinked and smiled nervously over the teapot.

  Sylvia felt a rush of compunction. Ivy was sticking her neck out for her while she, for her part – she felt ashamed of it now – had looked a little down at Ivy.

  ‘Yes, yes, I see.’

  Ivy appeared to pluck up more courage. ‘The talk is, well, what I’ve heard people saying is, that it was you who – not that you would encourage him to steal, of course, I don’t think anyone believes – but, this is only what is being said, you let him loose in the library, not that, I mean …’ She faltered to a halt and picked up her teacup. Her age-freckled puffy hand, Sylvia saw, was slightly trembling.

  Sylvia, who had unwrapped the teacake, began to twist the foil round her finger. ‘Who is it saying all this? Can you tell me, Ivy?’

  Ivy replaced her cup carefully. ‘I’m not sure I should –’

  ‘I won’t say you told me, I promise.’

  Her hostess took another sip of tea. She looked towards the front window, as if checking for possible spies, and then appeared to come to a resolution.

  ‘It’s Mrs Wynston-Jones and Thelma Bird mostly, though heaven knows there was no love lost between them before all this – they got the talk started. Gloria Wynston-Jones is very in with the doctor’s wife and she, the doctor’s wife, Mrs Bell, is up in arms against the Hedges after that trouble with her daughter running off with the boy to London – Gloria Wynston-Jones has a lot of influence in the WI and when I heard she’d been on at Mrs Brent, she’s, you know, our Chairwoman, anyway, I thought, this isn’t fair on Miss Blackwell, who was kind enough to come to speak to us, so I thought you ought to know.’

  Sylvia had unconsciously fashioned a tiny chalice out of the foil. She placed it carefully down so that it balanced on the plate by the teacake.

  ‘Thank you, Ivy. I’m very grateful for your telling me. But what do you think? Do you think the library should be closed?’

  Ivy, having made her revelation, seemed to have found her fighting form. ‘Bunch of old cats, is what I think. Gloria Wynston-Jones won’t hardly pass the time of day with me and the doctor’s wife is very full of herself. Thinks she’s, well, she hasn’t much time for the likes of me and Len.’ She looked slyly at Sylvia. ‘You’re not too popular with her either.’

  Sylvia’s heart lurched. ‘Why do you say that?’

  Ivy’s expression lost its knowingness and became embarrassed. ‘From what I’ve heard, she reckons you’re setting your cap at the doctor. Gloria Wynston-Jones will have it that her husband saw you up in London with the doctor. I said to Gloria Wynston-Jones, Miss Blackwell is a decent girl, there’s no way she’d behave in that fashion and your husband needs his eyes testing. She didn’t like that – more like he was half cut if you ask me, and she knows I know about his habits. Mind you, I always say if a woman can’t keep hold of her husband then there’s something wrong with her.’ Ivy’s unremarkable features became emphatic. ‘If Len started to stray, I’d be down the street after him with a carving knife.’

  ‘Good for you, Ivy,’ Sylvia said. She felt shaky.

  ‘And, I shouldn’t say this,’ Ivy added, ‘but your boss also says he saw something. He should talk! We all know what he gets up to behind his wife’s back.’

  Leaving Ivy’s house, trying to analyse this new influx of poison, Sylvia considered calling on Dee. But Ivy’s parting words had raised the spectre of Mr Booth. Electing to go on an altogether different route, she turned a corner and met Marigold.

  The girl stared at her, her face so white it might have been that of a child haunting a Victorian story. Sylvia could see the freckles etched on the pallor of her skin.

  ‘Marigold!’

  For a moment it seemed the girl was about to speak but she suddenly turned and bolted.

  ‘Marigold, come back!’ Sylvia called after her. ‘Oh, please come back.’

  Too paralysed to pursue, Sylvia stood there. If she had managed to catch the girl, what would be the good? She would only lie. Everyone, it seemed, lied. Or, worse, twisted the truth. And the truth, she was beginning to see, was no proof against evil. She started home with a heavy heart.

  Coming down the track from the towpath, something warm and soft rubbed against her shins and, looking down, she saw the ginger tom. ‘Hello, Cat.’

  The cat wound itself round her calf.

  ‘Are you the cat who walks by himself?’

  Two limpid green eyes stared up at her unblinkingly.

  ‘Oh, Cat,’ Sylvia said, enisled in her loneliness. ‘It’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m going to be twenty-five.’ She bent down and stroked its fur and the cat racked out its spine, contentedly purring. ‘If only you were the cat who walks by himself, Cat, and could talk.’

  As she approached Field Row she saw Lizzie. The child was standing at the corner of the lane and as Sylvia drew near she started and then smiled wanly.

  ‘Hello, Miss.’

  Sylvia had come to the view that it was a kind of cruelty to correct the girl. She was so clearly happier to continue with formalities.

  ‘Hello, Lizzie. Have you come to see me?’ She hoped not. She could hardly bear the thought of having to dig further into her ebbing resources.

  Lizzie hesitated. ‘I came to give Sam this.’ She held out a book.

  ‘That’s the book my father gave him.’

  ‘Sam lent it me,’ Lizzie said defensively.

  ‘I wasn’t accusing you, Lizzie. I’m delighted you are learning chess too.’

  ‘Will you give it him, Miss?’

  ‘You can give it to him, Lizzie.’

  ‘I don’t think he wants to see me.’

  Sylvia looked at the girl. Her hair was clean and her round doughy face seemed to have acquired shape. She had put on a spurt of growth and her dirty little neck, which no longer bore the gold cross, had lengthened and become slender.

  ‘How about we take it to him together?’

  But Lizzie had also acquired a new determination. ‘No, you give it him, Miss.’

  ‘No message I should give him?’

  ‘Just give it him, please, Miss.’

  When Sylvia called by number 3 the front door was as usual ajar but no one inside replied to her call so she left her father’s book on the hall floor. On the doormat of number 5 there was a card-size envelope addressed in her father’s handwriting together with a typewritten manila envelope. She opened the card first.

  A photograph of some sailing boats with ‘Birthday Greetings’ printed over a violent orange-and-magenta sky. Inside, her mother had written, ‘A little memory of our many happy times together in Cromer.’ Her father had written, ‘May a fair wind blow in all your sails.’ Enclosed in the card was a postal order for thirty shillings.

  The other letter was from the council.

  Dear Miss Blackwell,

  In the light of the comprehensive repair works required for the library, we have decided to close the Children’s section and are consequently rationalising staff.

  We hereby give notice that your employment as Children’s Librarian for East Mole will cease from 31 July 1959.

  Sylvia carefully smoothed out the letter on the kitchen table and went outside.

  Well, that was that. She had come to East Mole, taking it as her oyster, and the pearl she’d hoped to find had proved the sharpest grit. The sweaty face of Clive Henderson, her Swindon boss, flashed across her inward eye. She felt almost affection for him now. Perhaps he would have her back? If not at Swindon, no doubt she could find another job before July and Mr Booth would let her go.

  ‘He’ll be only too glad to be shot of me,’ she said savagely to Boris, who had ambled over, hoping for food.

  Boris rotated an ear in an effort to dislodge a late-afternoon fly from the vicinity of one of his liquid brown eyes.

  ‘You know what, Boris, I think I’ll retrain as a vet. I prefer animals.’

  The donkey stared at her. The fly had returned and he
gently flicked his ear again.

  ‘But you’re right, Boris. I’d have to have sciences. What do you think, Doris?’

  At the sound of her name, the other donkey looked up briefly before resuming her steady cropping of the grass.

  The bottle of sherry from her father was in the kitchen, more than half full. She poured most of it into a pint beer glass and went back outside.

  Sylvia lay on the grass looking up at the blameless sky. Enough blue there to make a sailor, or a Dutchman – which was it? – a pair of trousers. Bags of pairs of trousers apiece. No clouds to play at being mad with, like Hamlet. He wasn’t mad, of course, except maybe at the end when it all got too much for him – she wasn’t mad either, a pity because she would quite like to be mad – that must be what he wanted, Hamlet, to go mad to escape – what a relief to let go, drift away from your moorings, talk bibble-babble, strip off your clothes along with your wits and dance naked. Who was it who danced naked before the Ark? King David? Or was it his son, Solomon? No, David’s son was Absalom, ‘And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!’ They learned David’s lament at school. Solomon was the Queen of Sheba and Comfort me with apples. Sam stole an apple bough for his beloved. My beloved’s beloved. Comfort me with apples, comfort me with mistletoe, for I am sick of love …

  A steam train was puffing clouds of soot into her face. It ran so close by that she could see the fireman bent over, frantically stoking coals. A thin child stood beside him in the cab, placing some flowers in a tin can. But now the train was a barge on the canal and the child, a girl, was standing on deck, ringing a bell and waving at her …

  Sylvia sat up. A clock was chiming. What time was it? Not yet midnight; there had not been enough chimes. It was dark and cold and her head ached like hell. The grass beside her was damp, her bottom was wet and her skirt and stockings drenched through. It came back. She must have fallen asleep on the lawn, drunk on the sherry. She rolled over on to all fours and groaned, trying to push herself up.

  There was a smell of smoke and burning. Surely no one was having a bonfire at this time of night? She pulled herself upright and staggered, stumbling in her stockinged feet, to the fence.

  It was not a bonfire. The smoke came from the open window of number 4 next door. Sylvia ran to the front door and as she did so a dark shape darted away and round to the back of the house.

  She banged hard on the door, shouting, but getting no reply fled to the Hedges’ and knocked wildly.

  ‘Ray. June, wake up, wake up. Fire!’

  27

  The fire engines had left and the twins and Sam had been coaxed back to bed. Sylvia and Ray and June were in the Hedges’ kitchen, recovering.

  ‘Thank God they caught it in time.’ June tipped an extra spoon of sugar into her tea. ‘We were dead lucky being right next door.’

  ‘ “Dead” ’s the word. Next door might have copped it for good.’ Ray shook his head.

  Mr Collins had been brought down by ladder in his pyjamas. The fire had done only surface damage. Apart from the sooty legacy of the smoke, very little of number 4 had been destroyed.

  ‘I must say he could have been more grateful to you, Sylvia,’ June said. ‘If it weren’t for your quick thinking …’

  Sylvia’s mind was also on Mr Collins. Before being taken by ambulance from his blackened quarters she had gone to commiserate with her neighbour, who had glared at her with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Don’t think I don’t know who’s behind this.’

  Sylvia was very afraid that she too knew who was behind the fire. The crouching shape she had spotted in the garden – there was no question in her mind that it was Sam.

  Monday was the first day of the summer school term and June and Ray had decreed that the children must attend.

  ‘You don’t want to miss any school, Sam, with the exams coming up and the school still not saying what they plan to do with you. And I have to go round to your gran’s.’

  Sylvia, who had called by number 3 to see how they all were, observed Sam’s pallor and offered to escort the children on her way to work.

  She waited till the twins had run off ahead to say what was on her mind. ‘Sam, this is difficult, but I have to ask, was it you I saw last night in Mr Collins’ garden?’

  Sam said nothing so, swallowing reluctance, she pressed on. ‘Only, if you had anything to do with the fire, that counts as arson and it’s extremely serious.’

  Sam still said nothing and Sylvia, more frantically, said, ‘Don’t be a bloody little idiot and go making things worse for yourself.’

  The face Sam turned to her was tragic. ‘I never. I never did nothing.’

  ‘Was it not you then I saw?’

  ‘I was going to knock on his door to tell him. Then you come along.’ Distress had sent his grammar to pot.

  ‘But what were you doing there? And why run away like that?’

  Tears began to spill down Sam’s cheeks. Jem, who had run back to inform the stragglers that they had found a doll’s head abandoned on the towpath, looked horrified.

  ‘What’s wrong with our brother?’

  ‘Run along, Jem. Sam’s just hurt himself.’

  Jem ran off, looking scared, and Sylvia put an arm round the boy’s thin shoulders. ‘What was going on, Sam?’

  She could just make out from his mumble, ‘Meeting someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Just someone.’

  ‘Marigold? Was it Marigold?’

  Silence.

  ‘Sam, why were you meeting Marigold?’

  ‘Mind your own business!’ he roared suddenly, so loudly that Ned came out of his cottage.

  ‘Everything all right, there?’

  Sylvia waved at him across the water. ‘We’re all right, thanks, Ned.’

  But Ned was already halfway across the lock gates.

  ‘You all right, Sam, old lad?’

  Sylvia made a decision. ‘Ned, could I leave Sam here with you? I’m going to take the twins to school and tell them there that Sam’s not well. There was a fire last night and Sam’s had a shock. I’ll come back as soon as I can.’

  Sam looked terrified but Ned put a brotherly arm across his shoulder and said, ‘C’mon, I’ve got Penguins in my biscuit tin.’

  Sylvia delivered two rather subdued twins to the Infants and then went round to the Junior school. She mounted the stone stairs to Mr Arnold’s office.

  The headmaster was at his desk and looked up frowning, but his expression cleared when he saw Sylvia.

  ‘I thought you were Miss Buckeridge come to hound me over the hole in the asphalt. Have a seat.’

  But Sylvia felt that her message was best delivered standing. ‘I’ve come to tell you that Sam Hedges will be off school today.’

  Mr Arnold looked questioning.

  ‘There was a fire in our road last night. I was taking the Hedges children to school and Sam, he’s a bit overwrought, became poorly on the way. I’ve brought his sisters in.’

  ‘I heard about the fire. Lucky no one was hurt. His parents can send in a note.’

  As she was going Mr Arnold said, ‘I’m sorry the boy has been in such trouble.’

  For a moment she considered raising the question of Sam’s expulsion – but the headmaster was perusing a letter so she left him undisturbed.

  A smell of bacon met her at the lock-keeper’s cottage. Sam was sitting on the draining board in Ned’s galley kitchen.

  Ned was stirring a frying pan. ‘There’s fried bread, if you fancy.’

  ‘Thank you, Ned. I’m not terribly hungry.’

  ‘I’ll be getting along then. Kettle’s on. Make yourself a cuppa.’

  Sylvia, with her back to Sam as she took the kettle off the stove, said, ‘I told Mr Arnold you weren’t well.’

  ‘What d’he say?’

  ‘He said he was sorry.’

&n
bsp; Sam gave a cynical laugh. ‘Yeah, he’s “sorry”, I don’t think.’

  ‘What he actually said was he’s sorry you’ve been in trouble. I’m sorry too.’

  ‘I never started that fire.’

  ‘Did Marigold have something to do with this? Sam, you must say if she did.’

  Sam looked woebegone. Then he slid down from the draining board and rushed out of the room.

  Sylvia was cradling her teacup in her hands when Ned came back. ‘Sam’s run off.’

  ‘Best to let him go.’

  ‘This fire –’ she began, but again he surprised her.

  ‘The doctor’s girl was here last night.’

  ‘Marigold? Here with you?’

  ‘Not with me. Skulking on the towpath over there. Young Sam came and talked to her.’

  ‘What time was it, Ned? D’you remember?’

  ‘I’d put it just before ten o’clock because I listen to the jazz on the wireless at ten and I was in the kitchen making myself a brew-up just beforehand when I saw the two of them hobnobbing.’

  ‘Only it may be important because the fire can only have just started at ten. I heard the Town Hall clock.’

  ‘I suppose he could have started it before but –’

  ‘But you don’t think he did it, do you?’

  ‘He’s not that sort of kid, young Sam. The girl now, if you ask me she’s got a screw loose.’

  Sylvia considered this. ‘She’s phenomenally bright.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean she hasn’t got a screw loose. Bright’s not everything.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have a phone I could use?’

  But he did. It was necessary, he explained, in case of any problem with the lock or the narrowboats. Sylvia rang the library and got Mr Booth. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Booth, but I can’t come in today. Something has arisen that only I can deal with.’ There could be no answer to that.

  Mr Booth made uncomprehending noises and put down the phone.

  Sylvia walked back towards the foundry. She sat down on the wall where she had sat with Hugh and lit a cigarette and watched the swallows, which, constant creatures, had begun their work of repairing last year’s nests in the tall ruins.

  All around her nature was at work busily renewing life. The leaves on the willows by the canal were a tender young green and the boughs of a wild cherry, which, thanks to some passing bird, had rooted among the foundry ruins, glimmered an intricate patterning of translucent white. Loveliest of trees the cherry now/ Is hung with blooms along the bough … There were no wild cherries in Ruislip.