The case of the missing books (2 page)

He managed to wipe most of it off on the grass, and used the
Guardian
to scrape off the rest. He shrugged again and trudged down the cracked concrete disabled access ramp and through the empty car park and back down to the road.

This was definitely not supposed to happen. No. This was not it at all.

Israel Joseph Armstrong, BA (Hons), had arrived in Northern Ireland on the overnight ferry from Stranraer. It was his first experience of sea travel, and he had found he did not agree with it, or it with him.

In his rich imagination, Israel's crossing to Ireland was a kind of pilgrimage, an act of necessity but also an act of homage, similar to the crossings made by generations of his own family who had made the reverse journey from Ireland to England, and also from Russia and from Poland, from famines and pogroms and persecution to the New World, or at least to Bethnal and then Golders Green and eventually further out to the Home Counties, and to Essex, and similar also to the fateful trip made by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood on board the
Champlain
in 1939, say, or Robert Louis Stevenson sailing the South Seas, or the adventures of Joseph Conrad the mariner, or the young Herman Melville, or similar, at the very least, to the adventures of Jerome K. Jerome's eponymous three men rowing in a boat on the Thames.

He'd read far too many books, that was Israel's trouble.

Books had spoilt him; they had curdled his brain, like cream left out on a summer's afternoon, or eggs overbeaten with butter. He'd been a bookish child, right from the off, the youngest of four, the kind of child who seemed to start reading without anyone realising or noticing, who enjoyed books without his parents' insistence, who raced through non-fiction at an early age and an extraordinary rate, who read Jack Kerouac before he was in his teens, and who by the age of sixteen had covered most of the great French and Russian authors, and who as a result had matured into an intelligent, shy, passionate, sensitive soul, full of dreams and ideas, a wide-ranging vocabulary, and just about no earthly good to anyone.

His expectations were sky-high, and his grasp of reality was minimal.

The big white ferry that had carried Israel over to Ireland, for example, he realised sadly and too late, was not the boat of his imaginings and dreams; it was not like the
Pequod
, or Mark Twain's Mississippi riverboat; it was more like…

It was more like a floating Little Chef Travelodge, actually, full of Scots and Irish and possibly Scots-Irish lorry-drivers, men profoundly pale of colour and generous of figure, men possessed of huge appetites and apparently unquenchable thirst, and Israel couldn't understand a word they said, and they couldn't understand him, and he couldn't believe how much they were drinking. They were drinking gallons. Literally. Enough to sink a ship.

He'd never been a great one for the drink himself, Israel, although he wasn't entirely averse; he found that two glasses of red wine was usually about his limit and seemed to have approximately the same effect on him as a dozen pints of super-lager on his peers and contemporaries. Any more and he was usually violently sick, as he had been on the ferry a little earlier actually, although without so much as a sip of red wine and only coffee and snacks inside him: he wasn't sure if it was nerves or the swell, or the after-effects of the ten-hour coach journey up from London Victoria, and a couple of vegetable samosas on the way, a 10% Extra Free! pack of Doritos, two Snickers, two hard-boiled eggs and a souvenir packet of 'Olde London' fudge bought on impulse from a kiosk at Victoria moments before departing.

He had tried to regain his sense of balance and his composure in the ferry's bar–the unfortunately named Sea Dogs–with a glass of Coke to settle his stomach, but by eight o'clock things were getting a little rowdy in Sea Dogs, and a little choppy, and he had no desire to add further to the mess and the confusion, so he moved on to the television room, where he had to endure a charity reality TV show in which people were forced to compete for the chance to have their houses redecorated by their favourite celebrities by entering a lookalike karaoke competition.

Trying to sleep upright in a chair, next to men twice his not inconsiderable size dribbling burger juice, with Sky TV at full volume: this was not how his new life and new career in Ireland were supposed to begin. His new life in Ireland was supposed to be overflowing with blarney and craic. He was supposed to be excited and ready, trembling on the verge of a great adventure.

But instead Israel was just trembling on the verge of being sick again, and the journey had given him a headache, a terrible,
terrible
headache; he was a martyr to his headaches, Israel. He'd probably had more headaches in his life than most people have had hot dinners, assuming that people these days are eating a lot more salads and mostly sandwiches for lunch. It was all the books and the lack of fresh air that did it, and the fact that he was a Highly Sensitive Person.

When the ferry finally arrived in the grey-grim port of Larne, hours late, and disgorged its human, pantechnicon and white-van contents onto the stinking, oily, wholly indifferent harbourside, Israel had a bad feeling, and it wasn't just his headache and the sea-sickness. He was supposed to be met at the ferry terminal, but there was no one there and no one was answering the phone at his contact number at the library, so he had to use what little remained of his money and his initiative to get the train out of Larne to Rathkeltair, and then the bus to Tumdrum, and through the long grey streets end-on to the hills and to the sea, and all the way to the library–to the big shut library. It felt as though someone had slammed his own front door in his face.

Israel had grown up in and around libraries. Libraries were where he belonged. Libraries to Israel had always been a constant. In libraries Israel had always known calm and peace; in libraries he'd always seemed to be able to breathe a little easier. When he walked through the doors of a library it was like entering a sacred space, like the Holy of Holies: the beautiful hush and the shunting of the brass-handled wooden drawers holding the card catalogues, the reassurance of the reference books and the eminent
OED
s, the amusing little troughs of children's books; all human life was there, and you could borrow it and take it home for two weeks at a time, nine books per person per card. By the age of thirteen Israel had two pink library tickets all of his own–you were only really allowed one, but his dad had had a word with the librarian and won him a special dispensation. 'More books?' he could remember his dad proudly saying when he used to stagger home from the library after school with another sports-bag full of George Orwells and specialist non-fiction. 'More books? That's my boy!' he'd say. 'He's read hundreds,' his father would boast to the librarians, and to teachers, and to friends of the family, and to other parents. And 'Hundreds?!' his mother would correct. 'What do you mean, hundreds? Thousands of books that boy's read. Thousands and thousands. His head is full of books.'

And so it was this Israel Armstrong–this child of the library, his head full of books and a little overweight perhaps these days in his brown corduroy suit, portly even, you might say, but not stout, and not yet thirty years old–who had found himself barred and locked out in the fishy-smelling, grey-grim town of Tumdrum on that cold December afternoon, and who found his way eventually to the Tumdrum and District Council offices, after having had to ask directions half a dozen times, and who was finally being ushered in, old brown suitcase in hand, to see Linda Wei, Deputy Head of Entertainment, Leisure and Community Services, to sort out the apparent misunderstanding.

'Ah! Mr Armstrong' said Linda Wei, who looked as though she might have been quite at home on the Larne-Stranraer ferry–she was a big Chinese lady wearing little glasses and with a tub of Pringles open on her desk, and a litre bottle of Coke, half its contents already drained; you wouldn't have blinked if you'd seen Linda behind the wheel of an articulated lorry, honking on her horn while offering a one-fingered salute.

'We meet at last,' she said; they had previously spoken on the phone. 'Come on in, come on in,' she motioned to him, rather over-animatedly, and then again, for good measure, because Israel already was in, 'Come in, come in, come in!' She gave a small Cola burp and extended a sweaty, ready-salted hand. 'Lovely to meet you. Lovely. Lovely. Good journey?'

Israel shrugged his shoulders. What could he say?

'Now, I am sorry there was nobody to meet you at the ferry terminal this morning…'

'Yes,' he said.

'You were late, you see.'

There was an awkward silence.

'But. Never matter. You're here now, aren't you. Now. Tea? Coffee? It'll be from the machine, I'm afraid.'

'No, thanks.'

'Erm? Crisp?'

'No. Thanks.'

'They're Pringles.'

'No. Thank you.'

'I missed breakfast,' said Linda.

'Right.'

'Sure I can't tempt you?'

'Absolutely sure. Thanks anyway.' This was not a moment for Pringles.

'Well. OK. So. You're here.'

'Yes.

'And you've been to the library?'

'Yes.'

'Ah. Then you'll be aware that—'

'It's shut,' Israel said, surprised to hear a slight hysterical edge to his voice. 'The library. Is shut.'

'Yeeees,' she said, drawing out the 'yes' as though stretching a balloon. 'Yes, Mr Armstrong. There's been a wee change of plan.'

Linda paused for a crisp and rearranged herself more authoritatively in her padded black-leather-effect swivel-seat.

'So. You probably want to know what's happened?'

Israel raised an eyebrow.

'Yes. Now. Let me explain. Since your appointment as the new Tumdrum and District branch librarian I'm afraid there's been a little bit of a resource allocation. And the library—'

'Has been shut.' Israel tried to control the quavering in his voice.

'Temporarily,' said Linda, raising–almost wagging–a finger.

'I see. So you no longer need my—' began Israel.

'No! No, no! No! Not at all, not at all!' Linda licked some crisp crumbs from her lips. 'No! You are essential, in fact, to the…planned resource allocation. We are absolutely delighted to have attracted someone of your calibre, Mr Armstrong. Delighted.'

'But there's no library for me to work in.'

'Not exactly.'

'Not exactly?'

'That's right. You see, it's not a cutback in our funding, or anything like that we're talking about–no, no, no! It's more a re-targeting of our resources. Do you see?'

Well, to be honest, no, at that moment, Israel did not see.

'No. Sorry. You've lost me.'

'Well, yes, of course. You've had a long journey. London, was it?'

'That's right. Ten hours on the coach, eight hours on the—'

'I've a sister in London,' interrupted Linda.

'Oh.'

'Southfields? Would you know it at all?'

'No. I'm afraid not.'

'She's a project manager. For–what are they called? Something beginning with D?' She struggled for the answer. 'The mobile phone mast people?'

'No. Sorry. I haven't come across them.' Israel was not interested in Linda Wei's sister who lived in Southfields and who worked for a mobile telephone mast company which began with D. 'And getting back to the library?'

'Yes. Erm. The library. Well, first of all I want to assure you that we at Tumdrum and District Council are absolutely committed to continuing the public's free access to ideas and resources.'

'To libraries.'

'Yes. If you want to put it like that.'

'Fine. But you've closed the actual library?'

'Yes.' And here she ballooned out the 'yes' as far as seemed possible without it actually popping and deflating and turning into a 'no', and she reached up high to a shelf behind her and took down a fat ring-bound report, which she handed to Israel, and gestured for him to read. 'Here,' she said. 'This'll explain.'

The report had a title:
The Public Library: Democracy's Resource. A Statement of Principles
. Israel started flicking through. It was all output measures and graphs and tables–the usual sort of thing. He turned to the recommendations at the back.

'In the opinion of the Information Resources Steering Committee,' recited Linda Wei, who seemed to have memorised the key passages, 'it is important for the borough to continue to provide information resources with a high service proposition combined with increased competitive flexibility. The overall aim should be to minimise cost per circulation, and to maximise number of patrons served.'

'Right,' said Israel.
High service proposition
?
Increased competitive flexibility
? 'Which means?'

'Do you have a current British driving licence, Mr Armstrong?'

'Yes.'

'You do! Grand. That's grand!' She clapped her hands together, delighted.

'Because?'

'Because, the position we are now able to offer you is really very exciting. Very, very exciting. If, admittedly,
slightly
different to what you may have been expecting.'

'I see.'

'It's more…mobile.'

'Mobile?'

'Yes.'

'You mean a mobile library?'

'Exactly!' said Linda Wei. 'That's it, that's it.' She was so delighted with Israel's powers of deduction that she helped herself to a handful of Pringles. 'You're like Hercule Poirot!' she said. 'I knew we'd picked the right man for the job. Although these days we don't call it a mobile library. We call it a mobile learning centre.'

'Right.'

'Pringle?'

'Thanks,' said Israel. 'But no. Thanks.'

Linda leaned to one side slightly in her chair then, and smiled, and audibly passed wind.

Oh, God.

It would probably be safe to say that the mobile library is not considered by many people in the know to be at the pinnacle of the library profession. At the pinnacle of the library profession you might have, say, the British Library, or the New York Public Library, or the Library of Congress, or of Alexandria. Then coming down from those Parnassian heights you have university libraries, and private research libraries, and then maybe the big public libraries, and then district and branch libraries, and school libraries, hospital libraries, libraries in prisons and long-term mental institutions. And then somewhere off the bottom of that scale, around about the level of fake red-leather-bound sets of the
Reader's Digest
in damp provincial hotels and dentists' waiting rooms is the mobile library.