The Case of the Missing Books. Ian Sansom
sweeping his arm in an expansive, welcoming kind of gesture. ‘Welcome home.’
Maybe in her day the mobile library had been beautiful: maybe in her day she’d have been like home. These days, however, she was no longer a vehicle any sane person could possibly be proud of, unless you were Ted, or a dedicated mobile library fancier, or a scrap-metal merchant, and she wouldn’t have been a home unless you were someone with absolutely no alternative living arrangements; also, crucially, and possibly fatally for a mobile library, there were no shelves.
‘There are no shelves,’ said Israel, astonished, still rubbing his head, and staring at the bare grey metal walls inside the van.
‘No.’
‘None at all.’
‘Aye,’ agreed Ted.
‘Well, I don’t want to sound all nit-picky, but shelves are pretty much essential for a library.’
‘True.’
‘Essential.’
‘You could stack books on the floor,’ said Ted.
‘Yes. We could. But generally, we librarians prefer shelves. It’s, you know, neater.’
‘All right. Don’t be getting smart with me now.’
‘Right. Sorry. But there are no shelves. And no books, as far as I can see. So…the books?’
‘The books?’
‘The library books?’
‘Ach, the books are fine, sure. You don’t want to worry about the books. They’ll be in the library.’
‘This is the library.’
‘Not this library. The old library.’
‘The one that’s shut?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re sure the books are there?’
‘Of course I’m sure. There’s been books there since before Adam was a baby.’
‘Really.’
‘We’ll take a wee skite over later on, sure.’
‘A what?’
‘A skite. And we’ll get Dennis or someone to knock us up some shelves.’
‘Who’s Dennis?’
‘He’s a plumber.’
‘Right.’ Then Israel thought twice. ‘What?’
‘He’s a joiner. What do you think he is, if he builds shelves? I mean, in the name of God, man, catch yerself on. I’ll give him a call later. So, do you want to try her?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Try her? Start her? For flip’s sake, d’they not speak any English where you come from?’
‘Yes. Of course they speak English. I am English!’
‘Ah’m sure. And you can drive, can you? Or do they not teach you that over there on the mainland either?’
‘Of course I can drive,’ said Israel, grabbing the keys from Ted’s hands.
Israel could drive – sort of. He had a licence. He’d passed his test. But he was a rubbish driver. And he was tired and he had a headache and what he really needed now was a lie down in a darkened room, preferably at home in lovely north London, rather than attempting to drive a clapped-out old mobile library under the scrutiny of a half-mad miserable minicab driver in the middle of the middle of nowhere. Nonetheless, he wasn’t going to lose face, so he climbed into the thinly padded driver’s seat, the foam coming out of the leather-effect PVC, put the key in the ignition, turned the key and…
Nothing.
Thank goodness.
‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘we can always come back—’
Ted’s heavy hand fell on his shoulder.
‘It’ll only be the battery,’ said Ted. ‘I’ll take a look.’
It was the battery. And the alternator. And the air filter. And the fuel filter. And a lot of other things Israel had only ever heard rumour of – the gasket, the plug circuit, wiring looms, cylinder barrels. Ted spent a long time examining the engine.
‘No. We’ll have to get her into the workshop to get the guts of it done,’ he concluded.
‘Oh dear,’ said Israel. ‘That is a shame.’
‘Aye,’ said Ted. ‘Offside coil spring,’ he continued, to himself. ‘Brake drums.’
‘Right,’ said Israel, as if he had any idea what Ted was talking about, which he didn’t. ‘My foot’s fine, by the way, thanks for asking. And my head.’
‘Aye.’
‘You’ve not got any headache tablets, have you?’
‘What for?’
‘For my headache?’
‘Ach.’
‘That’s a no, is it?’
Ted locked up the shed and walked back to the car. Israel walked back with him.
‘You’re wanting a lift then?’ said Ted.
‘Er. Yes.’ Israel looked around him at the middle of the middle of nowhere: mountains; the sea; hedges; the barn. ‘Yes. That would be nice. I’ve been on the road now for…’ Israel checked his watch.
‘Aye. Well. I’ve a couple of fares I need to pick up first.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ve to pick up George at the Strand, at the pork dinner.’
‘Right. I see.’ Israel had really had enough for one day. ‘And what’s a pork dinner, just…out of interest?’
‘The pork dinner,’ said Ted. ‘The Pork Producers’ Annual Dinner. At the Strand. Same every year. First Friday in December.’
Oh, God.
It was dark now as they drove and Ted was offering a running commentary and pointing out interesting landmarks all along the way, although it was too dark for Israel actually to be able to see any of the landmarks, and anyway most of them were carpet factories, and canning factories, or buildings that no longer existed. Eventually, Ted pulled off the road and up onto yet another rutted lane, which led to the hotel, the Strand, which had clearly seen better days – even in the dark you could tell it could have done with a paint-job and some re-rendering, and maybe some work on the subsidence round where it stood on the cliff overlooking the sea.
As they drew up outside the hotel Israel could see through the vast, brightly lit ground-floor windows groups of men in dinner jackets and women in evening dresses talking, and smoking, and laughing, and clutching each other and glasses of champagne and barbecued spare ribs, and just for a moment he thought he could have been back in London: the romance of it, the people, the comfort, the warmth. He could almost smell the perfume without opening the windows.
‘Only be a minute,’ said Ted, once he’d parked the car. ‘Just go and round them up.’
‘Fine,’ said Israel, happy to sit dozing in the passenger seat, glad that the longest and worst day of his life was finally coming to an end.
A man and woman approached the car and got into the back seat, laughing and joking. They didn’t notice the heap of sleeping Israel in the front, and Israel, dozing, didn’t notice them.
What