A Library of Lemons

by Jo Cotterill

  I wish you could bottle feelings, so that you could take them out at other times when you needed them. At that moment, my feelings would have filled several bottles with sparkly red, pink and orange swirls of happiness. Mae is here, in my house, in my library, in the room that used to be my mother’s, and it’s like there’s magic around us. I can almost feel my mum here with us – through her books and the smell of her paints. I just know she would like Mae. We sit on the floor together, pulling out books and exclaiming over words and pictures until I lose track of the time.

  Mae says softly, ‘I would swap my laptop for your library.’

  I smile. ‘It’s my special place.’

  ‘What’s the other one like?’ she asks. ‘Your dad’s library?’

  I get to my feet. ‘I’ll show you!’

  She looks nervous. ‘Won’t he mind?’

  I beam at her. ‘I’m sure it’ll be okay. And we can look at Mum’s other books too.’ Having shared these books, the photograph, the painting with Mae, I want to share more of Mum’s things. ‘Come on!’

  I bound down the stairs, Mae following more carefully behind me.

  ‘Dad!’ I call. ‘We’re coming in, all right?’

  There is no answer, so I push open the heavy door to the library anyway.

  ‘Oh!’ Dad isn’t here. I blink, taken aback. He’s always here. Where could he have gone?

  The pile of A4 envelopes on the desk has gone. A small book of stamps, most of them removed, sits forlornly alone. Of course. He’s gone to the post office.

  ‘Your dad went out without telling you?’ asks Mae, sounding disapproving.

  ‘He probably left me a note somewhere,’ I say airily. ‘I think he’s gone to the post office, to post his manuscripts off to publishers.’

  ‘Ah!’ Mae’s expression clears. ‘So he won’t be long then.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t think so.’ I go to the middle of the room and do a kind of twirl. ‘What do you think?’

  Mae stares at the shelves. ‘They look very old. Why have they got doors on them?’

  ‘Shutters. To protect them from sunlight,’ I explain. ‘Look over here.’ I show her the conservatory-greenhouse thing through the French windows.

  Mae’s eyes widen. ‘Are those lemons? Growing on trees?’

  ‘Yes!’ I unlock the door and we step into the greenhouse. The heady scent of lemons is intoxicating, and the air feels warmer than the rest of the house.

  Mae reaches out to a ripening lemon in awe. ‘I didn’t know – I mean, I knew lemons grew on trees, but I didn’t realise you could grow them in this country.’

  ‘You have to keep them warm,’ I say, proud of my father’s obsession for once. ‘We’ll bring them into the house when the temperature gets to freezing. But the greenhouse traps sunlight, so they’re all right for now. They’re lovely, aren’t they?’

  ‘Amazing. We’ve got a conservatory at my house,’ Mae says. ‘Do you think I could grow a lemon tree too?’

  ‘Why not?’ I say. ‘When Dad comes back, you can ask him. He knows everything there is to know about lemons.’

  She smiles. ‘That would be brilliant!’

  We step back into the library and I lock the door. ‘What kind of books does your dad have, then?’ asks Mae, looking at the shuttered shelves.

  ‘Oh, they’re mostly very old,’ I tell her. ‘You know, hardbacks with dust jackets. Dickens and the Bible and stuff. Encyclopaedias and dictionaries and old atlases. He’s got lots of travel and biography books too. Anything that mentions lemons, you see, for research.’ I grin. ‘But they’re not as interesting as Mum’s books. Her shelf is over here, I think. I’ll show you.’

  I click the little bolt at the base of one of the shutters. It concertinas back easily, surprising me. I remembered them being stiff.

  And then the breath stops in my throat, and my brain slows to a halt, and Mae gasps, a tiny sound.

  ‘Where are the books?’ she whispers.

  And I stare and stare and don’t know what to say. Where once there were rows and rows of books – Mum’s books – now there are none. Instead, in their place, there are lemons.

  Row upon row of lemons. Some are shiny and waxy, freshly picked; others look shrivelled and as hard as rock. I pull back another shutter, and another and another, until all of the shelves are uncovered.

  No books, only lemons.

  A library of lemons.

  I stand and stare at the open cupboards. Lemons instead of books. Lemons.

  Mae is making a funny panting sound, almost like she wants to laugh, but is horrified at the same time. ‘Did you know?’ she whispers.

  I am ashamed. So ashamed that a big part of me wants to giggle and say, ‘Of course I knew! There were never any books in here! It’s all a big joke! A lemony joke!’ But there is dust in my throat along with the citrus tang, and I can’t utter a word. My mind is empty, refusing to believe it. My eyes are dry because I haven’t blinked since I saw the shelves.

  And then there is a snick-snack sound, and I know the front door is opening. And there are footsteps in the hall, and the rustle of a coat being hung up. I try to swallow, but nothing happens because my throat has stuck, and Mae’s panting gets faster – and then Dad comes in.

  I have never been frightened of my father, but as I turn to look at him I feel a deep terror. How could he have been doing this and I never knew? What kind of madness is this?

  He sees the shutters thrown back on the shelves, the yellow rows exposed. He sees Mae and then me, and there is something in his eyes, like he knows he’s been found out and is trying to decide what to do next.

  After a long second of silence, he smiles and says, ‘Good afternoon, you two. I’m sorry I wasn’t in when you came home from school. Did you have a good day?’

  His voice sounds perfectly ordinary. For a moment I am almost fooled into thinking that I have dreamed all this. But then I reach out to touch a lemon, and it is real.

  ‘Where are the books, Dad?’ I say, in a voice that cracks.

  ‘The books?’ He licks his lips nervously.

  ‘The books that were on these shelves. Where are they?’ My voice is growing stronger, and there is something steely forming inside me, like tiny splashes of molten metal gliding towards each other to solidify into a lead lump.

  ‘I … er … well, I didn’t need them any more.’

  Mae is frozen, like a statue, only her eyes flicking from side to side.

  ‘You didn’t need them?’ I repeat. ‘The Dickens, the Jane Austen? The Sherlock Holmes, the Thomas Hardy?’ My brain is stuttering, like a car when it won’t start. ‘The Atlas of the World, all the volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica? Mum’s books – the ones you were saving for me when I’m older?’ I feel my throat closing on the words, and I force more air into my lungs. ‘Where did they go?’ I ask, more loudly. ‘What did you do with them?’

  Dad is pale, pale as a ghost. ‘Look, Calypso,’ he says, ‘I needed the space, for my lemons.’ He lifts an arm to gesture towards the shelves. His mouth lifts in a half-smile. ‘You see?’

  ‘The books, Dad.’ My jaw is tense.

  ‘The books are behind the shed.’

  ‘The shed?’ I say, bewildered. ‘The garden shed?’

  ‘Yes. Behind the shed.’

  ‘They’re outside?’ I can’t process his words.

  ‘They’re in boxes,’ he says defensively, but his eyes are guilty.

  ‘But it’s wet out there!’ I can’t remember the last time I went into the garden shed, much less looked behind it. ‘When did you do this? How long have they been out there?’ The lead lump in my stomach is growing heavier, and my jaw aches with anger, and I don’t wait for his answer. ‘How could you do that? They’ll be ruined!’ Mum’s books! The books that were meant to be mine!

  ‘But – my lemons …’ Dad waves a hand to the shelves. ‘They’re an important part of my research. You understand? I needed –’

  ‘No!’ I shout. ‘
No, I don’t understand! How can lemons be more important than books?’ My voice rises. ‘Books are everything! You should know that – you helped me build my own library! Books give us questions and answers and friends and magic! My mother’s books were in here, Dad! Things she loved, pieces of her! Pieces of her that were meant to be mine! And you’ve just chucked them away, to be rained on and eaten by rats?’ I am screaming. ‘They’re books! These are just lemons! How can you even think …?’ I can hear the words coming out of my mouth and I want to laugh because they sound so crazy. But I am so, so angry.

  I grab a lemon from the nearest shelf, feel its weight in my hand.

  Dad takes a short step forward, his arm out. ‘Leave it, Calypso, please –’

  I throw it at him. It hits him on the arm and he flinches. The lemon was old and shrivelled. It will probably leave a bruise. Well, good. I grab another lemon, and another and another, and I throw them at the floor, the walls, his desk. One makes a dent in the door – it’s as hard as a stone. Another bounces off the computer screen, making it rock on its stand. Some of them split on impact, releasing grey mould like tiny sneezes.

  Soon the room is covered in burst lemons, and the air is full of the smell of rotten and decaying fruit. But still, like a recurring nightmare, there are more lemons on the shelves.

  Mae claps her hands to her mouth and runs out of the room.

  I cannot stop myself, and no one tries to stop me, and so I throw and throw until the shelves are empty, but I am still so angry that there is nothing left to do but shout.

  ‘Where are the books?’ I scream. ‘What have you been doing?’

  I know the answers, of course, but there is nothing else I can shout. What kind of person throws away books and keeps rotten lemons on bookshelves? I shout at him over and over, using words I’ve never used before, words that strike and slice and stab. They pour out of me like poison from an unstoppered bottle. I can no more hold them back than I can stop breathing. They tear through me and set upon my father, who makes no sound, does not fight back, gives me nothing.

  When there are no more words left to say, I simply stand and stare at my father. He looks smaller, somehow. And a bit yellow and shrivelled, like one of his horrible lemons. He has been looking at the ground, but now in the silence he glances up at me. I can see that he is frightened. Frightened of me. Right now, I’m frightened of me too.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Calypso,’ he whispers. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing.’

  It is like the air has been sucked out of my lungs. I feel so wobbly that I have to sit down on the floor.

  What is he talking about? How can my father not know what he’s doing?

  He sits down too, amid the mess. Five metres apart, we sit silently, until the doorbell rings.

  Mae must have been waiting for it, because I hear footsteps immediately afterwards. What time is it? Surely it’s too early for her mum to collect her?

  There is a murmur of voices in the hall, and Mae sounds like she’s crying. I feel bad. I should go and talk to her, but I feel so heavy I can’t move. And how can I explain this?

  I hear Mae’s mum come in, though I can’t move my head to look at her.

  ‘Goodness,’ she says in a friendly way, ‘what a mess in here. Let’s see what we can do to sort it out.’

  From the corner of my eye I see her bend down to my father. ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘I’m Mae’s mum, Aiko. I’ve come to help.’ Her voice sounds absurdly normal, like this kind of thing happens every day.

  I hear him mutter something. I am gazing at a lemon on the floor. It hasn’t split; it’s not old and shrivelled. It’s completely undamaged. Shiny and yellow, and I just know that it is fresh and juicy inside. It’s perfect.

  It’s a few minutes more before Mae’s mum comes over to me. ‘Hello, Calypso,’ she says. ‘Listen, why don’t you come back to our house this evening? You could have a sleepover with Mae.’

  My neck creaks as I turn my head to look at her. I feel sore and stiff. Exhausted. ‘It was a library of lemons,’ I say.

  Tears run down my face, which surprises me. I didn’t know they were coming.

  ‘He threw away the books,’ I whisper, my voice tight again.

  ‘I know,’ she says gently. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll find them. We’ll fix it.’

  ‘Can you fix my dad?’ I ask. What’s wrong with him?

  She pauses for a moment. ‘One step at a time,’ she says, which isn’t really an answer.

  I let her help me up, and we walk past my father, back to the doorway, where Mae is standing with a worried expression.

  ‘Calypso’s going to come back with us,’ says her mum. ‘So I’ll go upstairs with her and pack a few things for an overnight bag.’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ says Mae quickly.

  I don’t blame her. My father is still sitting on the floor of the library, and who wants to be alone with a crazy person and a room that stinks of lemons?

  Mae’s mum packs for me. I sit on the bed and do nothing. She keeps up a cheerful chatter as she works. The noise is strangely soothing and some of the small, jagged pieces in my head start to melt away.

  When my bag is stuffed, we go back downstairs and out of the front door. I climb into their car – the nice, warm, biscuity-smelling car; the one that starts first time, every time – and I click in the seat belt. Mae sits by the other window, casting anxious sideways glances at me.

  As we drive to Mae’s house it starts to rain.

  It’s hard to explain how I feel because I’m not sure I know myself. Part of me is angry, part of me is sad, part of me wants to laugh and part of me is frightened. I don’t want to think about my father, about the times I’ve been into his library when he’s been working, when all along the closed-off shelves were full of lemons. I don’t want to wonder what’s inside his head, because what kind of crazy must it be?

  As for the books … thinking of them gives me a pain inside so sharp that I can’t breathe. How could he throw away Mum’s books? How could he even bring himself to do that? Does he feel nothing?

  Mae’s parents are very kind. Her dad takes Christopher upstairs to race cars or trains or something, and Mae’s mum gets me a hot chocolate and suggests we sit on the sofa and watch a film. Mae wants to watch Frozen, and I’ve never seen it, so she puts on the DVD and we sink into the sofa. The hot chocolate is warming and slips down easily, and the film is good, but I’m so exhausted I fall asleep before we’re even halfway through.

  In the morning I wake in a soft bed in the spare room, with a duvet over me. It has a pattern of little blue flowers. There is a white chest of drawers with round knobs for handles, and a pale blue carpet and a pine wardrobe in the corner. The lamp by my bed has a white shade with green leaves on it. I’ve only been in here once, when Mae was looking for a spare sheet in the bottom of the wardrobe. Outside, it’s still raining. I can hear the pattering on the window.

  The door is pushed open, and it’s Mae, wearing yellow pyjamas.

  ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Fine, thank you. It’s still raining then?’

  ‘Yes, the forecast says it’ll rain all day.’

  We are like old people having a conversation.

  We get dressed for school. I feel as though I’m in two parts. Half of me feels quite usual – happy, even, at the fact that I’ve had a sleepover at Mae’s house. The other half is shouting at me from behind a glass wall, silent. That’s the half that’s reminding me about yesterday, but I don’t want to hear it. I want to pretend it didn’t happen.

  Just before lunchtime, Miss Spotlin calls me over. ‘Calypso,’ she says, ‘you and I are going to go to Mrs Gilkes’s office as soon as the bell goes, all right? There are some people who want to talk to you.’

  ‘What people?’

  Miss Spotlin puts her hand on my arm and looks at me in a friendly way. ‘Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad. I’m coming with you.’

  ‘What about my lunch?’r />
  ‘The canteen staff will put something aside for you.’

  We go to the head’s office and knock on the door. Mrs Gilkes opens it and says, ‘Hello, Calypso. Come on in.’

  I am glad Miss Spotlin is with me because my tummy feels very fluttery. In Mrs Gilkes’s office are two women. The first woman is tall with fluffy hair that’s half brown, half white. She has glasses with funky designs on the arms, and she smiles at me. The second woman is shorter and very plump. She has a pale face with many lines around her eyes. She smiles too, but there’s something in her gaze that makes me feel as though she’s trying to see inside me.

  Mrs Gilkes has arranged some chairs for us, so we sit in an awkward circle.

  ‘Now,’ says Mrs Gilkes, ‘these ladies are from social services, Calypso. Something happened yesterday at home, is that right?’

  I nod.

  ‘They’ve come to make sure you’re all right and to see if there’s anything they can do to help.’

  I feel even more nervous at this. What if they don’t think I’m all right? What would they do? Would they take me away? Maybe I’m not all right. Maybe I need a hospital or something, to fix the strange feelings inside me.

  ‘My name is Antonia,’ says the tall woman with the funky glasses, ‘and this is my colleague, Sarah. Please don’t worry, Calypso. We don’t want to interfere, but we think we might be able to help you and your father get through a difficult time.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘Shall I tell you a bit about what we do?’

  She tells me about another family they helped recently where the father died in a car crash and the mother got so depressed she couldn’t look after her three children. Antonia arranged for the mother to talk to a doctor and she slowly got better, and the three kids went on a special day trip to a theme park.

  I’m a bit confused. Do they want to send me to a theme park? Because I don’t really like rides.

  Antonia says, ‘But of course every family is different, and we can help in lots of different ways. Do you think your family might need some help?’