The Library

by Bella Osborne

  ‘Hey, I have better footwear than her.’ She waggled her red Doc Marten boots at him. ‘Reading isn’t something to be ashamed of.’

  ‘Err, yes it is. Especially when it’s romance.’ He turned back to face her. ‘I’d get slaughtered for this.’

  ‘At school?’

  ‘At school, at home, everywhere!’ He threw his arms up.

  ‘At home. Surely your mum wouldn’t…’ Tom’s face changed. It was his eyes mainly. Like a light going out. His expression broke Maggie’s heart just a fraction. She lowered her voice. ‘You don’t have a mum around, do you, Tom?’

  ‘Miss Marple strikes again.’ He swallowed hard and shook his head. ‘She died when I was eight.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said reaching out a hand and squeezing his shoulder. He gave a weak smile at the gesture. ‘It’s crap isn’t it?’

  Tom laughed and looked at her through his fringe. ‘Yeah. It is total crap. You’re funny…’

  ‘For an old woman?’

  ‘Nah, you’re just funny.’

  ‘So come on. What did you really think of the ending of Me Before You?’ she asked, leaning forward and resting her forearms on her thighs.

  ‘Bloody hell. That was a shock, wasn’t it? I can’t stop thinking about it. It was different to all the other books I’ve read and those last few pages… Whoa.’

  Maggie loved to hear the indignation and excitement in his voice. She’d not heard him speak for so long in all the weeks he’d been coming to the library. She’d found a kindred spirit in the most unlikely place and she was going to hang on to him as if her life depended on it.

  9

  TOM

  I thought about Maggie a lot that evening. I didn’t like how she’d got the truth out of me. I thought I was smarter than that. My big secret was out and weirdly it was a huge relief. More than that it felt good to talk about the books with another reader. It was like reliving them. I had been reading every night since Dad killed my Xbox.

  The books opened a door for me to escape into a different world. One where I was the hero. I could also convince myself that it was research. Research into a life I wanted to lead, people I wanted to be like. I had even made some notes. These heroes had some great lines. They were mostly aloof or idiots at the start of the stories but they learned along the way and came good in the end. They were arrogant rather than shy like me but still awkward in their own way with the ability to push women away. But what I was learning was that this situation wasn’t irretrievable. There was hope. Not a lot of it, but it was enough to make me want to know more.

  I finished the last page of The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks and put the book down. It was one I didn’t want to end. The couple had been through loads to get to the happily ever after. I think I’ve been through quite a bit but there’s no sign of my happy ending.

  A clattering sound came from downstairs. I checked the clock. Dad and I had kept our distance since the night of the Xbox murder. My anger had gone but the resentment was strong and stood on firm foundations and was unlikely to fade without some effort on his part. The house was silent again apart from the rumble of my stomach. I went downstairs to get something to eat. I’d finished the Marmite earlier so it would have to be plain toast with a bit of marg.

  I found the five-pound note in my pocket that Maggie had returned a few weeks ago. It wasn’t much good to me there. I should have spent it on food but I’d got too caught up in talking to Maggie and then I’d forgotten all about it again. I thought about giving it back to Dad but he’d only spend it on beer or whisky.

  Something made me stick my head around the living room door. Dad was lying on the floor. Sometimes I like to lie on the floor; I’m too long for our sofa now. But the way Dad was lying didn’t look like he’d chosen that position. His glass and some beer cans were scattered on the carpet – that must have been the clatter I heard.

  ‘Dad?’ He didn’t move. I stepped into the room and nudged him with my toe. His leg rocked but he didn’t stir. I walked around the sofa to get a better look. He didn’t look good. ‘Dad!’ I raised my voice and gave him a shake. No response. Shit. Was he unconscious? I knelt down next to him. My stomach tightened as fear gripped it like an icy hand. I couldn’t lose my dad. He was all I had. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him – harder this time. His head bounced off the leg of the table.

  ‘Bloody hell, Tom!’ Dad was suddenly conscious. His red face scowling as he rubbed the back of his head.

  I let his shoulders go and leaned back on my haunches. ‘I thought you’d…’ I drew in a deep breath to steady my shaking limbs. There was something about his expression that made me question what had just happened. ‘Were you faking?’

  ‘Can’t you take a joke?’ He shuffled himself upright.

  What sort of sick person does that? My fear morphed into anger. ‘What’s wrong with you? I thought you were… hurt.’

  ‘I did hurt myself.’ His voice was slurred. ‘That bloody table is trying to kill me. I twisted my ankle.’

  He rolled up his trouser leg but I didn’t care. I stood up. ‘You’re an idiot.’

  He looked up at me in an exaggerated movement. ‘Lighten up, Tom. It was a joke.’

  ‘Not funny.’

  ‘Life isn’t,’ said Dad. ‘You’ll find that out when you get a job.’

  ‘I’m going to university.’ I’d got my mind set on it now. An apprenticeship might have been more my level but it would be local and I needed to get away.

  ‘Not this again.’ His voice was rising. ‘You’re acting like a child.’ He reached for his glass and I kicked it away.

  ‘You’re acting like a drunk.’ I walked out so I didn’t have to listen to him. I wished I’d gone via the kitchen because, with a loud rumble, my stomach reminded me I was still hungry.

  I went to my bedroom but it was the wrong place to go. I was like a dog at the rescue, pacing up and down. I could cover the small room in three paces. I’d outgrown this space. It was starting to feel like I’d outgrown a lot of things.

  *

  On Monday I walked into my history class and they’d moved the desks around. I hate it when they do that. I paused in the doorway, scanning the faces and working out my best odds of making it through the lesson unnoticed.

  ‘Ah, Tom Harris,’ said Mr Thackery, the teacher. ‘I’m introducing a buddy system.’ I scratched my head. He consulted a list on his desk. ‘Can you sit next to Farah please?’

  Instant overheating mode engaged. ‘Uh, well…’ I frantically looked about. Farah had her back to me and was chatting to her friend.

  ‘Move along. Over there.’ He shooed me away as more people clogged the doorway.

  Had I remembered to put on deodorant today? I had but was it up to this kind of extreme test? I tried to tilt my nose towards my armpit and have a sniff as I walked. Not great but not enough to scorch her eyeballs. At least I hadn’t had PE today. Farah swivelled around and her eyebrows registered alarm at my strange underarm-sniffing behaviour. Bad start.

  ‘All right?’ I mumbled but didn’t make eye contact, dropped my bag to the floor and slid onto the chair, being careful not to sit centrally for fear of looking like I was getting too close to her.

  ‘You’re Thomas Harris right?’ She said it like a question. But the fact was she knew who I was. Farah Shah knew who I was! It was like a metal rod being inserted in my spine.

  I looked at her for a moment. ‘Yeah. It’s just Tom.’

  ‘I’m Farah.’ She smiled. A sweet delicate smile. Her face bright and her voice confident but warm. My life was turning a corner and this was it. I was buddied with Farah Shah. I wanted to punch the air but I was rooted to my chair as my thoughts drifted to what this could mean. A legitimate reason to spend time with her. The discussions we could have about history. Revision schedules from now until the end of term. Images of me doing my homework with her in her bedroom loomed large and unfortunately triggered some excessive sweating. It was like a single ray
of sunshine warming me until someone bumped me in the back.

  ‘Shift, Harris.’ Joshua Kemp was standing over me. Kemp who thought he was big time because his dad was a school governor and he was captain of the rugby team. He was more big time than me, though.

  ‘Ah, Joshua,’ said Mr Thackery. ‘We have a new seating arrangement, which I will explain now everyone has deigned to join us. You’ll be sitting next to Amy and she will be your buddy.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I won’t be able to see the board from there,’ said Kemp, brightly. ‘It’s okay. I’ll swap with Harris. You don’t mind. Do you?’ It wasn’t a question. My time with Farah had been short and beautiful.

  ‘Er,’ I said, but Kemp was already leaning over me. ‘I guess not.’ I gave Farah a wan smile. Oh, what might have been. I went to lift my bag but Farah’s chair leg was on it. ‘Sorry…’ I pointed at the chair leg.

  ‘Piss off, Harris,’ whispered Kemp in my ear. His menace lost a little something as I smelled Hubba Bubba on his breath.

  ‘Bag. Stuck.’ Suddenly forming a sentence was a struggle.

  ‘Here.’ Kemp pulled it hard, making Farah topple and ripping my bag. Farah scowled at us both. My heart clenched. Moments ago her look had been so inviting. Joshua slammed my bag into my chest and propelled me out of the way. I left with a heavy heart and my rucksack in tatters.

  Amy shook her head as I sat down. A little unnecessary I thought. She’d had a lucky escape from Kemp. He was a bully and he believed he was untouchable. He took pleasure in tripping up year sevens and it was common knowledge that he paid Nicholas Burns to do his maths homework for him. Oddly, though, some of the girls seemed to fancy him. Life was unfair.

  Mr Thackery returned our history essays. ‘Eight, Farah, very good. Five, Joshua, needs a lot of work. Nine, Amy, excellent but expected…’ Amy preened herself as she took the essay back from Mr Thackery. ‘Eight, Tom, very good and unexpected.’ His voice was full of suspicion. I took the essay and glanced at Farah. I longed to be back sitting next to her. We had the same score. We were so compatible. We could have discussed our essays, shared what we needed to do to inch our scores up. I sighed at my lost opportunity.

  ‘Did you cheat?’ asked Amy, scowling hard at my essay.

  ‘No. Did you?’

  She huffed a response and was so affronted she moved her desk a few centimetres away from mine.

  At the end of class I gathered my things slowly. I was in no rush to get home. I’d spent half the lesson rehearsing a conversation with Farah just in case she too had noticed that we’d got matching scores and had spotted the enormous similarity. But when I looked across she had already left. I hauled my ripped bag into my arms as I could no longer carry it on my shoulder. This was a disaster. Dad was going to flip and he wasn’t going to pay for a new one this close to the end of term. He was the same with school uniforms, which was why I always looked like my clothes had shrunk in the wash.

  Joshua and his mate Kyle Fletcher were loitering in the corridor. I ignored them and walked past.

  ‘Oi, Harris.’

  Piss it. I paused but didn’t turn around. I didn’t expect the shove that sent me to the floor and my backpack contents spewing across the dusty lino.

  ‘Don’t you dare even look at Farah. You got that?’ Kemp snarled while Fletcher nodded like a car insurance dog. He bore an uncanny resemblance to the advert, which distracted me for a moment. ‘Got it?’ repeated Kemp. He kicked me and gave me a dead thigh.

  ‘Yeah. Got it,’ I said, rubbing my leg. ‘I didn’t know you and her were…’

  ‘They’re not,’ said Fletcher.

  ‘Shut up, Fletcher.’ Joshua turned his aggression on him. ‘We’ve virtually hooked up.’

  The laugh that came was involuntary. I doubted I was on Farah’s radar but the thought that she would be attracted to this thug was laughable.

  ‘You got something to say, Harris?’

  ‘No. Bit of a cough coming I think,’ I said, rubbing my throat for effect before gathering up my well-distributed bag contents.

  Kemp loomed over me and I covered my groin.

  ‘Kemp, Fletcher and Harris. Don’t you have homes to go to?’ called Mr Thackery from the other end of the corridor. My groin was spared for another day.

  10

  MAGGIE

  Maggie was now in possession of a new bus pass and had celebrated on Tuesday by taking the bus into Leamington Spa. She had treated herself to a cappuccino and a chocolate twist. It had been good to be out and surrounded by people but the brief exchange over what size drink she wanted and whether she was eating in or out couldn’t be classed as a significant human interaction. There was something oddly isolating about being surrounded by people and yet completely alone.

  It was such a faff to get the bus though, as she had to first go in to Compton Mallow, which was in the opposite direction, to then swap buses to Leamington. It was far from ideal and meant it took her almost two hours to get there. She had been pleased to have a brief discussion with a woman on the bus about how manoeuvrable pushchairs were these days. Sadly the woman got off one stop afterwards and that was the last time Maggie spoke to anyone.

  All was quiet with the animals. Still no sign of lambs although there had been an alarming drop in egg production, which indicated that Mr Fox may be doing the rounds again. She had time to kill and she needed to set up some pens for the pregnant sheep for when they gave birth. Assuming any of them were pregnant. With the amount of land Maggie had and the undulating nature of most of it, moving things around was a challenge. Providence Farm had once been a thriving sheep farm. On the farmer’s passing the family had been keen to sell and were happy for most of the farm equipment to be included, mainly because they didn’t want the hassle, or cost, of disposing of it. Most of what was left was past its best but at that stage Maggie and her husband had wanted to keep their options open so had inherited the little old grey Ferguson tractor and trailer along with a variety of other farm paraphernalia.

  Maggie didn’t own a car. She wasn’t entirely against them but having been a vehement campaigner for saving the planet, long before it was a popular pastime, she was aware of the environmental damage.

  It took a few goes to get the tractor started but eventually it chugged into life. Maggie reversed, hitched up the trailer and drove it out of the barn and round to the side of the house. She took a sharp turn to miss one pothole only to hit another bigger one with the trailer, she felt it list dramatically to one side. She switched off the engine and climbed down.

  The trailer tyre was punctured and almost pulled off the wheel. ‘Bugger it,’ she said. With her hands on her hips she surveyed the situation. The ancient trailer was leaning over and with its tyre almost off it was stranded. She needed to lift the trailer up in order to get the tyre off, but looking at the rusted nuts it was going to be a struggle. But Maggie was nothing if not tenacious. A few hours later she reluctantly accepted this wasn’t something she was going to be able to fix on her own.

  *

  Maggie’s mind was elsewhere during the deep questions about this week’s book club read – The Fault in Our Stars. She’d thoroughly enjoyed the story and she was sure Tom would too. Most of the group had liked it meaning there wasn’t much of a discussion.

  Tom was beavering away in his usual corner. Christine was busying herself with putting up new posters. Maggie was preoccupied by her tyre problems. She could see little choice but to ask a neighbouring farmer for help but as he had pointed out before it wasn’t like she could return the favour so he would expect to be paid for his trouble.

  Betty waved a bony hand in front of Maggie’s eyes. ‘I said are you coming to the cake sale?’

  Maggie had been miles away. ‘Sorry. Where is this now?’

  ‘In the church hall. It’s all for charity. Children or cancer or some such thing. Anyway it’s a good cause,’ said Betty.

  ‘Err.’ Maggie was torn. She’d found she was looking forward to her weekly chats w
ith Tom. Despite being surrounded by women her age it was him she felt most at ease with. If she left now, she couldn’t come back merely for Tom to walk her to the bus stop; that would look ridiculous. She was watching Tom. He had his head down and was studying in the corner. She didn’t like to disturb him but he seemed to sense her gaze and he looked up, giving her a warm smile.

  ‘Well?’ said Betty growing impatient.

  ‘I’ll see you down there,’ said Maggie.

  She joined Tom at the small table at the back of the library. ‘Hello, you look busy.’

  ‘Trying to get my head around cumulative frequency polygons.’

  She had no idea what they were. ‘I’m going to a cake sale.’ An idea struck her. ‘And I wondered if you’d like me to bring you some back. It’s important to feed the brain when you’re studying.’

  Tom pursed his lips. ‘I never say no to cake.’

  ‘Excellent.’ The joy she felt was ridiculous. ‘What’s your favourite? I can’t promise anything mind.’

  Tom seemed thoughtful. ‘I dunno. We don’t have proper cake much. Once Dad bought those cake bar things.’ They both screwed their noses up at the same time. ‘What cake are you getting?’

  Now it was her turn to have a think. ‘I’m a big lemon drizzle fan…’

  ‘Awww.’ Tom looked like he was going to dribble. ‘My mum…’ He glanced about before continuing. ‘She used to make that. It was amazing.’

  ‘Although Victoria sandwich is a classic that’s hard to beat. But I’m a sucker for a scone with jam and cream. But it has to be clotted cream mind.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever had a scone.’

  ‘Well, knock me down with a feather. You poor lamb. You’ve not lived until you’ve had a scone.’ Tom started packing his books into a torn bag. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m coming with you. I can’t concentrate on this now. All I can think about is cake.’