The Last Chance Library

by Freya Sampson

  June walked toward the front door and switched off the lights. She glanced back at Stanley, an elderly man in a tweed suit. A sudden image flashed into her mind of her mum standing at that very same table, helping a patron with something. Her mum looked up from what she was doing and stared straight at June, unsmiling.

  What are you so afraid of, Junebug?

  June faltered, her hand on the doorknob.

  Imagine being twenty-eight and never having done anything.

  She closed her eyes, hearing the blood pumping in her ears.

  Your mum would be ashamed of you.

  June opened her eyes and let go of the door handle.

  What would Matilda do?

  She swung round to face Stanley. “I’ll stay with you,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

  He looked up at June in surprise. “What?”

  “I’ll join you, Stanley; I’ll stay here too.”

  “That’s very kind, but there’s really no need. I’m perfectly fine on my own.”

  “But one person isn’t really a protest, is it? If you want the council to listen, then you need more people.”

  “I appreciate your offer, but what would Marjorie say if she found you here? You don’t want to risk your job for a silly old man like me.”

  June felt as if she was standing on the edge of a precipice, peering down from a dizzying height, and for a moment she wondered if she should take a step back and run to the safety of home before it was too late. She swallowed before she spoke again. “Stanley, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  “The thing is . . . I’m Matilda.”

  He stared at her in astonishment. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ve been sending you the Twitter messages. I’m the one who sent Rocky to the church hall and I put up all the posters round the village. I’ve been too scared to do anything publicly and risk losing my job, but I’m tired of living in fear.”

  “Really? My goodness, I had no idea.” Stanley’s face broke into a grin. “But still, June, there’s a difference between helping anonymously and joining me here. Are you sure you really want to do this?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” June said, and as she said the words out loud, she realized that she truly meant them. “This library is the most important thing in my life, and I want to fight for it. Whatever the consequences.”

  “Hurrah!” Stanley said, punching the air. “Then let the Chalcot Library occupation begin.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  June locked the doors from the inside and turned around to see Stanley pacing the floor.

  “Well, this is jolly exciting,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any food in this place?”

  She went into the office and found a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps and some stale custard creams, then made two cups of tea and carried them back out. Stanley had set up a couple of lamps on the floor behind the desk and was sitting in a chair next to them. It looked like a strange kind of campfire.

  “It’s best no one knows we’re here yet. That way we can prepare our surprise attack for tomorrow,” he said.

  “You’ve read too many war novels, Stanley.” June laid their meager picnic out on the desk and sat down next to him. “What do you think will happen tomorrow?”

  “Well, Marjorie will arrive, and we’ll bar her entry,” he said, helping himself to a biscuit. “I imagine she’ll call the council, who will send someone down. And that’s when we give them our demands.”

  “What demands?”

  “That they promise to keep the library open and under council funding.”

  “But they’ll never agree to that.”

  “Then we stay here until they do.”

  “And you won’t mention my theory about Cuppa Coffee?”

  “No. We need evidence before we can go to the police with that.”

  At the word “police,” June felt a shiver down her spine. “Do you think the police will come to arrest us?”

  “We’re not technically breaking the law as long as we don’t damage anything. If they want to get us out, they will need to go through the courts to get an eviction notice, which could take weeks.”

  June imagined still being here in several weeks’ time, alone with Stanley, eating books to fend off starvation. “You seem to know a lot about this. Have you occupied somewhere before?”

  “A political protest? Goodness no.” He looked like he was about to say something else but helped himself to another custard cream.

  “So, what do we do in the meantime?”

  “Well, we could get to know each other a bit better.” Stanley leaned back in his chair, cradling the mug in his hands. “I’ve seen you in this library every day for years, but I know little of your life outside these four walls.”

  “I’m afraid there’s not much to tell.”

  “Nonsense. Let’s begin at the beginning. Were you born in Chalcot?”

  “No, in Bath, but we moved here when I was four. Mum inherited the house when my grandfather died, and then we came here after she got her job at the library.”

  “And what of your father? I don’t believe I ever had the pleasure of meeting the fellow.”

  “Me neither.”

  The sun was getting low in the sky, stretching long shadows against the shelves. June picked at a loose bit of wood on the desk.

  “I am sorry to hear that,” Stanley said after a while. “May I take the liberty of asking you another question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you ever feel you missed out, not having a father?”

  June so rarely thought about the man who had conceived her that the question caught her off guard. “Not really. I got teased about it a bit at school, but my mum was so brilliant that she did the job of two parents.”

  Stanley was staring off into the distance, lost in thought. June looked around the library, trying to work out where they were going to sleep.

  “I have a son,” he said.

  “I know. I’ve seen you e-mailing him.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. “It’s a little more complicated than that. I’ve not seen Mark for a long time.”

  “Well, America is a long way away.”

  “No, my dear, you misunderstand me.” Stanley paused. “I wasn’t a very good father. I had some serious problems with alcohol. My wife . . . ex-wife . . . decided that I wasn’t good for him.”

  June was so stunned that she didn’t know what to say. Stanley always seemed so proper; he was the last person she’d ever have imagined having an alcohol problem.

  “They left when Mark was thirteen,” Stanley continued. “Kitty had some family in California, and the two of them emigrated out there. It was thirty-two years ago.”

  “Have you not seen your son since then?” June tried to hide the shock in her voice.

  “I went out there to visit once, the year after they left. And he came over here to see me when he turned eighteen. But I wasn’t on very good form back then and I’m afraid I rather messed things up.”

  “I’m so sorry.” June reached toward him, but he shook his head as if to shake away the sympathy.

  “It was my fault entirely. Alcohol and I were not good bedfellows and I made some poor decisions. Kitty did the right thing moving away.”

  “But you’re not like that anymore. You could be a wonderful father now.”

  “That’s kind of you to say. And, I’ll admit, that’s why I’ve been writing to him. But listening to you talk makes me realize that he’s better off without me. Mark is forty-five now, and I hear he’s done very well for himself. Why would he want me in his life now?”

  “Oh, Stanley, don’t say that. Our situations are completely different. My dad doesn’t even know I exist. Your son knows about you; you’ve been sendi
ng him all those e-mails. I’m sure—”

  June was interrupted by a tremendous hammering sound on the door. They both ducked down to the floor.

  “Who’s that?” she whispered. “Do you think it’s the police?”

  “I’ll go and look.” Stanley started to crawl across the library floor.

  June cowered behind the desk, her heart knocking against her ribs. The banging continued, louder and more insistent, and she could see a beam of torchlight swinging across the front windows. Whoever it was, they were angry and desperate to get in. Just when June was about to scream, she heard an “Oh” from Stanley and the sound of the door being unlocked. When June peeked over the desk, she saw an indignant Mrs. B marching into the library.

  “What the fuck are you two doing here?”

  “We’re occupying the library,” Stanley said. “And June is Matilda; she’s been our whistleblower all along.”

  “You’re Matilda?” Mrs. B looked at June as if she’d gone mad. “But you’ve never shown any interest in helping us.”

  “I’m sorry. The council said that if any library workers were seen to be involved, then we’d be sacked, so I had to help you anonymously.”

  “Bloody hell. All along I thought you were a scab, and actually you’re one of us.” Mrs. B gave June an enthusiastic thump. “Welcome to the fight, sister.”

  “Thank you,” June said, smiling as she rubbed her sore arm.

  “We decided it’s time to show the council we mean business,” Stanley said as they all sat down again. “That’s why we’re occupying the library.”

  “Too bloody right. It’s time we stepped this campaign up a gear. And I’ve not been at an occupation for ages.” Mrs. B had a glint in her eye.

  “Stanley thinks the council might send in the police,” June said.

  “Let them bloody try. I’ve faced water cannons, tear gas, kettling. A few rural bobbies aren’t going to scare me.”

  “Were you ever scared at any of your protests?”

  Mrs. B gave her an indignant look. “Do you think the suffragettes were scared when they chained themselves to railings? Or Rosa Parks when they arrested her on the bus?”

  “But we’re not like them.”

  “Why not?”

  June felt embarrassed that she had to spell it out. “Well, obviously the library is vital to us and our community. But they were protesting for huge, universal things, like the vote for women and the end of segregation.”

  “And we’re fighting for social equality, for literacy and the futures of our children.” Mrs. B jabbed a finger at June. “Did you know that in the past ten years they’ve closed almost eight hundred libraries in this country? And there’ll be more if our bloody government has their way. So, we might be a small village library, but this is much bigger than us. We have to fight for Chalcot as if it’s the last library on earth.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Stanley said, raising his mug.

  “So, in answer to your question, June: no. I’m never scared when I’m fighting for something I know is right.”

  “I’ve been terrified,” June said, hugging her knees to her chest.

  “What, of being arrested?” Mrs. B looked incredulous.

  “No, of everything.”

  June took a sip of her lukewarm tea. No one spoke, and she inhaled the comforting scent of the building and its stories. For a brief moment she allowed herself to imagine the library closing—the books being taken away, the space becoming a coffee shop like she’d been in earlier today—and she was hit by an overwhelming wave of sadness.

  “I think some of my happiest memories are of me and Mum here together.”

  “You must miss her terribly.” Stanley reached out and patted June’s knee.

  “After she died, the grief was . . . all-consuming. I’d devoted three years of my life to caring for Mum, and with her gone I felt like I had nothing left. I think the only thing that kept me going was working in this library.”

  “Grief can do funny things to you,” Mrs. B said. “I lost someone a long time ago, and for ages after that I lost any desire to fight or protest. I just wanted to curl up and sleep.”

  “Were you married, Mrs. Bransworth?” Stanley said.

  “No, I bloody well wasn’t. I’ve never really seen the point in men. But my partner, she—” Mrs. B stopped. June had never seen her lost for words before.

  “How did you deal with the grief?”

  “I realized that by moping around and feeling sorry for myself, I was doing her a disservice. She loved me because I was angry and noisy and a pain in the arse. And by not living my life, by being scared and hiding away, I was letting her down.”

  “So, what did you do?

  “I went to the protests against the poll tax and ended up getting arrested in a riot. I spent three days in prison after that.”

  “Goodness,” Stanley said.

  “But I felt alive again. For the first time since she died, I felt alive.”

  June sank back in her chair. When had she last felt really, truly alive? She cast her mind back over the eight years since her mum died, but all she could picture was being at home, alone with her books. That was hardly living, was it? And then June remembered how she’d felt when she’d watched the news piece about Rocky, that secret thrill at knowing she’d done it herself. Or that night she’d spent creeping round Chalcot, putting up posters.

  “We should all get some rest,” Mrs. B said, standing up.

  June cleared up their mugs and went to rummage through the lost property box. She found an abandoned coat and brought it back out.

  “In case you get cold,” she said, handing it to Stanley.

  “Thank you, my dear. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow; try to get some sleep.”

  June watched him push some chairs together to create a makeshift bed, while Mrs. B fashioned a mattress out of her Afghan coat over by the Audio Book shelf. She was amazed by the ease with which they made themselves at home.

  June lay down in the corner by Fiction A–E and closed her eyes, but she wasn’t tired. She was acutely aware of the sounds coming from Mrs. B and Stanley, the snuffles and breathing of other human beings. This was, she realized, the first night she’d spent in the same room as another person since her mum died. June adjusted her position, but her mind was racing, and after a few minutes she got up and collected a pile of picture books from the returns trolley. She carried them through to the Children’s Room, where she began sorting through the shelves.

  Ahlberg, A.; Alborough, J.; Antony, S. The Children’s Room had been redecorated years ago, but June could still remember what it was like when she was a child. Where the mural now was there used to be a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh, and the miniature sofa by the window had replaced a table and chairs.

  Campbell, R.; Carle, E.; Child, L. June could picture her mum sitting in here, reading stories to the assembled children. And it was here that June had read a book herself for the first time, sounding the words out loud while her mum listened, grinning.

  Dahl, R.; Donaldson, J. Years later, when June’s mum was in the final stages of her cancer and living in the hospice, she’d insisted they go to the library one last time. It had been a terrible palaver involving an ambulance and all sorts of equipment, but when they got here June wheeled her mum into the Children’s Room and they sat watching Marjorie conduct Rhyme Time, her mum singing along with the kids.

  Hargreaves, R.; Hill, E.; Hughes, S. This last memory brought tears to June’s eyes, and she curled up on the floor and allowed them to fall in the darkness. Every inch of this room was steeped with memories, her mum’s DNA woven into the story rug and well-thumbed books. If the library was lost, June’s mum would be lost again too, and that was something she could never let happen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  At some point June must have fallen asleep, b
ecause when she opened her eyes she was lying on the floor, the coat she’d given to Stanley laid over her. The sun was already up, throwing long shafts of light across the books in the Children’s Room. June stood up, stretching, and walked back into the main room.

  “What the hell?”

  Every spare bit of wall space had been covered in posters saying KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OUR LIBRARY and SAVE CHALCOT LIBRARY.

  “We’ve done a bit of interior decorating,” Mrs. Bransworth said as she stuck another poster up over a framed picture of the Queen.

  “How many are there?” June asked.

  “Forty-five, to be exact. I did them all by myself on the computer,” Stanley said proudly.

  Mrs. Bransworth jumped down from the chair she was standing on. “What time does the dragon get here?”

  “Around nine fifteen,” June replied.

  “Right, we have two hours to get everything ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “We’re not going to sit around drinking tea all day. This is a war and we have to plan our attack.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The next two hours were a whirlwind of activity. Stanley typed up and printed out a hundred flyers about the protest, stating why they were occupying the library and what their aims were. June rearranged the tables to maximize space, and hand-drew several large signs, which they hung up in the front windows for passersby to see. After so long sitting on the sidelines, watching, it felt wonderful to be finally working alongside Mrs. B and Stanley as part of the team.

  Mrs. B was pacing around the front door. “Oi, June. I need something large and heavy that can’t be moved easily.”

  June looked around and spotted the ancient returns trolley, and together the two of them maneuvered it to the front. Mrs. B explained it was so they could barricade themselves in if things got nasty.

  “What do you mean, if things get nasty? Mrs. Bransworth?”

  Mrs. B shrugged and told her to track down “that skinny woman from the news” to see if she’d cover the occupation.