by Ian Sansom
'Yes, well, sorry, I…'
'D'ye sell milk?'
'No.'
'Bread?'
'No.'
'A pan loaf just?'
'No!'
'Ach. We used to have Paddy Weekly—he was great, so he was—but he was driven out by the supermarkets, ye know.'
'Yes.'
'We've to get to Ballycastle for shopping these days.'
'Right.'
'I prefer the shopping in Coleraine, meself.'
'Uh-huh.'
'I can get me feet done and me hair cut—there's a wee girl who comes round the Fold—but if I give ye a wee list ye couldn't do me a few messages once a week, could ye?'
It just wasn't right.
'It's just not right,' said Israel, picking absent-mindedly at his scone. 'You know, the longer I spend working as a librarian, the more I'm questioning my vocation.'
'Uh-huh,' said Ted, whose own scone was rapidly diminishing in size, down from bowling-ball size to tennis-ball size, maybe a little larger.
'No!' said Israel, correcting himself. 'Not just my vocation, in fact. The very ground of my being.'
'Would ye like a top-up of coffee?' said Minnie, who was doing the rounds.
'Yes, thanks,' said Israel.
'Still on Beckett then?' she said, pouring Israel another cup of the café's so-called coffee.
'Questioning the very ground of his being,' said Ted.
'Oh,' said Minnie. 'I think I'll leave you to it then.'
As a child back home in north London, Israel had always imagined that a life communing with books might be a life communing with the great minds and lives of the great thinkers of the past, those who had formed the culture and heritage of the world, and that it might perhaps be his role to share these riches with others. In fact, in reality, as a mobile librarian on the perpetually damp north coast of the north of the north of Ireland, Israel seemed to spend most of his time communing with the great minds and lives and thinkers who had produced Haynes car manuals, and Some Stuff I Remember About Visiting My Granny on Her Farm in the Country, Before I Was Horribly Mentally, Physically and Sexually Abused by My Uncles and Married Three Unsuitable Husbands and Became an Alcoholic and Lost Everything and Lived in a Bedsit in Quite a Nasty Part of a City Before Meeting My Current Husband Who Is Rich, and Wonderful, and Then Moving Back to the Country, Which Is Ironic When You Think About It: The Sequel, and Shape Up or Ship Out! The Official US Navy Seals Diet, and How to Become a Babillionaire—Tomorrow!, and pastel-covered Irish, English and American chick lit by the tonne, the half-tonne, the bushel and the hot steaming shovel load.
'Ach, come on,' said Ted. 'It's not that bad. You're exeggeratin'.'
'I'm what?'
'Exeggeratin'.'
'Exaggerating?'
'Aye.'
'I'm not! What about that other old man in this morning?'
'Who? Which other old man?'
'The old man in the baseball cap that was dripping with rain.'
'When?'
'When it was raining?'
'Ach, aye.'
Their second stop, up farther round the coast. A lay-by. The rain had come on—even though it was June. June! Pounding with rain in June! Jesus Christ!
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Ye've some books here, boy.'
Israel (restrainedly): 'Yes. Yes. It's a library.'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Aye.'
Israel (doing his best to be helpful): 'And can I help you at all?'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'No. I'm only in for to be out of the rain.'
Israel: 'Right. Okay. That's fine. Happy to be of—'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Mind, would ye have any books about…'
Israel: 'About? What?'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain (indicating width between finger and thumb): 'About this thick?'
Israel: 'Er. Well, possibly. Any subject in particular you're after?'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'I don't mind about the subject.'
Israel: 'Right. So, anything really, as long as it's…'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain (indicating his required width again): 'This thick.'
Israel: 'I see. What's that, then? About two, three centimetres?'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Quarter-inch.'
Israel, scanning the shelves: 'Okay. Erm. I don't know, Carol Shields, have you read any of her? She's very popular.'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'How thick's she?'
Israel: 'Erm.'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain (taking book from Israel): 'She'll do rightly.'
Israel: 'Do you have a ticket with you?'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'No. I've not a ticket. The wife does, but.'
Israel: 'I'd need to see the ticket really. I could always hold it over for you.'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain (glancing outside): 'Ach, no. I'll not bother. We've family over at the weekend. I thought it might be the thing for to fix the table—there's a wee wobble where we had the floor tiled.'
Israel: 'Right.'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'I'll get an offcut a wood, sure. It's only because you were insisting that I was askin'.'
Israel: 'Okay, right.'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Rain's off.'
Israel: 'Good.'
Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain exits.
Israel: 'Sorry we couldn't be of more help!'
'Sure, there was no harm in him,' said Ted.
'No!' said Israel. 'No! You're right. There may have been no harm in him, but he did harm to me! To my mental health! I am a highly trained professional.'
Ted coughed.
'I am though,' continued Israel. 'We are. And we should be treated with respect.'
Israel had imagined that a librarian in a small town might be regarded as a kind of cultural ambassador, an adept, like a country priest guiding his grateful parishioners into the mysteries of the holy realms of the book. In fact, most library users in and around Tumdrum and District seemed to regard a librarian as nothing more than a glorified shop assistant, and the mobile library as a kind of large motorised shopping trolley. There were only so many small errands that Israel could perform in a day without beginning to feel like a grocer's assistant, and there was only so much sugar, tea, biscuits, potatoes, newspapers, betting slips and hand-rolling tobacco that the mobile library could carry before they would have to start abandoning the books altogether and go over entirely to carrying dry goods and comestibles. If they ripped out the issues desk and put in a deli counter and got a licence for selling drink, Israel and Ted could probably have made a fortune: your breaded ham, a bottle of Bushmills, and the latest Oprah or Richard and Judy Book Club recommendations, available together at last from a veritable touring one-stop shop; they'd be bazillionaires by Christmas.
'You're getting carried away now,' said Ted.
'I am not getting carried away!' said Israel.
Israel glanced around the café at all the old familiar faces. 'Look!' he said.
'What?' said Ted.
'Sshh! Behind you!' said Israel.
'What?' said Ted, turning round.
'No! Don't turn around!'
'Why?'
'It's her.'
'Who?'
'Mrs Onions.'
'Aye,' said Ted. 'What's wrong with her, sure?'
'Oh God, Ted. She's another one.'
'Another one of what?'
'Another one who's cracking me up!'
That was the third stop.
Mrs Onions: 'D'ye have any books with those sort of suedey covers?'
Israel: 'Erm. No, no, I'm afraid not. We're right out of the…suede-covered books at the moment, I think.'
Mrs Onions: 'You've plenty of other sorts of books.'
Mrs Onions: 'I could take one of those. But I like the old suede covers, ye see. My granny used to have one, when she lived on the farm down in the Mournes. The butter, honestly, beautiful it was.'
Israel: 'Uh-huh.'
Mrs Onions: 'Will ye be getting any in?'
Israel: 'It's possible, yes, that we will be getting in some suede-covered books in the future. I could certainly—'
Mrs Onions: 'Ach, I'll not bother for the moment. I've shopping to get here.'
Israel: 'Good. Well, it's lovely to…'
* * *
And there was more! Much, much more, every day: the man who'd come in and take out any books that he deemed were unchristian, and then claim that he'd lost them; the woman who used Sellotape as a bookmark; the creepy man with the moustache who was continually ordering gynaecology textbooks on inter-library loan. It was too much. Israel still found it hard to believe that he'd ended up here in the first place, and the longer he stayed the less he believed it, the more he felt like merely a vestigial presence in his own life, a kind of living, breathing Chagall, floating just above and outside the world, staring down at himself as librarian, as though this weren't really him at all, was not really his life, as if he were merely observing Tumdrum's netherworld of inanities and bizarre and meaningless human exchanges. The longer he stayed in Tumdrum the more he could feel himself slowly withdrawing from the human world, becoming a mere onlooker, a monitor of human absurdities.
* * *
He took another bite of his scone.
'I feel like a Chagall,' he said.
'He says he feels like a Chagall,' said Ted to Minnie, who'd arrived with offers of another top-up of coffee.
'He'd need to get himself smarted up first,' said Minnie, winking; Israel was wearing corduroy trousers, his patched-up old brown brogues, and one of his landlady George's brother Brownie's old T-shirts, which read, unhelpfully, SMACK MY BITCH UP.
'What?' said Israel.
'But anyway,' said Minnie. 'We'll not have that sort of dirty talk in here, thank you, gents.'
'I can't go on, Ted,' said Israel.
'No?' said Ted, reaching forward and taking Israel's other half of scone.
'Not the scone!' said Israel. 'I mean…this. Life! Here, give that back, it's mine!'
'Say please,' said Ted.
'Just give me the bloody scone!'
'Steady now,' said Ted, handing back the scone. 'Temper, temper.'
'Och, you're like an old married couple, the pair of you,' said Minnie.
'Oh God,' said Israel, groaning.
'Language,' said Ted.
'Coffee?' said Minnie.
'No. I don't think so,' said Israel, checking his watch. 'Oh shit! Ted!'
'Language!' said Minnie.
'Sorry, Minnie.'
'Ted!'
'What?'
'We're late for the meeting!'
'Aye,' said Ted. 'Behind like the cow's tail.'
'What?'
'You'll have to hand in your resignation after.'
'He's resigning?' said Minnie.
'Again,' said Ted.
'Yes!' said Israel. 'That's right. I am. I'm handing in my resignation today. I was just distracted there for a moment.'
Ted winked at Minnie as they got up to leave.
'See you next week then?' said Minnie.
'I very much doubt it!' said Israel. 'Bye! Come on, Ted, quick, let's go.'
And with that, Israel Armstrong went to resign, again, from his job as mobile librarian for Tumdrum and District on the windswept north coast of the north of the north of Northern Ireland.
2
'Sorry, Linda,' he said when they arrived. It was his customary greeting; he liked to get in his apologies in advance. 'Sorry, everyone.'
'Ah, Mr Armstrong and Mr Carson,' said Linda. 'Punctual as ever.'
'Yes. Sorry.'
'You are aware that the last Wednesday of every month at three o'clock is the Mobile Library Steering Committee?'
'Yes,' said Israel.
'Always has been.'
'Uh-huh.'
'And always will be,' said Linda.
'Right.'
'For ever and ever, amen,' said Ted.
'And yet you, gentlemen,' continued Linda, ignoring Ted, 'somehow always manage to be late.'
'Yes. Erm. Anyway, you're looking well, Linda,' said Israel, trying to change the subject.
'Don't try to change the subject, Mr Armstrong,' said Linda. 'This is not a fashion show.'
'No. Sorry.'
'Honestly!' said Linda, playing up to the—very appreciative—rest of the committee. 'You put a bit of lipstick on, and they can't think about anything else. Typical man!'
'Sorry,' said Israel, sliding down lower and lower in his seat.
'You're all the same.'
'Sorry. We had some trouble…with the van.'
They hadn't had trouble with the van, actually, but they often did have trouble with the van, so it wasn't a lie in the proper sense of the word; it wasn't as if Israel were making it up because, really, the van was nothing but trouble. The van was an old Bedford, and Ted's pride and joy—rescued, hidden and restored by him at a time when Tumdrum and District Council were scaling down their library provision, and resurrected and brought back into service only six months ago when Israel had arrived and taken on the role of mobile librarian. The van wasn't merely a vehicle to Ted; it wasn't just any old van; it wasn't, to be honest, even a van in particular; the van was the epitome, the essence, the prime example of mobile library vans in general. To Ted, his van represented pure undiluted mobile library-ness. It was the Platonic van; the ur-van; the über-van; it was a totem and a symbol. And you can't argue with symbols: symbols just are. Thus, in Ted's mind, there was absolutely nothing—not a thing—wrong with the mobile library van. The corrosion in the engine, and the mould and mildew in the cabin, and the occasional seizure of the clutch, and some problems with the brake callipers, and the cables, and the wiring looms, and the oil filter, and the spark plugs, and the battery—these were simply aspects of the van's pure vanness, a part of its very being, its complete and utter rusty red-and-cream-liveried perfection.
'So,' the chairman of the Mobile Library Steering Committee, a man called Ron, an archetypically bald and grey-suited councillor, was saying, 'Here we all are then.' Ron specialised in making gnomic utterances and looking wise. 'All together, once again.'
Also on the committee was Eileen, another councillor, a middle-aged woman with short, dyed blonde hair who always wore bright red lipstick and jackets of contrasting primary colours—today, an almost luminous green—which made her look like the last squeezings of a tube of cheap toothpaste. Eileen was a great believer in Booker Prize–winning novels. Booker Prize–winning novels, according to Eileen, were the key not merely to improving standards of literary taste among the adults in Tumdrum and District, but were in fact a panacea for all sorts of social ills. Booker Prize–winning novels, according to Eileen, were penicillin, aspirin, paracetamol and snake oil, all in one, in black and white, and in between hard covers. Eileen believed passionately in what you might call the trickle-down theory of literature; according to her, the reading of Booker Prize–winning novels by Tumdrum's library-borrowing elite would lead inevitably and inexorably to the raising of social and cultural values among the populace at large. Even a mere passing acquaintance with someone who had read, say, Ian McEwan or Salman Rushdie could potentially save a local young person from a meaningless and empty life of cruising around town in a souped-up hot hatch and binge-drinking at weekends, and might very possibly lead them instead into joining a book group, and drinking Chardonnay, and learning to appreciate the finer points of the very best of metropolitan and middle-brow fiction.
Israel did not like Eileen, and Eileen did not like him.
'Can't we just get lots of copies of the Booker Prize–winning novels?' Eileen would opine, all year round. Her clothes and
her slightly manic cheeriness always gave the Mobile Library Steering Committee meetings a sense of evening occasion—like a Booker Prize Awards night dinner, indeed—as though she might at any moment stand up at a podium, raise a glass of champagne, and offer a toast, 'To Literature!' Other members of the committee could often be heard to groan when she spoke.
The other committee members were two moon-faced men whose names Israel could never remember, and who both required endless recaps and reiterations and reminders of the minutest detail of the mobile library's activities, most of which, when recapped, they found profoundly unsatisfactory. Both of them wore glasses and were bald. Israel called them Chi-Chi and Chang-Chang.
And then, of course, there was Linda Wei, Israel's boss. His line manager. His nemesis. The person who—apart from his landlady, George, and Ted, and most of the other inhabitants of this godforsaken town—had made Israel's stay in Northern Ireland as unpleasant and as difficult and as miserable as possible. Linda it was who, when Israel complained about his working conditions, would put her fingers in her ears and sing, 'I can't hear you! I can't hear you!' Linda it was who had introduced performance-related pay—for librarians! What were they supposed to do? Force books on people? Offer them money-back guarantees and loyalty cards?—and who had doubled the number of runs that Israel and Ted were expected to complete in a week, and at the same time cut the stock back to the bare bones of celebrity autobiographies, bestsellers and self-help manuals. And now Linda it was to whom Israel was about to hand in his resignation. Sweet, sweet, sweet revenge. He was composing in his mind the words he was going to use.
'It is with great regret that I have to inform you that…'?
No, that wasn't right.
'I have to tell you now that I have discharged my last…'?
No.
'You are probably all aware of the reasons why I have chosen to renounce…'?
No.
'I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility…'?
'Hasta la vista, baby!'?
That was about the best he could come up with.
He was looking forward to it. A grand exit and then up, up and away from Tumdrum. Over to England. To London! The bright lights. The streets paved with gold. And never to return. This place was bad for him—psychically bad. It was doing him damage. He could feel it: he was calcifying inside; he could feel himself losing synaptic connections on a daily basis. He was de-evolving. He needed to beat a retreat, start over, and get his old life back.