The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery

by Ian Sansom

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “If you don’t ask you don’t get,” said Seamus.

  “That’s true,” said Israel. Israel didn’t ask. He didn’t get.

  “Look, that’s fine. Let’s forget about using the van. Maybe I could just leave you some of these.” He produced from a battered old leather satchel a thick bundle of election leaflets.

  “Sure,” said Israel. “Just leave them there.”

  Seamus carefully fanned out the leaflets on the issue desk.

  “There,” he said proudly.

  “Recycled paper?” said Israel pointlessly.

  “Of course,” said Seamus. “Look, thanks a million for your help.”

  “My pleasure,” said Israel.

  “Look,” said Seamus—he liked to say “look,” a lot. “Look, I’m afraid I need to get on here. The campaign’s hotting up in the final few days.”

  “Of course,” said Israel. “Yes.”

  “We’ve got to keep out Maurice Morris.”

  “Quite,” said Israel.

  “I think the tide’s turning toward the Greens,” said Seamus.

  “Good. Good,” said Israel. He thought he might vote Green, actually.

  “Well, lovely to meet you, and thanks again,” said Seamus.

  As Seamus left, Ted reentered, smelling of cigarettes. He honed in immediately on the leaflets.

  “What are these?” he said disdainfully.

  “What?” said Israel, who was still trying to decide whether or not to vote Green.

  “These.”

  “They’re leaflets.”

  “I can see they’re leaflets.”

  “The man just left them in.” They featured a picture of Seamus, with his goatee and cropped hair, in what looked like an orchard, eating an apple. “They’re for the Green Party. For the election. I’m thinking I might vote Green, actually.”

  “Ach,” said Ted.

  “No, I might,” said Israel.

  “Aye, you would,” said Ted. “But we’re going to have to get rid of these.” And he scooped up the leaflets from the counter.

  “We’re allowed to carry public information leaflets,” said Israel.

  “Public information,” said Ted. “Aye. But this isn’t public information, is it? This is propaganda.”

  “It’s not propaganda,” said Israel.

  “It is, so it is.”

  “What about all the billboards Maurice Morris has up ev erywhere?” said Israel. There was one, in fact, looming above the van even now, high up on a telephone pole, with Maurice’s face grinning out into the cold wind.

  “Aye, well, he’s entitled, isn’t he? He’s paid for that. The Greens want to get organized themselves, get some billboards up, nothing to stop them.”

  “They probably can’t afford it.”

  “Well, whose fault is that?” said Ted.

  “Anyway,” said Israel, grabbing the leaflets back out of Ted’s hands. “I told him I was going to display his leaflets.”

  “We’re not supposed to,” said Ted.

  “Well, I told him, and I will.”

  “Ach,” said Ted.

  “It’s censorship if we don’t,” said Israel.

  “Censorship!” said Ted. “I don’t know anything about censorship. But I do know that Linda wouldn’t like it.”

  “Well, Linda doesn’t need to know, does she?” said Israel, fanning the leaflets back out on the counter. “How would she find out?”

  6

  “He did what?” said Linda Wei, who was not only Israel’s boss, but also Tumdrum’s only and most prominent lesbian Chinese single mother, and who was currently sipping a large glass of restorative Friday night chardonnay at the bar of the back room of the First and Last. Linda was wearing her habitual heavy makeup and her trademark sunglasses, perched film-starishly high up on her forehead, and she’d pushed the sartorial boat out even further than usual this evening, with a red beret, a voluminous bright purple silk blouse, and a pair of green-and-brown camouflage combat trousers, teamed with blazing pink customized plastic clogs: she looked like she was ready for anything, from the catwalk to the playgroup, to her own show on a shopping channel, to tackling insurgents in the jungles of Belize.

  “Hmm,” said Ron, chairman of the Mobile Library Steering Committee, who was wearing his gray suit and nursing a glass of tap water. “Leaflets.”

  “Is he a total idiot?” said Linda.

  “And what with lending out the Unshelved—” said Ron.

  “But Maurice Morris’s daughter!” exclaimed Linda. “Is he out of his tiny mind! The Unshelved! To Maurice’s daughter!”

  “Aye,” said Ron, who was a man of few and usually rather depressing words. “Alas.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Fourteen!” said Linda. “God love her. What do they know at fourteen? My eldest’s sixteen, for goodness’ sake, and he’s a wee babby still. Fourteen!”

  “Just turned fourteen,” said Ron. “Closer to thirteen, actually.”

  “Oh! What’s she been borrowing?”

  “I don’t know. I would think the usual suspects,” said Ron meditatively.

  “Lolita,” said Linda, with disgust. “I bet. Slaughterhouse-Five.”

  “Wuthering Heights,” said Ron. “Very strange.”

  “Wuthering Heights! That’s not Unshelved,” said Linda.

  “We read it at school,” said Ron. “I found it very strange.”

  “American Psycho,” said Linda. “That’s what we’re talking about here, Ron. Filth.”

  “Sex and the City,” said Ron.

  “That’s a TV program,” said Linda.

  “But I suppose girls mature more quickly…”

  “Have you ever read American Psycho?” said Linda.

  “I’m more of a Patrick O’Brian man myself,” said Ron.

  “You could live till a hundred and twenty and still not be old enough to read that sort of filth!” said Linda. And then, “Filth!” she repeated, for good measure.

  “Patrick O’Brian?” said Ron. “Aubrey and Maturin? There’s nothing wrong with them, so there’s not.”

  “No! American Psycho,” said Linda. “That sort of stuff. Denigrating to women.”

  “Bad books,” said Ron.

  “Exactly!” said Linda, adjusting the angle of her beret. “Bad books. Have you any idea how damaging this is to our reputation as a responsible library service? When I get a hold of that idiot I am going to…”

  Israel, who had no idea that Linda was on the bad books warpath, waved to her from his table on the other side of the room, and was about to call out in greeting when the Reverend England Roberts announced, “Let’s get busy with the quizzy!” and the one hundred plus people crammed into the back room of the First and Last suddenly quietened, put down their—mostly nonalcoholic—drinks and took up their pencils.

  Because if it was the last Friday night of the month—and it was—then it was Fish and Chip Biblical Quiz Night in Tumdrum. The idea for Fish and Chip Biblical Quiz Nights had come originally from a friend of the Reverend Roberts, a man named Francie McGinn, a millionaire minister who ran his own rapidly growing house church movement and Chris tian franchise business a little way down the coast from Tumdrum. Francie McGinn’s inspiration was an American pastor called Rick Warren, founder of the phenomenally successful Saddleback Church in southern Orange County, California, and author of the New York Times number-one bestselling The Purpose-Driven Life, The Purpose-Driven Church, The Purpose-Driven Life Journal, and The Purpose-Driven Life Scripture Keeper Plus. Pastor Warren’s was a kick-ass-go-getting-positive-mental-attitude-plus-sacrificial-prayerfulness kind of a philosophy, which Francie McGinn, after facing a number of personal and financial difficulties and setbacks, had taken seriously and taken on board and had applied diligently to his own life and work, managing to build up both his congregation and a range of businesses, which now included the very popular chain of Family View
ing DVD rental shops, the nationwide Christian Eventides Homes, and the Jacob’s Well Christian day spas and nail and beauty bars. Francie had also acquired the UK and Irish distribution rights for a range of Christian snack bars and health drinks, which meant that throughout the length and breadth of the land, from the supermarkets of County Down to the corner-shops of County Cork, you could now purchase the Seeds of Samson (“A Holy Good Mixture of Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, Cashews, and Peanuts”), and a range of—mostly honey-based—Sweet Shalom Smoothies, the Lion Bar of Judah, Land of Beulah Yogurt-Coated Raisins, and Jacob’s Ladder energy drinks (“We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder, with Added Ginseng”), all of which came with inspirational scripture verses prominently displayed on their packaging.

  Fish and Chip Biblical Quiz Nights were one of Francie McGinn’s rather more niche ideas. Churches subscribed online to a complete Biblical Quiz Night package and were then able to use the material either as an evangelism tool, or as an alternative to traditional Bible study groups, or as a means of congregation team-building, like white-water rafting or paintballing. The Reverend England Roberts, Tumdrum’s incongruously black South African Presbyterian minister, preferred to use the quiz nights as a simple excuse for a good night out, and he stood proudly now, microphone in one hand, Diet Coke in the other, at the back bar of the First and Last, wearing his Lord of the Rings–style “One King to Rule Them All, One Son to Find Them, One Love to Bring Them All, One Spirit to Bind Them” T-shirt.

  “Pencils at the ready!” he boomed.

  Israel had been dragged along by his landlady, George Devine, and her grandfather, old Mr. Devine. Mr. Devine had come in his usual garb of flat cap, ancient stained suit, and sturdy shoes, but George had dressed up: she was out of her usual dungarees and wearing a green velvety dress with a little cardigan and these pointy little shoes, and her raven hair was swept back from her face, and she was wearing earrings, and it looked as though she was maybe wearing makeup. She looked like a 1940s film star: Israel was thinking maybe Dorothy Lamour, in Road to Zanzibar, with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, one of the DVDs he’d been watching when he’d been lying in bed, thinking…

  About Gloria. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d texted her earlier. No reply. Gloria was more Lana Turner than Dorothy Lamour. And Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice. She had so many clothes and shoes, Gloria, he wondered sometimes if she was maybe a shopaholic. When they’d first been together and they were students, she’d been fine, but then she’d got the big legal job with the firm and she’d had to upgrade. And as she’d been promoted she’d upgraded again and again, until the only thing she hadn’t upgraded was Israel. And so eventually she’d upgraded him. In the good old days they’d go shopping together to secondhand shops and Camden Market, but then she’d moved on to Next and Monsoon and then it was Ghost, and finally little places that she knew in Kensington and Chelsea that friends had recommended, with Israel sloping along after her while she bought clothes and shoes, although somehow she would never have the right shoes to go with the clothes or the right clothes to go with the shoes, and if Israel liked it, it was wrong, and if he didn’t, it was wrong, so he felt like he couldn’t win, and of course in the end, he hadn’t. He’d lost.

  “Question one,” said the reverend. “How many books are there in the Bible? And for our Jewish brothers and sisters in tonight,” he added—

  “Hooray!” said Israel, pathetically, alone. He felt one hundred pairs of Christian eyes bore into him.

  “—I am referring to the Christian Bible. That’s question one, brothers and sisters: how many books are there in the Bible?”

  “God, I have no idea,” said Israel, turning to his companions.

  “Do not use the Lord’s name in vain,” said old Mr. Devine.

  “Shit, sorry!” said Israel.

  “Sssh,” said George, nudging him, but not unpleasantly, thought Israel, not in the way she might usually nudge him. She’d been very kind to him since he’d been holed up in bed for two weeks. Maybe it was the beard.

  “Sixty-six,” whispered old Mr. Devine.

  “Really?” said Israel. “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as there’s an eye in a goat,” said Mr. Devine, narrowing his already narrow eyes under his cap.

  “Right. And of course there is an eye in a goat,” said Israel.

  “Aye,” said Mr. Devine.

  “Unless it’s a blind goat!” said Israel, who had already finished his second pint of Guinness and started, unwisely, on his third. “Boom boom!”

  “Sixty-six,” repeated Mr. Devine.

  “Isn’t that like the number of the beast?” said Israel.

  “That’s six-six-six,” said George, who was drinking sparkling mineral water.

  “Oh. Right. I don’t know if I’m going to get many of these.”

  “No,” agreed old Mr. Devine, who wasn’t drinking anything at all. He’d had a lemonade on his arrival and was saving himself for the fish and chips. The Fish and Chip Biblical Quiz Nights cost five pounds: fish and chip supper, plus one free drink, all profits going to a literal and proverbial orphanage in Romania.

  “I’ll tell you what, shall I write?” said Israel, reaching out for George’s pencil.

  “I’ll write,” said George, patting away his hand. “Thank you.”

  It was the first time anyone had touched Israel in a long time—except for Ted, which didn’t count, because Ted was usually walloping him round the back of the head. Israel suddenly remembered being on the Underground with Gloria one night, traveling back home in an empty carriage, and his pulling Gloria onto his lap, and—

  “Question two,” said the Reverend Roberts. “What is the longest book in the Bible?”

  “I know what the longest book outside of the Bible is,” said Israel.

  “Tssh,” said old Mr. Devine.

  “À la recherche du temps perdu,” said Israel, in his best French.

  “You mean À la recherche du temps perdu,” said George, in her better French.

  “Thank you,” said Israel.

  “Pleasure,” said George. “But what about War and Peace?”

  “No,” said Israel. “That’s nowhere near.”

  “I always preferred Dostoyevsky,” said George, pushing hair back behind her ear.

  “Me too!” said Israel, overenthusiastically, although it was a long time since he’d read either Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. Working on the mobile library, he’d found himself drifting inexorably toward chick lit and misery memoirs. He found he quite liked chick lit—it was like reading Anne Tyler, without trying—and he’d even started wondering about writing his own misery memoir, title: The Books in My Life. Subtitle: And How They Have Disappointed Me. A book about the mocking of his expectations of what life should be, based on his reading of great literature. Every student of literature would buy a copy of that, surely? A book about slight emotional deprivation and bourgeois career disappointment? Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Knut Hamsun, Robert Musil, Philip Roth, Fernando Pessoa: eat your bitter little hearts out.

  “The Psalms,” said Mr. Devine.

  “What?” said Israel.

  “The Psalms: longest book in the Bible.”

  Israel remembered the way he and Gloria would sit around when they were first together, discussing books, reading to each other, thrilling over food, drinking wine, lolling around in bed, making love, drinking more wine, and then reading together, exchanging meaningful kisses while reading out bits of Milan bloody Kundera! Oh god.

  “Question three,” said the Reverend Roberts. “What council—I repeat, what council—adopted Sunday as the Sabbath day?”

  “Tumdrum District Council?” said Israel.

  “Sssh!” said George, throwing her head back slightly and laughing.

  “But you have to put your bins out on the Monday,” said Israel.

  “The Council of Laodicea?” said Mr. Devine.

  “Are you sure, Granda?”

  “Let’s try it,�
� said Mr. Devine.

  “Let’s live dangerously,” said Israel.

  “Yes,” said George. “Let’s.”

  Gloria had been a thrill seeker: she was that kind of a person. She had to push herself to the limit and beyond. She’d done sponsored parachute jumps and marathons. Husky sledding. Team-building weekend city breaks in Europe, arriving back on Monday mornings and going straight into work. And there were other things also…Israel stirred again uncomfortably on his seat.

  “Question four,” said the Reverend Roberts. “What is the shortest chapter in the Bible?”

  “I don’t know,” said Israel. He turned to George. She was definitely wearing makeup. “The shortest chapter in the Bible? What do you think?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” said George with a slight pout. Israel thought, Was that a pout? She was definitely doing something with her lips. Like Dorothy Lamour.

  “It’s a psalm,” said old Mr. Devine.

  “Are you sure?” said Israel.

  “Ach, ye’re an aggryvatin’ boy,” muttered Mr. Devine. “Of course I’m sure!”

  “Yes,” said Israel, placatingly. “I’m sure you’re right. A psalm,” said Israel. “I was just going to say that myself.”

  “Aye,” said Mr. Devine. “Which psalm?”

  “There are a lot of psalms,” said Israel.

  “Psalm 117,” said old Mr. Devine.

  “That’s so funny! That’s just what I was going to say!” said Israel.

  George looked at him and smiled.

  She definitely smiled. At something he said. He couldn’t recall another occasion when she’d smiled at something he said. Maybe it was the beard.

  “Question six,” said the Reverend Roberts. “What is the longest—I repeat, the longest—chapter in the Bible?”

  “It’s a psalm” said old Mr. Devine.

  “We’ve moved on, actually,” said Israel.

  “It’s a psalm,” said old Mr. Devine.

  “No,” said Israel. “We’re on the longest chapter in the Bible. Long-est.”

  “It’s a psalm,” said old Mr. Devine.

  “Everything is a psalm!” said Israel. “Psalm, psalm, psalm. It can’t possibly be a psalm.”