by Emma Davies
‘I get these all the time,’ she said, handing the print-out to Lia, hoping she wouldn’t notice her little white lie. ‘It’s a list of classes offered by one of the local dance schools, and the new season starts next week… You could have a look and see what takes your fancy.’
‘Oh, but I don’t think I could—’
‘I don’t think you’d even have to pay,’ added Lucy, feeling sure that Lia must be in receipt of certain benefits as a carer. Before Lia could argue, Lucy took the pamphlet back, folded it in half and tucked it inside the copy of Dancing Shoes that her new friend was carrying. ‘I’m sure you could work something out.’
‘Thank you,’ Lia said. ‘It’s a nice thought. But I don’t have anyone to go with.’
Lucy watched as the automatic doors closed behind her, her own mind ticking like an unexploded bomb. Well let’s see about that, shall we, she thought to herself. Then she went back through to the office, called up the county’s book catalogue and ordered Lia every single one of Noel Streatfeild’s books that she could get her hands on.
*
Callum had hardly been able to believe it when the same girl he had seen the other day came and sat next to him. It was her perfume that he had noticed first – something old-fashioned, like roses, or violets possibly; Callum wasn’t sure. Either way, the pen and notebook were the same. He managed a few surreptitious glances while she was working and couldn’t help but notice what she was looking at: pages and pages to do with stuff about weddings. He sighed inwardly. He’d suspected it when he’d seen her ring, but the fact she was deep into planning confirmed that there was another bloke out there far luckier than him.
There was a rapid beeping noise from the computer in front of him as the screen suddenly flickered and died. He looked up as all the other monitors in the line went blank too, accompanied by a series of exasperated groans from around the room. Callum smiled to himself; the library’s server went down with an annoying frequency, but, as he got up to let Lucy know, this time it might just work in his favour.
He’d had another argument with his brothers last night. He should have walked away, but he was sick and tired of their goading. Loser, loner, they called him, as they pimped and preened themselves, ready for a night out on the pull. Two of them already had girlfriends and frankly they were welcome to their lot. Callum would rather be on his own than listen to the inane drivel they spouted, with their heaving chests spilling out from too-tight tops, lurid lipstick sticking to their teeth. That’s what had attracted him to the girl sitting beside him. She looked like the girl next door – not literally, but she was fresh-faced, with clean-looking bouncy hair, nice clothes and a genuine smile. If she was single she’d be exactly the kind of girl he’d go for, but she wasn’t; she was getting married, which meant that Callum would never dream of coming on to her, even if he did know how.
Suddenly, an idea struck: if he could think of her as just another person, with no need for silly games or flirting, perhaps he would be able to talk to her without getting flustered and tongue-tied. And if he could talk to her, perhaps he could learn how to talk to other people.
Lucy was on her own at the counter, deep in conversation with an elderly lady. That was one of the things he liked about Lucy; she always had time to listen to other people. It made her easy to talk to, and Callum was getting quite confident now, particularly since he had joined the book club. It wasn’t the same for him, though; Lucy was paid to be nice to people. Admittedly, she did it much better than a lot of folk did, but it was just her job; she probably wouldn’t choose to talk to him if she didn’t have to.
He hovered for a moment, wondering if he could interrupt, when Lucy looked across at him and beamed a smile. She excused herself to the old lady.
‘Are you okay, Callum?’
The effusiveness of her smile threw him for a moment, until he remembered what he needed to say.
‘Yes, fine, thanks. But the network’s gone down again, sorry.’
‘Why are you apologising?’ she said. ‘One of these days we’ll get our crummy hardware updated and then you can all work in peace. Meanwhile…’ She turned back to her customer. ‘Can you just give me a minute, while I reconnect this young man?’ she said.
Callum blushed. ‘Or I could do it, if you like… I know how.’
Lucy turned to look at the main computer behind her, clearly torn, then the telephone began to ring. With a smile and a shrug she waved him forward.
*
The girl was still there when he got back, staring at her blank screen anxiously.
‘It won’t be a minute,’ he said, sitting down again. She nodded, but that was all. Callum struggled to find something else to say. He mustn’t let the moment go.
‘Will it all just come back up?’ she said suddenly, frowning slightly. ‘Only I’m useless with computers.’
Callum leaned over. ‘What were you working on?’ he asked.
‘I wasn’t working on anything,’ she said. ‘I was just looking at some websites.’
He smiled. ‘Sorry, that’s what I meant. When I asked what you were working on, I meant what program were you using? I didn’t explain myself very well. It makes a difference to what gets recovered when the computer restarts.’
She still looked puzzled.
‘What just comes back up,’ he clarified.
‘Oh, I see.’ She smiled. ‘And does the internet?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not… but I can help you get it back if you like?’
At first he thought she was going to refuse, but then she looked back down at her notebook. ‘Would you?’ she said. ‘Only I’ve got to get this lot sorted out if it kills me. I’m Phoebe, by the way.’
‘Callum,’ he replied, swallowing. ‘Right, let’s see where you were.’ He moved the mouse and with a couple of clicks reopened an internet tab. He gave a shy smile. So far, so good.
Chapter Six
Lucy looked down at her notebook and the paltry few pages of notes she had written. She was procrastinating again and she knew it. The fact that she had other things on her mind was no excuse. She had been picking up and putting down the book all evening and was beginning to annoy herself; having a brilliant idea about what to write, then returning to scrub it all out moments later. She was going around in circles. Either do it or don’t do it, she thought to herself, but stop dithering about. For heaven’s sake, how difficult could it be? She tutted audibly and swung her legs up onto the sofa, wriggling herself further down into the cushions and flipping to the back of her notebook as she did. It was time to stop kidding herself that this had any importance and get on with something that would make a difference. She pulled off the lid of her pen with her teeth.
She knew how to go about helping Lia – at least she thought she did. Trouble was she was also aware of the old adage: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Just sticking a brochure for dance classes into her hand wasn’t enough, however much Lia might want to go; it wasn’t quite as simple as that for her. Lucy thought about Lia’s situation for a moment. Lia had mentioned that she had no one to go to the classes with, and it had never occurred to Lucy before quite how isolating Lia’s life must be. She thought of her own friends; how they would organise things on the spur of the moment, or drop in and out of each other’s houses for a chat. What would happen to them if she were suddenly to start turning down every offer they made? she wondered. If she constantly made excuses, cancelled arrangements and had to cut short telephone conversations, how long would it be before those calls stopped coming? That was all assuming, of course, that Lia had even been able to make many friends. Where would she have met people if she never went out?
Hattie was something of a kindred spirit, she thought. She and Lia were both about the same age, both avid readers, and Hattie was new to the area, and a single mum. She hadn’t yet made the network of friends who would help support her in looking after her daughter, so in a sense both her and Lia’s opportu
nities to escape the house were equally limited. They had seemed to get on well at the library the other day, so perhaps Hattie might be part of the solution. Lucy made a note in her book, wondering if Hattie liked dancing too.
Then there was the question of care for Lia’s mother. She was going to have to pull something very inventive out of the bag to jump this hurdle. She sucked the end of her pen, wracking her brain for any helpful nugget of information that she had squirrelled away. A few more notes were added before Lucy flipped to a clean page and added a name to the top.
Oscar. Lucy had only ever experienced real grief once before; a few years ago, when her grandfather had died. She had been tearful and missed him terribly, but that paled in comparison to the all-consuming sadness that had overwhelmed her grandma; she carried the weight of his loss around with her every day. Grief was love; that much Lucy recognised. A deep and abiding love that had suddenly found itself homeless, the object of its affection gone, leaving it behind, lingering like a lost spirit. It was a love that would change time if it could, but sentenced now only to travel back and forth through the memories that sustained it. Lucy’s grandma had told her that grief carried with it longing and remorse, burning anger at times and a blanketing cloak of despair at others, but the worst thing was that it was never at peace, never still.
Thinking about her words now brought tears to Lucy’s eyes, but beyond giving Oscar time to talk, Lucy wasn’t sure how she could ever help him. They said that time was a great healer, but Oscar’s grief seemed as raw still as it must have been when it was first created. How could she possibly begin to help him when the only suggested cure had already proved itself to be useless? Her pen scribbled across the page; time to listen was all she had.
Chapter Seven
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ said Phoebe, ‘but I thought I’d better come clean and tell you what I’d done. It didn’t seem fair otherwise, since you were so helpful the other day.’
Callum swallowed. ‘Was I?’ he said, feeling another small glow inside, but one which was rapidly replaced with anxiety as he realised what else she’d said. ‘So, what do you mean by “come clean”, exactly?’
‘I mentioned to Gary, my fiancé, that I’d been in here to use the computers and how helpful you’d been. He knows I’m a bit of a dummy when it comes to IT, but there’s so much to organise with the wedding, and he’s not very helpful.’
‘With computers, do you mean?’
‘No, with making decisions. He just agrees with everything I say about the wedding, when once in a while it’d be nice if he had an opinion of his own, take some interest. I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall sometimes. It’s his wedding too.’
Callum nodded.
‘So, I just told him how helpful you’d been, and that we’d started planning some stuff and set up an email account, that sort of thing. Well, it kind of got his attention, so I laid it on a bit.’
‘He’s not likely to come after me with a big stick, is he?’ asked Callum, only half joking, his Adam’s apple moving up and down several times as he swallowed.
Phoebe laughed. ‘No, don’t worry. Nothing like that. He’s a policeman.’
Callum could feel the colour draining from his face.
‘Honestly, you’ve nothing to worry about. I only wanted to tell you ’cause I felt a bit bad, exaggerating things like that… Well, not exaggerating, you were incredibly helpful and patient…’
It would be easy to take offence, he thought, but looking at Phoebe’s sunny face, she was completely without guile. She wouldn’t have told him otherwise. Yes, he’d been used as a not-so-subtle prod to ensure her fiancé’s interest in their wedding, but it could be worse. It had taught him quite a valuable lesson, and he filed it away neatly in the ‘things he needed to know about women’ compartment in his brain.
Besides which, was he not guilty of doing the very same thing? Of using Phoebe for his own gain. He had enjoyed teaching her yesterday. She was a quick learner, just inexperienced and a little unsure of herself, but she had listened to him, properly – not just paying lip service, but trusting what he said to be true. She followed his instructions and showed a childlike delight when she achieved something. More than that, she had been grateful, and Callum couldn’t remember a time when anybody had been grateful for something he had done. He had gone home feeling lighter and several inches taller.
It hadn’t lasted, of course. His eldest brother dumped on him minutes after he’d got through the door, but it hadn’t mattered; for the entire twenty-minute walk home beforehand, Callum had genuinely felt good about himself.
‘So, what is it today then?’ he asked Phoebe. ‘Shall we have a go at a simple spreadsheet, or do you want to do a bit more of what we covered yesterday?’
She opened her notebook. ‘I need to reply to some of the emails I got yesterday,’ she said, ‘and then I think I can go ahead and book our wedding venue. It’s after that I might need a bit of help.’
Callum looked at her radiant face, barely able to contain her excitement. ‘That must be a nice feeling,’ he said.
‘Oh, it is!’ she exclaimed, giving a huge sigh. ‘There were times this year when I felt like it was never going to happen. And it’s not because Gary doesn’t want to get married. I just think it’s all a bit… overwhelming. Big decisions, huge responsibilities, and a massive pile of money. He doesn’t cope particularly well with all that.’
Callum nodded, although he didn’t really understand. He’d give anything to be in that position. He’d already learned a lot himself yesterday, just looking at all the stuff Phoebe was doing. When his time for love and marriage came, he was going to enjoy every minute of it.
‘Okay, whenever you’re ready, just shout.’
Phoebe turned back to the screen and began to enter her login details. ‘Are you sure I’m not keeping you from anything?’ she asked. ‘You must have things of your own to be getting on with?’
Callum thought of the endless pages of jobs adverts which he had spent the last few weeks scrolling through. He was overqualified for most of them, and those that had caught his eye would go to someone twice his age. No-one was going to pay him that kind of salary.
‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘I’ll just be on YouTube.’
*
From the doorway, Lucy smiled to herself. She had watched the pair of them together on and off yesterday, as she went about her work; she couldn’t help herself. Strictly speaking they shouldn’t have stayed on the computers for the length of time they did, but Lucy had used her manager status to override the settings to give them unlimited time. Callum had been a regular visitor to the library for some while now, choosing books, but more often than not to use the computers, and since he had joined the book club she had found herself drawn to his kind nature and soft voice.
She listened to him now as he gently instructed Phoebe, and mentally urged him on. He was a good teacher; he never got irritated, impatient, or worse, condescending, and when he took over the mouse or keyboard momentarily, it was always with permission. Both of them had left with smiles on their faces yesterday and it made Lucy smile too. Callum was obviously very shy but it looked as though he was beginning to come out of his shell. She had no idea why he came to the library most days, but it was obvious he had no job. He was a whizz with computers, and now watching him help Phoebe once again she began to get the first inklings of an idea. Nowhere near fully formed as yet, but certainly something to think about. She ducked back out of the computer room, added Callum to the list in her notebook and went to put the kettle on.
Half-term was always a busy time in the library. It was a few weeks away yet, but if Lucy had her way there would be a full programme of activities, for the children especially. Falling as close as it did to Bonfire Night, it lent itself to all manner of brilliant themes and this year a certain Mr Potter was definitely on the list. She just needed to find out the best way to make broomsticks.
She carried the tray of teas out to the co
unter, depositing two of the cups there for her colleagues and carrying the other two together with a sheaf of papers and some scissors over to the table by the children’s section. She had spied Oscar about fifteen minutes ago, and now he was comfortably ensconced with yesterday’s evening paper in his usual chair.
He looked up as she approached. ‘I do hope you’re going to come and keep me company,’ he said.
Lucy smiled at his tie of choice for the day; a bright canary yellow.
‘Well, I was going to ask if you wouldn’t mind me sitting here,’ she replied, ‘so to be invited is even better. I don’t want to disturb you, though; I’ve brought some work to do – oh, and tea as a bribe for invading your space.’
‘My space?’ replied Oscar, with a twinkle. ‘As manager of the library, surely this is your space, and I, therefore, merely taking it on loan.’
She put a mug down in front of him. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘here’s to our mutual occupancy. Two sugars, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘Alas, despite my advancing years, I am yet to find myself sweet enough.’
A sudden tug pulled firmly on Lucy’s heartstrings. She didn’t know him all that well, but if superficial impressions were anything to go by, Oscar was one of the sweetest people Lucy had ever met. He was always cheerful, with a smile and welcome for everyone in the library. She hoped that wherever he spent the rest of his time he had people around him who showed him they cared, even if it was just the random nod from a stranger in the street. She took a gulp of her tea and shuffled her papers.
The local primary school had a good relationship with the library and Lucy worked hard to support them. She regularly visited the school and helped with literacy projects, but this half-term would be the library’s first time hosting an event for parents on behalf of the school. The head teacher had thought that holding a session for parents on the new phonics tests away from the school environment might be beneficial and Lucy had to agree. Things were always so much more relaxed during the school holidays, and even if the turnout was a little down with people being away, she hoped that those who did come would find it useful. Today’s mission was to create some fun information boards that she could use to publicise the event.