The Bad Book Affair

by Ian Sansom

  “He’s always quoting the Bible.”

  “Never a good sign,” said the Reverend Roberts.

  “But if he had…” Israel found it hard to say the word “suicide.” “If he’d…done it himself, would he still get a proper burial?”

  “Well, that’s a hypothetical question.”

  “No,” said Israel. “It’s not.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s just…Well, he mentioned to me-”

  “Who mentioned to you?”

  “Pearce, just before he died. He mentioned Leonard Bast.”

  “Howards End?” said the Reverend Roberts.

  “Do you know it?”

  “I saw the film. Merchant Ivory. Excellent.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t see the connection, though, sorry.”

  “Leonard Bast. He…died when the bookshelves came down on him.”

  “I see.”

  “And when I saw him, Pearce was scared of…dying, and demented, and he mentioned Leonard Bast…so…”

  “So?”

  “I think he probably pulled the bookshelves down onto himself.”

  “I see.” The Reverend Roberts considered the facts. “That does seem highly unlikely, Israel, if you don’t mind me saying so. And even if he had, then-”

  “But what does the Bible say about suicide?”

  “The Bible doesn’t really say anything about suicide, Israel.”

  “But what do you think?” asked Israel.

  “About suicide?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” said the Reverend Roberts. “I know some Christians, who are good folk, find it hard to imagine that suicide could not be a sin. And that therefore…But personally…I can see that sometimes suicide might seem like the only option.”

  “Like for Samson,” said Israel.

  “And Delilah?” said the Reverend Roberts.

  “Him,” said Israel.

  “He didn’t commit suicide, I’m afraid, Israel.”

  “Didn’t he pull down the pillars on himself?”

  “To gain vengeance against the Philistines,” said the Reverend Roberts. “Samson was a kind of suicide bomber, if you like.”

  “What?”

  “You need to read your Old Testament, Israel. And not just your Old Testament, judging by your contribution to the Biblical Fish and Chip Night.”

  “Hmm,” said Israel.

  They sat again in silence. The sound of coffee.

  “You’re going to miss Pearce,” said the Reverend Roberts.

  “Yes,” agreed Israel. “He was one of the only people here I could talk to.”

  “You’re talking to me,” said the Reverend Roberts.

  “Yes, but that’s not the same,” said Israel.

  The Reverend Roberts laughed.

  “No offense,” said Israel.

  “No, none taken,” said the Reverend Roberts. “I know what you mean.”

  “Pearce was…I don’t know. He reminded me of my father.”

  “I see.”

  “My father died when I was thirteen.”

  The Reverend Roberts nodded.

  “I felt I really lost my…I don’t know. Ever since then I just feel…I’m getting nowhere.”

  “And where would you like to be getting?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere.”

  The coffee was bubbling. “Shall I be mother?” said the Reverend Roberts.

  “Do you get lonely here?” said Israel, as the Reverend Roberts fetched some small espresso cups.

  “Of course, Israel. Doesn’t everyone feel lonely sometimes?”

  “Yes. But I mean, really, really…”

  “If you’re asking do I ever feel despair, then yes, I do.” The Reverend started to pour the thick black coffee into the cups. “I don’t know, but I suppose, perhaps a little like you, I’m alone here in Ireland. And sometimes it can be a very lonely job. People look up to you. They expect you to have the answer. Here. Coffee.” He handed Israel a cup. “The sermons. Every week you have to write something that will mean something to them. Three thousand words a week.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “It is. And it’s rare you’re going to be inspired.”

  “God.”

  “Exactly. So sometimes one does feel a little…low. But again, I think it’s common. It’s not unique.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Milk?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Sugar.”

  “No. It’s OK.”

  “I do think,” continued the Reverend Roberts, “that the state of being for Christians, and maybe for Jews as well, is a state of being banished, or exiled, ‘flung,’ if you like. That’s certainly something we find in Scripture. So I always try to remember that when I have…low moods. I try not to be surprised.”

  “And when people die?”

  “People are dying all the time, Israel.”

  “And doesn’t it make you despair?”

  The Reverend Roberts drank down the remainder of his coffee and poured another cup. He sighed.

  “Last month I had to conduct the funeral of a soldier.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “He was from Carnlough. Second Para. He was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.”

  “Oh god, yes. I read about that in the paper.”

  “Yes.”

  “That must have been difficult,” said Israel.

  “Yes. It was. The family…Funerals certainly make you think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”

  “Does it strengthen your faith in God?”

  “Not at all,” said the Reverend Roberts, laughing bitterly. “A God who could let this world be as it is. A soldier. Someone whose job it is to…And who is then himself killed? Monstrous. And then…a couple of years ago-before your time here-I did a joint funeral for a mother and her two young children, killed in a crash on the M2.”

  “Oh god. That’s awful.”

  “She was driving home from visiting her own sick mother. Drunk driver crossed the central median.”

  “God.”

  “And last year, Johnny Fowler-you remember him?”

  “No.”

  “Kicked to death in a pub car park.”

  “Oh god.”

  “I probably shouldn’t be telling you about these, Israel.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “So, of course, that sort of thing makes you doubt. The mother and her children killed in the car crash? The other driver got a two-thousand-pound fine.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “It certainly makes you question the existence of a benevolent God.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Israel.

  “Yes,” said the Reverend Roberts, meditatively.

  “So what’s the…point of being a minister?”

  “Well…I think all we can really do is help one another as best we can to get through, isn’t it? So. I am sorry about Pearce, Israel. But I don’t have any answers, I’m afraid.”

  “No. I understand.”

  “More coffee?”

  “No. Thanks. I should be going.”

  “The hour is getting late,” said the Reverend Roberts wistfully. “You’re very welcome to stay.”

  “No, thanks. I need to get back.”

  He got up and the Reverend Roberts led him toward the front door.

  “You drive carefully on those roads,” said the Reverend Roberts.

  “I will,” said Israel.

  “And ring me anytime if you need to,” said the Reverend Roberts.

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  Israel walked outside into the cold again and got back in the van. His heart was beating fast. It felt like he was anticipating something. Something that he knew would never happen. He couldn’t bear the thought of returning to the chicken coop. So he drove back down the coast road. Down by the sign that said “Try Your Brakes.” Down toward Ballintoy Harbor, the narrow windy road going down. There was a br
ight moon hanging in the sky. And he parked up at the bottom and looked out toward the sea. And after a while he went and lay down in the back of the van. He used last week’s newspapers as a pillow. And used his duffle coat for a mattress and wrapped the dog blanket around him for warmth. He lay with his eyes open for a long time.

  12

  He was awoken by the sound of banging. And it wasn’t a headache.

  “Who’s there?” he said, turning over and opening one eye, his mind still fogged from bad dreams: dreams full of exits and entrances, about death and the dead. A dream in which he was a bird in a tree, not knowing which way to fly; a dream about a bed in which the sheets and blankets became bindings from which he could not escape. A dream in which his father came tapping at the window…

  “It’s the tooth fairy,” came the answer.

  “What?” For one weird confused moment, in a half-dreamlike state-during which he imagined himself briefly back at home as a child, tucked up safely in bed in suburban north London, his mother quietly slipping into his room, slipping fifty pence under his pillow and then quietly slipping out again-Israel considered the possibility that it was indeed the tooth fairy.

  “And Santa!” called another voice. That broke the spell. The tooth fairy worked alone.

  He lay there in a stupor. A kind of crushing hungover dullness descended upon him, weighing him down, a deep weariness-no, no, not weariness, ennui-overcoming him. He wondered whether he might need to spend a few more days in bed.

  He started getting groggily to his feet, wrapping the dog blanket round his shoulders-even shabbier and more rumpled than usual. It felt like he was bruised around his ribs.

  “Open up!” came the voice. “Now!”

  He was almost at the door when it was wrenched open. It wasn’t the tooth fairy. Or Santa.

  Israel found himself blinking into bright sunlight and the unsmiling face of his old friend Sergeant Friel looking in, mustache bristling, panting slightly from exertion and excitement. And out beyond Friel were the white limestone cliffs and the dark volcanic basalt rocks of the harbor. And out to sea, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, fulmars. Birds.

  “What the hell are you doing!” said Israel. “You’ve broken the bloody door!”

  “Yes,” said Sergeant Friel, a “yes” not of pleasant agreement but rather a “yes” confirming a threat. Israel instinctively pulled the dog blanket a little tighter around his shoulders.

  “But…look,” he said-to his shame-rather apologetically. The door hung limply from its hinges. “The lock! You’ve broken the-”

  “And a very good morning to you too, Mr. Armstrong,” said Friel as he pushed past Israel onto the mobile library.

  “But the door!” Israel repeated. “Ted’ll kill me!”

  “Not if we do first,” said Friel.

  “What?”

  “Only joking. Have you lost weight?”

  “What?”

  “And the auld beard act as well, I see. Converted to Islam, have we?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised. Mind if I come in?”

  “You already are in,” said Israel.

  “Yes. And how are we this morning then, Grizzly Adams?”

  Israel groaned.

  “Sleeping it off, are we?”

  “Sorry,” said Israel. “Sleeping what off?”

  “Big night was it, last night? Blocked, were we?”

  “Blocked?”

  “Drunk? Few too many?”

  “No. No.” Israel rubbed his hands over his face, trying to clear his head. His chin felt bristly: he had forgotten he had a beard. And he had forgotten what exactly he was doing here. His body felt like a chair with the stuffing knocked out of it. “No. No. I haven’t been drinking. I don’t know what you’re-”

  “She’s not here, is she?” said Friel, looking around the inside of the van.

  “Who?”

  “You didn’t have anyone staying with you overnight in your…love wagon here?”

  “My love wagon?”

  Following a recent unfortunate incident in which it had suffered an unauthorized and eccentric respray-it may have been the Delegates’ Choice, but it was felt by the Mobile Library Steering Committee that it was not suitable for Tumdrum and District-the van had quickly been returned by Ted to its state of quite stunning faded glory. The interior was a riot of gray primer and nonslip vinyl flooring, the front chairs were as plastic as ever, the light casings as gray and as fly filled. The exterior was back to its classic cream and red. The mobile library might be described as many things, but “love wagon” was not one of them.

  Sergeant Friel strode up and down the interior of the mobile library, peering at the shelves as though they might reveal trapdoors or secret hiding places.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” said Israel.

  “Just checking no one’s here.”

  “Why? Who are you looking for, Anne Frank?”

  “Have you been drinking, Mr. Armstrong?”

  “No. I haven’t been drinking.”

  “Drugs?”

  “No!”

  “Well, we can always check later.”

  “You won’t need to check later. I’m perfectly sober and fit and…”

  Actually, his body ached all over. This was when he could have done with his old layers of fat. It felt like he’d been wrestling all night long. He felt a little feverish. And he needed to use the toilet.

  “Sorry. I need to use the toilet. Is that OK?”

  “Is it en suite, then?”

  “No. No. I mean, can I just nip outside for a…”

  “Well.”

  “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “I know you wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything, Mr. Armstrong.”

  “Try anything?”

  “We wouldn’t want any kind of incident.”

  “No. No. Of course not. I just need to go and-”

  “You go ahead there,” said Friel, with a wave of his hand.

  Israel clambered down the steps. Imperious, was what it was, that wave of hand. He was trying to work out the word for it. Imperious was definitely it. As he clambered down the steps he saw the three other policemen standing outside and two police cars. They seemed to tense as he appeared. Israel instinctively raised his arms.

  “He’s fine,” called Friel behind him. “Call of nature.”

  One of the policemen waved what looked like a crowbar in friendly acknowledgment.

  Israel did his best to look calm and smiled and stood staring at Ballintoy Harbor. There were some mornings when you couldn’t deny the beauty of where he was living. Some mornings when the sea was a rippling gray steel, and the sky was blue and the sun was golden, the views out across the North Antrim coast took your breath away.

  This was not one of the mornings. The sky was gray; the sea was squally; there was, as far as Israel could discern, no sun.

  He’d suddenly lost the urge to go. He stood for a moment, not urinating into the ocean. And then he climbed back, defeated even by his own body, onto the mobile library.

  Friel was browsing the biography section.

  He waved a book at Israel. It was a book about a footballer.

  “Any good?”

  “It’s OK. If you like that sort of thing.”

  Israel hovered nervously by the issue desk.

  “Take a seat,” said Friel. “Make yourself at home.”

  Israel sat down on what Ted called the “kinder box,” a wooden box containing children’s books. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, To Catch a Falling Star, and a Jan Pienkowski were sticking up uncomfortably. He stood up, neatly placed them in the correct height order, and sat down again.

  “Sorry. I still don’t quite understand what you’re doing here,” he said.

  “Well, I haven’t seen you for a while, Mr. Armstrong, and I just thought we might catch up. Maybe borrow some books.”

  The last
time they’d met up, Israel had been falsely accused of robbery. And the time before that he’d been accused of kidnapping. And the time before that-

  “Right. Well. It’s always nice to see you, obviously, but the library’s not open until-”

  “I was joking, Mr. Armstrong,” said Friel.

  Someone should perhaps tell him his jokes weren’t funny.

  “Ah. Right,” said Israel. “That renowned Northern Ireland sense of humor. Hilarious.”

  “I’d think twice before taking a tone, Mr. Armstrong.”

  “I’m not ‘taking a tone.’”

  “Good.”

  “So this is just a social call, then, is it?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Right.”

  “We’re looking for a young girl.”

  “Ah.”

  Friel reached into his jacket pocket and produced a photograph and handed it to Israel. It was a schoolgirl. She was maybe twelve or thirteen. Blonde hair. Smiling. School uniform. Could have been any schoolgirl.

  “Do you recognize her?”

  “No. I don’t think so,” said Israel, and went to hand the photo back.

  “Could I just ask you to look again more carefully at the photo, sir.”

  “Yes. Of course.” Israel scanned the photo with more care. She had a few freckles. Smile slightly lopsided. Hint of eye-shadow, perhaps. He took a few moments to consider.

  “Take your time now,” said Friel.

  Israel half huffed and looked again.

  “No,” he said finally and definitively. “That’s definitely not someone I know.”

  “Definitely not?” said Friel.

  “Well, maybe not definitely, but I certainly don’t recognize her.”

  “What about if I told you she was in the library last week?”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we get a lot of people on the library during the week, what with being open to the public and everything. So it’s difficult to remember everyone who’s-”

  “I’m sure. Perhaps this photo might help.”

  Friel then produced a piece of paper printed from an Internet site: the image showed what appeared to be a girl in her late teens, wearing black, in makeup. She was grinning at the camera, making a face.

  “God. This is the same girl?”

  “It is.”

  “She looks different.”