The Delegates' Choice aka The Book Stops Here

by Ian Sansom

  'Business?' said Mr Krimholz.

  'Business,' said Israel. He shook the phone slightly, pretending that it was vibrating. 'I've got it on, er…vibrate.' He shook it slightly again and then pretended to answer it. 'Ah! Yes.' He put his hand over the phone and whispered to the Krimholzes, 'Sorry, have to take this one.'

  'Okay,' mouthed Mr Krimholz. 'Business is business.'

  Israel backed out of the house, pretending to talk into the phone. 'Really?' he was saying. 'That's a lot. You know, we could maybe try to meet them halfway on that one, and…'

  'Strange boy,' said Mrs Krimholz, shutting the door.

  'Yes,' said Mr Krimholz. 'I don't think his phone was vibrating. I think he was sort of shaking it…'

  And they went back inside to their Louis XIV-style furniture.

  By the time Israel, disconsolate, had got back home, his mother had swung into action and set up the kitchen as a centre of operations. There were telephone address books piled on the table. There was paper everywhere. She was finishing a call.

  Ted had an apron on and was standing by the counter.

  'Bagel?' said Ted.

  'What?' said Israel, already disorientated by his encounter with the Krimholzes, and now shocked to be offered a bagel by Ted; Ted might as well have been offering to help him tie on tefillin or suggesting they share a crack pipe.

  'You want a bagel?' said Ted. 'They're delicious. Why did you never tell me about bagels before?'

  'I…'

  'I've never had them before. Muhammad loves them.' Muhammad barked in agreement. 'They're from…what's that place called?'

  'Jacob's?' said Israel.

  'That's it,' said Ted. 'Great bagel bakery.'

  'Yeah.'

  'We've got poppy-seed, onion, plain?'

  Israel's mother was finishing her conversation on the phone.

  'Yeah,' she was saying. 'Sure. Bye. Bye. Ciao.' She turned to Israel. 'So?'

  'Can I just say, Mother, that I am never, never going round there again, under any circumstances, for anybody, for anything.'

  'Fine, fine,' said his mother. 'But the van?'

  'They are the most appalling people I have ever-'

  'They're not that bad,' said Israel's mother.

  'Well, if you think they're not that bad, then why didn't you go round there?'

  'Let's not get into that again, please, Israel. Did you think she'd had work done, Mrs Krimholz?'

  'What?'

  'Did you think she'd had work done? You know, around the eyes, or…'

  'She did look a little strange.'

  'That's not just Botox,' said Israel's mother, touching her face, 'let me tell you. Anyway, the van?'

  'Mr Krimholz saw it last night. But it wasn't there this morning.'

  'What time did he see it last night?'

  'He thought about half past ten.'

  'Okay, good,' said his mother, who wrote something down in her notebook. 'And did he see anything suspicious?'

  'No.'

  'Okay. Fine. Good. We're getting there.'

  'We're getting where exactly?' said Israel, helping himself to a poppy-seed bagel.

  'You've got to try the onion,' said Ted.

  'I'm fine with poppy-seed, thanks,' said Israel.

  'Well, I've made a lot of calls,' said Israel's mother. 'But so far no one seems to have seen anything.'

  'So, who are you calling?' said Israel, taking a bite of bagel.

  'Sit down if you're eating, Israel. It's bad for you digestion if you're not sitting down.'

  Israel sat down with his bagel.

  'Do you want it toasted?' said Ted. 'They're good toasted.'

  'No, I'm fine as it is, thanks,' said Israel. 'So who exactly are you phoning, Mum?'

  'People.'

  'Which people?'

  'Friends.'

  'Right. Who? People in your line-dancing class?'

  'No. Not just them!' said Israel's mother. 'People in my book group as well.'

  'Well, that's…' said Israel. 'Any coffee?'

  'Sure,' said Ted.

  'It's a start,' said Israel's mother.

  'Yeah, but I hardly think we're going to get very far in tracking down the van with a bunch of middle-aged women from Finchley who happen to have read Reading Lolita in Tehran, are we? We need to get a proper plan together.'

  'All right, Mr Know It All. So what's your plan?' said Israel's mother.

  'Well, I haven't got a plan,' said Israel. 'I'm just saying. And anyway,' he added, getting up, 'I need to go and see Gloria. I'm sorry, I'll catch up with you later, okay?'

  'Typical,' said Ted.

  'She'll be at work now, won't she?' said Israel's mother.

  Israel checked his watch.

  'Well…'

  'Good,' said Israel's mother, 'so you can help us with our plan then, can't you?'

  'Mother!'

  'Sit down, Israel.'

  Israel sighed. And he huffed. And he puffed. But he sat down.

  'Good,' said Israel's mother. 'Where were we?'

  'I don't know,' said Israel.

  'A plan,' said Ted.

  'Ah, yes!' said Israel's mother. 'A plan.'

  'It can't be that difficult to find a stolen mobile library in north London, can it?' said Israel. 'You can't just make a mobile library disappear. Someone must have seen it.'

  'We could put out an appeal on Crimewatch,' said Israel's mother.

  'Mmm,' said Israel, swallowing a piece of bagel. 'Now that is a good idea, actually, in fairness, Mother.'

  'I'm not just a pretty face.'

  'No,' said Israel.

  'Aye,' said Ted.

  'If you think about it,' continued Israel, 'there's a great media angle on this. "The Book Stops Where? Have you seen this Mobile Library?" We could get national coverage. It's a Guardian sort of a story.'

  'Great!' said Israel's mother. 'We'll start a campaign. Ari's aunt knows Melanie Phillips.'

  'No,' said Ted. 'I don't think that's a good idea.'

  'Why not?' said Israel. 'You don't like the Daily Mail? I thought you liked the Daily Mail? We're trying to come up with a plan here.'

  'No,' said Ted.

  'No?' said Israel's mother.

  'No…I wouldn't want people to know we'd lost it.'

  'You wouldn't want people to know?' said Israel's mother. 'But why? How else are we going to find it?'

  'Linda would love it.'

  'Ah,' said Israel. 'Good point.'

  'Who's Linda?' asked Israel's mother.

  'Don't ask,' said Israel.

  'Our boss,' said Ted.

  'Huh,' said Israel's mother. 'They're all the same.'

  'She's a Northern Irish Chinese lesbian single parent,' said Israel.

  'Well, they're all more or less the same,' said Israel's mother.

  'We can't do any publicity,' said Ted.

  'It'd be a shame not to,' said Israel's mother.

  'I bet we'd find it that way,' said Israel.

  'No,' said Ted.

  'Any better ideas?' said Israel.

  'I know!' said Israel's mother. 'Let's make a list.'

  While Israel and his mother started another list Ted busied himself finishing off the rest of the bagels.

  'Yes! Of course! I've got it!' Israel's mother began. 'Number one! Insider contacts! We have to start with any insider contacts we have.'

  'What do you mean, insider contacts?' said Israel. 'Contacts in the mobile library-stealing fraternity?'

  'Exactly,' said Israel's mother.

  'I've a cousin who works in a pub,' said Ted, finishing off his second onion bagel. 'He might be able to help.'

  'I doubt that very much,' said Israel.

  'Perfect!' said Israel's mother. 'People in pubs, people on the street, that's just where we should start.'

  'Mother!' said Israel.

  'Where is it, Ted?' said Israel's mother. 'Your cousin's pub?'

  'It's…Hold on,' said Ted. 'I've a wee scrap of paper here.' He took so
me crumpled papers from his pocket and sorted through them. 'Here we are,' he said. 'I wrote it down. It's called the Prince Albert, in Camden Town. I thought I might look him up while I was over here.'

  'That's a lead!' said Israel's mother.

  'That is not a lead,' said Israel. 'Ted's cousin who works in some grotty pub in Camden is not a lead. I might as well go and ask some of my friends if they've come across a stolen mobile library recently.'

  'That's not a bad idea either,' said Israel's mother. 'We've got to cover every angle.'

  It's a wild-goose chase, Mother.'

  'It's not a wild-goose chase.'

  'Yes, it is.'

  'Well, have you got any other leads?'

  'No.'

  'And how do you know it'll be grotty?' said Israel's mother.

  'What?'

  'Ted's cousin's pub.'

  'Of course it'll be grotty!'

  'You don't know that. It could be like a gastropub,' said Israel's mother.

  'Yeah, right,' said Israel. 'Maybe we should go there for lunch, then?'

  10

  Israel was glad that he'd managed to persuade his mother not to join him and Ted for lunch at the Prince Albert.

  The Prince Albert was not a gastropub.

  The Prince Albert sits on the corner of Georgiana Street and Royal College Street, in Camden, London, NW1, a big wedgy-shaped red-brick and terracotta building. It reminded Israel of the Flatiron Building in New York. Israel absolutely loved the Flatiron Building; to Israel, the Flatiron Building represented Manhattan itself, which in turn represented the good life, the cosmopolitan, the sophisticated, and everything that Israel aspired to-intelligence, wit, repartee, and profound, geeky men in suits and sneakers, and complicated, elegant women in sunglasses, and evenings out with high-end friends in hip new neighbourhood cafés discussing the latest intellectual fashions and comparing stock portfolios. To Israel, the Flatiron Building represented a way of life.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't his way of life. (Israel had never ever been to the Flatiron Building: he'd seen it in Spider-Man films. The Flatiron Building, like Grand Central Station, and the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty, and the whole of the rest of New York, and Boston, and San Francisco, and all America, indeed, as well as most of continental Europe, and Asia, and Africa, and Australia, and Antarctica, existed only in Israel's mind, where they had all come to resemble one another: cities, plains and mountains fabulously, exotically and glamorously there, a world of undiscovered and unreachable El Dorados compared to Finchley's and Tumdrum's unavoidable and everyday here. Israel had travelled widely in his imagination, and gone absolutely nowhere; he was imprisoned by limitless horizons. Just the thought of travel gave him a headache.)

  And inside, of course, inside, the Prince Albert was nothing like the Flatiron Building. Inside, comparisons to Manhattans both real and imagined quickly evaporated. Inside, the Prince Albert was a typical stinking London Irish boozer: dirty, depressing, dull and completely empty, except for one lone drinker who wore a porkpie hat and dirty boots and a ravaged-looking suit, and who didn't look up as Israel and Ted approached the bar.

  'Gastropub!' said Israel. 'God!'

  'Language,' said Ted.

  'Sorry,' said Israel. 'But I mean…Couldn't they at least give the place an occasional sluicing out?'

  There was music playing, a tinny radio-cassette player behind the bar, its shiny silver plastic rubbed black and white with age, the sound of a female singer sighing and deep-breathing and claiming that she wanted to be a slave to your rhythm, over ululations and ecstatic drumming, and a bass line that sounded like it was being played on very tight knicker elastic. In a too-small alcove off the bar there was an old, frayed and chipped pool table, with a big dark stain on the baize that looked as though someone might once have given birth on it. The table was wedged in with just a few feet to spare all round-London Irish pool players having notoriously short arms-and it was flanked and shadowed by big faded, framed posters on the walls all around it, showing the Mountains of Mourne sweeping down to the sea, and County Kerry, and Cork, and a framed jigsaw of the Giant's Causeway, which made it look as though the basalt rocks had been machine-cut and pieced together on a Sunday afternoon by bored children and their maiden aunts.

  Above the bar a chain of pathetic, dirty nylon Irish tricolours hung down like leprechauns' washing, a set of rainbow flags hanging even more pathetically below them, and behind the optics, tacked to dirty mirrors, there were nicotine-stained, crumpled, damp cartoon pictures of the Great Irish Writers: James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney and W. B. Yeats, and also, incongruously, ABBA and Barbra Streisand, all crowded together and looking as though someone had pissed all over them. Brown paper peeled from the walls and yellow paper hung down from the ceiling. The floor's grey lino was cracked and turning black with age, and the paintwork on the doors and windows was worn almost through to the wood. You could hardly say that the Prince Albert was a bar in decline; the Prince Albert had already declined; it had long since stooped, and slipped, and was starting to go under.

  Israel texted Gloria.

  No reply.

  'Tricolours!' murmured Ted, 'bloody tricolours!' while he ordered drinks from the barman, who was not blessed with English as a first language, but who coped manfully, square-jawed with it as perhaps his fourth or fifth, and who could certainly manage any instructions that included the word 'Guinness', if spoken loudly. He fared less well with Ted's asking if his cousin Michael was in working that day, and if not, where they might possibly find him. After a few minutes of complex misunderstandings-involving the barman talking about his cousins, who were somewhere back home in Silesia, apparently-the barman disappeared behind a beaded curtain. He came back a few moments later.

  'Name?' he said.

  'My name?' said Ted.

  'Yes.'

  'Ted,' said Ted.

  'Sorry. Again?'

  'Ted,' said Ted. 'T. E. D. Carson. C. A. R. S. O. N.'

  'Okay. One minute please.'

  'Foreigners!' said Ted, as the barman disappeared back behind the beaded curtain.

  'You're a foreigner here, remember,' said Israel.

  'I don't think so,' said Ted.

  'Yes, you are,' said Israel.

  'Aye,' said Ted. 'The United Kingdom? United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Ever heard of it?'

  Israel harrumphed and tutted-did Ted never get tired of being a relic?-and as he tutted, almost as a kind of tut echo, there was a sound as of a large object, a man, or a side of beef, or a beer barrel perhaps, being rocked slowly down a stairway, and then suddenly the barman re-emerged from behind the beaded curtain, with an old man following him.

  The old man walked stiffly, loudly, with a crutch-like a beer barrel or a side of beef being rocked slowly down a stairway-and he had worn, patchy white hair and an unshaven, furry sort of puce-coloured face, as though someone had just rolled a little baby pig's head around in pinhead oatmeal. He wore tight grey nylon slacks and a too-large tomato-red shirt with pure white cuffs and collar, a shirt of a kind that Israel had only ever heard rumours of; the kind of shirt that now existed only in retro TV dramas. He also wore a black-and-white polka-dotted silk scarf. And then there was the jewellery, lots and lots of jewellery: rings, bracelets, a big chunky gold necklace and a huge watch of the kind that looked like you could fly to the moon with it and still not have exhausted all its unique features. The old man may have had a head like a pig and may have struggled to walk farther than a couple of hundred yards, but he was utterly, utterly blingtastic.

  'Ladies and gentleman!' he boomed, the old pig-and-mealy-faced man, 'IN THE RED CORNER, TED CARSON!' He then dropped his shoulders slightly and bobbed unsteadily, like a boxer on a crutch, before reaching forward across the bar to shake Ted's hand, with his thick, beringed and trottery fingers.

  'Michael?' said Ted. 'It's yerself?'

  'I fecking hope so!' said Michael, patting his chest. 'Ce
rtainly the last time I checked it was! But for feck's sake! Ted Carson! Jesus!'

  'Michael!' said Ted, shaking his head in wonderment. 'Ach, Michael! What about yerself?'

  'Doin' bravely, Ted. Doin' bravely. Can't complain.'

  'Good,' said Ted. 'That's good.'

  'Because you know if ye did-' began Michael.

  'No one would listen to ye anyway!' said Ted.

  They thought this was hilarious, Ted and Michael. They both creased up at this, laughing like they were boys who'd let off a stink bomb, or slipped a whoopee cushion onto the headmaster's seat. Israel had never seen Ted laugh like that before; it was uninhibited laughter. Israel hadn't laughed like that in a long time.

  'Boys-a-boys,' said Michael, coming out from round behind the bar on his crutch. 'Look at ye now. I haven't seen ye in, what, ten? Twenty?'

  'Forty,' said Ted.

  'Forty years?'

  'Forty years,' agreed Ted.

  'Forty years,' said Israel, joining in.

  'Ach, Israel, quiet,' said Ted.

  'Seems like yesterday we were wee lads,' said Michael. 'Out in the fields.'

  'Aye,' agreed Ted.

  'Y'member yer mother'd have the sandwiches set out ready for us when were in?'

  'Aye. Thick as the duck-house door.'

  'Happy days,' said Michael. 'Wonderful woman, yer mother, Ted.'

  'Aye,' said Ted quietly.

  'But now, come on, Ted, we're being awful rude here. Introduce me. Who's yer young friend then?'

  'Who?'

  'The wee pup here.' Michael gestured at Israel with his crutch.

  'Him? He's Israel.'

  'How ye doin', sir?' said Michael, bracelets jangling, shaking Israel's hand. 'Pleased to meet you.'

  'Nice to meet you too,' said Israel.

  'Israel?' said Michael, rubbing his wide, white-stubbled chin. 'Israel. Now, tell me the truth, young man, and I'll tell you no lie, would you be of the Hebrew persuasion?'

  'Erm. Yes, I suppose, I-'

  'Well, well,' said Michael. 'Isn't that a coincidence. Some of my best friends are Jewish.'

  'Right,' said Israel.

  'Did I ever tell you the story of the rabbi and the priest?'

  'No,' said Israel hesitantly. He'd never met Michael before, so exactly how he might have told him the story before…

  'All right,' said Michael, leaning across towards Israel. 'Come here.' Israel stepped reluctantly a little closer. He'd never really warmed to men who wore chunky gold jewellery. Michael grabbed hold of his elbow. 'So,' he said, breathing cigarette fumes over Israel. 'There's a rabbi and a priest, and the priest says to the rabbi, "Tell me, you're not allowed to eat bacon. Is that right?" And the rabbi says, "Yes, that's right."' Michael looked at Israel for confirmation of this fact of Jewish dietary law; Israel smiled weakly.