‘I’m sure not.’
Miss Crake appeared to reflect. ‘But he insists that he was? Probably for his own reasons, he’s making a stand. When someone makes a stand there’s nothing to be done except wait for them to get tired and climb down.’
‘Maybe,’ Sylvia said. ‘But the police are involved. And now with this …’ She nodded towards number 4.
‘You fear the boy might be blamed for that too?’
‘He’s had a feud with the man who lives there.’
‘I’m acquainted with Collins,’ Miss Crake said. ‘What was the feud?’
Sylvia explained about the foxes.
‘Collins is a poltroon,’ Miss Crake pronounced. She did not seem inclined to go so Sylvia felt obliged to offer tea.
While the kettle boiled she brushed her hair in the bathroom mirror. ‘I look demented,’ she concluded.
When she came back out with a tea tray Miss Crake was sizing up Boris. ‘To whom do these animals belong?’
‘A farmer over the way. I’ve only seen him once or twice.’
‘They need attention. This one has mange. Speaking of genetics, the book you recommended.’
‘Tom’s Midnight Garden?’
‘I was most interested in the link between the old woman – who was once the girl whom Tom meets in the garden – and the boy himself. It is a quite remarkable example of the pioneering work I had embarked on at UCL.’
Sylvia poured her guest a cup of tea. She was too weary to listen properly but it seemed rude to close her eyes. Resting her gaze on the horizon, she pretended to listen as Miss Crake talked on.
‘We could never prove it but my hunch was that with certain people there is a correspondence, an affinity, between the ninety-eight per cent so-called “irrelevant” element of their DNA, which enables a kind of communication commonly referred to as psychic and as a consequence dismissed by materialists. You are spilling your tea, my dear.’
Sylvia jerked herself upright.
‘In Philippa Pearce’s ingenious book I detect just such an affinity between the DNA of old Mrs Bartholomew and Tom, which is why, when she dreams of her youth as the child Hatty, he can enter her past and become her playmate before he is even born. It is excellently done. I should like to write to the author. Do you have an address?’
This last was declared so loudly that Sylvia came to. ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Crake. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention.’
‘You seem distracted, my dear.’
‘I suppose I am.’
Her visitor looked hard at her and then turned her gaze on the donkeys cropping grass in the field.
‘JB and I were lovers.’ She spoke as if to the animals. ‘He is a moral man, not that morality is always the best guide for human conduct, but be that as it may he was bad at confrontation so for some time I and his future wife, his second wife that is, were unaware of the other’s existence. In the end it was I who had to break off the liaison. He hadn’t the heart to do it. Men, weak as water, as my godmother used to say.’
‘How did you …?’ Sylvia asked. For some reason, this hint that Miss Crake was aware of her own love affair was not alarming.
‘I don’t “know” anything. But East Mole is a small town and a small-minded town and, while I don’t care for gossip, I have eyes and ears.’
‘Do you know about them closing the Children’s Library too?’
‘Yes,’ Miss Crake said. ‘I was informed. The Hedges boy is taking another look at the Wolseley. Thank you for the tea. Goodbye.’
She left and Sylvia heard her a car door bang and the engine start up and she watched the green car back past the row of houses and heard it turn on the sharp bend. The sound of the car faded and there was the silence that Sylvia had craved and found that she no longer wanted.
The Town Hall clock was striking three when she remembered the twins. June was at her mother’s, unaware that Sam was not at school to bring them home. The Infants came out at half past three so there was time to get there to meet them.
Near the biscuit factory, in her hurry she almost banged into Dee.
‘You all right? His Lordship was on about you not coming in so I said you had been having women’s problems. That always shuts them up. But you have, haven’t you, in a way?’
Miss Crake’s implied inference was one thing; Dee’s was another matter. ‘I’m afraid I must dash, Dee. I have to collect the Hedges twins.’
‘Come round this evening, if you like. I’m in, doing my hair.’
Sylvia reached the school a little after half past three. She asked for the caretaker’s office and was directed to a hut off the school yard. The twins were inside, standing on what appeared to be an old ping-pong table. When they saw Sylvia they began to chant, ‘This old man, he played one, he played knick-knack on my –’ and bumped down, consumed with giggles.
The caretaker, in a brown overall coat, emerged from a cupboard in the corner with a filthy mop and a pail. He appeared to be deaf, or anyway oblivious to the noise. Sylvia jumped each little girl in turn down from the table and thanked him for looking after them.
He muttered something inaudible and when Sylvia asked him to repeat it Pam yelled, ‘HE SAYS HE DON’T MIND US!’
‘Goodness, I’d mind your making all that racket.’
‘He don’t mind us,’ Pam repeated sulkily.
‘He hasn’t got no little girls of his own,’ Jem confided. ‘He thinks we’re cute.’
Sylvia gave the caretaker an appraising look. It seemed unlikely that ‘cute’ was a part of his vocabulary. She wondered if he was really a fit person to look after the twins. But what did she know? She had already made enough mess by seeming to know better about other people’s lives.
Perhaps it was her imagination but Sylvia felt that various people they met on their way to the towpath were avoiding her. Several women crossed the road as they approached and Mrs Brent from the WI barely returned her greeting.
It was a comfort to be in the company of the twins. They bounded up the garden path of number 3, yelling, ‘Sylvia brung us home!’
Sylvia followed the girls to the kitchen, where June was spreading slices of bread with jam. ‘Where’s Samuel?’
‘Sam’s not well,’ Pam said.
‘Sam was crying,’ Jem said. ‘He didn’t come to school. Sylvia brung us.’
June looked anxious and Sylvia said, ‘He was in a state about the fire. I hope you don’t mind, June, but it honestly seemed best. I did explain to Mr Arnold. He was very sympathetic and you were at your mother’s so we couldn’t tell you.’
For the first time in their acquaintance June looked openly displeased with her. ‘It wouldn’t have hurt to ask us first. Samuel has his 11+ coming up and we don’t want any more trouble.’
‘I know,’ Sylvia said. ‘I am sorry, June. But honestly, he was in no fit state.’
‘Where’s he now?’
There was a sound of crashing gears outside and moments later Sam appeared.
‘Samuel, where have you been?’
‘Miss Crake’s car.’ He stood picking his nose reflectively and then announced, ‘She says to say she sends her apologies for any inconvenience caused.’
‘Miss who? You don’t look ill to me.’
‘Miss Crake,’ Sylvia said. ‘She knows your father, June.’
Sam said, ‘She drives a Wolseley. I’m going to have a Wolseley one day.’
Although Sylvia felt worn to a thread, she thought she might take Dee up on her invitation to call round. Her colleague might be able to enlighten her about the proposed library closure. Before she went out, she looked up ‘poltroon’ in her dictionary.
‘Utter coward, early sixteenth century, from Fr. poltron, It. poltrone.’ Miss Crake, at least, had the right idea.
Dee answered the door in her housecoat with her hair in pin rollers. ‘Sorry to look a fright. I’m redoing my perm.’
She offered Sylvia a drink. ‘It’s not alcoholic, or hardly.’
&n
bsp; Sylvia admired the picture on the bottle but said she’d really prefer tea or coffee.
‘Go on, spoil yourself. You look done in.’
Sylvia consented to sample a glass of the bubbly drink. ‘It’s very sweet, Dee. What’s it made of?’
‘Pears. His Lordship brings it. I suppose he thinks it’ll put me in the right mood.’
‘Actually, Dee, it was Mr Booth I wanted to ask you about.’
Her colleague’s expression became serious. ‘I know what you want to know. All I can say is it wasn’t my idea.’
‘I’m sure not. But was he behind the decision? I feel he was.’
Dee looked uncomfortable. ‘That neighbour of yours seems to have something to do with it. How about some nuts?’
‘No, thank you. If this is about the Henry Miller, I can’t see why it’s the Children’s Library being axed. The blasted book was Mr Booth’s acquisition, after all.’
Dee went to a cupboard and brought out a packet of salted peanuts. ‘There’s a feeling going round, though I’m sorry you have to hear it from me, that it was thanks to you that Sam Hedges got to the Restricted Access, and the Bell girl’s mother is spreading it about that her daughter is a victim of your negligence. Apparently, they’re taking her to a shrink.’
This dovetailed disturbingly with what she had heard from Hugh. ‘But hang on, Dee, you said yourself that it was probably Marigold, and not Sam, to blame.’
Dee poured herself another glass of Babycham. ‘All I can tell you is that, with the shortfall in the maintenance money, they had to make a choice. Your neighbour has some sort of grudge. And with all the hoo-ha made by Lady Muck and Thelma Bird and their cronies I’m afraid you got the short straw.’
‘Not just me. The children too. What’s going to happen to all the children’s books?’
‘The plan is to send them to Swindon. If kids here want a book, they can order it at the Adults’ Library and it’ll come through the County service, so they say.’
‘But they won’t, will they? It’s seeing the books that makes them want to read. How will they know what books to order? It’s crazy. I don’t mind for myself’ – this wasn’t quite the truth – ‘it’s the children I mind for.’
‘I knew you’d feel that way.’ Dee sounded contrite. ‘Believe me, if I could get him to change his mind, I would. But to his way of thinking, it’s you or him – last in, first out – all’s fair in love and war.’
‘You said that when I first met you,’ Sylvia said wretchedly.
29
Although she believed she had schooled herself to expect nothing from her lover, Sylvia was first fretful, then furious and finally fatalistic when, after their meeting in the foundry, she yet again heard nothing from Hugh. Her days now passed in a miasma of miserable seething. A letter in her father’s handwriting arrived but, unable to cope with the thought of another dreary report of her parents’ daily life, she put it aside to deal with when feeling stronger.
Mr Booth had perfected his air of having been injured. He scarcely spoke to her but the atmosphere in the library was thick with silent recrimination. One day when he was out on one of his meetings with the Trustee, Dee suggested, ‘You should write to her – or go and see her yourself.’
‘The Trustee? Why?’
‘She has to approve what happens here. It’s in the Trust deeds. He told me. That’s why he’s hither and yon, seeing her.’
‘How would I find her?’
‘She’ll be in his address book. I can look in that for you any time. Once he’s dropped off I have to shake him awake to get him up and dressed in time to report back to the wife.’
Although Sylvia had assumed an appearance of surprise at Dee’s suggestion, she had in fact been contemplating this move herself. A conviction had grown up in her that the mysterious Trustee was none other than her odd acquaintance Miss Crake. It would explain her interest in herself and the doings of the library. So she was prepared for self-congratulation when next morning Dee presented her with a slip of paper.
‘There you are. Address and phone number as promised.’
Sylvia took the paper, ready to be confirmed in her own powers of telepathy, and was the more disappointed when the name and address were unknown to her.
‘Emily Thorneycroft. Who is she?’
Dee shrugged. ‘Some remote connection to the Tillotsons.’
Sylvia was suffering the deflated pride of a false prophet. By rights, Miss Crake should have been the Trustee. If this was a children’s book she would be, she thought crossly. ‘I can’t see why seeing her would do any good.’
‘Go and see her and tell her your side of the story. He’ll have worked the facts round to save his own skin, or my name’s not Diana Harris.’
‘Oh, Dee, bless you.’ She kissed her colleague’s powdered cheek. ‘And here was I supposing you were on his side.’
Dee looked astonished. ‘What on earth gave you that idea?’
‘Well, you and Mr Booth …’
‘You’re my friend,’ Dee said. ‘And what’s happening here is plain unfair. Don’t think I don’t know what’s right just because I indulge in a bit of how’s your father.’ She opened her handbag, took out her compact and examined her face in the mirror. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m thinking of showing him the door. I caught myself the other day almost wishing Cyril were back. Not that I’d have him. Someone saw him the other day wearing a wig. A wig, I ask you!’
Although Sylvia had been wrong about Miss Crake’s connection with the library, her new acquaintance was clearly familiar with the locals. Her address was on the note she had been leaving when she had called at number 5. She might know this Emily Thorneycroft.
That afternoon Sylvia biked out of town. If asked, she would have bet on Miss Crake living in some grand old establishment, a version of the green car. Instead, if the address on the paper was to be believed, Miss Crake’s residence was a modern and rather ugly bungalow.
Miss Crake opened the door as if Sylvia was expected. ‘I’m just listening to a programme about defence. The Yankees have launched another ballistic missile. Very troubling.’
She showed Sylvia into a large room which was in marked contrast to the bungalow’s drab exterior. Books lined much of the walls and a vast abstract painting of blues and ochres hung over the fireplace. A cage housing a grey parrot was suspended from the ceiling and on a yellow silk-covered cushion the whippet Sylvia lay in graceful folds.
The whippet cocked a delicate ear as they entered and began to struggle up.
‘Don’t get up, Sylvia,’ Miss Crake said. ‘The other Sylvia will excuse you.’ She crossed the carpet, stepping over a large tortoise, to turn off the wireless and gather up a svelte black cat.
‘Not allowed,’ she said to it severely. ‘Absolutely not.’ She took the cat over to some French windows and put it outside. ‘She’s in disgrace. I caught her with another baby blackbird this morning. The third this week. She’s a murderess of the first order.’
Sylvia sat down on an ample velvet couch covered with many cushions. ‘What a beautiful room.’
‘I have always preferred,’ her hostess said, ‘to live in houses that run counter to that which first meets the eye.’
‘It’s a good idea,’ Sylvia said, squirrelling it away for future use.
Another cat, a plump tabby, jumped up beside her.
‘Put her down here if she’s a nuisance. Can I offer you something? Tea, Tizer, Tio Pepe?’
‘Is Tio what-you-said sherry?’
‘Very dry.’
‘I’m used to sweeter sherry but I’d like to try that, please.’
Her hostess went over to a lacquered cupboard, from which she took a bottle and two green glasses. The tortoise ambled over to Sylvia. The little black eyes gleamed benignly as it began gently to nibble her toes.
‘Kick Sibyl away if she’s hurting you. I wonder if perhaps she’s going senile. She insists on coming inside. And if it’s not your toes, it’s the carpe
ts.’
Sylvia looked down at a rug which seemed to be of great age; its muted mellow colours glowed in a pattern of fronds.
‘Does she imagine those swirls are leaves?’
‘Maybe. I hope she isn’t dementing. I’m very fond of her.’
‘What are your cats called?’
‘The murderess is Minnaloushe; the tabby, who has fewer pretentions, is Geraldine. They came to me already named.’
‘I thought Minnaloushe was male.’
Her hostess passed her a glass of sherry. ‘Minna’s original owner had poetic fancies with little or no understanding. A ghastly combination. Very likely that is what set Min off on her life of crime. Did you come for a reason or is this a social call?’
‘A reason,’ Sylvia admitted and, fearing this sounded impolite, ‘I wouldn’t have troubled you otherwise.’
‘My dear, you are no trouble.’
This was reassuring. ‘You said that you had heard about the library,’ Sylvia began, and then elaborated in case Miss Crake was ignorant of all the details.
Her hostess listened, her head on one side. Her quick dark brown eyes gave an impression of a keenly alert animal. ‘I know Emily Thorneycroft. She’s talked to me about Booth. He will have her twisted round his little finger.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
‘But this is not to say she cannot be untwisted and twisted round in another direction.’
The black cat was pawing at the French windows and, possibly forgetting her own strictures, Miss Crake rose to let her in.
‘Naughty boy!’ the parrot suddenly screamed.
Miss Crake eyed it. ‘Be quiet, Victor, or I’ll fetch the cloth.’ She gathered Minnaloushe on to her lap and the cat crossed her black velvet paws and draped them elegantly, awaiting a passing artist.
‘I spoke with the Hedges boy. He’s an unusual child with an unusually well-developed political sense, like his grandfather. I share your view that, whatever he has admitted to, he did not commit this absurd theft. But whether he did or not it is scarcely the responsibility of the Children’s Librarian or anything that should lead to the closure of the Children’s Library.’
The Librarian Page 23