Chapter 14
Tuesday 17 October to Saturday 21 October
Kay spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday planning to hand in her notice at the library. She drafted the email, then redrafted it several times over, trying to get the wording exactly right…
explore new avenues
expand my horizons
seek new challenges
Not that her boss could give a monkeys what words she chose. For all he cared, she could simply have written, I’m leaving. Don’t worry, I’ll work my notice. Goodbye! This wasn’t for him, this was for her. She had to know in herself that she was doing the right thing, and working that out somehow depended on the wording of this email. It had to be exactly right.
She first floated the idea – outside of her own head that was – in a conversation with Sondra on the Tuesday. It didn’t go well. This was around mid-morning and they were both at the circulation desk. Sondra was standing at the computer, updating the stock list with the latest acquisitions, while Kay was seated on the swivel chair, slowly swivelling it to and fro.
“Speaking purely hypothetically,” said Kay, “what would you think if I decided to hand in my notice?”
Sondra turned, her face elongated with surprise. “Why are you handing in your notice?” she asked, ignoring the first three words of Kay’s question.
“I’m not,” said Kay.
“I Know You Are Lying,” said a deep male voice from the other side of the desk.
Kay nearly fell off her chair. “What?” she cried.
“It’s a book by Mark McClish, do you have it?” asked the burly-looking customer. He had a shock of brownish-blond hair, grizzled sideburns, a broken nose, a scar on his cheek and the kind of London accent you heard in vintage TV dramas like The Sweeney . He looked to Kay exactly like an off-duty policeman – he had those very steady grey eyes, the kind that made you feel guilty even when you’d done nothing wrong.
“If it’s not on the shelves, then we don’t,” said Sondra. “But let me check the database for you. It may be at another library in the borough.”
While Sondra typed on her computer, Kay asked the man: “Is it possible to know if someone’s lying then?”
“Oh yeah,” said the man. “Verbal cues, hesitation, the words they use, where they put their eyes when they’re talking. You can always tell.”
“You’re in luck,” said Sondra. “There’s a copy at Enfield Library. We can order it for you. It normally takes about two weeks.”
“Of course she could be lying about that,” Kay smiled at the man.
He looked sharply at her, his eyes narrowing, and Kay flinched, thinking she would not want to be cross-examined by this guy. She’d immediately start confessing to every bad thing she’d ever done, from emptying a bin over Charlie Peacock’s head in Year 4 to stealing her friend Jasmine’s lipstick in Year 8. This might be the one person in the world she could never lie to.
The man gave his name as Garfield Elphinstone Blake and Sondra placed the order. After he had returned to browsing the crime fiction shelf, Sondra said to Kay: “You know, giving up your job here would be a huge mistake – worse than any of your previous ones, and that’s saying something.”
“I’m not giving up my job,” said Kay. “I was merely flagging it up as a possibility.”
Again, Sondra seem not to be listening properly. “What are you going to do instead?”
“If I did leave the library, which I’m not, I was thinking of maybe training to be an actor.”
“And what will you do for money while you’re training?”
“Work in a pub. ”
Sondra tilted her head at a regretful, slightly condescending angle. “You realise, bar staff only earn around twenty-two thousand pounds a year in London – I know because my sister Fran works in a pub when she’s not studying for her law degree – and that’s if you work full-time, which you won’t be able to if you’re having to fit in acting classes and auditions, etcetera. But even if you were to work full-time, you’ll only take home around fifteen hundred a month. What’s your monthly rent?”
“Eleven hundred pounds.”
“That doesn’t leave you much over for Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Kay. Are you sure you’ve thought this through?”
Trust Sondra to pour cold water on her dreams! Kay didn’t bother pursuing the conversation any further. Instead she quietly got on with drafting her resignation email, and then redrafting it. The trouble was, it all sounded so clichéd and therefore meaningless. What were avenues and horizons metaphorically speaking, and why couldn’t they be explored or expanded while remaining at the library? Despite her efforts to ignore them, Sondra’s words had sunk in – it wasn’t just coffee at risk if she gave up her job, but all the other treats that made life worth living, like cinnamon swirls and flower print socks, Danielle Steele novels and photography film, sunglasses and cocktails.
By Thursday, she’d abandoned the resignation email and begun considering the possibilities of amateur dramatics. Couldn’t Elaine be satisfied with that? She googled some local amateur theatre troupes. It all looked very jolly from the photos, but she wasn’t sure. She could imagine the petty egos, the cliqueiness, the nepotism. Most of the audience, such as it was, would probably be friends and relations of the actors. The plays would be light-hearted fluff – unfunny comedies or unmemorable musicals, usually written by friends of the cast. The props would be wobbly, the costumes moth-eaten, the acting wooden, the theatres small and damp. There’d be the old troupers who’d been there forever bagging all the best parts, and balding lawyers or bank managers playing the romantic leads opposite women young enough to be their daughters. She was probably being unfair. It might be wonderful, but she doubted it.
By Friday, she’d started googling drama colleges. The fees were eye-watering, and she’d need to audition to get into them. She googled actors’ agents, and discovered that just to get one you’d need to demonstrate a reasonable amount of past experience – she wasn’t sure if playing Hero in Much Ado About Nothing at Sheffield University four years ago would quite cut the mustard. She’d played other roles too, but that had been the undoubted highlight of her acting career thus far, and she’d done nothing since then.
Every google search she made demoralised Kay further, so she gave up and fell into a pit of despondency. She ate too many pain au chocolats, drank too many canned Pina Coladas and let her flat turn into a pigsty. And then the voices came, filling her head with their cacophony. Her mother scolded: You only have yourself to blame! You should never have embarked on this ridiculous charade! And then Sondra chimed in with: You need to be honest with yourself, Kay. You’re not Elaine. You can never be Elaine. Just tell the truth and all will be well. And finally there came her own forlorn murmur, the worst of them all: You’re just not good enough Kay. Forget your stupid dreams and go back to the library.
This was where she found herself on Saturday afternoon, just three hours away from her second date with Dan. It was no good, she decided. She’d simply have to come clean with him – not completely clean of course. She couldn’t tell him she was the one who’d ghosted his brother – not if she didn’t want him to hate her forever. But she could at least tell him her name is Kay and she works at St Luke’s Library. Five seconds later, she realised that wouldn’t work either because the Kay who works at that library is now dead, according to Jeremy. And she couldn’t be Elaine from the library either because that Elaine met Jeremy the day before booking a driving lesson with Dan. No one on Earth would believe a coincidence like that. It was no good. Whichever way she turned, she was trapped. She’d trussed herself up so tightly in her lies she could feel the rope burns on her skin.
With an hour to go before she had to leave, Kay hauled herself out of her Slough of Despond, slapped herself on the face several times and took a long, hot shower. When there are no other choices left, you need to commit to the lie , she told herself. This is what taking control feels like. Then she put on Happy by Pharell Williams at top volume and started getting ready. To hell with it , she thought. I’ll go on being both Elaine and Kay. I’ll ride those two horses to death, or until they get so far apart I’ll be forced to let go of one and leap onto the other, but I’m not at that point yet.
She checked herself out in the bright green midi frock she’d ended up choosing for the evening’s fun and games. Puff sleeves, sweetheart neckline. Pretty cute. Very Elaine. She wished she had some cowboy boots to team it with – that would be appropriate for a rodeo-style stunt rider like her. The biker boots would have to do.