Chapter Nineteen #2
‘I’m sure she had her reasons for what happened in the stock cupboard,’ said David, shutting down further comment on what sounded like an intriguing story. ‘All I meant was it’s nice that you’re so reliable, Hattie. Like Ren here, keen to work, happy to pitch in or do a little extra where needed.’
‘Desperate for the cash more like,’ Ren said in a sort of comedy aside.
‘Well, you’re in the wrong profession if that’s the case,’ said David.
‘Ain’t that the truth.’ Ren sliced into the unopened box with a penknife. ‘I hope they’ve sent that Andy McNab for Mrs Whittlestone. She’s been asking about it for months, despite the fact it was only published two weeks ago.’
‘She doesn’t really seem like an Andy McNab type,’ I said, lifting the invoice out and scanning through it. ‘Ah! They’ve sent The Grapes of Wrath, Nathan will be pleased.’
I’d been introduced to Nathan two weeks into the job.
He’d come into the library one Wednesday afternoon when it had just been me on the main desk.
David had been doing a stock-take in the back office and Colin had been busy helping his friends who had all arrived an hour earlier on the Mackenzie bus.
Nathan was wearing a thick overcoat, heavy soled boots and a woollen beanie pulled low over his forehead.
He had a thin wispy beard, the kind that fifth formers try to grow when they hit puberty and want to announce it to the world, and was leading a bristly grey terrier on a piece of rope.
‘Is it okay to bring her in?’ he’d asked me, his voice surprisingly soft and polished as he indicated the dog. ‘Someone said you don’t mind dogs in here, but I wasn’t sure. I can tie her up outside, but she gets a bit worried if…’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, pointing to the sign Colin had made which featured a blown-up photo of Pilot with a caption, DOGS WELCOME, written in red marker pen beneath. ‘As long as she doesn’t try and eat the books. Or the customers. It’s all good.’
‘She’ll behave, I promise,’ he said, looking down at the dog. ‘Won’t you, Dot?’ He looked back up at me. ‘We won’t be long.’
‘You take as long as you like,’ I said. I couldn’t help but notice that the tip of his nose was white, and his hands, as he removed his thin gloves and shoved them in his pockets, were almost blue.
I knew from having popped out to Kathy’s Cafe an hour earlier that it was hovering around freezing.
‘Pilot,’ I said, gesturing towards the poster again, ‘he’s our resident dog and he particularly likes sleeping near the radiator in the local geography section.
It’s nice and warm and there are plenty of comfy chairs once you find the book you’re looking for.
Just in case you and Dot want to stay out of the cold for an hour or so. It’s bitter outside.’
He nodded. ‘Thanks.’
An hour later, as I went to take over from David on the stock-take, I found Nathan sitting in the area I’d suggested, completely engrossed in a Steinbeck, Dot curled into a little ball at his feet snoring gently and Pilot maintaining an interested but dignified distance under the adjacent radiator.
‘Did that young guy with the terrier take any books out?’ I asked David later that evening as we closed up.
‘Yes,’ David said. ‘He wasn’t registered on the system, so I issued him a new card and he took two books.’ He looked up to the ceiling as he tried to recall their titles. ‘Of Mice and Men, I think, and maybe a Hemmingway? Yes, it was The Old Man and the Sea.’
‘You are good,’ I said, chuckling to myself as I pulled the bolts across the lower doors. ‘How do you remember every single customer and every single book choice?’
‘You can learn an awful lot about a person from what they read,’ he said seriously. ‘And it’s not always what you’d expect.’
‘Like Kev Norris and his love of Mills and Boon,’ I said, referring to a painter and decorator in his fifties who’d been in a couple of times since I’d started working there.
‘Exactly. You wouldn’t necessarily know to look at him but beneath the paint-spattered overalls there beats the heart of a true romantic,’ he said.
‘That man has worked his way through the entire Regency Rogue series, the Lord Seeks a New Wife series and the Viking Love Triangle series in less than six months. I’ve just managed to get him onto Georgette Heyer and he’s thrilled to bits. ’
‘It is fascinating,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover.’
‘Or by its reader,’ said David.
‘Indeed. And it seems that today’s newest customer with his cute little dog is a fan of the great American novel. I wasn’t necessarily expecting to see him so absorbed in a book, I thought maybe he’d just come in to keep warm.’
David shrugged. ‘Some do,’ he said. ‘Particularly this time of year. Families on low incomes, pensioners who can’t afford to heat their homes.
Even the occasional shopper who just wants to get out of the cold and can’t afford to buy anything in a bar or cafe.
What’s nice is that some of them come in for that reason alone but walk out with a book. And maybe it changes their life.’
‘Especially when that book happens to be a spicy fae romantasy set during the Napoleonic wars like the one Mrs Bolton checked out last week,’ I said, and he laughed.
It turns out that, in this instance at least, David was right.
Sometimes joining a library can be life-changing (as evidenced by Mrs Bolton signing up for the local Sealed Knot re-enactment day being held next spring).
Since that first meeting Nathan and Dot have become regular library users and I feel that, for him, this place is a sanctuary of sorts – certainly a place that allows him to reconnect with reading.
That’s why I was so glad to see the most recent Steinbeck he’d requested had finally come through.
‘Will he have got an email alert saying it’s in stock?’ I asked David now as Ren and I continued to unpack the deliveries.
‘Hmm, I’m not sure that his internet access is that reliable,’ said David. ‘But I expect he’ll be in today anyway.’
Sure enough, about an hour before I had to leave to go and collect the boys, Nathan turned up. He greeted me with a shy smile.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Guess what arrived this morning?’ I pulled the copy of The Grapes of Wrath out from beneath the desk and revelled in the expression on his face.
‘It’s here,’ he said. ‘Brilliant! Thank you. I might make a start on it now.’
‘Yes, do,’ I said. ‘I think Eileen was sitting in your usual spot when I last looked but she might have moved.’ Eileen was another of our regulars. She was of indeterminate age but had a definite aroma of neglect and was well known to staff and regular library users alike.
‘Ahh,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and have a look. She’s always very pleased to see Dot anyway so she might not mind if I sit with her.’
I scanned his library card and handed him the book. ‘Enjoy,’ I said.
He paused for a moment. ‘It’s amazing when you think about it,’ he said. ‘The fact that I can come in here and ask for a book, any book at all. And a week later, here it is, ready for me to read. For free!’
‘You’re right. It is pretty cool,’ I said, smiling.
Later in the car on the way home I told the boys about some of the people who had visited the library that day. Hugo was his usual achingly earnest self.
‘Aunty Harriet are you enjoying your new job?’ he said. ‘Is it as good as you’d always dreamed?’
‘Uhm – do you know what, Hugo?’ I said as we pulled up at the traffic lights. ‘I think it’s even better than I’d dreamed it was going to be.’
‘That’s nice. Maman says it’s extremely important for men and ladies especially to have jobs that make them happy.’
‘Well, if she asks you can assure her that, yes, I am very happy,’ I said.
‘Happy,’ mumbled Lawrence who was drifting in and out of sleep with the warmth and hum of the engine. ‘Happy, happy, happy.’