Chapter Fifteen
By midday David and Colin had shown me how to check the books out and how to check the returns in.
There had been a couple of very kind and very patient older ladies who had waited at the counter for what felt like an hour while I laboriously scanned their chosen large-print hardbacks and printed out their receipts.
‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ one of them had said, leaning across her tartan shopping trolley. ‘We’ve all got to start somewhere.’
‘And me and Gertrude, we don’t mind waiting,’ said Gertrude’s friend in an accent that was a curious mix of Brummie and Jamaican Patois. She folded her arms beneath her ample bosom. ‘We got plenty time. Don’t you be worrying now.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, grimacing as I realised I’d scanned one of her books twice. ‘Uhm – David, how do I…?’
He leaned over and showed me how to delete the copy from the record as Colin handed the ladies their piles of books.
‘Colin,’ said Gertrude’s friend, peering over her wire-framed glasses at him. ‘How’s your mother?’
‘She is well thank you, Mrs Campbell. But she does have bad bunions. She says they are the bane of her existence.’ He rolled his eyes at the end of the sentence in what I imagine was an imitation of his mother.
‘Ah, the bunions are a scourge on humanity, isn’t that the truth.’ Mrs Campbell nodded wisely. ‘Well, tell her I send my sympathies. We be seeing you at church this Sunday?’
‘Yes, Mrs Campbell. Church is always on Sunday. I will wear my tie.’ Colin thought for a second. ‘The library opens on Sundays,’ he said. ‘But not until ten o’clock. God likes books…’
‘But only after church,’ Mrs Campbell finished for him.
I got the impression she’d heard this proclamation before.
Probably every time she came to the library.
‘Well then – I’ll be seeing you.’ She and Gertrude shuffled towards the doors at a leisurely pace, Gertrude’s trolley now weighed down by four Danielle Steels, two Catherine Cooksons and a Jackie Collins.
(‘She like something a bit racy does Gertrude,’ Mrs Campbell had said with a wink when I was scanning the Jackie Collins.)
At one o’clock Colin took himself off to the military history section to eat his cheese sandwich with Pilot, who had roused himself from a snooze near the radiators evidently thinking there was a good chance of picking up a few crumbs of Cheddar if he sat near Colin’s feet for long enough.
‘Have you brought lunch?’ asked David. ‘Don’t feel that you need to stay in the library while you eat, it’s not compulsory.
It’s just that Colin likes that corner on a Wednesday.
His shift is finished for the day, so he’ll just wait for his friends to come, help them choose their books, and then head back on the Mackenzie bus.
Malia and Ren are here from two but I’m happy to hold the fort if you want to pop out and get some fresh air. ’
‘Surely you need a lunch break too though?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘I might take Pilot for a stroll through the underpass and back later this afternoon,’ he said.
‘Keep the old dodgy hip moving. But I’ve got some sandwiches in the office.
I’ll have them in a bit. You’re welcome to share.
Ham and pickle. Or you could try Kathy’s Cafe just along the way.
It’s – uhm – it’s a bit more salubrious than it looks.
Javid who runs it often pops in with his kids.
His daughter is a big fan of graphic novels. ’
‘Is she the eponymous Kathy? Or is it her mum?’
‘No, I think it’s a nod to EastEnders from the previous owner. There’s no actual Kathy as far as I can tell. They do a good brie and cranberry panini though.’
I retrieved my now dry duffle coat from the peg on the back of the office door and promised Colin to get him some Space Raiders if Javid had them back in stock.
It was still raining outside but David said I could borrow his umbrella and it was a pleasant surprise to see that what he’d said about the cafe was true – beyond the smeary windows was a warm and cosy eating area, clean tables with gingham cloths, fresh flowers in little milk jugs and a lovely pervasive aroma of buttery toast.
I placed my order and took a seat at one of the tables near the window to wait, and it wasn’t until I was fumbling in my handbag for my purse to pay for my panini that I realised I hadn’t looked at my phone all morning.
Not once. It was completely unheard of. Panicking, I saw that there were two messages from Layla, so I paid for my lunch without attempting to engage Javid in further conversation (which was a shame in retrospect because he, like the cafe, seemed far jollier than initial appearances had suggested) and quickly scrolled down my screen.
Thankfully, Layla’s messages just said ‘good luck in your new job’ and ‘I’ll be free for a phone call this evening if you want’ but still, what if they’d been important?
I replied with a heart emoji to both, checked her location on the tracker, more out of habit than anything else, and decided to keep my phone on me for the rest of my shift, although it wasn’t terribly easy as the linen trousers maddeningly didn’t have pockets (I mean, who does that?
Surely clothing designers have got the mandatory pockets memo by now?).
Note to self for tomorrow, I thought. Packed lunch – the panini was delicious but I’d easily spend my entire salary if I used Kathy’s Cafe every day – and pocketed garments.
Of course, it wasn’t practical to carry my handbag around with me the entire afternoon so I settled for checking my phone on a regular basis when I popped into the office to put the kettle on and there were no further messages from Layla, although when Malia, who was working the afternoon shift, saw me she pointed out that the reception was terrible in the building and I needed to log into the wifi if I wanted any contact with the outside world.
‘I’m always getting calls from school,’ she said. ‘The usual – Asif has hurt his finger using the whiteboard pen, or Indira says she feels sick, or Ravi has fallen into the stinging nettles at the edge of the playground, or whatever. It’s endless.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Gosh, three kids at primary school,’ I said, impressed. ‘You must have your hands full.’
‘Three hypochondriac kids at primary school. Why do you think I want to escape here every afternoon?’ She laughed. ‘I barely make enough money doing this job to cover the afterschool All Aboard club, but it’s worth it for my sanity. Do you have children?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was just checking for any messages from her actually. Layla. She’s at university now. Just started.’
‘Wow.’ Malia looked half impressed and half sympathetic. ‘Weird time, hey? I can’t really get my head past the next few years with my lot. Half the time I feel like I can’t wait for them to leave home and just leave me in peace, but I know when it comes to it I’ll probably feel differently.’
‘You will,’ I said. ‘And you’re right. It is a weird time. One of the reasons I went for this job was to get me out of the house and take my mind off her absence. Well, that and the fact that I was replaced by AI on my copy-editing job.’
‘No way! Is that even allowed?’
‘It is if you’re on a zero-hours contract,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’m still doing freelance work if you hear of anyone who needs a highly skilled but redundant copy editor, and in the meantime I’m very happy to be working here.’
‘So, it’s just a temporary thing,’ she said as we left the office. ‘This job? I get it, I’m not really seeing it as a long-term thing myself. It fits in well with school hours, but the pay is shocking. I think the only career librarian here is David. And he’s been here forever.’
‘Oh really?’ I said, waving at Colin who was now helping his busload of friends choose their books, whether they wanted his help or not by the looks of it. ‘I assumed it was a sort of approaching retirement job.’
‘No, I think he’s been here twenty years,’ Malia said, indicating I should give her a hand unloading the book returns trolley.
‘Ever since his wife died. He used to have a big corporate job. Very high up in one of the big publishing houses apparently. His wife was a writer…’ Her voice trailed off as she glanced over my shoulder and saw David heading towards us.
‘I’m going to take Pilot out for a stroll before the homework club arrives,’ he said to Malia. ‘Is that okay?’
‘Of course it is, David.’ Malia handed me a pile of books. ‘You’re the boss, remember? You choose when you want to go and stretch your legs.’ She gave him a stern maternal look and he smiled.
‘I’ll go and get my coat,’ he said. ‘We’ll only be five minutes. Here boy.’
Even though he’d barely raised his voice Pilot instantly appeared from behind one of the worktables where he’d been sitting beside a young man who was doing some research for a genealogy project.
We both watched as David leaned to scratch Pilot between his ears and they made their way to the office.
Malia turned to me. ‘He never leaves,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know his contract, but I bet the hours he’s being paid for finished ages ago.
’ She shook her head. ‘Honestly, I love him to bits but he’s here all the time, seven days a week.
I’ve been here two years, since Ravi moved up from Reception, and I can’t think of a single time he’s taken a holiday.
He won’t even set a date to get his hip replacement done because he knows he’ll be out of action for a minimum of four weeks post-op, and he doesn’t want to let everyone down.
Last year when he had the flu I put my foot down and made him take an afternoon off, but that’s my one success. ’
I imagined it would be hard to argue with Malia once she’d put her mind to something – she had the kind of determined voice that brooked no debate, one that was probably essential for a mother of three.
‘Maybe he just really loves his job,’ I said.
She nodded, conceding the point. ‘He does,’ she said.
‘You’re not wrong there. He knows this place inside out; all the back catalogue and the new stock – he’s pretty much read every book ever written.
He knows all our regular customers, and for a man in his late sixties he keeps up with all the tech.
There have been endless software updates and changes to the database and he’s good at knowing how to help people search the archives for various things.
Puts me to shame given that I’m a millennial who grew up in the internet era and yet still can’t really do much beyond, try googling it. ’
I laughed. ‘That would be very much my response.’
‘I think he really does love this place,’ she said. ‘And he’s got nobody else, so I guess it’s his natural home.’ She hefted another stack of books off the trolley. ‘It’s a shame really.’
I took the proffered books and carried them to the stacks, taking in the array of colourful spines and the scent of warm paper that emanated from the shelves; the toddler gleefully darting around the corner with his board book, hiding from his mum who was selecting something from the biography section; the young man at the table recently vacated by Pilot, still engrossed in his old newspapers and public record archive; the student on his laptop working away on his PhD; and the girl in an oversized woollen jumper, legs drawn beneath her in the reading chair next to the radiator as she pored over the latest Rebecca Yarros.
I considered Malia’s words about David. Maybe him being here all the time wasn’t a terrible shame after all.
As natural homes went, you could do a lot worse.