Chapter 5 Ed
Chapter five
Ed
It's an unusually quiet morning in the library.
No children. No pensioners. Nobody popping in for a chat about their sciatica, or the state of American politics, or the lack of parking due to all the tourists.
The modern library is as much a conversational hub as a place to read and find information.
But not this morning.
This morning is progressing at the same pace as efforts to achieve a circular global economy. I'd even be amenable to taking George Couch up on his weekly offer to discuss the state of his haemorrhoids if it meant I didn't have to read one more email.
I've worked my way through the ones I can't ignore and am now on to the emails I don't want to have to pay attention to, but am obliged to.
The only noise in the library is the beep of books being checked back in.
Mistral stands at one of the computers on the front counter, her eyes on the screen, hands working automatically.
Her long, red hair is in Princess Leia buns today, which partially obscure the small, intricate tattoos behind each of her ears. She wears high-waisted maroon dress shorts with braces and a floral puffed-sleeved blouse. She looks great.
I wear navy trousers and a white shirt, because I lack the confidence and imagination to wear anything other than 'middle-of-the-road professional'.
I have, however, undone the top two buttons of my shirt and rolled up the sleeves due to the questionable ability of the air-conditioning system to cope with the unseasonable heat, which feels, I don't know, a little reckless.
Mistral is small and finely boned and her movements are quick and decisive.
She's a flitting, darting sprite. Which defies her shoeware.
She wears large, black, wide-soled and platformed ankle boots.
The kind favoured by Goth girls. If you tried to push her over, she'd spring back into place without her feet having moved, like one of those weighted eggs that makes its way into everyone's toy box.
Mistral momentarily pauses her flow and places a book on top of my keyboard. "You fully need to read this."
It doesn't actually look like a book I need to read at all. I open it to a random page and read aloud: "The precise proportions of the different hydrocarbons in bitumen can vary, and this can affect the properties and behaviour of something incredibly boring I couldn't care less about."
"What?" says Mistral, coming to look over my shoulder. "It doesn't say that."
"You're right. It doesn't say that." I snap the book shut and look at the cover. "Why do we have a book on bitumen, and, more importantly, why on earth would I need to read it?"
I haven't been at the library long enough to do a comprehensive evaluation of the collection, but clearly, I need to find the time.
"I gave you the wrong book. I meant to give you this one."
The book she meant to give me is entitled The Art of Romance.
While my conscious brain rushes to bury any suspicion about why she might hand this particular book to me, my unconscious one betrays it by sending a wave of heat through my body so fierce I feel like I've been internally steam cleaned.
I deflect the obvious question by asking, "How did you mistake a book on bitumen for one on romance?"
"Honestly? I wasn't looking properly."
I peer at the cover and say, “You weren’t looking at all.” It's pink and has a cherub shooting a heart with its arrow, which is far too trite to convince anyone it has authoritative and useful information. Apart from Mistral, it would seem.
I turn it over and skim the blurb on the back, then guess the Dewey number it's been assigned and check the spine label to see if I got it right. I'm off by a tenth of a classification, which still allows me a small amount of smug, but...
...I can't really delay The Question any longer. "Why do I need to read this book?"
Mistral turns back to the computer screen to continue scanning returned books. "Okay, so, have you watched Bess' TikToks about modern romance?"
I shift in my seat. "I don't need to. I know what she thinks."
"And yet, you do nothing to get her attention romantically.
" Everything about her delivery is casual – the tone and pace of her words, the way her hip is cocked with one leg bent, the foot resting atop and at right angles to the other – like she hasn't just thrown a conversational grenade between us.
I react like a typical person facing the inevitability of their fate. With complete paralysis and an overwhelming sense of doom.
When I eventually will all one hundred and fifty million air sacs in my lungs to inflate, my voice is almost lost to the same volume of air seeking rapid escape. "Why would I need to?"
I hungrily chase the next breath.
Mistral looks at me over the top of her non-existent glasses. "To be fair, Ed, anyone with the tiniest skill in observation can see you're smitten."
I...feel very vulnerable all of a sudden. "Tiniest, huh?"
"How she doesn't see it, I don't know."
Mistral can't be right. Everyone can't know. Can they?
The elderly woman Bess was spying on the previous evening enters the library and I jump at the chance to run away from this conversation. I exit my chair with such enthusiasm, I send it skittering backwards to crack against Mistral's desk. "Mrs Kavanagh. Nice to see you this morning."
Her eyes drop to The Art of Romance I still, unfathomably, have in my hands and she smiles up at me.
I toss the book on a shelf under the counter and smile back.
"Good on you, Ed. Time waits for no man."
Christ. Does she know, too?
Not willing to entertain the paranoia Mistral has attempted to seed, I try to redirect things. If indeed they needed redirection. "How's Mr Kavanagh?"
Her smile wavers. "Feeling a bit poorly this week. He's taking it quiet."
She hands me her returns. A book on rose care, a murder-mystery called Body Parts and a domestic thriller called Divorce in Death.
I try not to feel unsettled, but I'm already sitting at a fairly lofty height on the unsettled scale, so I fail in my attempt.
She looks behind her, then into the depths of the library and leans over the desk towards me.
I briefly wonder if she is actually about to admit to her husband's murder, before mirroring her so our heads are a foot and a half apart.
"Do you have any of those reverse harem books?" she whispers.
Of course I do. I am a dealer in other worlds.
"Right this way, my lady," I say as I lead her to the curtained off section of the library.
I'm joking. The reverse harem books are in the section with the large Reverse Harem signage, like in a normal library.
I can't help but have the perverse idea she's planted parts of her husband in the hope of sprouting multiple husbands.
When I get back to the library office, Mistral is, mercifully, nowhere to be seen.
I turn my attention to the obligatory emails and pay them half the attention I should while I wonder how I can behave around Bess in a way that is less noticeable to people with the tiniest skill in observation.
By the time I get to the last email, I've come to the conclusion the safest thing to do is ignore her.
If only that were possible. Bess and her lovely eyes and the loudness of her being will make that a Herculean task.
I have no idea how I'm meant to mask my feelings for her if I, apparently, can't manage it when I thought I'd made a pretty good effort in doing just that.
"Hey, Ed." Mistral rolls in an empty shelving trolley at a quick clip. "I found something in the bin at the far end of the adult non-fiction section." Her words are rapid and a little breathless.
Without looking away from my computer screen, I say, "Let me guess. Sean Connery's oft-debated chest wig."
"No."
Mistral is not as easily amused by me as Bess is.
"You need to see it."
"But do I really need to see it?" Coming from city libraries, I've seen it all.
Sex in the stacks, cocaine in the toilet, deals sealed over newspaper broadsheets.
Basically, any kind of behaviour you might expect in shadowy corners of a nightclub has been conducted in the shadowy corners of a library.
I have no idea why. It's not like knowledge repositories scream "space for conducting illicit activities".
Or maybe libraries have a much edgier reputation than the librarian fraternity realise.
Naturally, the bins can get a little unsavoury.
"You really do, actually." She places a piece of folded paper on my desk beside me and lays a hand on my shoulder, which is...ominous.
The paper is old and thin, almost translucent. The ink of the writing on the other side is clearly visible, like blue veins through pale skin. I pick it up and turn it over. "Have you read it?"
"Yes, and I don't think it should be in a bin. It's a wartime love letter."
As I open it, the mustiness of it, of time and of being kept among other, hidden things, unfurls with the paper. It crinkles and I place it flat on the desk so as not to risk tearing the thin sheet.
My dearest B it starts. No date, just the number 4 in the top right-hand corner. There's two holes cut into the middle of sentences where the military censor has removed information.
I read it. Then reread it.
Then I have to sit and process what I've read. Eventually I say, "Wow. That is one hell of a letter."
"I know, right? Whoever he was, he could write."
I look up at her. "And someone just...threw this out?"
Mistral shrugs. "It makes no sense.” Her expression turns to the shiny-eyed side of gleeful. “But do you know what does?"
"Whatever you're about to say I'm not going to like. Therefore, you might as well not say it."
She says it anyway. “Bess.”
“Bess what?” Then, with a rush of heat and the clamping of my stomach walls, I understand. Or think I understand. “I’m not writing Bess a love letter!”
Mistral rolls her eyes. "No. You should give this one to Bess."