Chapter Seven
W HEN C HLOE ARRIVED back at the library, she worked at the computer a bit more, inputting several more books with Eric’s help. The hours slipped by, and as the mid-afternoon slump hit, she decided to make everyone a cup of tea. She was heading for the fridge when she almost bumped into Mrs Cook.
‘Hi, Mrs Cook. I was about to make a cuppa,’ she said. ‘Would you like one?’
‘Great minds certainly think alike. I was about to do the same.’ Mrs Cook beamed at her. The kettle was an old-fashioned metal one that clucked on the hob, the sound of the water heating strangely cosy.
‘We’ve got some new books coming in,’ said the librarian as she put teabags in the mugs. As with any good workplace, the library kitchen was always well stocked with coffee, tea, sugar and milk. ‘A few new releases from last year. They’ll be a great addition.’
‘Great,’ said Chloe, hoping to be able to borrow them herself. Buying books was all well and good until you had to fit them into a suitcase. She only owned one paperback at the moment, and she had almost finished reading it.
‘Would you like to have a chat, Chloe? There aren’t any customers here now, and if there are, Eric can sort them. Or would you rather be alone?’
‘Hm? Oh, no, I don’t mind.’ Chloe found herself a little flustered as she sat at the kitchen’s plastic dining table opposite the librarian, the mug warming her hands.
She wondered whether to bring up what had happened since she had started working here: the night she had escaped here after her bad date, her conversation with the young man with the kilt.
Would she sound insane by giving voice to what had happened?
She took a sip of tea. Mrs Cook mirrored her, then let out a satisfied ‘aah’ that made Chloe giggle.
Chloe had mentioned her parents’ accident during her job interview, not wanting the subject of her family to pop up down the line and make anyone uncomfortable. But she realised she didn’t know much about Mrs Cook at all.
‘How long have you been a library manager?’ she asked her.
‘Oh, my. Almost forty years now.’ Mrs Cook smiled in reminiscence.
‘From long before we had computers, when we had to keep track of everything manually, with pen and paper. I’ve worked at libraries all over the place, but I’ve been at this one for nearly ten years.
I’ve seen people work here, coming and going.
Some just worked for the wage. Others, like you and Eric, really love books. It’s wonderful to see.’
‘Wow,’ said Chloe, trying to remember her time visiting this place as a child with her mother.
The memories were hazy; in the past year, anything related to Mum and Dad had been shelved in a dark, cobwebby corner of her mind and were now difficult to grasp.
She thought she had vague memories of this place, but she couldn’t be sure. ‘You must enjoy it a lot.’
‘Being surrounded by books all day.’ Mrs Cook’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. ‘What’s not to love?’
Chloe agreed. There was no denying she liked this job far more than her last one. As a matter of fact, more than any job she had ever had.
‘My husband never really understood it.’ Mrs Cook held her mug in her wrinkled hands, gazing at the wall as though lost in memories. ‘He did read sometimes, but he preferred sports.’
Chloe noted she used the past tense when she referred to her husband, and she felt a flicker of sadness for the elderly woman. ‘You’re alone, too?’ she said before she could stop herself.
‘Oh, he’s not dead, love,’ the librarian reassured her. ‘We divorced when we were in our forties. Rest assured, he’s living his best life somewhere in southeast Asia.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Oh.’ Chloe vaguely wondered whether he was rich and if he’d crossed paths with Gwen. That would be weird. ‘So you’re Ms Cook?’
‘I like the ring of “Mrs” better.’ The librarian shrugged.
‘My ex-husband and I are still on good terms, on the rare occasions we do meet. And that’s more than a lot of people get,’ she added gently.
‘And we were blessed with plenty of healthy children. They’re off gallivanting all over the world, too. Do you like to travel, Chloe?’
Chloe thought of her friend, Hannah, who was happy with staying in Wellbridge.
‘Kind of,’ she said. ‘My sister travels a lot.’ She hadn’t checked up on Gwen’s social media for a while, hardly using it herself.
Things were so tense between them, especially since the funeral, that it felt like a sting every time she saw Gwen beaming at her from a yacht or on a beach, hiding any grief she may be experiencing for the death of their parents, behind a raised cocktail glass and an oversized pair of sunglasses.
The bitterness must have shown on her face, because Mrs Cook said, ‘Perk up, lovely. You’re still young.
And if you would ever like time off to take a trip, you just need to let me know.
’ She patted Chloe’s hand. ‘Same for if you would ever like to borrow any books from the library. Just check them out as a normal customer would.’
‘Thanks. That reminds me,’ said Chloe, remembering. She told the librarian about Harry and him asking about the rest of the fantasy series he had started. He may have been annoying, but visitors requesting books was never a bad thing for the library. ‘Do you think we can order them in?’
Mrs Cook set down her cup. ‘How nice we have a returning customer. We don’t get enough of those these days.’ She suddenly looked so sad that Chloe couldn’t bear it.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘Every year, we get fewer visitors. The children’s section hasn’t had much attention these past few years, and even our events fall flat a bit. The library misses having people around. People prefer television, I think.’
‘What do you mean, the library misses people?’ Chloe asked, curious.
‘Nothing, love. It’s a figure of speech.’ Mrs Cook washed her mug and gave Chloe a fond, motherly look. ‘Let me see if I can get those books ordered in. I’ll take Eric his tea, too.’
Chloe thought about what Mrs Cook had said.
It was true that, even on weekends, the library didn’t see many visitors.
She had been here for a few weeks now, and it was rare for them to see more than two or three people over the entire day.
She didn’t know if television was the reason or whether people simply preferred to get their books elsewhere, like in shops or online, but either way, it was a problem.
Chloe loved this place. Even if she wasn’t going to be here for very long, she wanted to do what she could to help.
An hour before closing time, she made a suggestion. ‘Maybe we could host a public event,’ she suggested to Mrs Cook. ‘Something to help reignite interest in this place.’
Mrs Cook turned to her from the shelves. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘Well . . .’ They walked together into the non-fiction section.
The library’s west wing was divided into non-fiction and reference books, from encyclopaedias to history to language learning, and the children’s area.
There was a large soft play area for toddlers, bright and happy animals and cartoon characters stuck to the walls, and bookshelves of kids’ books, full and unused.
‘Maybe we could ask the local school to bring over a class. And we could have a bake sale. People could bring their own things, or I could ask the café down the road. Children love challenges, don’t they?
We could work with their teachers to have a challenge to read so many books in a month.
’ She trailed off, not sure whether her idea sounded silly.
But Mrs Cook looked pleased. ‘That sounds like it just might work. You went to the local school when you were a child, didn’t you, Chloe? Maybe you could go there and ask them.’
‘Me?’ she asked in surprise. She had assumed Mrs Cook would just get them on the phone.
‘I think it would make an impact to go there in person. I can book an appointment with the headteacher there.’ She glanced back. ‘Unless you’d rather I did it?’
‘No, no, I can.’ Chloe had wanted to help, hadn’t she? ‘You’re right, I did go to school there.’ The thought of going back to her childhood school sounded fun. She had so many great memories in Wellbridge.
Painful ones, too.
She had avoided a lot of the town since coming back.
Being in her parents’ old house had been difficult enough, seeing their ghosts whenever she entered a room, occasionally waking up in her childhood bedroom confused, thinking in the blurry moments between sleep and awake that she was a kid again and her parents were alive, only for reality to crash into her.
There were places all over town she had avoided, not wanting to unpack the memories that she might conjure.
‘It’s just . . . there are a lot of bad memories, you know. ’
Mrs Cook didn’t know. Chloe had told her about her parents, but not about everything else.
The librarian’s voice was kind. ‘Maybe you should give yourself more time.’
But Chloe’s thoughts flitted to the conversation with the Scottish man upstairs, about putting faith in something even if you didn’t fully understand it. What was she achieving by putting it off? She couldn’t run for ever. ‘I can do it,’ she said, resolve filling her.
‘I think this will be great for the library,’ said Mrs Cook, her steps more buoyant as they headed back to the reception desk. Clementine had deposited himself on the computer keyboard, slowly closing and opening his eyes as the librarian petted his furry head.