Chapter Nineteen
Tess Hardy was a liar.
She was a lying liar who lied.
There was no open mind. Her mind was as closed as a steel trap. Locked tighter than the vault where they kept the Crown Jewels. As shut as the prison doors slamming behind someone who’d just been sent down for life, no hope of parole, for crimes against humanity.
They’d already established that she didn’t have a clue what her type was so where was the harm in taking a chance? Spending a mere ten minutes in the company of someone she might never have considered, but who could give her pause for thought?
But no. She just sat there on her chair, sipping her wine, with her usually open and expressive face set in tight, petulant lines. Not appreciating that Gabe had read novels. And plays. Even some poems. For her.
His sacrifice, his dedication, was all for nothing as she dismissed his first choice so swiftly and harshly.
Romeo might have been unceremoniously dispatched, but Gabe was still undaunted. Or rather he tried to look as if he was undaunted, even as he began to wonder if he’d bitten off more than he could chew.
‘I took on board what you said about all those eighteenth-century types, so how about someone from the twentieth century?’ he suggested with a brightness that he didn’t feel.
Tess perked up a little. ‘One hundred years or so has to have had a positive effect on the dating pool,’ she said. ‘At least, women have the vote now and can wear trousers. The men will be more progressive, right?’
‘Of course.’ Gabe unlocked the next book on his pile.
Not a mildewed volume; its pages so foxed and yellowed that it was almost impossible to read.
Oh no! This book was a comparative baby compared to most other books in the library.
It had only been published in 1925. ‘Can I introduce you to Jay Gatsby, hero of The Great Gatsby?’
Tess perked up a little more. ‘He does have some good points. Rich, enigmatic, loves a sesh,’ she called out over the sound of the bells.
She leaned forward in her chair to peer through the bending of the air around them, the gold haze, and there, leaning lazily against the doorframe, in a white suit, a straw boater tipped rakishly on his head, was a tall figure.
In his hand was a champagne coupe and on his face was a smile that was a little like being blinded by the sun.
It made both Gabe and Tess blink.
Gatsby stepped into the room, his gait unsteady, drops of champagne scattered in his wake. ‘Hello, old sport,’ he said, his words slurred. ‘Say, have we met before?’
‘Only in my GCSE English class,’ Tess murmured.
‘Not in your dreams then?’ Gatsby asked with another of those incandescent smiles, though it quickly slipped off his face as if it was coated in oil. ‘I knew a girl as pretty as you once.’
This was already going a hundred times better than the three previous dates. It would have gone even better if Gatsby hadn’t stumbled as he tried to step up onto the dais. Tess stood up and offered him her hand, which he didn’t let go, not even when they were both seated opposite each other.
‘I have to get back to my party quite soon,’ he told Tess softly, entwining his fingers in hers. All Gabe could do was stand helplessly in the shadows and watch. ‘But there’s something to be said for sitting here, just the two of us. The silence, so luminous.’
They sat like that for quite a while. Holding hands, murmuring quietly to each other so that Gabe couldn’t hear what they were saying.
It felt almost as if he was the one intruding and should leave the room, but he had to stay.
Obviously. To gauge the success of the experiment and, after Heathcliff and Rochester, to check Tess was OK.
Most importantly, to ensure library property wasn’t damaged in any way.
Yet it seemed as if the debonair playboy at the centre of The Great Gatsby was already damaged.
It was the last book that Gabe had read, or rather he’d only skim-read the first half of it, which had told him everything that he needed to know.
Jay Gatsby was a party boy and bon viveur (which Tess would like), but ultimately had no substance, so she wouldn’t develop any deep-seated feelings for him.
But now, Gabe had never seen her so still, her face and demeanour soft and sympathetic as Gatsby talked to her in a low voice and she listened, nodding her head occasionally.
It all looked far too personal for a fun and flirty date, so it was just as well that the allotted ten minutes had gone by.
‘I hate to break this up,’ Gabe said loudly enough to disrupt their cosy tête-a-tête. ‘But we’re on a clock here.’
Gatsby lifted his head from where it had almost been resting in the crook of Tess’s neck. ‘Sorry, old sport. I should get back to the party anyway.’
He stood up, Tess standing up too so she could give him a brief but heartfelt hug. ‘I don’t even know how this works,’ she said. ‘The words are already written so anything I say or do isn’t going to change the outcome of the book, is it?’
It seemed as if she was addressing the question to Gabe. Nice of her to remember that he existed.
‘It’s not,’ he said very firmly, in case she’d been taken with this, frankly, shallow man and wanted to keep him.
‘I thought so,’ she said sadly and as Gatsby stepped off the dais, she put a hand on his shoulder to delay his departure.
‘Even so, I have to tell you this, Jay. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.’’’
Jay turned awkwardly to pat the hand she had on his shoulder. ‘I know that, old girl. But still, the heart wants what it wants. Now, where did I put my champagne?’
He’d already drunk and/or spilled it, but he picked up his empty glass before he was sent back to West Egg and, well, Gabe was sure he’d have a lovely time, what with all the parties and such.
Once he was gone, Tess slumped back in her chair.
Gabe could only describe her general mood as sorrowful.
‘I couldn’t help but feel for that poor man,’ she said.
She scooped up a handful of Ritz crackers, shoved them in her mouth and munched them contemplatively.
Then she folded her arms and fixed Gabe with a look that was even more contemplative. ‘Did you read the whole book?’
He felt like one of his own undergraduate students standing in front of his desk as he asked them in no uncertain terms – some might even say interrogated them – if they’d done the required reading. Even though he knew that the answer was going to be a big, fat no.
‘Look, I had a lot of books to get through. Maybe I didn’t quite finish that one,’ he said. Yes, he definitely said the words. Absolutely didn’t bluster. Not at all. ‘Why? I guess he doesn’t end up with Daisy?’
‘Spoiler alert, he dies.’ Tess snatched up a piece of smoked ham and stuffed that in her mouth. ‘Now I must eat my feelings. My sad, sad feelings.’
It was time to switch things up. ‘Let’s concentrate on the fun aspect that I promised you,’ Gabe said as he sorted through his precious pile of books. ‘Because sometimes fun is more important than flirtation, right?’
‘You sound quite shrill,’ Tess noted, as she peered at the grazing platter to select her next bite. ‘It’s not inspiring a lot of confidence.’
‘Fun,’ Gabe relayed a little desperately. ‘Also, this author’s works have only just slipped out of copyright, so this is a new acquisition for us.’
Tess paused, her hand hovering over a small bunch of grapes and a triangle of Comté. ‘Where do you get your books from? How do you even …’
‘Obviously that’s a trade secret,’ Gabe said quickly. ‘I can’t tell you that. It’s information that only the head librarian is privy to.’
She’d been quite sombre ever since Jay Gatsby, now Tess’s grin was a welcome sight. ‘And the head librarian’s assistant?’
Gabe tried to prevent the corners of his mouth from curling up into a smile but he wasn’t that strong. ‘Are you trying to get a rise out of me?’
Tess put a hand on her heart. ‘I would never!’ she gasped in an outrage that Gabe knew was entirely fake. ‘But seriously though, how does it work with the other books? The ones that don’t contain fictional characters you can date?’
There was only so much that Gabe could tell Tess, bound as he was by the sacred trust bequeathed to him by all the Sharmas who had gone before.
‘Well, you could take out a law book, book the lecture theatre, and watch a trial that took place three hundred years ago,’ he told Tess, whose eyes and mouth were suddenly three round circles of wonder.
‘Or you could summon a plant from a book on botany that has been extinct for centuries. There are many scientific breakthroughs and discoveries which owe a lot to this library.’
‘What about extinct animals? Has anyone ever taken out a dodo?’ Tess clasped her hands together. ‘Please tell me that they have!’
‘I took a solemn pledge of confidentiality when I became head librarian,’ Gabe said, which was true, but also, he was still traumatised from the time that two dodos had run amok in the stacks, crapping everywhere. ‘Our patrons use the library and its collection in many different ways.’
Tess was silent as she sampled some Roquefort and considered the information that Gabe had just given her. ‘I mean, I suppose I could just take out Jane Austen herself.’
‘She never inserted herself into any of her books …’ Gabe reminded her.
‘There are her letters though,’ Tess pointed out. ‘So, why couldn’t I summon her? Although I think I’d be quite scared to. I don’t think I’d pass muster.’
‘I’m sure you would,’ Gabe said, and he had taken a pledge, but also … ‘She was taken out once. In the mid eighteen hundreds. She was furious about it and insisted that my great, great, great grandfather ensured that it never happened again.’
Tess’s face was still largely three circles of wonder. ‘Writers can do that?’