The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery (2 page)

“So?” said Israel.

“So? I’ll tell ye what’s so. I’m stepping outside here for a smoke, and ye’ve got five minutes to get out of yer stinking bed before I lose my temper.”

Ted walked outside.

And Israel readjusted himself on the bed, pulling the quilt back up around him, plucking David Lean’s
Great Expectations
from out under the covers—he wondered where that had got to. He’d joined an online DVD postal delivery service, which was very good—unlimited DVDs, no late fee, twelve pounds per month, delivered to the door of the farm—and he’d been steadily working his way through the British Film Institute’s Top 100 films.
The Third Man
,
Brief Encounter
,
The 39 Steps
,
Kes
,
The Red Shoes
. Often he’d fall asleep in the coop to black-and-white images and then wake up in the morning to the sound of the shipping forecast on the World Service. Alfred Hitchcock, Dirk Bogarde, “And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at 0520 today. There are warnings of gales in Rockall, Malin, Hebrides. The general synopsis: low Rockall 987, deepening rapidly, expected Fair Isle 964 by 0700 tomorrow.”

Sometimes he didn’t know where he was. Or what year it was. It was like he’d come adrift in his life.

He thought maybe he’d try ringing Gloria on his mobile again. He’d only rung a couple of times so far today. She hadn’t answered the phone to him since he’d arrived back in Tumdrum.

Straight to voicemail.

He’d try again later.

He picked up
Infinite Jest
again. Laid it back down. Started flicking through a month-old
Guardian
.

He scanned the job ads. He was seriously thinking about retraining. Administration. There were always jobs in administration. Israel knew he would make a great administrator. He just needed the right thing to administrate. How difficult could it be, being an administrator? “Israel Armstrong is
The Administrator
.” He could see it, in his mind’s eye. “When the going gets tough there are men who know how to take charge. Men who know how to make things happen. Men who know how to
administrate
.” He had many times cast the film adaptation of the book of his life—he imagined John Cusack playing him, or someone younger, maybe Owen Wilson, he would be fine, he had an intelligent face, and Harvey Keitel as Ted, maybe, and a nice little cameo for Steve Buscemi, although obviously he’d have to beef up a bit, and Salma Hayek would be perfect as Gloria…

The trouble was, though, he wasn’t in the film of the book of his life. He was
in
his life, in which he had split with his longtime girlfriend, Gloria, was living in a converted chicken coop, and was paid exactly fifteen thousand pounds a year as a mobile librarian on the northernmost coast of the north of the north of Northern Ireland. And he was nearly thirty.
He had somehow become a shadow of himself, as though he were somewhere else and this thing—this body—was having experiences on his behalf. It was like his own life had become a series of ancient lantern slides, or an old video, or a shaky cine-show, or a snippet on YouTube, or a cinema trailer for a blockbusting main feature called
Failure
. He had no idea what he was doing here or what was the point or how he was feeling. All he knew was that sometimes, in the chicken coop, he’d wake in the night sobbing and sobbing, his chest heaving, and there were these black beetles all over the floor, and when he switched on the light the beetles froze, like they were holding their breath, waiting for something, their own destruction, or salvation, possibly, or the dark again, and that’s
exactly
what he felt like…

“Time up!” said Ted, bashing back through the door. “Not ready?”

“Look, Ted, I’m really not feeling the best this morning. Can we maybe reschedule?”

“Reschedule?”

“Yeah, look—”

“
Reschedule
?”

“Yeah. Just, if you could give me a couple of days maybe and I’ll get back to you.”

“Ye’ll get back to me?”

“Yeah. I just need a little time to take stock and—”

“
Take stock
!?”

“Yes.”

“Ach, Jesus. Fine.”

At which Ted walked over to the bed, bent down, locked his knees, and grabbed hold of the bed frame.

“I’ll tell ye what,” he huffed. “Take stock.” Huff. “Of.” Huff. “This!”

And he stood up, flinging the metal frame up as he stood.

Israel fell onto the floor, only the quilt protecting him from serious injury and a thousand cuts from the smashed wine bottles.

“What the hell are you doing, you madman!” screamed Israel, leaping up, flannelette pajama–clad, from the floor. “I could have broken my back!”

“Your back!” said Ted, straightening up. “Your back! I could have broken
my
blinkin’ back, ye eejit!”

“Yes, but—”

“Ahh!” said Ted painfully.

“Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m not blinkin’ all right, ye eejit! Aahh!”

“Shall I get George, or—”

“No, ye shall not,” said Ted, drawing himself up stiffly to his not inconsiderable shaven-headed height. “What ye’ll do is get dressed in the van is what ye’ll do, or I’ll—”

“What?” said Israel.

“Ahh!” said Ted.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. Just, some of these joints haven’t been moved in a while, that’s all. Now. Where were we?”

“You were just—”

“Ach, aye. Yes. In the van, come on. Now.”

“Or?” said Israel.

“Or,” said Ted. “I’ll ring your mother.”

“No,” said Israel. “You wouldn’t.”

“Yes,” said Ted, hobbling toward the door. “I would.”

Israel’s mother had recently made a brief and disastrous visit to Tumdrum, where, as a loud, extravagant, wildly hand-gesturing, menopausal scarf-wearing, middle-aged north London Jew, she had made quite an impact on the local dour, largely Presbyterian, muttering community. She and Ted had formed an unnaturally close bond, and Ted had spent much time with her, taking her to visit Northern Ireland’s supposed tourist attractions—the place where the
Titanic
was built, for example, and the colorful sectarian murals of Belfast—leaving Israel to single-handedly man the mobile during the day and to sit up waiting for their return late in the evenings. They would return flushed and smelling suspiciously of cigarettes and drink. Israel’s mother had successfully managed to embarrass Israel the entire length and breadth of Tumdrum, including at an agonizing dinner at the Devines’, the farm where Israel stayed as a lodger, during which she had flirted outrageously with old Mr. Devine, and had spent all evening urging George to adopt a rigorous daily beauty routine.

“And I’ll tell ye what,” said Ted, gesturing toward the debris in the coop. “When she hears about all this auld nonsense she’ll be over on the next flight.”

“No!” said Israel. “You wouldn’t—”

Ted had his mobile phone in his hand.

“Five minutes,” he said. “In the van. And don’t ye dare waste another moment of my precious time.”

Five minutes later, Israel was in the van.

“There we are, then,” said Ted.

“Humpff,” said Israel miserably.

“I tell ye what, son, ye want to learn to count your blessings,” said Ted as he slammed the van into first and pulled out of the Devines’ yard.

“What?”

“Ouch!” said Ted.

“You OK?”

“My back. Never mind it. Yer blessings. Ye want to count them.”

“Right. All right, Ted, thank you. I’m here, all right. I don’t want to hear any more—”

“Go on, then.”

“What?”

“Count ’em.”

Israel sighed.

“Go on,” repeated Ted. “Count ’em.”

“Ted. I’m really not in the mood. I have a headache and I’m really not well.”

There was a pause of a few seconds.

“Ye counted ’em?”

“I am not counting my blessings, Ted. Thank you.”

“How many d’ye get?”

“I’m not counting blessings!”

“Aye. Because ye’re scared.”

“What? Scared of what?”

“That yer miserable life is not as blinkin’ miserable as ye like to think, ye streak of misery. I tell ye what, as long as ye’re dodging the undertaker ye’re doing OK.”

“Right. Sure.”

“Good. Are ye ready?”

“Do I look like I’m ready?”

“Count them.”

“All right. All right,” said Israel, who had learned from long experience that the only way to conclude an argument with Ted was to lose it.

Israel attempted to tot up his blessings in his mind, while Ted pulled onto the main coast road back into central Tumdrum.

“So, how many d’ye get?” said Ted.

“Two,” said Israel. He was alive, after all. And he wasn’t starving.

“Two?”

“Yes,” said Israel.

“That it?” said Ted. “Two?”

“Yes,” said Israel. “Alas.”

“Well, that’s better than one,” said Ted, “isn’t it. Sure, some people have no hands.”

“What?” said Israel, watching the grim outer-lying estates flashing by.

“No hands,” repeated Ted, sticking his own arm out the window as they approached the first of Tumdrum’s many mini-roundabouts. “Must get that indicator fixed.”

“Some people have no hands?” said Israel.

“That’s right. I saw a program on the television the other week, about a fella with no legs.”

“No legs?”

“Aye. Makes ye think, doesn’t it? Come back to me when you’re in that sort of a position and start complainin’ and I might start listening to ye.”

“Right, OK. When I’ve lost my legs in some horrific—”

“Or yer arms.”

“Or my arms.”

“Aye. Get back to me then with yer troubles.”

“I will, Ted, most certainly get back to you when I have lost either my arms or my legs—”

“Or both.”

“Both.”

“And ye might get some sympathy then. In the meantime,” continued Ted, “turn the peat.”

“What?”

“It’s a saying.”

“Right.”

“And get a haircut and a shave as well while ye’re at it—that’ll cheer you up.”

“I don’t need cheering up, Ted.”

“You need a haircut and a shave, but.”

“All right, thank you. Let’s drop this whole conversation now, can we?”

“Well, I promised yer mother I’d look out for ye, and I don’t intend lettin’ her down.”

“I don’t need you keeping an eye on me, Ted, thank you.”

“Well, believe me, it’s the last thing I want to do either, but I told your mother I would, and I will. She’s a good woman, yer mother.”

“She doesn’t need to worry about me.”

“Of course she needs to worry about ye,” said Ted. “That’s what mothers are supposed to do.”

“Right.”

“You know what they say.”

“No. What?”

“You always meet your mother when you’re young.”

“Right,” said Israel. “Well, thank you, Martin Buber. Illuminating as ever.”

They were approaching the square, the downtown of Tumdrum.

“Ye probably just need a new challenge,” continued Ted.

“Probably,” agreed Israel.

“A hobby,” said Ted, “is what you need.”

“A hobby?”

“Aye. A choir or something.”

“A choir?”

“Or line dancing.”

“Line dancing?”

“Aye, or a jigsaw even.”

“A jigsaw?”

“Or walk a good brisk mile every morning. That’d cure you.”

“A jigsaw?” repeated Israel.

“Yes.”

“And a good brisk walk.”

“Aye.”

“I’m sure that’d do the trick, Ted. But can we talk about something else now, please?”

“It wasn’t me got us started on the subject of yer hartship,” said Ted.

“Anyway,” said Israel.

They pulled off the main road.

“Ye all ready for the morning, then?” said Ted.

“Oh yes,” said Israel, who wasn’t ready at all. He’d spent the best part of two weeks in bed reading David Foster Wallace, and he’d lost all track of time, place, sense, meaning, or himself. “What day is it? Where are we going?”

“It’s Friday. All day. Morning in the lay-by. And then we’re off to the school.”

“Oh god. No.”

“No language, thank ye.”

“Oh Jesus,” said Israel.

“Shut up,” said Ted, leaning over and slapping Israel across the back of his head. “I’ll not tell ye again.”

Israel and Ted were back in business.

2

T
umdrum. Tumdrum. Tumdrum was not the back of beyond. No.

It was much, much farther.

No. Farther.

A little bit farther.

There. That’s about right.

Tumdrum, the armpit of Antrim, on the north of the north coast of the north of Northern Ireland, a place where the sky was always the color of a pair of very old stone-washed jeans, beaten and rinsed, and where the only pub, the First and Last, was a harbinger of Armageddon, and where The Bible Shop was the bookshop, where the replacement of what little remained of Edwardian and Victorian historic architecture with stunning, high-spec turnkey apartments was almost complete, and where a trip to Billy Kelly’s edge-of-town Car and Van Superstore (“Please Pull In to View Our Massive Stock with No Obligation”) represented a day out, and where scones—delicious, admittedly, served warm, buttered, and spread with jam—were the height of culinary sophistication at Zelda’s Café, the town’s “Internet Hot Spot: The First and Still the Best.”

And here, of all places, was Israel Armstrong, back at his post in this godforsaken Nowheresville, sitting on the mobile library, parked up in a lay-by, doing nothing but issuing true crime books about local thugs, and thinly fictionalized books about local thugs, and books
by
local thugs, and memoirs by the wives of local thugs, while enjoying all of the usual banter and craic with his regular readers. Such as Mr. McCully.

“I’m looking for the De Saurus.”

“Sorry?”

“The DE SAURUS.”

“Right. And it’s a foreign author?”

“A foreign author?”

“De Saurus. Like the Marquis de Sade?”

“The what?”