The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery (26 page)

“Failure?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

“I feel like I’m a failure.”

“Oh. But doesn’t that rather depend on your definition of success, Israel?”

“I don’t know. I suppose.”

“So what’s success?”

“I don’t know. Someone who succeeds at what they’re doing. A businessman or J. K. Rowling or—”

“It’s just money and fame, then, is it?”

“No,” said Israel.

“So you can have a successful social worker or a window cleaner or a bus driver?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“And what would make them a success?”

“Doing their job well, I suppose. Enjoying it. Making a contribution.”

“And what is there to stop you doing that in your job?”

“I don’t know. I just…It doesn’t feel right. I just feel I don’t fit in, I suppose.”

“Mmm.”

“I just feel…The milieu here, the—”

“The
milieu
?” The Reverend Roberts laughed again. “
The milieu
!”

“Yes.”

“You know, Israel, maybe you don’t fit in here. Milieu!” He slapped his thighs with mirth.

“What’s wrong with ‘milieu’?” said Israel.

“Israel! Nobody says ‘
milieu
,’” said the Reverend Roberts.

“Well, I do,” said Israel.

“Sorry, sorry,” said the Reverend Roberts, chuckling. “Seriously. Where do you think you would find your milieu, Israel? Where would you thrive?”

“I don’t know.” Israel thought for a moment. “Vienna in the 1920s? Or Paris. Les Deux Magots?”

“Ah, yes, the old café cultures,” said the Reverend Roberts.

“Conversation and intellectual stimulation,” said Israel.

“There’s always Zelda’s,” said the Reverend Roberts.

“It’s hardly the same.”

“No. But there are cafés down in Belfast now. They’re everywhere. Starbucks.”

“Yes, but—”

“I know, I know. I’m joking.”

“It doesn’t seem that funny, being stuck here,” said Israel.

“I know what you mean,” said the Reverend Roberts. “We are rather on the edge of things, I suppose.”

“Exactly.”

“In a funny way that’s what makes it attractive, though, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Feeling isolated, removed, yearning to connect to the center? Being here, it’s a kind of metaphor, really, isn’t it?”

“A metaphor for?”

“I’m not sure,” said the Reverend Roberts. “Our need for redemption? That desire to resolve that sense of alienation from ourselves that I think we all have, and that derives from our recognition and knowledge of our own destructive impulses?”

“Erm…”

“I think living here excites in me that same feeling that religion or art or music or literature raises and simultaneously answers in us, and yet not completely answers…Do you know what I mean?”

“I think I do,” said Israel. “Although I never thought of Tumdrum as a metaphor, I must admit.”

“Well, maybe you should,” said the Reverend Roberts. “It might help answer some of your sense of—”

“Having sort of lost the thread a bit,” said Israel.

“Yes,” said the Reverend Roberts. “Yes. And do you think
drugs are going to help you pick up the thread and make you feel like a success?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I just…feel like…I’m not…at home. I don’t seem to have found what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.”

“Well, I think we can all identify with that feeling!” said the Reverend Roberts, with a sigh. “
Ardens sed virens
.”

“Sorry?”

“‘Burning yet flourishing,’” said the Reverend Roberts. “It’s the motto of the Presbyterian Church.”

“Right,” said Israel. “It’s different for you, though, isn’t it? You have a calling, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t often feel like it,” said the Reverend Roberts.

“Really? But you’re like the preacher to Kierkegaard’s ducks, aren’t you? The man up the front, telling people they can fly?”

“Mmm. You know, Israel, usually, to be absolutely honest, I feel like one of the duck congregation myself.”

“Oh.”

The two men gazed again outside at the blankness beyond the kitchen windows.

“I think we’re all destined to live our lives in darkness, don’t you, Israel?”

Israel coughed nervously.

“The Bible promises us that God will divide light from obscurity, yes. But not necessarily in our lifetimes, I think. It’s amazing to me, actually, that more people don’t…”

Israel huffed. The reverend sighed.

“But! Enough of this sort of talk,” said the reverend. “Come on! Onward! I’ve got a sermon to write, and you’ve got a young woman to try to find. Let’s not indulge ourselves.”

“Right enough,” said Israel, standing up again.

“If you need any help, let me know,” said the Reverend Roberts, reaching for a commentary.

“Likewise,” said Israel, shaking the reverend’s hand.

“I appreciate that,” said the Reverend Roberts. “Thank you.” And “Now,” he continued, to himself as Israel let himself out, “Prevenient Grace: where to begin?”

20

T
he Retreat, as the Reverend Roberts suggested, was indeed held in Tumdrum’s community halls, a bizarre, dilapidated warren of buildings just off the town’s main square. The halls had metastasized over the years from their original simple 1930s wooden incarnation into a horribly deformed redbrick and concrete monstrosity that sprawled lazily and decrepitly across a large area surrounded by brown weeds and broken paving stones. But of course, like a church, the community halls were more than a mere building; you couldn’t really judge Tumdrum Community Halls on the basis of their looks alone. Which was fortunate, because they really were quite horrid.

A big, bright luminescent sign had been erected outside the halls saying The Retreat, with another sign in
luminescent orange saying FREE TRIP TO HEAVEN DETAILS INSIDE! alongside it, and there was a loud, forceful, jolly man with a clipboard at the door, the sort of man who in middle age was somehow both fully mature and yet still fully a child, his plump neck and receding hair the perfect complement to his hilarious Hawaiian shirt and character Buddy Holly–style glasses. He was directing young people to different rooms in the halls, with an air of grand and efficient theatricality, as though he were a stage manager and the halls were the backstage dressing rooms for a large and important show. Israel was surprised: at eight o’clock on a Friday night there were crowds jostling to get in. The range of weekend and nighttime recreational activities for young people in Tumdrum was neither alluring nor extensive: the bright lights of Rathkeltair tended to draw the over-eighteens for dancing and drinking, which left the town to the younger teens to do what they wished, and what they wished was what other teens wished on Friday nights in small towns all around the world, which was to hang around on street corners, smoking, drinking, and shouting at one another and at passersby. But when they got bored or cold or they wanted someone new to annoy or to intimidate, or they just had the urge to play table tennis or pool on slightly broken-down pool and table-tennis tables, the Retreat was there for them.

“OK,” the clipboard man was saying to the crowds of people pushing through the doors, manically high-fiving whoever he could as they passed. “Good to see you! Good to see you! Hi! Hi! Hi! High-five! OK, people,” he yelled, “you know the score. It’s table tennis through to the left, sock hockey in the main hall, refreshments in the dining room,
prayer room next to the toilets.” He caught his breath and then yelled over the heads of the crowd to address a gang of even-more-disenfranchised-than-most Tumdrum young people standing across the other side of the street who were shouting the traditional abuse at those going into the club. “Hey! Hey! Come on over,” he said, waving them across. “Come in. Come on. You might like it! Table tennis! Pool! Sock hockey. Come on! Check it out!”

“Loser,” shouted one young man across the road.

“Double loser,” added another.

The man with the clipboard smiled beatifically—like a saint. Or Ned Flanders, thought Israel.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! High-five!” came his repeated greeting as young people flocked through the doors.

Israel stood skulking until the rush and the high fives had died down, and then he wandered over.

“Hi!” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said the clipboard man. “The Retreat’s for under-eighteens only. But if you’re in need of a bed for the night—”

“Ha!” said Israel. “Very funny.” By the look on the man’s face Israel realized he wasn’t joking: he really thought he was homeless. “No. No. I’m not…homeless or anything.”

“Oh, apologies,” said the man. “I thought maybe you were…”

“No, no,” said Israel, tugging at his beard. Maybe he needed to shave.

“And you’re not here for the youth club?”

“No.”

“Ah. OK. Well, hi anyway. I’m Adam. Adam Burns.”

“Hello,” said Israel, shaking his proffered hand. So this, he was thinking, is what a schismatic looks like: a Club 18–30 holiday rep.

“And you are?” said Adam.

“Sorry. Israel. Armstrong. I was wondering if I could have a word with you, actually?”

“Now?” said Adam Burns.

“If possible, that would be great.”

“Well. That might be difficult, actually. It’s Retreat night, you see.”

“Yes, I understand. I just wanted to talk to you about Lyndsay Morris.”

“Ah. Terrible,” said Adam Burns, shaking his head. “We’re all so worried about her.” He looked Israel up and down. “Look. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can do?”

“I’d appreciate that, thank you,” said Israel.

Israel hung around inside the entrance to the halls, where young people were milling around aimlessly, and where it was possible to hear loud music playing from one room, people singing along to a song that seemed to consist simply of the words “Our God reigns” repeated again and again, and again and again.

Adam had disappeared and then came back a few minutes later, clipboardless, his smile intact.

“Do you want to come into the prayer room?” he asked, touching Israel on the arm.

“Yeah. That’d be great,” said Israel. He’d never really liked men who touched him on the arm.

The room was empty and clearly used as a nursery or a crèche the rest of the time: there were terrible finger paintings
and laminated posters with the alphabet and numbers. Adam and Israel squatted down on a couple of miniature plastic chairs.

“So, Israel?” said Adam Burns. “Unusual name.”

“I suppose,” said Israel.

“You’re Jewish?”

“No. I’m a Hindu.”

“Really?”

“No. No. I’m joking.”

“Oh,” said Adam Burns, who despite his hilarious Hawaiian shirt was clearly not a man who was easily amused. “How can I help you?”

“Well, I wanted to ask you about Lyndsay Morris.”

“Yes. We’re all so terribly worried about her. Are you a friend or a family member?”

“No. I’m not, actually. I’m a…librarian.”

“OK,” said Adam Burns, looking momentarily confused: the old L-word again.

“And we are…helping to coordinate the police search?” suggested Israel.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes.”

“Right.” Adam—perhaps because he was a good Christian—seemed to take Israel’s claim at face value.

“Is it right that she would come here?” said Israel, seizing the advantage of Adam’s obvious credulity.

“Yes. Yes. She did.”

“And she came here often?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know her well?”

“I think you could say that, Israel, yes. I’m privileged to say that I was one of those present when she gave her life to Christ.” Adam smiled the kind of inward smile that expressed itself outwardly as a smirk. “Sorry. I should have offered: can I get you a cup of tea?”

“No thanks. Erm. You say she gave her life to Christ?”

“Yes.”

“Erm. You mean she became a Christian?”

“Absolutely, Israel, that’s right.”

“When was that?”

“That was maybe just a few months ago.”

“But she was a Goth as well?”

“Yes. I think that’s right. But the Bible teaches us, Israel, that Jesus died for
all
our sins.”

“Right.”

“His work of atonement was for all, whoever we are.”

“Even Goths,” said Israel.

“Absolutely,” said Adam Burns. “And Muslims and Jews and prostitutes and sinners of every kind.”

Israel felt a little uncomfortable being lumped together with the world’s outcasts. “We believe in one body of Christ,” continued Adam Burns.

“Uh-huh,” said Israel. “Really? What about the…I mean, I hope you don’t mind if I ask about the…split with Tumdrum First Presbyterian?”

Adam Burns looked sharply at Israel, as though someone had mentioned supralapsarianism.

“Why are you asking?”

“Just. I’m…interested. I must have read about it in the…
Impartial Recorder
?”

“Well, it was really a doctrinal matter,” said Adam Burns.

“Right,” said Israel. “And what doctrine exactly was it that you disagreed about?”

“You’re a theologian?”

“No, just…an interested layman.”

Adam sat up straight, put his shoulders back, and looked Israel in the eye, as though delivering a lecture or a reprimand. “Well, first of all, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has become home to a number of unscriptural practices and traditions, and at Tumdrum’s First Presbyterian Church in particular—”

“The Reverend Roberts’s church?”

“That’s right. And under the”—and here Adam Burns coughed, as though pausing nervously in confession—“guidance of the Reverend Roberts, Tumdrum Presbyterian has been teaching a kind of liberal humanism in the guise of the Gospel, which I as a Christian would have to reject.”

“Right.”

“The Reverend Roberts, I’m afraid”—and he coughed again and looked away from Israel—“I would have to say is a false teacher.”

“A false teacher.”

“That’s correct. The Reverend Roberts has replaced the true Gospel with something more commercially acceptable to—”

“
Commercially acceptable
?” said Israel, unable to work out what on earth was commercially acceptable about the Reverend Roberts.