The case of the missing books (24 page)

Israel opened up the bags, which contained some slightly damp books, and a small bag of potatoes.

'There's potatoes in here as well, Ted.'

'Aye.'

'For us?'

'I'd warrant.'

'That's very kind of Mr Onions.'

'Aye, that it is.'

'Ted,' said Israel.

'Hmm.'

'I hope these are not gifts or services in kind.'

Ted remained silent.

'Ted? Are these gifts or services in kind?'

'Of course they're not. They're potatoes.'

'But you know you're not allowed to receive goods or services in kind?'

'Ach, give over.'

'I'm serious.'

'I'm serious. Now, be quiet, boy, will you, and keep your head down, or the snipers'll see you.'

Israel flinched, and Ted roared with laughter.

'Ha! Got you! Oh yes, that's good!'

'Ted, I've got a headache.'

'Aye, me too. Listening to your auld nonsense.'

'We're never going to find all the books like this, Ted.'

'Ach, Israel, quiet, will you. You're like an auld woman.'

A couple more miles down the coast road and they came to the Myowne mobile home park. It looked like an open prison, actually: it had an air of miserable solitude about it, an air of unwelcome and rebuke, like a barracks, a place that had turned its back upon the world not through choice but through necessity, and which had grown sad and bitter as a consequence, appalled by its own exile and isolation. There were whitewashed boulders flanking the entrance, and rows of bollards linked together by rusty chains, and floodlights set upon tall posts. Signs indicated that it was an RAC-approved campsite, but it would have done equally as well as a detention centre for asylum seekers.

'I don't think I'd fancy spending my holiday here much,' said Israel.

Ted ignored him and turned off the road and drove in under the big metal arching sign which announced MYOWNE: PRIVATE, HOMES TO BUY AND RENT and they pulled up into the clearly signposted Visitors' Car Park and then went into the reception, a long, low building all flaky with paint and with faded inflatable toys hanging in its windows, and out-of-date posters advertising summer bingo nights in the communal hall, and an evening of Country Gospel with a singer called Bobbie Dylan, and a children's Bible holiday club.

'God. Holiday from hell,' joked Israel.

Ted continued to ignore him.

Inside the reception there were more pathetic inflatables hanging from the ceiling, and a rack of postcards, and shelves with nothing on them, and two trestle tables set up in front of an old wooden counter which had set out upon it newspapers and bread and milk, and a man was sat behind the counter, smoking a fragrant pipe and flicking through a newspaper, the
Irish News
. He was wearing a boiler suit and had a fat alsatian lying at his feet.

'Ted,' said the man, nodding to Ted.

'Jimmy,' said Ted, nodding back.

'Hello,' said Israel, extending his hand, his purple tie glistening against his brown corduroy jacket under the lights. The man named Jimmy in the boiler suit just looked at him–at the tie, at the T-shirt, at the brown corduroy jacket–and looked back down at his paper. 'My name's Israel Armstrong,' said Israel. 'I'm the new mobile librarian.'

'Aye.'

'And—' began Israel.

'Anything strange or startlin', Jimmy?' said Ted.

Jimmy shook his head.

'Rosie?'

'Aye,' said Jimmy, nodding, not breaking stride with his reading of the paper or his smoking, and Ted walked off, through a door at the back of the reception, outside and along a paved path and through a picket gate in the direction of the rows of caravans.

'Hold on, Ted,' said Israel, catching him up.

'He'd talk a dog to death, Jimmy.'

'Yes,' agreed Israel. 'Where are we going?'

'We're going to see Rosie. Collect some books off her. She looks after the library books on site for everyone. Unofficial librarian, like.'

'Right.'

'You know Rosie.'

'Do I?'

'You do.'

'I don't think so.'

'Aye, you do,' said Ted knowingly. 'She runs a little childminding business.'

'What? Here? In a caravan?'

'They're not caravans, they're mobile homes,' said Ted.

'Right,' laughed Israel, mistaking Ted's statement for a joke. 'And so what's the difference exactly between a caravan and a mobile home? Is there a difference?'

'People live in mobile homes, Israel,' said Ted. 'This isn't a holiday for them. This is their life.'

Israel looked shamefaced, as they tramped over scrubland and grey gravel paths, towards sand-dunes in the distance: it was like approaching the edge of the world.

Rosie's home was one of the last on the site, at the very edge of the dunes–a long, creamy-brown, flat-roofed mobile home which had not been maintained to the highest of standards. There was a rusted barbecue outside, and rusted children's bicycles, rusted chairs, a washing-line and a rusted bin: the sand and wind and the sea air seemed to be gnawing everything down to stumps and bare bones. Ted knocked on the twisted aluminium door. A woman opened, with a beaming smile.

'Ach, Ted!' she said. 'There you are now! Come on in! Isn't that desperate weather altogether?'

Rosie Hart, it turned out, was the barmaid at the First and Last, the woman who had served Israel enough drink the night before to knock him down and lay him out flat. Today her dark black hair was tied back, and she was barefoot and she was wearing the kind of happy, slightly Scandinavian-looking clothes that one might at one time have associated with hippies, before hippy clothes became sanitised boho chic, and which Rosie seemed now to be successfully reclaiming for genuine dirty hippiness, and she ushered them into her caravan–her mobile home, rather–where four fat babies were rolling around on a play mat. In the background there was the unmistakable sound of Enya.

'This is Israel, Rosie,' said Ted. 'He's the new mobile librarian.'

'We've met,' she said teasingly. 'Last night.'

'Yes,' said Israel, ashamed.

'Of course,' said Ted, gloating. 'I almost forgot.'

'How are you feeling then?'

'OK,' said Israel, not feeling well at all.

'Good,' said Rosie. 'Now, you must have known I'd had the kettle on, Ted–it's only just boiled. What'll you have, fellas, tea or coffee?'

Israel looked at Ted, looking for a cue.

'Tea, please,' said Ted, who then got down on his stomach on the floor and started playing with the babies. 'OK, you wee rascals, who's for sparring?'

'Israel?' asked Rosie.

'Erm. I'll have a cup of coffee, thanks, if that's OK.'

'Who have we got here?' asked Ted.

'That's Liam with the hair. And Joel there with the cheeky grin. Charlotte in pink there. And Charlie with the bogeys–he's a wee dote, isn't he?'

'Aye,' said Ted.

'Sorry, Israel, what was it you wanted?'

'Coffee?'

'Now it's only instant, I'm afraid,' said Rosie, going down towards the kitchen area, Israel following.

'That's fine.'

'And it's mugs.'

'Fine.'

'Probably not what you're used to, though, eh?'

'Well…'

'Roasted coffee beans where you're from, I'll bet.' She took a few mugs from a mug-stand. 'And nice white china?'

'Well, I don't know about that exactly…'

'So?' she said, turning to Israel, hands on hips, having set out the mugs and put the kettle on to reboil, and fixing him with a quizzical gaze. 'How have you found it here so far?'

'It's been…'

Rosie crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

'It's been…' continued Israel, embarrassed.

'Och, I know, pet, don't worry. It's a dump, isn't it?' said Rosie, waving a hand in dismissal. 'It's all right. You can be honest.'

'Well…I don't know if I'd…'

'Not like what you're used to, I bet.'

'No, not exactly.'

'London, isn't it, you're from?'

'Yes.'

'You know, I'd love to live in London. Or New York. I've got a cousin in Hackensack.'

Israel had never heard of it.

'He went to Fairleigh Dickinson University?'

'Right. I'm afraid I'm not…'

'And one of my aunts lives in Greenford.'

'Really? In America?'

'Och, no. Greenford, in London. D'you not know it?'

'No. I'm afraid not.'

'Well. I've never been to visit her even.'

'That's a shame.'

'I'd love to live over there,' said Rosie, quietly and thoughtfully, pausing as she poured boiling water into the mugs.

'Well, why don't you?' asked Israel.

Rosie laughed, stirring tea bag and granules.

'This is where I live,' she said, gesturing at the four walls of the mobile home.

It was one room, with a stained and sagging red sofa dividing the living area from the kitchen, and the kitchen units were chipped and scratched and the brown carpet was worn and there were damp patches on the walls, but you didn't really notice any of that, or only for a moment, you didn't notice what was inside, because on three sides of the room were these huge windows, looking directly out to sea, which was all breaking waves under a slate-grey sky, headlands either side.

'That's quite a view you've got.'

'Aye,' said Rosie. 'The strand. Three miles, isn't it, Ted? Joel, don't do that.' Joel was punching Ted on the nose.

'He's all right,' said Ted.

'You sit here and it feels like being on a ship,' said Rosie. 'I could sit here all day, you know, just looking out, dreaming and that.'

In one corner of the room, under a window, by the television, was a table with a Star Wars chess set. 'Do you play chess?' asked Israel.

'No. That's my son. Conor!' she shouted. 'He loves chess.'

'Great game.'

'Is it?' said Rosie. 'God. I can't stand it myself. Conor!'

Ted was still wrestling with children on the floor. Rosie brought him his mug of tea.

'Thanks, Rosie,' said Ted. 'We've come about the books actually,' he continued, holding a baby up in the air. 'Lagalagalagalaa! Snaggleaggleuppaluss!'

'Oh, I'm sorry, Ted. I haven't collected them all in yet. I've only got ours.'

'It's all right,' said Ted. 'Weeee!' he called.

'We'll take whatever you've got,' said Israel.

'OK,' said Rosie. 'Conor!' she said. 'Conor! I'll go and get him. Are you all right with the wee ones there, Ted?'

'Aye. We'll manage. Here's one for you, Armstrong,' said Ted, trying to hand Israel a child.

'Erm. No, I'm all right thanks, Ted,' said Israel, clutching his mug of coffee tighter and backing away: he wasn't what you'd call a natural with children.

The baby started crying.

Rosie returned. 'Conor's there in his room–he's a wee bit shy of strangers, you know. I'd better deal with this one.' She picked up the crying baby and smelt its bottom. 'No, all right down that end. Let's get you something then, little man. Just pop your head round the door there, Israel, he'll let you in. Tell him I sent you. All the books are in there with him.'

Israel went to knock on the plyboard door at the end of the room. There was no answer.

'Hello?' said Israel, and he pushed open the door.

There was a boy sitting upright on his bed. He was about eight years old–but he had the face of an old man. The room was in most respects a typical boy's room–posters Blu-Tacked to the walls, clothes and toys everywhere. But it was also full, from floor to ceiling, with books. Towers and towers of books. A miniature New York skyline of books.

'Wow!' said Israel, taken aback at what must have been at the very least the entire children's non-fiction section of Tumdrum Library. 'Hello? Conor? I'm Israel. Your mum said I could come in. I'm a librarian.'

The boy stared at Israel in silence.

'You've got a few books here, mate.'

'You've got a few books here, mate!' repeated Conor, mimicking Israel.

'Conor!' said Rosie, appearing next to Israel, sensing trouble, the now pacified baby in her arms chewing a biscuit. 'Behave!'

'Sorry, Mum,' said Conor. 'That's not fair, he's a biscuit!'

'Conor!'

'Erm. Are these all library books?' asked Israel politely.

'I'm afraid so,' said Rosie.

'How did you…?'

'He loves reading, you see. And so, they…'

Israel sensed that Rosie was searching for an explanation.

'They?'

'They…the old librarian.'

'Norman?'

'Yes, yes, that's right. He…Er. He let Conor take them all out.'

'All these books?'

'Yes, that's right!'

Having met Norman Canning, Israel doubted that very much.

'Conor?' said Israel.

Conor remained silent and looked at the floor.

'Well, we'll have to return all these to the library, I'm afraid.'

'But we'll not be fined, will we?' said Rosie. 'I mean, we couldn't possibly afford to pay the fines on all these.'

'No. We're having a fines amnesty.'

'What's an amnesty?' asked Conor.

'Amnesty?' said Israel. 'Good question. An amnesty is when there's a sort of pardon for some crime or—'

'Like in a war,' explained Rosie. 'When you decide to forgive the other side.'

'Couldn't you and Dad have an amnesty, Mum?'

'Conor!'

'Right,' said Israel, embarrassed. 'Perhaps if we could just gather these up and we'll be out of your hair?'

'Aye, right, of course. I'll get you some bags and Conor can help you.'

'Mum!'

'Conor!'

Rosie went to get some bags.

'Do you like reading, Conor?' asked Israel, with Rosie out of the room.

Conor didn't answer.

'Did you get these books from the library, Conor?'

'"Did you get these books from the library, Conor?"' repeated Conor, speaking with his tongue in his bottom lip, like a monkey.

Israel didn't seem to be getting very far with his line of questioning, but then he remembered the chess.

'Do you play chess, mate?'

'"Do you play chess, mate?"'

'Do you though? And without the funny voices, eh. The novelty sort of wears off, you know, and I've got a terrible headache.'