Mr. Dixon disappears: a mobile library mystery (2 page)

Israel didn't like the way Rosie ate chocolate, for one thing: the way she'd just pop a piece of chocolate in her mouth, and cheap chocolate too, and munch on it like a chipmunk, unapologetic, and so fast. Back home in London Gloria never really ate chocolate—' A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips,' she'd say patting her little wasp-like waist–and if she ever did eat chocolate, she only ever ate Green and Black's, a tiny little square. Rosie also had the habit of applying her make-up in the library, even when there were borrowers in, as if she were in the privacy of her own home; Gloria would never have done anything like that. Israel had lived with Gloria for–what?–four years before coming here and he had never seen her apply her make-up in public. He wondered, now, thinking about it, if she had some kind of magic make-up that never needed reapplying. Or maybe he just wasn't paying attention.

Rosie also smoked and chewed her fingernails, and these were bad habits by any standards, but Israel didn't mind; his were only mild dislikes, after all, in the grand scheme of things, and they were consistently outweighed by the many things he did like about Rosie. He liked the fact that she had a slightly bloodshot right eye, for example, which she claimed was from having suppressed a sneeze and burst a blood-vessel, and which made her look…interesting. He liked the fact that she never finished a novel, that she would jump around from book to book, and would fold down the corners and cram the books into her shoulder-bag, wrinkling and wrecking the covers–
Memoirs of a Geisha
covered in lipstick and crushed to a pulp–because he would never have done anything like that himself; he'd always been a completionist; he had to finish a book once he'd started it; it seemed like bad manners not to, like not finishing the food on your plate.

Rosie was a breath of fresh air.

'Why do people read all this rubbish?' he'd complain when they were issuing books.

'Relax, Is,' she would say. She always called him Is–and he liked that too. 'Who cares?'

'Do people not want to improve themselves though?' he'd say.

'Not necessarily. People don't just read books to improve themselves.'

'Well, they should do. They should be reading Emerson or Thoreau or something.'

'Why?' she'd say. 'What did they write?'

'Books!' he'd say. 'Important books!'

'And are they dead?'

'Yes, of course!'

'Well, there you are then. No one wants to read books by dead people.'

'What?'

'It's depressing.'

'It's not depressing. It's…that's…Two thousand years of human civilisation.'

'Live and let live,' Rosie would say. 'You can read Everton and Throw if you want.'

'Emerson and Thoreau.'

'Yeah. Right. Tea?' she'd say.

And, 'OK, yeah,' he'd say, defeated, and that would be that.

He liked the way Rosie drank her tea and coffee. He liked her broad swimmer's shoulders, and her hippyish kind of dresses. He liked the way she tucked her thick dark hair behind her ears, and the way sometimes when he arrived for her in the van she still had the towel around her head where she'd washed her hair, and she'd come anyway, drying her hair as they went. He liked the way they'd be sitting in the van and waiting for a borrower, and they'd just talk and time would pass. And he liked…Well, he liked her a lot.

Not that there was anything between them. There was
absolutely nothing
between Israel and Rosie. It was important to make that clear. Rosie had an ex, the father of her son, Conor, and Israel had Gloria–who was coming over to stay next weekend, coming all the way over, finally, finding time in her busy schedule.

Israel and Rosie were just good friends.

He glanced at his watch, pulled on a T-shirt and his old tank-top, which he noticed was becoming a little ruched around the waist–it needed a wash–and as he shrugged on his duffle coat and did up his old brown brogues he had to admit maybe it wasn't such a bad life.

He was paid to drive around beautiful, rural, coastal Irish countryside, with a van full of books and pleasant female company. Maybe life as an English, Jewish vegetarian, corduroy-wearing mobile librarian on the north coast of the north of Northern Ireland wasn't so bad after all.

Look at yourself, Armstrong, he told himself, with a last glance in the mirror: you have nothing to complain about. Really, you don't.

And he didn't.

Until, that is, the disappearance of Mr Dixon from the Department Store at the End of the World.

It started with an argument. It was too early for an argument, far, far too early.

'What d'ye think yer doin'?'

'Sorry?' It caught Israel off-guard.

'Ye deaf, or what?'

'No,' said Israel. 'No. I am not deaf.'

'Well then.'

'Sorry?'

Israel had the window wound down, and was staring the man full in the face, and the man did not look happy. Indeed, Israel guessed the man might never look happy; he had a profoundly unhappy kind of a look about him: it was the shaven head and the pierced eyebrow and the nicotine lips and the cigarette tucked behind his ear, and the Manchester United football shirt pulled tight over a hard-looking, family-haggis-sized pot-belly, and the dark, cynical look in his eyes. He looked like a man who woke up angry and went to bed incandescent.

'Look, you've totally lost me I'm afraid,' said Israel.

'
What
. Do.
You
. Think.
You
. Are.
Doing
?'

'I'm parking, which is not that easy, actually, without power steering and—'

'Aye, all right, well, you can't park there.'

Israel had pulled up the mobile library next to a large silver Mercedes.

'Sorry, I—'

'Ye blind?'

'No. I am not blind. And I am not deaf, I—'

'Can ye not raid then?'

'Sorry. I didn't catch that. Can I…'

'Can ye raid?'

'Raid?'

'Aye, raid.'

'Read?'

'Aye.'

'Read? Ah, read. Yes. Thank you. I can read, actually. In fact, as you'll see, I'm driving the—'

'Aye, right. So you'll see that's a reserved space. See, says here "RESERVED".'

'I just thought—'

'Aye, well, you thought wrong.'

'Couldn't I just park here until—'

'No.'

'But—'

'These spaces are reserved.'

'Yes, but it's only—'

'I just said no. What's the matter with ye? D'ye think I'm joking?'

The man had little flecks of spit–the real thing, real threat-phlegm, the stuff of demented dogs and monkeys–around his mouth, Israel noticed.

'No. No. I don't, actually. I don't think you're—'

'Aye, right. Well. Move yerself on in this piece of crap.' He pronounced crap as though with a double k.

'But—'

'Move. Her. On.'

'OK. Fine. Sorry. Look.' Israel stuck his hand out of the window in a rather feeble, placatory, let's-shake-hands-and-make-up kind of a gesture. 'I feel we've maybe got off on the wrong foot here. I'm Israel Armstrong.'

The man ignored his hand. 'I know who you are. You were meant to be here half an hour ago.'

'Ah, yes, few problems with the mobile on the way over. You must be the caretaker—'

'Round the back.'

'Sorry?'

'Round. The. Back. You. Can. Parkee. Upee. Round. The. Back. Do. You. Understand?'

'Yes.'

'Aye, right. Good. I'll go open her up for you.'

Oh, God.

Israel was getting a headache. He didn't always have a headache these days–just every other day. Because, honestly, he was getting used to life around Tumdrum, he really was. Like a prisoner eventually becomes accustomed to his captors, and adults as they get older eventually have to learn to live with some slight stiffness and joint pain in the morning and a sense of perhaps having lost their way a little on the road towards manifest destiny.

'Move!'

'Yes. Just going,' said Israel, grinding the gears.

And he was certainly getting used to the colourful locals and their charming and eccentric ways.

He hadn't had any breakfast, that was Israel's problem, a cup of tea before he left the Devines' farm, which was hardly enough to sustain a growing young man like himself. Israel had lost a little weight since arriving in Tumdrum, due to the lack of readily available non-meat protein, but he still clocked in at a solid 36-inch waist and 16 stone, not hideously fat by any means, but big enough for people to refer to him as 'big lad' and to mean it. He'd worked up a sweat already this morning and could have done with a nice fried egg soda or maybe a big bowl of porridge with the cream off the milk. Or some Tayto cheese and onion crisps. Or maybe a nice croissant. No, don't get him started on croissants, or
pains au chocolat
, or muffins: Israel fantasised about breakfast pastries. Fresh breakfast pastries were not readily available in and around Tumdrum, although the baker's, the Trusty Crusty, did do a nice cinnamon scone; scones were about the closest thing Tumdrum had to fresh patisserie items.

He'd been working hard, up until midnight and up again since six, getting the van loaded. Today was the big day. Easter Saturday. Today was the first day of Israel's first ever mobile library touring exhibition, his debut as keeper and curator of Tumdrum's heritage and history. Today was the day when Israel got to unveil Tumdrum and District's mobile-library-sponsored five-panel display showing the history of the famous Dixon and Pickering's department store, which was celebrating one hundred years of serving Tumdrum and District, and indeed the whole of the north coast of the north of Ireland and beyond, keeping the local farmers and their wives supplied with polyester-cotton sheets, Royal Doulton figurines, and Early Bird Light Suppers in the Cosy Nook, the award-winning cafeteria on the first floor, where on a clear day it was possible to see Scotland while you ate your jumbo gammon panini (served with chips and a light salad garnish).

It might not seem like it to you or me, and it certainly wouldn't have seemed like it to Israel six months ago, but today was the real deal, a genuine event, a happening around Tumdrum. Dixon and Pickering's was about as famous locally as the Giant's Causeway a little further up round the coast: it was the Harrods, the Selfridges, the Fortnum and Mason, the Macy's, the Tiffany's, the Woolworths and the Wal-Mart of North Antrim all under one roof, and it had survived and thrived where other family-owned department stores had failed; it had made it to one hundred. And now it was none other than Israel Armstrong, mobile librarian, who had been tasked and commissioned to help the store to commemorate the occasion in style.

Israel couldn't deny it: he was honoured. And he also couldn't deny it: he was maybe going soft in the head.

He drove round the side of the building to the back.

It was undoubtedly a lovely spot, right by the sea. Actually, it wasn't
by
the sea, that didn't do it justice: you couldn't really say that Dixon and Pickering's was by the sea; Dixon and Pickering's was
on
the sea.

Dixon and Pickering's official motto–which was printed boldly on all the shop's plastic carrier bags, just below the company crest, an image of a lamb lying down with a lion in a bucolic scene also featuring fauns and nymphs frolicking beneath mountains by the sea–was 'The Customer Is Always Right', which was wrong, actually, in Israel's experience round about Tumdrum and in Northern Ireland generally. In his experience around here the customer was almost always wrong, unless you wanted to make a big deal about it, in which case the motto should really be amended to 'The Customer Is Always Right…Eventually', or '…After Threat of Legal Action'.

Dixon and Pickering's was known locally as the Department Store at the End of the World, which was an accurate description, in several senses: you could have picked up Dixon and Pickering's and plonked it down off a dirt-track near an old gold-prospecting town in the middle of Alaska or in some as-yet-undeveloped remote province in China, and people wouldn't have blinked an eye; put moose or fried rice on the menu in the Cosy Nook and it would have fitted in just fine; because for all its airs and graces Dixon and Pickering's remained an outback kind of shopping experience.

Built in 1906, Dixon and Pickering's still stocked items that other department stores had stopped selling quite some time back, around about the Second World War in fact–his and hers thermal underwear, and two-colour sock wool, and a full range of hearth-sets, and extending toast forks, and wind-up repeater alarm clocks, and paraffin lamps–and it looked as though, with a slight push, you might be able to topple this whole teetering mound of old stucco and kitsch and knick-knacks and watch it disappear under the Irish Sea's big white waves. On a rough day the salt spray came right up over the stone walls of the car park and lashed at the store's stone steps and the new disabled access ramp. People said that if you were to shop in Dixon and Pickering's just once a week and parked down at the sea wall then your car would be gone in a year, eaten alive by salt and rust, like the proverbial cow in a bottle of Coke.

The building itself was three storeys high, wide and spreading, and painted a lurid carnation pink, with palm trees planted all round it: it reminded Israel of a giant plate of salmon blini with chives, and it certainly looked as though it belonged somewhere else, in Miami maybe, or on a fully loaded side table at a north London bar mitzvah party, and definitely not on the lonely north coast of Ireland.

There was absolutely no doubt about it: Dixon and Pickering's was unique. Dixon and Pickering's was undoubtedly–as one of the titles on the helpful A3-size laminated sheets of Israel's five-panel touring exhibition pointed out–A Landmark and A Legend.

Israel parked up.

It was raining, of course. It was always raining in Tumdrum. Even if it wasn't raining, not at that
actual
moment, then it was getting ready to rain, biding its time, waiting until you'd left the house without your coat and umbrella and you were more than halfway to wherever it was you were going so it was too late to turn back, and then whoosh!, suddenly you were wet right through.