The Book Stops Here: A Mobile Library Mystery (6 page)

It was shabby.

He squeezed his spare corduroy trousers into his case, and went to the farmhouse, to the kitchen to say good-bye to the Devines.

There was only Brownie in, hunched over the table, reading. It was June, but the Rayburn was fired up, as ever. There were flies, but even the flies were resting. Old Mr Devine was a firm believer in flypaper; the kitchen was festooned with claggy plumes of curling brown tape.

'Israel!' said Brownie, looking up. You could always count on Brownie for a warm welcome.

'Brownie.'

'How are you?'

'I'm doing good, actually,' said Israel. 'Pretty good. What are you reading?'

'Levinas,' said Brownie. Brownie was studying Philosophy at Cambridge.

'Oh, right. Yes.'

'
Totality and Infinity
?'

'Absolutely, yes,' said Israel.

'Have you read it?'

'Erm. That one? Er. Yes, I think so. I preferred some of his…others though, actually—'

'
Alterity
.'

'Yes, that's a good one.'

'No, that's the idea, translation of the French.'

'Uh-huh,' said Israel dubiously.

'Anyway, how are things on the mobile?' asked Brownie.

'Good! Yes. Excellent,' said Israel. 'Even better now, we're going away for a few days.'

'Oh, really? In the van?'

'Yes. Yeah. Big conference thing over in England.'

'Really?'

'Yeah.'

'Are you giving a paper or…'

'No. No. I mean, they did ask me, of course, but I was…It's difficult to fit it all in when you're at the…'

'Coal face?' said Brownie.

'Exactly. The library is the coal face of contemporary knowledge management.'

'Right,' said Brownie. It was something Israel had read in one of the brochures for the Mobile Meet.

'Anyway. I was wanting to explain to George I wouldn't be around, just so that she—'

'Ah, right. I think she's out with Granda in the vegetable patch if you want to catch them.'

'Great.'

'Good. Well, enjoy the conference.'

'Thanks, you enjoy the…'

'Levinas.'

'Yeah. What was it called again?'

'Totality and Infinity
.'

'Yeah. Great book. Great book.'

Israel's reading had always been erratic and undisciplined; there were huge chunks missing in his knowledge, while other areas were grossly over-represented. It was like having mental biceps, but no triceps, or glutes, or quads, or forearms; he was a kind of mental hunchback—misproportioned, a freak. Graphic novels, for example, were ten a penny up in Israel's mental attic, along with the novels of E. F. Benson and Barbara Pym—God only knows how they'd got there—piled up uselessly like old trunks full of crumbling paper, together with a whole load of Walter Benjamin, and Early Modernism, and books by Czechs, and the Oedipus complex, and the Collective Unconscious, and Iris Murdoch, and William Trevor, and virtual reality, and form follows function, and 'Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must remain silent,' and
The White Goddess
, and William James, and commodity fetishism, and Jorge Luis Borges, and Ruth Rendell, and Jeanette Winterson, and Anthony Powell—Anthony Powell? What was he doing there? Israel had no idea. He had a mind like Tippings Auctions. His actual knowledge of philosophy proper, say, or eighteenth-century literature, or science, anthropology, geology, gardening, or geometry was…skimpy, to say the least.

And since arriving in Tumdrum, his reading had become even more erratic and undisciplined; he'd had to cut his cloth to suit his sail. Or was it sail to suit his cloth? He was reading more and more of what they stocked in the van, which meant crime fiction, mostly, and books by authors whose work had won prizes or who were in some other way distinguished or remarkable; thus, celebrity biographies and books about people's miserable childhoods. But it wasn't as though he felt he'd lowered his standards. On the contrary. Scott Turow,
Presumed Innocent
—that was a
great
book, much better than most Booker Prize–shortlisted books, in his opinion. And
The Firm
, by John Grisham, that was pretty good too. He'd even started reading Patricia Cornwell from
A
to
Z,
but they seemed to go downhill rapidly, and he'd lost interest around about
D
. Cookery books he also liked: a man cannot survive on scrambled eggs alone. For the journey over to England, Israel was taking with him
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
,
The Purpose Driven Life,
and a couple of large-print crime novels. Most of the library's crime novels were large print. Israel had discovered a direct correlation between print size and genre: crime fiction, for example, came in big and small sizes, and also in audio, and in hardback, and in several kinds of paperback, and trailing TV tie-ins; literary fiction occasionally came with a different cover relating to a film adaptation. And poetry was just poetry: he'd never come across a book of large-print poems; for poetry you needed eyes like a pilot, with twenty-twenty vision, opposable thumbs, and never-ending patience. On the mobile library they stocked only Seamus Heaney and derivatives.

To get to the vegetable patch Israel had to pass by the chickens, and he couldn't help but feel a little guilty, having turned them out of their home. George had fixed them up with new runs using some old manure bags over wire netting, but Israel could tell they weren't happy. They eyed him—gimlet chicken-eyed him—suspiciously as he hurried past.

George and old Mr Devine were indeed, as Brownie had suggested, in the vegetable patch, which was close by the main house, protected on one side by fruit trees and on the others by redbrick walls; it was a walled garden, or, rather, it had been a walled garden. Like most things around the farm, it had seen better days; one might best now describe it as a half-walled garden.

'George!' Israel called as he entered through what was once a gateway, but which was now merely a clearing through some rubble.

George was kneeling down in among rows of vegetable crops. She ignored Israel, as usual.

'George?'

'What?'

'Could I just—'

'No, thanks. Whatever it is. We're working here.'

'Yes, sure. I see that. I just wanted to—'

'Can you just let me finish here?'

'Yeah, it's just—'

'Please?'

'Sure.'

'If you want to make yerself useful you could be thinning and weeding the onions.'

'Yes, of course. I could…I'll just…'

'Over there.'

'Where?'

'There.'

He looked around him at vast muddy areas where plants were poking through. He didn't recognise anything. He wasn't sure which were the onions. He went over towards Mr Devine, who was sitting on a wooden bench, a rug across his legs.

'Lovely day,' said Israel.

'It's a bruckle sayson,' said Mr Devine.

'Is it?'

'Aye.'

'Yes, I thought so myself actually,' said Israel. 'Erm.' He pointed towards some green shoots. 'Onions?'

'Cabbages,' said Mr Devine.

Israel pointed again.

'Onions?'

'Cabbages,' said Mr Devine.

'OK.' Israel tried again, pointing at some sort of pointy thing. 'Onions?'

'Cabbages.'

'Is it all cabbages?'

'"Thou shalt not sow thy seed with mingled seed,"' said Mr Devine.

'Yes. Of course. Lovely. Beautiful. And they are…' he said, gesturing vaguely towards the rest of the crops.

'Cabbages. Kale. Cabbages. Radish. Potatoes. Chard. Cabbages. Potatoes. Shallots. Cabbages. Onions.'

'Bingo!' said Israel.

Israel got down on his knees. He didn't quite know what to do next. The only thing he'd grown had been mustard and cress, at school, in a plastic cup.

'Thinning?' he shouted enquiringly, over to George.

'Yes, thinning!' George shouted back impatiently.

'Thinning?' he appealed quietly to Mr Devine, having no notion whatsoever what thinning onions might involve.

'"And he shall separate them one from another; as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats,"' said Mr Devine.

'Erm.'

'Two inches apart,' said Mr Devine.

'Ah, right, okay,' said Israel. 'Thank you.'

Israel occupied himself not unpleasantly, for about ten minutes, concentrating on the job. It was surprisingly satisfying. For about ten minutes he fondly imagined himself as a smallholder, with cows, and pigs, and a small orchard, and bottling his own tomatoes and mashing his own beer. He could be like Thoreau.

'Ta-daa!' he said, standing up and admiring his handiwork. 'A perfect row of thinned onions!' He stretched out and took in the view. It was idyllic here, really; it was pure pastoral. There were beehives down by the wheat field, and oats, some barley, sheep, the paddock. He took in these sights and breathed deeply, admiring a bunch of huge plants with bright yellow flowers.

'They're lovely-looking flowers,' he said to Mr Devine.

'Aye.'

'What are those flowers?'

'What do they look like?'

'Sorry, I don't know.'

'Ye don't know what a corguette plant looks like?'

'Er…Is it a
courgette
plant, by any chance?'

Mr Devine's eyes narrowed.

'And you've some lovely trees there,' said Israel, gesturing towards the fruit trees.

'Plum,' said Mr Devine. 'And pears like a trout's back.'

'Uh-huh.'

'Planted by my father. Cherries. Apple.'

'Good,' said Israel, as though he were a landowner inspecting a tenant farmer's fields. 'Very good,' he said. 'Good for you. Anyway, George,' he said, as George approached. 'I've done the onions.'

'I'm just checking on these early croppers,' she said, ignoring Israel's onion-thinning achievements and kneeling down by some bushy patches of green.

'It's finding something early that's floury enough,' said Mr Devine.

'Uh-huh,' said Israel, faux-knowledgeably. 'It's quite a crop you have here.'

'Mebbe,' said Mr Devine.

'Yes, you're certainly going to get lots of…cabbages. And…potatoes. Have you never thought of diversifying into…I don't know. Avocados or artichokes?'

'Ach, wise up, Israel, will ye?' said George, from in among the foliage.

'Asparagus?' said Israel.

'I refuse to grow anything beginning with
A,
' said George.

'Oh,' said Israel. 'Right.'

'Och, Jesus. I'm joking, ye fool. What do you want, Israel? Get it over and done with and then you can be on your way.'

Israel stood up straight as if about to read a proclamation. 'Well, actually, I've just come to say good-bye,' he said.

'What did you say?' said George.

'I've come to say good-bye.'

George straightened up slowly from her potato row and raised an unplucked eyebrow.

'Is this a joke?'

'No. I'm going away, over to England.'

'Well, well, well,' said George, crossing her arms.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Just.'

'What?'

'Didn't take you long, did it?'

'To what?'

'Cut and run.'

'I'm not cutting and running.'

'Well, you've been here, what, six months?'

'Nearly eight,' said Mr Devine.

'Eight months,' said George. 'And then you're away? That sounds to me like someone who's cutting and running.'

'Aye, I always thought he was a quitter,' said Mr Devine. '"Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet—"'

'All right, yes, thank you, Granda,' said George.

'I'm not a quitter, actually,' said Israel.

'Are ye not?'

'No. I'm going to be coming back.'

'He's coming back?' said Mr Devine.

'Are ye coming back, Armstrong?' said George, crossing her arms. 'You don't want to dash our hopes now.'

'Ha ha. Yes, I will be back. It's just a…business trip I'm going on.'

'A business trip? Really?'

'Yes.'

'With what, your job as an international financier?'

'No.'

'With the mobile library?'

'Uh-huh.'

Mr Devine started wheezing with laughter.

'A business trip!' said George. 'That right? What is it, an international conference?'

'Well, yes, as it happens.'

'Ach, you're priceless, Israel, so you are.'

'A mobile library conference? Holy God!' said Mr Devine.

'A junket then,' said George.

'Junket? No. It's not a junket. It's the Mobile Meet, which is the UK's premier mobile library conference and—'

'Paid for with our taxes no doubt?' said George.

'"Render unto Caesar,"' said Mr Devine.

'No,' said Israel.

'Not paid for with our taxes then?'

'Well—'

'You're paying to go yourselves then?'

'No. It's—'

'A holiday then, is it?'

'No. It's work. And—'

'Good. How long are you gone for?' said George.

'It'll be—'

'Can we sublet?' said Mr Devine.

'Sublet?' said Israel. 'The chicken coop?'

'You've it looking rightly,' said Mr Devine.

'How long?' said George.

'We'll be gone about a week, I think. Few days visiting my family, and then to the Mobile Meet.'

'A whole week?' said George. 'Sure, what are we going to do without ye?'

The conversation had not gone as well as Israel had hoped. He'd half hoped that his departure might excite some small favourable comment and wishes for a good journey and a safe return. He was wrong.

'Is he here for the Twelfth?' asked Mr Devine.

'Are you here for the Twelfth?' asked George.

'Of?' said Israel.

'July,' said George. 'Obviously.'

'Yes. Yes. We'll be back by the twelfth of July.'

'You wouldn't want to miss the Twelfth.'

'Right. No. Anyway,' said Israel. 'You're not…considering a holiday yourselves this year?' he asked, trying to be pleasant.

'I've not been on holiday for seventy-eight years,' said Mr Devine, pulling the rug tighter around his knees. 'D'ye not think I could do without one now?'