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‘So,’ the chairman of the Mobile Library Steering Committee, a man called Ron, an archetypically bald and grey-suited councillor, was saying, ‘Here we all are then.’ Ron specialised in making gnomic utterances and looking wise. ‘All together, once again.’
Also on the committee was Eileen, another councillor, a middle-aged woman with short dyed blonde hair who always wore bright red lipstick with jackets of contrasting colours—today, an almost luminous green—which made her look like the last squeezings of a tube of cheap tooth-paste. Eileen was a great believer in Booker Prize-winning novels. Booker Prize-winning novels, according to Eileen, were the key not merely to improving standards of literary taste among the adults in Tumdrum and District, but were in fact a panacea for all sorts of social ills. Booker Prize-winning novels, according to Eileen, were penicillin, aspirin, paracetamol and snake oil, all in one, in black and white, and in between hard covers. Eileen believed passionately in what you might call the trickle-down theory of literature; according to her, the reading of Booker Prize-winning novels by Tumdrum’s library-borrowing elite would lead inevitably and inexorably to the raising of social and cultural values among the populace at large. Even a mere passing acquaintance with someone who had read, say, Ian McEwan or Salman Rushdie could potentially save a local young person from a meaningless and empty life of cruising around town in a souped-up hot hatch and binge-drinking at weekends, and might very possibly lead them instead into joining a book group, and drinking Chardonnay, and learning to appreciate the finer points of the very best of metropolitan and middle-brow fiction.
Israel did not like Eileen, and Eileen did not like him.
‘Can’t we just get lots of copies of the Booker Prizewinning novels?’ Eileen would opine, all year round. Her clothes and her slightly manic cheeriness always gave the Mobile Library Steering Committee meetings a sense of evening occasion—like a Booker Prize awards night dinner, indeed—as though she might at any moment stand up at a podium, raise a glass of champagne, and offer a toast, ‘To Literature!’ Other members of the committee could often be heard to groan when she spoke.
The other committee members were two moon-faced men whose names Israel could never remember, and who both required endless recaps and reiterations and reminders of the minutest detail of the mobile library’s activities, most of which, when recapped, they found profoundly unsatisfactory. Both of them wore glasses and were bald. Israel called them Chi-Chi and Chang-Chang.
And then of course there was Linda Wei, Israel’s boss. His line-manager. His nemesis. The person who—apart from his landlady, George, and Ted, and most of the other inhabitants of this godforsaken town—had made Israel’s stay in Northern Ireland as unpleasant and as difficult and as miserable as possible. Linda it was who, when Israel complained about his working conditions, would put her fingers in her ears and sing, ‘I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!’ Linda it was who had introduced performance-related pay—for librarians! What were they supposed to do? Force books on people? Offer them money-back guarantees and loyalty cards?—and who had doubled the number of runs that Israel and Ted were expected to complete in a week, and at the same cut the stock back to the bare bones of celebrity autobiographies, bestsellers and self-help manuals. And now Linda it was to whom Israel was about to hand in his resignation. Sweet, sweet, sweet revenge. He was composing in his mind the words he was going to use.
‘It is with great regret that I have to inform you that…’?
No, that wasn’t right.
‘I have to tell you now that I have discharged my last…’?
No.
‘You are probably all aware of the reasons why I have chosen to renounce…’?
No.
‘I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility…’?
‘Hasta la vista, baby!’?
That was about the best he could come up with.
He was looking forward to it. A grand exit and then up, up and away from Tumdrum. Over to England. To London! The bright lights. The streets paved with gold. And never to return. This place was bad for him—psychically bad. It was doing him damage. He could feel it: he was calcifying inside; he could feel himself losing synaptic connections on a daily basis. He was de-evolving. He needed to beat a retreat, start over, and get his old life back.
He couldn’t wait for the meeting to be finished. He wasn’t good in meetings; he was meeting-phobic.
‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ Ron was saying, ‘before we were interrupted. Meltdown. Total. Meltdown.’
Israel tried to follow the conversation for a few minutes, and failed. He and Ted seemed to have arrived at the Mobile Library Steering Committee in the middle of a hotly contested debate about the pros and cons of installing an on-board microwave oven in the van. This seemed unlikely, but Israel checked the agenda:
6) Microwave ovens
To note that the Council is to consider the use of microwave ovens in all public areas, including mobile learning centres.
This proposed innovation had developed into a passionate debate about the Health and Safety implications of combining hot food and drink and members of the public. Ron believed that there were indeed major Health and Safety implications, there having already been unconfirmed reports, from some councils which had introduced microwaves and drinks machines into community halls, of some less forward-thinking members of the public using non-microwavable plastic beakers in the microwaves.
‘Meltdown!’ Ron kept saying. ‘A very high risk of meltdown.’
It was generally agreed that the risk of meltdown needed to be further looked into. The issue was therefore referred to the Mobile Library Steering Committee Health and Safety Sub-Committee—Israel and Linda—for further discussion. Israel wouldn’t mind a microwave in the van: he could maybe get pies from the Trusty Crusty for his lunch.
They moved on to the next point on the agenda.
7) Sexual and racial harassment—appointment of advisers
To note that Council policy on sexual and racial harassment now requires two members of staff (one male, one female) from each library to act as advisers. These advisers to be appointed annually by each library.
‘We need to appoint advisers,’ said Ron.
‘I’ll advise,’ said Linda.
‘Good. Thank you, Linda. So now we need a male,’ said Ron.
Ted was looking at the floor.
Israel was pretending he couldn’t hear.
‘Israel?’ said Ron.
‘Yes?’ said Israel.
‘Sexual and racial harassment?’
‘Yes. Terrible,’ said Israel.
‘Would you mind?’ said Ron. ‘With Linda?’
‘Erm.’
‘Sexual and racial harassment with Linda?’ said Ted, mostly to himself.
‘Yes,’ said Ron.
‘Sure,’ said Israel.
‘What’s that on your T-shirt?’ said Eileen. ‘“Smack My Bitch Up”?’
‘Yeesss,’ said Israel. ‘It’s just a phrase.’
There was a lot of other stuff: stuff about budgets; and footfalls; and deadlines for this, and deadlines for that; and Israel soon lost interest and pretty soon after that he also lost the will to live. While Linda was speaking about rolling out wi-fi connections across the county, Israel sat staring down at the thinly veneered pale wood surface of the table around which they were all sitting, like miniaturised modern-day medieval knights discussing their forthcoming crusade against the Infidel, or Mafia bosses running a failing cold-storage and meat-packing plant, and for a moment he imagined that they were a parachute display team and that the table was in fact nothing but a big inverted bag of air held by a gathering of cords and they were all about to drop down thousands of feet, out of the blue sky, down to earth…Which, indeed, promptly they did.
‘Mr Armstrong?’ Linda was saying. ‘Hello? Mr Armstrong? Earth calling Armstrong? Excuse us?’
He was doodling. His agenda looked like a greyscale photocopy of an early Jackson Pollock, pre-Full Fathom Five. At the last Mobile Library Steering Committee meeting Linda had proposed a motion banning all doodling, claiming that it was an act of passive aggression, perpetrated almost wholly by males, but the motion was voted down—Ron was a secret doodler, as were Chi-Chi and Chang-Chang. Linda had also been pressing for a Mobile Library Steering Committee team-building weekend away—with orienteering, and white-water rafting, and abseiling—which absolutely nobody else at all thought was a good idea. No one wanted bonding; quite the opposite. She’d also been pressuring Ted and Israel to sign up for a ‘PR and Power Presentation Skills’ course running over in Derry; they had, so far, successfully resisted.
She was basically completely crazy, Linda, as far as Israel could tell, and she’d got even crazier since splitting up with her husband and coming out as a lesbian, which made her Tumdrum’s only Chinese Catholic lesbian single parent, as far as Israel was aware, and as much as he disliked Linda—and he really disliked her a lot—you had to respect her for that. There’d been a leaving-do recently for a retiring librarian down in Rathkeltair, and they’d all gone out to a Chinese restaurant which had a karaoke, and once everyone had done their ‘Country Road’s and ‘Imagine’s and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’s, Linda insisted on getting up, Baileys in hand, and singing—unaccompanied, because there was no backing track—an old music-hall song, ‘Nobody Loves A Fairy When She’s Forty’, encoring with ‘Two Lovely Black Eyes’ and ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’.
Really, you couldn’t help but like Linda.
‘Armstrong!’ Linda was saying. ‘Pay attention!’
At least, you couldn’t help but like her in theory.
As always, the major issue facing the Mobile Library Steering Committee had been tucked away deep into the agenda.
‘So, gentlemen. Now the good news.’
‘Item 9,’ said Eileen.
Ted looked at Item 9.
‘Oh, my God,’ said Israel. ‘Ted?’
‘What?’ said Ted.
‘Oh. My. God!’
‘What?’
‘Item 9.’
‘What about it?’
‘Look at it.’
Ted peered at the agenda. ‘Aye.’
Israel read it out: ‘“Replacement of mobile learning centre vehicle.”’
‘What?’ said Ted.
‘Your van, gentlemen,’ said Linda, with some pride, ‘is going to be replaced.’
‘What?’ repeated Ted.
‘The van, Mr Carson, we’ve found the money through some Lottery funding and a new development grant.’
‘No way!’ said Israel.
‘Way,’ said Linda.
‘We can’t get rid of the van,’ said Ted. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the van.’
‘Now, now, Mr Carson,’ said Linda.
‘That van is perfect,’ said Ted.
‘Except for the steering,’ said Israel.
‘It’s a wee bit sloppy, just,’ said Ted.
‘Corrosion in the engine,’ added Israel.
‘Well? New engine,’ said Ted.
‘Clutch,’ said Israel.
‘Needs replacing just.’
‘Brakes.’
‘Yes, yes, we get the picture, thank you, gentlemen,’ said Linda. ‘Well, Mr Carson?’
Ted was silent.
‘When do we get the new one then?’ said Israel. ‘What’s it going to be like? What colour is it going to be?’
‘Well, actually, gentlemen,’ said Linda, with a further flourish, ‘we would like you to go and choose.’
‘What?’ said Israel. ‘You are joking!’
‘No. We are not joking, Mr Armstrong. We’re sending you to the Mobile Meet, so you can meet up with some of the manufacturers and—’
‘The what?’
‘The Mobile Meet,’ said Linda, ‘is organised by the Chartered Institute of Information and Library Professionals. It’s an annual event where mobile librarians can meet and swap experiences and discuss the latest technology. It’s a prestige event.’
‘Right,’ said Israel.
‘It’s in England,’ said Linda.
‘No!’ said Israel.
‘Yes,’ said Linda.
‘You’re joking!’
‘No. We are not joking. Again,’ said Linda.
‘That’s fantastic! You’re sending us over?’
‘Yes,’ said Linda.
‘Like on a business trip?’ said Israel.
‘I suppose,’ said Linda.
‘Wow!’ said Israel. ‘All expenses paid?’
‘Well—’ began Linda.
‘Whereabouts?’ said Israel. He could barely contain his excitement.
