Ian Sansom - The Delegates' Choice aka The Book Stops Here

'Yes.'

'We've to get to Ballycastle for shopping these days.'

'Right.'

'I prefer the shopping in Coleraine, meself.'

'Uh-huh.'

'I can get me feet done and me hair cut-there's a wee girl who comes round the Fold-but if I give ye a wee list ye couldn't do me a few messages once a week, could ye?'

It just wasn't right.

'It's just not right,' said Israel, picking absent-mindedly at his scone. 'You know, the longer I spend working as a librarian, the more I'm questioning my vocation.'

'Uh-huh,' said Ted, whose own scone was rapidly diminishing in size, down from bowling-ball size to tennis-ball size, maybe a little larger.

'No!' said Israel, correcting himself. 'Not just my vocation, in fact. The very ground of my being.'

'Would ye like a top-up of coffee?' said Minnie, who was doing the rounds.

'Yes, thanks,' said Israel.

'Still on Beckett then?' she said, pouring Israel another cup of the café's so-called coffee.

'Questioning the very ground of his being,' said Ted.

'Oh,' said Minnie. 'I think I'll leave you to it then.'

As a child back home in north London, Israel had always imagined that a life communing with books might be a life communing with the great minds and lives of the great thinkers of the past, those who had formed the culture and heritage of the world, and that it might perhaps be his role to share these riches with others. In fact, in reality, as a mobile librarian on the perpetually damp north coast of the north of the north of Ireland, Israel seemed to spend most of his time communing with the great minds and lives and thinkers who had produced Haynes car manuals, and Some Stuff I Remember About Visiting My Granny on Her Farm in the Country, Before I Was Horribly Mentally, Physically and Sexually Abused by My Uncles and Married Three Unsuitable Husbands and Became an Alcoholic and Lost Everything and Lived in a Bedsit in Quite a Nasty Part of a City Before Meeting My Current Husband Who Is Rich, and Wonderful, and Then Moving Back to the Country, Which Is Ironic When You Think About It: The Sequel, and Shape Up or Ship Out! The Official US Navy Seals Diet, and How to Become a Babillionaire-Tomorrow!, and pastel-covered Irish, English and American chick lit by the tonne, the half-tonne, the bushel and the hot steaming shovel load.

'Ach, come on,' said Ted. 'It's not that bad. You're exeggeratin'.'

'I'm what?'

'Exeggeratin'.'

'Exaggerating?'

'Aye.'

'I'm not! What about that other old man in this morning?'

'Who? Which other old man?'

'The old man in the baseball cap that was dripping with rain.'

'When?'

'When it was raining?'

'Ach, aye.'

Their second stop, up farther round the coast. A lay-by. The rain had come on-even though it was June. June! Pounding with rain in June! Jesus Christ!

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Ye've some books here, boy.'

Israel (restrainedly): 'Yes. Yes. It's a library.'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Aye.'

Israel (doing his best to be helpful): 'And can I help you at all?'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'No. I'm only in for to be out of the rain.'

Israel: 'Right. Okay. That's fine. Happy to be of-'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Mind, would ye have any books about…'

Israel: 'About? What?'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain (indicating width between finger and thumb): 'About this thick?'

Israel: 'Er. Well, possibly. Any subject in particular you're after?'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'I don't mind about the subject.'

Israel: 'Right. So, anything really, as long as it's…'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain (indicating his required width again): 'This thick.'

Israel: 'I see. What's that, then? About two, three centimetres?'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Quarter-inch.'

Israel, scanning the shelves: 'Okay. Erm. I don't know, Carol Shields, have you read any of her? She's very popular.'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'How thick's she?'

Israel: 'Erm.'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain (taking book from Israel): 'She'll do rightly.'

Israel: 'Do you have a ticket with you?'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'No. I've not a ticket. The wife does, but.'

Israel: 'I'd need to see the ticket really. I could always hold it over for you.'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain (glancing outside): 'Ach, no. I'll not bother. We've family over at the weekend. I thought it might be the thing for to fix the table-there's a wee wobble where we had the floor tiled.'

Israel: 'Right.'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'I'll get an offcut a wood, sure. It's only because you were insisting that I was askin'.'

Israel: 'Okay, right.'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain: 'Rain's off.'

Israel: 'Good.'

Old Man in Baseball Cap, Dripping with Rain exits.

Israel: 'Sorry we couldn't be of more help!'

'Sure, there was no harm in him,' said Ted.

'No!' said Israel. 'No! You're right. There may have been no harm in him, but he did harm to me! To my mental health! I am a highly trained professional.'

Ted coughed.

'I am though,' continued Israel. 'We are. And we should be treated with respect.'

Israel had imagined that a librarian in a small town might be regarded as a kind of cultural ambassador, an adept, like a country priest guiding his grateful parishioners into the mysteries of the holy realms of the book. In fact, most library users in and around Tumdrum and District seemed to regard a librarian as nothing more than a glorified shop assistant, and the mobile library as a kind of large motorised shopping trolley. There were only so many small errands that Israel could perform in a day without beginning to feel like a grocer's assistant, and there was only so much sugar, tea, biscuits, potatoes, newspapers, betting slips and hand-rolling tobacco that the mobile library could carry before they would have to start abandoning the books altogether and go over entirely to carrying dry goods and comestibles. If they ripped out the issues desk and put in a deli counter and got a licence for selling drink, Israel and Ted could probably have made a fortune: your breaded ham, a bottle of Bushmills, and the latest Oprah or Richard and Judy Book Club recommendations, available together at last from a veritable touring one-stop shop; they'd be bazillionaires by Christmas.

'You're getting carried away now,' said Ted.

'I am not getting carried away!' said Israel.

Israel glanced around the café at all the old familiar faces. 'Look!' he said.

'What?' said Ted.

'Sshh! Behind you!' said Israel.

'What?' said Ted, turning round.

'No! Don't turn around!'

'Why?'

'It's her.'

'Who?'

'Mrs Onions.'

'Aye,' said Ted. 'What's wrong with her, sure?'

'Oh God, Ted. She's another one.'

'Another one of what?'

'Another one who's cracking me up!'

That was the third stop.

Mrs Onions: 'D'ye have any books with those sort of suedey covers?'

Israel: 'Erm. No, no, I'm afraid not. We're right out of the…suede-covered books at the moment, I think.'

Mrs Onions: 'You've plenty of other sorts of books.'

Israel: 'Yes. We do. That's true.'

Mrs Onions: 'I could take one of those. But I like the old suede covers, ye see. My granny used to have one, when she lived on the farm down in the Mournes. The butter, honestly, beautiful it was.'

Israel: 'Uh-huh.'

Mrs Onions: 'Will ye be getting any in?'

Israel: 'It's possible, yes, that we will be getting in some suede-covered books in the future. I could certainly-'

Mrs Onions: 'Ach, I'll not bother for the moment. I've shopping to get here.'