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

'Why not?'

'Because it's…can be construed as anti-Semitic.'

'Ach, Israel, don't get me started again on all that PC World stuff again, I've had enough for one day.'

'It's PC, Ted. Politically correct. PC World's a shop.'

'Aye. One of me cousins bought a computer there up in Derry. Had to take it back. It was the wrong one. Bunch of shysters.'

'Ted!'

Back at the van the judges had arrived and they were standing among the crowd, gazing at the daubings.

'Ach,' said Ted.

'Oh God,' said Israel.

There were four judges: a woman who was about double the width of an average woman, and half the height, and who wore half-moon glasses, and who dressed all in brown, in a brown shawl, and a long brown skirt, and brown boots and a contrasting bright pink pashmina; and another woman, taller, thin, with her hair cut in a frightening bob; and a young man in a leather jacket and jeans, with a shaven head and a T-shirt that read BOOK LUST; and another man, middle-aged, in a suit with a pink pin-striped shirt and a thick turquoise silk tie.

'Are these the judges?' whispered Ted to Israel as they approached the van.

'I fear so,' said Israel.

'God help us.'

'Ah, here they are!' said Israel's mother, with some relief. 'Just in time! Israel, Ted. These are the judges. The chairman of the judges-'

'Chair, please,' said the little wide woman. 'Do I look like a man?'

'Well-' began Israel's mother.

'Ooh,' the scary bob lady was saying, fingering one of the swirling rainbow patterns on the van, 'this is nice. I like this.' She was wearing a Little Red Riding Hood sort of coat, with a hood. '"The Odyssey", that's a very good name for a mobile library, isn't it? Very inventive.'

'And is that an Eye of Horus round the front, above the cab?' asked the shaven-headed judge.

'Yes, I'm afraid so,' said Israel. 'But if I could just explain what's happened-'

'No need,' said the short little lady, waving her hand in dismissal, not even bothering to look round. 'It's perfectly clear.'

She pursed her lips and started to move around the van, peering at the paintwork, scribbling notes on forms attached to a clipboard.

'No,' said Israel, 'you see-'

'I see, thank you, I see,' murmured the woman, marking her forms. 'I. See.'

'It's unique, this is,' the bob lady was saying, also making notes on a clipboard, following in the shorter woman's considerable wake.

'That's one way of putting it,' said the little woman.

'It's not very modern, is it?' said the leather-jacketed man. 'Not really.' Israel couldn't quite see if the man was marking ticks or crosses on his sheet.

'That's its appeal though, isn't it?' said the bob lady. 'It's retro.'

'It's certainly a period piece,' said the man in the suit.

'Excuse me?' said Israel, peering over their shoulders.

'It may be a period piece,' said the little lady. 'But which period exactly? The Dark Ages? The 1960s?'

'I think it's very unusual,' said the bob lady.

'If you like that sort of thing,' said the little lady.

'I do.'

'Well, I'm not impressed I'm afraid.'

'It's interesting, you've got to grant it that,' said the suited man. 'We've nothing like this in Darlington.'

'Well, do please let me explain-' began Israel, who was circling the van with them.

'It's all right,' said the woman. 'I can see what this is.'

'Yes,' said Israel, 'it's-'

'A labour of love,' said Israel's mother, who was circling also. 'That's what it is. They've worked very hard on this.'

'Good,' said the suited man patronisingly. 'Good. Well done you.'

'I don't care how hard they've worked on it,' said the little lady, tapping her clipboard. 'We've criteria to meet.'

'And I suppose imagination is not one of your criteria?' said Israel's mother.

'Certainly not,' said the little lady.

'Which is a shame, because that's exactly what you lot need, isn't it?'

'Is it?' said the little lady fiercely.

'Yes! Look around you,' said Israel's mother, using her always expressive hand gestures to great rhetorical effect. 'Everything else here looks exactly the same-horrible, municipal. White, yellow. Boring, boring, boring. But this, though, the…Odyssey…is completely unique.'

'You've certainly got people talking,' said the suited man. 'I'll grant you that.'

'She's right,' said the shaven-headed young man.

'And who are you, so keen on special pleading?' said the little lady, fixing her gaze on Israel's mother. 'Somebody's mother?'

'No!' said Israel.

'Yes!' said Israel's mother.

The little lady fixed both Israel and his mother with a withering stare and moved on round silently. Israel could see her marking thick black crosses on her clipboard.

Inside the van things got worse.

'There's not a lot of storage,' said the little lady, making another furious cross on her notes.

'But it's so cosy,' said the bob lady.

'Cosy is not a criteria,' said the little lady.

'Well, perhaps it should be,' said Israel's mother.

'Please, madam,' said the little lady. 'We are trying to concentrate here.'

'Sorry,' said Israel.

'Don't apologise on my behalf!' said Israel's mother.

'I'm not!'

'Yes you are.'

'Please!' said the little lady. 'I shall have to bar you from the competition if this sort of behaviour continues. It is not the sort of thing we expect at all at the Mobile Meet.'

'Don't ye talk to her like that!' said Ted.

'I shall talk to her however I wish, sir!'

'Not on my van, you won't, you rude bisim,' said Ted. 'That's it. Get off! Get out of here! Go on!'

'Ted!' said Israel. 'Don't upset her! Sorry,' he said to the judges. 'Ted, what about the Concours D'Elégance?'

'Ach, they know where they can stick their prizes. Go on, get off, the lot of ye.'

'And take your clipboards with you!' added Israel's mother, unnecessarily, as the judges, cowed and shocked, hurried off the van.

'Oh God,' said Israel.

Israel could hear the judges as they walked away from the van through the crowds.

'Well!' the little lady was saying, again and again. 'Well! Outrageous!'

'They're certainly a wild card,' the suited man was saying.

'Banned,' the little lady was saying. 'Barred! In all my…'

'The van had character though,' the bob lady was saying.

'Bunch of outlaws!'

'Well, that went well,' said Israel's mother.

'I don't think we've got much chance of winning anything now,' said Israel. 'We might as well go.'

'Nonsense,' said Israel's mother. 'We've come all this way. We'll stay to the prize giving. They're not running us out of town.'

'Woof!' said Muhammad.

'Fair play to ye,' said Ted. 'Ye've some spirit, girl.'

'I like to think so,' said Israel's mother. 'You too,' she said, giving Ted a wink.

'All right, knock it off you two, will you?' said Israel.

When the prizes were eventually awarded, in the Nissen hut some hours later, Ted and Israel did not, needless to say, win the prize for State-of-the-Art Vehicle. Or the prize for Best Livery. Or indeed the Driver's Challenge, presented in memory of Noah Stanley, although Ted felt pretty confident that if he'd been there in time he'd have stood a good chance.

And the prize for Concours D'Elégance?…

Went to a van from Bexley with a Maisie the Mouse painted on the side.

'Stitch up,' whispered Israel's mother. 'Bloody bitch.'

'I owe you,' huffed Ted. 'One thousand-'

'I think we'll call it quits,' said Israel.

'And now,' announced the chairman-chair, rather-of the judges, the little brown-and-pink-pashmina-wearing woman with her half-moon glasses perched halfway down her nose, 'we come to the most hotly contested-and often the most controversial-prize, the Delegates Choice. I think you'll agree, we've had-on the whole-a very good turnout this year, and as always there have been so many different vans that are all so distinctive. But the ballot papers are in, they have been counted, I have the result here'-she waved a brown envelope-'and I can tell you that…' And she paused for a moment to open the envelope and then paused again as she read the result, catching her breath. 'We…Ahem…Well…We have an unprecedented unanimous decision by you, the delegates. I think we can certainly all agree that…none of us has ever seen a mobile library anything quite…like it. So, for…originality…the prize this year is awarded to…to our colleagues from across the water in Ireland-'