Ian Sansom - The Bad Book Affair

“This is…very cozy,” said Israel. “This is your…recreation area, is it?”

“Recreation area!” Katrina laughed.

“Well, I mean, where you all congregate for…”

“We live here.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“And you work downstairs?”

“Yes. We work downstairs and live here.”

“That’s…handy, for work, then,” said Israel.

“You want to live over a chip shop?”

“No, not really,” said Israel.

She gestured forlornly around her.

“For this, we pay one hundred pounds,” she said.

“A month?”

“Week.”

“One hundred pounds a week!”

“Five of us living here. When it rains…” She pointed up at a cracked plastic skylight, which had been patched together with masking tape and cellophane tape.

“Water. Falls down,” she said.

“That’s terrible.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But so?”

“Who is he?” said the man on the bed.

“A librarian,” said Katrina.

“Librarian?” said the man. “You are going in the library?”

“No,” said Katrina.

“So why is he here?”

“Erm. Let me explain. I’m just…I wondered if you’d seen Lyndsay Morris lately?”

The man snorted, dismissively.

Israel thought he might try another tack.

“Where are you from? Poland?” He’d got to know some of the Poles working on the local farms. They walked up and down the coast road to and from work, wearing bulging fluorescent coats. He sometimes gave them a lift in the mobile library into Tumdrum, and he’d try to have conversations with them, the kind of conversation conducted in the abstract, consisting largely of questions such as “You like Northern Ireland?” and “How long have you been here?” And when they answered, the Poles had a faraway look in their eyes, like people who had lost something or had something taken away from them; it was an expression he recognized from the photographs in the silver frames of his parents, back home in London.

“I’d love to visit Poland,” said Israel.

“It’s very beautiful,” agreed the woman. “Cigarette?”

“No,” said Israel. “In Poland, everybody still smokes, don’t they? It’s normal.”

“I don’t know,” said Katrina. “I’m from Romania.”

“Ah,” said Israel, slightly stumped. “Sorry. I thought you said you were from Poland?”

“You said I was from Poland.”

“Ah. Right. Sorry. And where are you from in Romania?”

“You know Romania?”

“No.”

“So why do you ask?”

“I just…Anyway.”

“Where are you from?” said Katrina.

“London,” said Israel.

“London!” She laughed.

“Yes,” said Israel.

“I’ve been to London,” said Katrina.

“Oh, have you?”

“It’s like a big rubbish bin,” she said.

“Well. Parts of it could certainly do with a bit of a-”

“Too many immigrants,” said the man on the bed, as the zombies continued to roam abroad in search of human flesh.

“Well, that’s certainly one way of looking at things…So how long have you been over here?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“I thought you want to ask about Lyndsay?”

“Yes. Yes. I do. I just wondered how long you’d known her.”

“As long as we live here.”

“Right.”

“Not long.”

“And how did you-”

“I come here to study English,” said Katrina.

“Your English is very good.”

“Ha!” She laughed. “Everybody says that, and then they laugh when you speak a mistake.”

“No. No. I’m sure that’s not right. Your English is really very good.”

She smiled as though it was a great sadness.

“So. Lyndsay? You know her quite well?”

“I know her. She is my friend.”

The man on the bed had sat up. His arms were burned up to the elbows from the chip fat and frying.

“How long have you worked here?”

“Six month.”

“And you got to know Lyndsay while working here?”

“Yes. She is a good person.”

“Right.”

“She helps me find babysitting.”

“I see. You do babysitting as well as-”

“I work here in evenings. And bar at night. During the day I clean. Day off, I do babysitting.” She counted the jobs off on her fingers.

“Wow. That’s-”

“I don’t like babysitting.”

“Oh.”

“It’s worst.”

“I would have thought-”

“Most don’t ask my name. They don’t look at me. They don’t care. I could be anybody!” She laughed again. “They don’t know my name. And I am looking after your kids. There, in the house.”

“Well,” said Israel.

“In Romania, where I am from, your parents, to look after your children. If you are going out. Always. A relative. Or a friend. Not stranger. Never.”

“Yes, I agree,” said Israel. “That certainly sounds more sensible.”

“Bad job,” said Katrina.

“Well, I’m sorry to-”

“And the men, they do not pay.”

“Do they not?”

“Of course. Sometimes. We agree price. They come back-they’re eating dinner or drinking-and the man asks me how much money. And I say we agree twenty pounds, twenty-five pounds. For looking after their children! But he does not want to pay. And even after midnight when it is more money. And he gets-” She indicated something with her fingers.

“Calculator,” said Israel.

“Yes. Calculator. And the wife, she is gone. In bed. And the man says he will pay me ten pounds.”

“I see.”

“Or he says he will pay twenty pounds, but I have to do something for him.”

“What?”

“Sex!” The man on the bed laughs.

“Yes,” agreed Katrina. “He means sex with him.”

“Oh god.”

“His wife is bed, upstairs,” said Katrina.

“That’s terrible,” said Israel. “I’m so sorry.”

She blew smoke up toward the ceiling. “Is not your fault.”

“No, but…”

“What do you want to know about Lyndsay?”

“Well, I don’t really…Anything, really.”

“She was nice.”

The man on the bed nodded his head in agreement.

“I like her. She help me with things.”

“And did she have any boyfriends, or…”

“Yes, of course. Boyfriends. She is pretty.”

“Yes. Anyone in particular?”

Katrina looked at the man. The man looked back.

“You don’t know anybody we know this.”

“No. No. Of course.”

“We think Gerry.”

“Gerry who?”

“The boss.”

“She was friendly with the boss?”

“Yes. He used to give her a lift home.”

“I see.”

“In his Mercedes.”

“Oh.”

“He pick her up, night she disappear.”

“In his Mercedes?”

“Yes.”

“You saw him pick her up?”

“I see the car,” said the man on the bed.

“Are you sure?”

“Mercedes.” The man nodded his head.

“Did you tell the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to lose my job.”

“But what if Lyndsay’s been…”

“What can I do?” said the young man.

“What’s he like, this Gerry?”

Katrina hesitated in her answer.

“He’s a bad man.”

“Really?”

“Bad,” piped up the young man on the bed.

“I see.”

“DVDs. Computer things. His other business. Illegal. Friend of ours. He was caught by police. He go back to Romania.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Did you tell the police?”

Katrina laughed.

“We’re just immigrants.”

“And you’re a librarian!” said the man on the bed, laughing.

“In Romania, I study literature,” said Katrina. “One day, I think I believe I will become great playwright! Like Ionesco. And look! Here I am! You know Ionesco?”