Ian Sansom - The Case of the Missing Books

'Yes?' said an elderly, black-suited man, with a face like a gargoyle and a little floral pinny around his waist, who popped up suddenly from behind the large, oak lectern as Israel wandered down the aisle.

'Bloody hell!' said Israel.

'Mind your tongue now,' said the man.

'Sorry. I…Erm. You gave me a hell of a fright there.'

'Aye,' said the man, who was holding a large multicoloured duster-on-a-stick, which he was now absentmindedly flicking around the lectern. 'But this is a house of God.'

'Yes. Sorry.'

'And what would you be wanting exactly?'

'Erm. Well. You're not the Reverend Roberts by any chance, are you?'

'That I am not.'

'Right. Sorry. I was hoping to see the, er, minister.'

'The Reverend Roberts?'

'Yes. If that's him.'

'Aye, it is, surely.'

'OK. Well, I wonder if I might be able to see him?'

'Aye. Mebbe.'

'Is he around?'

'Well, he's in, but he's out.'

Oh, God, another comedian. These people gave him a headache.

'OK,' said Israel pleasantly.

'Would you be having an appointment at all?' asked the man.

'No. No, I don't, I'm afraid. Do I need an appointment?'

'Generally those that don't, do, and those that do, don't.'

'Erm. Well, I can always come back later if now is not convenient.'

'Mebbe.'

'Right. OK. So, where does that-'

'Would it be a matter of personal and spiritual urgency?'

'Er. No, not really. It's more sort of business, actually.'

'Are you selling something?'

'No. No, I'm not.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes. I'm the new mobile librarian.'

'You don't have the look of a librarian.'

Israel was currently sporting a Green Day T-shirt ('AMERICAN IDIOT'), the combat trousers, and his brown brogues and corduroy jacket, most of the rest of his own clothes having now gone mouldy hanging to dry-after he'd washed off all the chicken shit-in the Devines' stinking damp scullery back at the farm. Also he had had to apply another layer of masking tape on the bridge of his glasses to hold them together, so he looked like a down-on-his-luck Second World War fighter pilot, someone who'd perhaps lost both their legs coming down over France and who was now reduced to begging for a living.

'No. Sorry. It's just, I needed a very quick word with the, er, reverend.'

'Aye. Right,' said the old gargoyle man. 'Well, take a pew. We'll see what we can do.'

The man then disappeared somewhere behind the organ.

Israel sat down in the front pew and stared up at the creamy-white walls and the big grey organ pipes, like some grim industrial machinery: maybe the place could have done with some decoration after all.

The dark-suited man reappeared.

'Reverend Roberts is on the phone at the moment. If you come into the robing room, he'll be with you shortly.'

The man led Israel to the robing room in silence, through a door and down a little corridor and ushered Israel in, and said goodbye.

'I've just tidied in here,' he said, as his parting shot. 'So don't touch anything.'

'Right. OK. No, I won't,' promised Israel. 'Definitely not.'

There was nothing much to touch: the windowless room was as cold and bare as the church, like a cell, in fact, except for a table set in the middle of the room piled high with hymn books, and long low bookshelves all around, and portraits of unsmiling ministers in black and white up on the walls, and a long black gown which hung on the back of the door, which presently opened, and in walked the Reverend Roberts.

Who was a black man.

For a moment it was all Israel could see, and he was amazed, flabbergasted: it was like someone had fixed an aerial on the telly, and the world had suddenly gone into colour. He realised he hadn't seen a single person who was not a pure pasty white since he'd arrived, and he felt like going up to this man, this fine example of colour and contrast, and shaking him warmly by the hand just to say thanks. But then he thought better of it: when he was at university and he told people his name, they'd sometimes say to him, 'Some of my best friends are Jewish,' which as a welcome and introduction he'd always felt was rather less than warm, and very possibly a threat, in fact-the implication usually being, 'And therefore this justifies me being a raging anti-Semite.' So he just smiled.

'Hello,' said the reverend, who towered above Israel, and who had a booming voice born of years of sermonising and stating the sublime and the startlingly obvious, a voice of great echoey depths.

'Hello,' said Israel, 'you must be the Reverend Roberts?'

'Ah, it's the dog-collar that always gives me away, isn't it?' said the Reverend Roberts, booming.

'Right,' said Israel.

'But please, call me England.'

'Sorry?' said Israel, hesitating. He could feel a headache coming on. 'Say again? You lost me there. Call you England?'

'Yes.'

'Erm…'

'That's my name.'

'England?'

'Yes. I'm from South Africa, as you may be able to tell.'

And here England boomed a laugh, a 'Ho! Ho! Ho!' as deep and as echoing and as resonant as Paul Robeson doing Santa somewhere in a grotto deep underground, and it was the sweetest, the richest and the most welcomingly ironic sound that Israel had heard since arriving in Ireland.

'My mother,' he continued, 'was a great admirer of your Queen. And indeed of the whole of your United Kingdom! I have a brother called Scotland, and another called Wales.'

'You're joking me?'

'No! Most certainly not. She always wanted us to travel: she thought the names would give us a good start.'

'You didn't have a brother called Northern Ireland?'

'Yes. I did, of course, although my mother called him Ireland. Her grasp of post-partition politics was not strong. Ho, ho, ho! But I'm afraid he died shortly after he was born.'

'Oh, God, I'm sorry.'

'That's OK. He was unwell: God is merciful. Anyway. It's very nice to meet you, sir. You are…?'

'Sorry, yes, I'm Israel Armstrong. I'm the new librarian.'

'Ah, of course. Welcome, sir, welcome! Your reputation precedes you. Everyone has been looking forward to meeting you. Including myself.'

'Right.'

'You were in the local paper.'

'Yes, so I believe. Unfortunately.'

'Ho, ho, ho. Yes! When I first arrived my photograph was in the paper every week for almost a year. You'll get used to it.'

'I will?'

'Of course. The novelty will wear off. How are you settling in so far?'

'Well,' said Israel, 'it is taking a little getting used to.'

'Ah yes. But you'll become accustomed to our strange ways. Ho, ho, ho! It took me about three years to get in the swing of things. But now, Israel-can I call you Israel?'

'Yes. Sure.'

'The promised land. You don't have brothers named Egypt and Canaan?'

'No, no. I don't.'

'Ho, ho, ho! Never mind. Well, I think it took me three years to get used to things, but now I really love it here.'

'I doubt I'll be here for three years.'

'Ah, that's what I thought. I thought I'd be back home by now in South Africa, married and with little children running around, but instead here I am, all alone here among the mad Irish heathen! Ho, ho, ho! God moves in mysterious ways.'

'Yes, I suppose he does. I guess it must be much more difficult for you, actually,' began Israel, thinking aloud and then immediately regretting he'd set out on this train of thought.

'What? Being the only black man?' said England generously. 'Ho, ho! Of course, it can be a problem at first…' He hesitated, as though he wanted to say more, but changed his mind. 'But enough about me, sir,' he continued. 'What can I do for you?'

'Well, I'm trying to put the library back together, rounding up overdue books and what have you, for the mobile library service-you know the main branch library's been shut?'