The Librarian by Salley Vickers

Author:Salley Vickers
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780241330258
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-02-21T16:00:00+00:00

22

The prospect of the forthcoming trip to London with Hugh was disrupting Sylvia’s days and had overtaken her nights. Her sleep was undermined by waves of anxiety, the fear that some catastrophe – another storm, a life-threatening illness in Marigold, a general strike – would upend the whole enterprise, and a conviction that the whole affair was hopeless. She swung like a madwoman between planning a trousseau complete with silk underwear and mentally composing a brave note to Hugh hinting at self-denying reasons for her leaving East Mole. Somehow, this left no room for any feelings of guilt over his wife.

Sylvia had not liked to probe Sam about his trip with Marigold to Salisbury but from his few remarks she gathered it had gone well. They had apparently found a coffee bar with a juke box, where Marigold had produced money to play the latest hits. Marigold, it seemed, was now a committed follower of Cliff Richard and The Drifters.

‘Who are they, Sam?’

Sam looked scornful. ‘ “Move It” ’s been in the charts since last summer.’

Since the Salisbury outing Sam had become almost ostentatiously helpful at the library. In an effort to salvage some sanity, Sylvia had attempted to float her Roman Britain project.

‘I can’t seem to get your colleague Sue interested,’ she had complained to Gwen one evening at the Troubadour.

‘Sue’s a bit of a shrinking violet.’

Sylvia had met Sue Bunce and had grown sceptical of her supposed fragility. ‘To be honest, Gwen, I wouldn’t say that was the first image that comes to mind.’

Nevertheless, she had ordered in all the Rosemary Sutcliffs.

‘What’s this about?’ Sam asked, holding out a copy of The Silver Branch.

‘It’s part of a trilogy about Roman Britain. The hero’s a Roman doctor,’ Sylvia began, and the demon that compels us to voice the names of those we are smitten with made her add, ‘Like Marigold’s father.’

Sam shared this malaise. ‘Marigold says her dad might take her and me to Bath to see the Roman baths. There’s a Wimpy Bar she says he’ll take us to.’

Marigold’s visits to the library had resumed. Nowadays she arrived unaccompanied and she and Sam spoke in lowered voices and guffawed together in corners so that Sylvia had to banish them to preserve the quiet.

She was proud of her library. Her early hard work had borne fruit and the East Mole children and their parents now came regularly and eagerly to change their books. At times she experienced surges of overwhelming love for her little customers, prospecting the shelves for new finds, or sitting spread-legged on the floor, absorbed in exploring the varied kingdoms to which the books she had chosen for them had opened doors. Enthused by the affair with Hugh, she had set up a Poetry Corner, where poems she had Roneod on the copy machine were posted up, and started a Story Club for the underfives.

Although she missed Hugh’s visits to the library, there was London to look forward to and she was glad on the whole not to have to meet him with Dee around.

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