The Bookshop on the Corner (6 page)

She sat there for a moment in silence. Then she glanced toward the pub, where the men were standing staring at her, and felt a new wellspring of iron in her heart. Leaning forward, adjusting the mirrors and making sure at least five times that she was in neutral, she put the key in the ignition and turned it.

The noise it made was a huge growl, an awful lot louder than the Mini Metro. An awful lot louder than anything. Nina saw
a flock of birds rise up over the houses and spiral into the air. Holding her breath and saying a silent prayer, she moved into first, put her foot very carefully on the accelerator and pushed down the heavy hand brake.

The van jumped forward and immediately stalled and stuttered to a halt. Nina thought she saw the men laughing outside the pub and narrowed her eyes. She turned the key back and tried again. This time it moved smoothly into gear and she took off into the square, bouncing on the cobbles.

Not knowing exactly where she was going, she turned left down the first wide street she came to, and within moments found herself rumbling up the hill toward the moors. The van was a lot nippier than it had first appeared. Nina changed down into second and held on for the ride. She'd never driven so high up before. She could see right out to sea over the crest of the hill; there were great tankers arriving—from the Netherlands and Scandinavia and China, she imagined, bringing in toys and furniture and paper, and taking oil and whiskey back the other way.

A huge red truck drove past her and honked loudly. Nina jumped in her seat before realizing it was just a friendly greeting between trucks. As she rounded an unusually sharp bend, a tiny zippy sports car nipped in front of her and raced off, which also gave her a fright. Shaken, she parked up in the first turnoff she came to and gripped the steering wheel tightly. She noticed that her hands were shaking.

She wound down the window and gulped in several breaths of bracing fresh air until she felt a little better. Then she jumped out of the cab, scrambled down to the grounds and took a proper look around.

The problem was, Nina thought, kicking the tires, she didn't really know enough about vans to know if this one was any good. She wasn't even sure you were meant to kick the tires, although there was a certain satisfaction to it, especially when the tires were as big as these. They didn't seem bald, though. And she managed to open the hood, even though she didn't know what she was looking for. Nothing was rusty, and there was oil in it; even she could check oil.

Inside, the back needed a bit of a cleanup, mostly straw removed, but that was fine. It was easy to see how the shelving would go in, and how the little seating area could work at the back; and the side door opened perfectly, with the set of steps unfolding smoothly.

In fact, as Nina went on with her inspection, she started to get excited again. Suddenly she could see it all in her mind's eye. Parking up somewhere like this beautiful turnoff. Well, maybe not a turnoff. Somewhere in town, where people could get to her. Painting the insides colorfully, filling the shelves with the very best of everything she knew. Helping to match people to the book that would change their life, or make them fall in love, or get over a love affair gone wrong.

And for the children, she could show them where to dive into a crocodile-infested river, or fly through the stars, or open the door of a wardrobe . . .

She sat gazing at her fantasy, imagining it bustling and filled with life and people coming up to her saying, “Nina, thank goodness you're here; I need a book that will save my life!”

She slammed the door shut excitedly.

Yes! She could do it! She thought back to how she'd felt that morning. She would show that old guy in the pub! She would buy this blooming van and make a success of it, and everything
would be absolutely fine. She was so excited that she only stalled four times on the way back to the village, got lost once, and spooked a horse, which made the posh-sounding woman riding it curse her in an extremely non-posh fashion that rang in her ears all the way back down to Kirrinfief and, she was pretty sure, would traumatize the horse far more than the van would have done.

“I've changed my mind,” said Wullie when she parked carefully outside the pub. “It's not for sale.”

Nina stared at him, aghast. “But I managed to reverse it and everything!”

This wasn't strictly true, but she'd looked at where the reverse lever would go and reckoned she could handle it, as long as nobody was yelling horse abuse at her.

“I don't want to sell it.”

“That's just sexist!”

“It's my van, and I don't care.”

Wullie turned and looked about to stomp off out of the pub.

“Please,” said Nina. “I have plans for it, and there aren't any others I can find for sale that are just what I need, and I've come all this way and I'm really going to look after it.”

Wullie turned around and Nina's heart leaped briefly.

“Naw,” he said. And he let the door bang behind him on the way out.

N
ina sneaked a glance at Cathy Neeson, who was sitting on the end of the interview panel with her arms folded and her face giving absolutely nothing away. Would it really hurt her to smile? thought Nina. She was doing her best, in the new black tights she'd splurged on, trying to make her hands look calm and relaxed rather than squirming them on her lap. Just a little glimmer of recognition? Although she hadn't studied that hard for the interview, nobody knew the ins and outs of the books better than she, the ordering and filing systems and everything that went into making the library work properly.

(She couldn't know that Cathy Neeson had forty-six interviews to sit in on this week, for only two jobs, both of which she was under orders to give to lively young people who could shout a lot, looked nice in the pamphlets and would work for next to nothing, and although she'd argued about it at the top level till she was blue in the face, she could do absolutely nothing about it. Top management was completely safe. New, young, cheap hires who would do anything were coming in. It was the middle
ranks, the professional, clever book people, who were simply no longer required.)

“So I feel that a library meeting and anticipating the needs of its readers is absolutely my top priority,” went on Nina, feeling as she did so the sense of her words going into space, of simply tumbling unheard from her mouth. She had a ridiculous, nervous urge to say something utterly absurd just to see if they kept nodding or not.

“Yes,” said a different humorless-looking woman wearing a pants suit and very pink lipstick, leaning forward. “But what about anticipating the needs of your
non
readers?”

“I'm sorry?” said Nina, not sure she'd understood. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you're trying to satisfy the needs of all your consumer base, yes?”

“Uh, yes?” said Nina, conscious that she was on unsteady ground.

“So what do you propose for the nonreaders?”

“Well, we have children's story time twice a week—I'd love to make that three times; it's so nice for the mums to have a place to get together and chat. And I know our children's literature section backward and forward, so I've always got something to recommend to those who are a bit more reluctant—there are loads more terrific books coming along for boys, who we all know are a little hard to persuade . . . Plus we have adult literacy classes at the town hall, and we're always directing people there; if you can improve literacy, you're doing the best thing you can.”

“No, no, you're not hearing me: what do you propose for the
non
readers? Not the people who
can't
read. Your adult clientele who simply don't
like
to read?”

Nina paused. She could hear the heavy traffic going around
the roundabout outside. A garbage truck was reversing with a loud beeping sound. There was a huge crash as it emptied one of the bottle recycling bins from around the back of the library.

“Um,” she said finally, blushing furiously under the gaze of the four interviewers, one of whom—Cathy Neeson, of course—was already checking her phone for the name of the next person. “I could recommend to them a REALLY good book . . .”

The pink-lipsticked lady looked disappointed rather than angry. “I don't think you're seeing what we're getting at, at all.”

Nina couldn't disagree. She absolutely didn't.

“You should have talked about interfaces!” hissed Griffin, as they hid around the corner sipping their consolatory frappuccinos, a justifiable extravagance under the circumstances.

Outside, it was raining, a heavy, joyless spring shower that rendered the city colorless and made the cars splash and thunder through the streets, catching passers-by with sprays of water. People were looking furious, their brows as heavy as the low clouds above. Birmingham was not at its loveliest.

The coffee shop was absolutely heaving with shopping bags and damp coats and strollers and people wearing big earphones and glowering at other people trying to share their table or getting in their way and young kids sharing muffins and sniggering and abusing each other verbally. She and Griffin were sitting at a crumb-strewn table next to the restrooms, beside a lawyer and his client deep in the throes of discussing her imminent divorce. It was hard not to listen in, but Nina felt she had enough problems of her own right now.

“What kind of interfaces?” she said. The interview had not gone much farther after that question.

“It doesn't matter: computer, or peer to peer, or integrated confluence,” hissed Griffin. “They really don't care as long as you use a buzzword that they can tick off on their sheet. And if they tick off enough, then it's like bingo and you win your old job back, except at a reduced salary.”

He took a suck of his frappuccino and looked glum.

“God, I should just tell them all to piss off. Illiterate paper pushers.”

“Why don't you?” said Nina suddenly, interested. People had given her enough advice; she might as well pass it on. “You're smart. You've got a degree. You're not tied down. You could do anything. You could travel the world. Write a novel. Go teach English in China. Hang out on a surfers' beach in California. I mean, you're not old, you're not married. The world's your oyster. Why not tell them to stuff it, if you hate it all so much?”

“I still might do all of those things,” said Griffin sullenly. “I won't be stuck here forever. Anyway, you're the one off on wild goose chases to look at crazy buses. I'd say you're closer to it than I am.”

Nina had known he'd been secretly pleased when she'd come back from Scotland empty-handed. She'd resented the implication of that: that he was worried that if she could get away, pathetic as she was, what did it say about him?

“I know,” she sighed. “It was a ridiculous dream.” She looked around. “I just don't know . . . I mean, after that . . .” She shivered, remembering Cathy Neeson's smile, which hadn't reached her eyes as she'd stood up to leave, before the end of the allotted interview time but after the entire thing had clearly come to a close.

Nina hadn't slept well since she'd returned from Scotland. The atmosphere had been muggy and gray, pressing down on her relentlessly. Things she'd once liked—the buzz, the city noise—now made her feel like she didn't have enough space to catch her breath. She'd read lots of books about people finding new lives, which hadn't helped her mood either, had made her feel more and more trapped and stuck where she was, as if everyone except her was managing to get away and do interesting things.

She'd trawled the job Web sites, but it seemed there was no place for librarians anymore. Information officers, yes. Play advisers and local government PRs and marketing consultants, but nothing that seemed to have anything to do with what she'd done her entire life, the only job she wanted: finding the right book for the right person.

She found herself missing the fresh air, the long views, the clear sunlight bouncing off yellow fields, lush green rolling hills and the sparkling, dancing, beguiling North Sea. It felt very odd that somewhere she'd spent such a small amount of time—and which had ended up so badly—had had such a profound effect on her.

She stared at her coffee again. A large woman barged past her, almost clubbing her in the face with her gigantic, expensive, directional handbag.

“I don't know,” Nina said again.

“Oh, I'm sure you'll have gotten the job,” said Griffin, incredibly insincerely. Nina realized for the first time that he'd cut off his ponytail.

Her phone rang. They both looked at each other and froze.

“They'll be calling the successful people first,” said Griffin immediately. “Well done. It'll definitely be you. Congratulations.
Maybe they wanted a way back to the old-fashioned style all along.”

“I don't recognize the number,” said Nina, looking at the phone as though it were a live snake. “But it's not Birmingham.”

“No, it won't be,” said Griffin. “It'll be centralized in some Swindon office or something.”

Nina picked up the phone and carefully pressed the green button.

“Nina Redmond?”

The line was crackly and unclear, and at first it was hard to hear anything in the noisy coffee shop.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Aye, hello there,” came the voice. “Is that Nina?”

“Yes, it's me.”

“Aye, listen. It's Alasdair McRae.”

The name meant nothing to Nina, but the Scottish accent was familiar. Her brow furrowed.

“Hello?”

“Aye, the landlord, you know. Of the Rob Roy.”

Nina couldn't help smiling. “Hello! Did I leave something behind? You can keep the book.” She hadn't had the heart to take it away in the end.

“Oh, it was brilliant, that book. Edwin passed it on to me when he was done with it.”

“I'm glad to hear it.”

“Then I passed it on to Wullie.”

“Oh.”

“Aye, well, he was in, looking glum.”

“Well, books are for everyone,” said Nina, trying to be charitable.

“Anyway, listen. Me and the lads were thinking.”

It took Nina a moment to realize that by “the lads” he meant the two old duffers who sat by the bar.

“Oh yes?”

“Listen, that Wullie, he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's had a sad life, you know.”

Well, I'm having one right now, Nina found herself thinking, quite shocked that the thought had flickered across her mind.

“Mmm?” she said.

“Well, we reckon the three of us . . . we can buy it off him, then sell it on to you. You know, if you like.”

There was a pause. Nina didn't know what to say. It was so unexpected.

“Not to make a profit, like. I mean, I reckon we'd probably get it cheaper off him than you would. Just to get him to change his mind about selling it to a lass.”

“Well, that's . . .” Nina was still speechless.

“We just thought you looked like a lassie who needed a hand. And we really liked that book you left us. I mean, we'd quite like more books.” Nina had told Alasdair the plan and he had not stopped badgering her since. “And that van is an eyesore in the village. And he was wrong not to sell it to you when you wanted it.”

This was clearly a long speech for the landlord, who sounded embarrassed. Nina rushed in to reassure him.

“Are you sure? That would be really—”

“I mean, only if you haven't found another one you like . . .”

“I haven't, no. I haven't found another one.”

Nina looked up. The rain was belting against the windows of the coffee shop now; every time the door opened, the wind howled in. The place was absolutely packed, a huge noisy line at the counter, children crying, people looking cross and getting in each other's way. She looked at Griffin, who was checking his phone. Suddenly he jumped up, full of delight, and punched the air.

Nina blinked. “Listen, Alasdair, that's so kind of you. I'll need to think about it. Can I call you back?”

“Aye, of course.”

He told her the price he thought he could get the van for, which was way below what she'd expected, and she put the phone down.

“I got it!” said Griffin, his face pink with emotion. “YAY!”

Gradually he lowered his arms, looking at Nina. “I mean,” he stuttered. “I mean, I'm sorry. I mean, they've probably made a mistake. You'd have been way better.”

Nina glanced down at her phone. A new e-mail was blinking. She didn't even have to open it. “I regret to inform you . . .” was the first line that came across in the preview screen.

“Well done,” she said to Griffin, almost entirely meaning it.

“I've got to head up a ‘dynamic young multifunctional team,'” read Griffin excitedly. “Of course it will probably be absolutely awful . . . I'm really sorry,” he said as he saw her face.