I look up to the burned orange and purple sky and am happy the light nights have arrived. I saved up the money I receive as my Carer’s Allowance and have treated myself to a new table and four chairs for the garden made of something called rattan. They should be arriving soon. I don’t need all that seating; it’s not as if casual visitors drop by. But one chair on its own would look pitiful.
For a moment, I picture Maggie and me eating dinner together in the garden one warm summer evening. It would be nice to do something that is different for us, but normal for other families. Then I dismiss the idea as quickly as it appeared. If I can’t leave her alone with a corkscrew for a couple of minutes, then how can I be sure she won’t be a danger to either of us if she’s outdoors?
I glance at my watch; she’s been in the bath for fifteen minutes and the water must be getting cooler. On my way to the bathroom door, I spot her reading glasses folded on her bedside table. Something glints and catches my eye so I step into her bedroom to look more closely. She has tried to hide a spring from her mattress under her glasses case, but the tip is poking out.Good spot, I think, pleased with myself but disappointed by yet another act of defiance I must now retaliate against. I use the bevelled end of the spring to unfasten the tiny screw that keeps one of the arms of her glasses attached to the frame. I slip both the screw and spring inside my trouser pocket and return her glasses, neatly folded, to where they were.
‘Are you ready?’ I ask from outside the bathroom door.
‘I’m just putting my nightie on,’ she replies, and I hear the clanking of metal again. Then she appears, clean and shiny. I follow her into her bedroom and she shuffles towards the window.
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘lift your leg up’, and she obliges, familiar with our well-practised routine. I remove a key from my pocket and undo the padlock attached to the clamp around her ankle. The chain falls to the floor with a heavy thump. I attach a second, much shorter clasp and chain to her ankle and lock it. This chain doesn’t extend far from the spike. Once again, I have her confined to her bedroom.
‘Right, I’ve bleached your bucket,’ I tell her and look towards the blue plastic pail and toilet roll in the corner of the room. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of days.’
Later, I’ll prepare tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch and leave them outside her door before I go to work in the morning. Her dinner can wait until I return in the evening.
I lock the door behind me and stand at the top of the stairs with my eyes closed. I wish it didn’t have to be like this, I really do. I think about a quote I read once in a letter written by one of my favourite authors, Charlotte Brontë. ‘I can be on guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends.’ I wonder if that includes family members too.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 5
NINA
The number seven bus drops me off at the station in what used to be Northampton’s fish market. Even though they’ve torn the old building down and replaced it with this brick and glass monstrosity, if I inhale hard enough I think I can still smell seafood, forever caught between the past and the present.
I make my way through an empty market square, remembering when I was a girl and this grey, rough-hewn cobbled space was the heart of the town. For three days a week, it was a hive of activity with traders selling affordable clothes, pet foods, music, fabrics, fruit and veg, and videotapes. Now, there aren’t enough stalls to fill even half of it on the busiest of days.
I’m a quarter of an hour early when I swipe my way inside the library where I work. I head down the stone steps, following the grooves that thousands upon thousands of pairs of feet have made over the building’s 150-year history. I use my security pass again to enter the basement and leave my bag and coat in the staffroom before I return upstairs to the main floor.
I bid a cheery good morning to my colleagues – I count twelve of us on shift today, all of us of different ages. As I watch them interact with one another, it strikes me that people have an antiquated perception of librarians. They assume female employees are quiet, unassuming, bookish folk; that our wardrobes consist of a dull collection of cardigans and comfortable shoes; that we wear our hair tied back in tight buns and we spend our lives sitting behind desks shushing or fining people for late returns. Meanwhile, our male colleagues are equally dull, humourless virgins with beards, corduroy jackets and checked shirts, who still live at home with their mothers.
Nothing could be further from the truth. On the library floor, yes, we remain relatively softly spoken and professional and we do love our books. But that doesn’t mean we live and breathe them. We have lives away from the written word.
One by one we discuss what we did over the weekend. Danielle shows us blue-and-yellow bruising across the skin above her ribcage where she landed awkwardly zipwiring in Wicksteed Park. Then Steve arrives with five minutes to spare and proudly displays cling film wrapped around his forearm. He’s been tattooed again, although it’s hard to make out the design hiding beneath the wrap and Vaseline. Regardless, I tell him it looks nice. Joanna plays in a rock band while Pete is now in his fifties but training to be a yogi.
When Jenna asks about mine, I inform her my mum didn’t have a great weekend so she took up most of my time. She nods sympathetically as if she understands, which of course she doesn’t. I hate it when people pity the life they assume I lead. And it’s not like it isn’t pitiful ... just not for the reasons they assume.
Many of us have worked in this building or in the library service for years. We joke that we’d have served less time behind bars for manslaughter. Some I am closer to than others but there’s not one person here I can honestly say that I dislike. Maggie once asked me if I was lonely, not spending time with anyone my own age. For a long time, I was. But life has a habit of surprising you when you least expect it. And she doesn’t know about everything or everyone I come into contact with. It’s healthy to have secrets.
With one exception, I keep most people at arm’s length for a reason. If you allow an emotional attachment to develop, eventually that person will disappoint you. They might not mean to, but if a better opportunity comes along, they will always leave you for it. I’ve learned the hard way that people – even loved ones – are transient souls.
As the library doors open and the first members of the public amble inside, the van containing a new stock of books arrives earlier than expected. Steve pushes a trolley containing boxes which need to be unpacked, serviced, jacketed, barcoded and catalogued. Then once they’ve been scanned, any books that have not been reserved are placed on another trolley. Today, I volunteer to stack the shelves with them.
There are thousands of books and hundreds of shelves and I know every inch of them. I’ve worked here for eighteen years, so I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t. However, the library has changed beyond all recognition from when I first started. But I’ve moved with the times. I’ve been awarded a couple of promotions over the years but I didn’t apply for them, they just sort of happened. I’m not an ambitious woman and I make no apologies for it. Some of us just aren’t driven enough to climb the career ladder.
I assign almost all of my books to their correct shelves in their correct locations, spines neatly stacked up together and in alphabetical order by each author’s surname. Sometimes I wonder why I bother trying to keep everything so orderly, as it won’t be long before the public rummages around them like it’s the last car-boot sale on earth.
Only one book remains on the trolley, so I make my way towards the War and British History section. It’s often empty of customers, unless there’s an anniversary of a famous battle approaching and interest is renewed. I remove a craft knife from my pocket, slip off the blade’s protective sheath, slice the page out that contains the barcode and hide the book inside another. One of the benefits of my job is that I get to cherry-pick from the latest arrivals. I’ll leave this one here and pick it up on my way out tonight. I’ll slip it into my handbag to pass through the security barriers without setting the alarms off.
I could always just borrow the book, but I don’t like giving them back once they’re in my possession. I don’t want anything that enters my house to leave it. I’m not one of those hoarders you see in TV documentaries who live like moles in their own homes, burrowing their way through skyscrapers of crap-filled boxes they can’t bring themselves to part with. Maggie’s a bit like that. The basement was like a rubbish dump until I cleared it out a couple of years ago. But meaningful things, like her books, I’m reluctant to dispose of even when she’s finished them. So they remain forever on my shelves, their pages slowly yellowing, unlikely to be opened or touched again.
My stomach roars and I note from the clock above the reception desk that it’s lunchtime already. On my way to the staffroom, I notice an elderly person with a trolley by her side, one of those tartan-covered ones that every woman over the age of seventy pushes. Even from this distance, I can smell her. She leaves a bitter taste in my throat and for a moment I try not to breathe in around her. Her odour is the reason why no one is sharing her table.
Her hair is a shock of white and silver, matted in places, and reaches her shoulders. Her eyes are a milky blue, her skin a mocha brown and her clothes tatty and unwashed. I don’t know her name and as far as I’m aware, she isn’t a library member. But she is a regular here, more frequent in the winter months when she’ll lurk at the back of the room absorbing warmth from the cast-iron radiators. She’ll take her scarf, socks and shoes off and spread them out across the tops so that when it’s closing time, her feet will remain warm for a little while when she’s back in the unforgiving cold. She favours romantic fiction, especially those soppy Mills & Boon books. Sometimes she devours two in one sitting. It’s a safe bet she’s yet to find the same happy ever after as the characters she reads about.
I return from my locker with my packed lunch – a sausage roll, a red apple, ham and cheese sandwich and can of lemonade. I drop them into a plastic bag and place them on the table next to the old woman. When she understands what I’ve done, she looks up at me and for a second, I swear I can see Maggie in her grateful eyes. Without offering her an explanation or awaiting a thank you, I leave her alone.
‘You shouldn’t feed the pigeons,’ says Steve as I pass him. He’s seen what I’ve done. ‘They’re vermin.’
