the novelist and essayist, who has been missing from her home since last friday, is believed to have been drowned at rodmell, near lewes, where she and her husband, leonard sidney woolf, had a country residence.
mr woolf said tonight: ‘mrs woolf is presumed to be dead. she went for a walk last friday, leaving a letter behind... her body, however, has not been recovered.’
The words became jumbled as tears filled Joyce’s eyes.
‘Oh no . . . oh gosh no . . .’
Joyce felt floored.
‘Virginia Woolf is missing, believed dead,’ she managed eventually.
‘I’m so sorry, Joyce. I know you were a fan of her writing. You and my sister.’
Joyce got back in the travelling library, feeling like she was not in her own body. ‘I know it sounds silly,’ she said at last. ‘It’s not as if I knew her, but through her writing I felt as if I did.’
Her thoughts went immediately to Dorotha. Virginia Woolf had been the catalyst to their friendship. From the moment Dorotha had pressedA Room of One’s Owninto her hand, Woolf’s pen had drawn a bridge between the two women, spanning an ocean and connecting their hearts and minds. When Joyce settled down with a Woolf novel, Dorotha never felt that far away. They had both helped her see the world afresh. But now there would be no more Woolf books and Dorotha would slip further into the void of uncertainty.
Woolf’s death felt like some awful prelude to the death of their friendship. But she could not share that with Adela. They drove the rest of the way in silence, both lost in their own thoughts.
Adela pulled to a stop at The Grove, in Highgate village, and Joyce unlocked the library, folding down the library steps. A bittersweet pang hit her as the alkaline tang of books and the scent of old leather washed over her. She glanced around the small, book-lined interior of her mobile library. If a library could talk – could tell its own story – what tales this grand old lady would spill. The people she had ferried to safety, the stories and secrets whispered by the stacks, the dreams indulged in this hallowed little space. Joyce thought back wistfully to the launch.
People without books are like houses without windows.
How much bleaker and narrower all their lives would be when this library closed down.
She turned and frowned. There was usually a huge queue to be found here. This stop was right opposite an ARP unit, and not far from a munitions factory. Sometimes the queue snaked down the street and around the corner. There wasn’t a soul about.
‘Strange,’ she mused. ‘It is Wednesday two p.m., yes?’
‘Yes,’ Adela confirmed. ‘This is our regular advertised time. Where is everybody?’
‘I don’t know. Busy, I suppose. Come on then, we may as well head to the next stop.’
A short while later they pulled up at Twisden Road.
This was always Joyce’s favourite stop. It was close to a textile factory staffed by the most raucous girls she’d ever met, who loved nothing more than a gossip and a bodice-ripper. But today there was no clicking of heels, no dirty laughter.
It was the same story at Sharpleshall Street, on the corner of Regent’s Park Road and Camden Square.
They scanned the silent street.
‘Maybe the council are right to shut us down,’ she said at last. ‘We’re not exactly in demand today.’
‘Poppycock,’ Adela said bluntly.
Finally, a middle-aged man in a mac stopped in front of the van. ‘Tea, please.’
‘Sorry but we aren’t a WVS van,’ Adela replied. ‘I can lend you a book though.’
‘A book!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes, we’re a mobile library.’
The man wrinkled his nose. ‘No thanks. I hate reading.’
‘Philistine,’ Adela muttered.
‘I beg your pardon!’
