“Wow. FOCL must have done them,” June said, trying to keep her face neutral.
“There are hundreds of these posters out there—the village looks terrible. I have to call Brian. As chair of the parish council he’ll be furious about this mess.”
Marjorie stormed toward the office and June turned to look out the library front window. The Parade was busy this morning, small groups of people clustering in front of the pub and the bakery to read the posters that had been pasted up overnight. June pulled her phone out and opened up a browser with the new FOCL library petition. Seven hundred and eighty-nine signatures, it said.
She allowed herself a small smile, slipped the phone back in her pocket, and carried on with her work.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
June watched the man, in his mid-twenties and dressed unseasonably in warm clothes, as he slumped in the corner, playing on his phone. He had barely looked up from the screen in the past hour, absorbed in whatever game he was playing. His skin was pale, like he didn’t go outside much, and June had decided that he was a vampire hiding out in the library to avoid the blazing sun. Earlier he’d eaten some roast beef crisps, so clearly he was craving meat. Any minute now he was going to throw his phone aside and walk over toward Vera, who would look up at him in alarm. He would lean forward and open his mouth and then say—
“This is a public library, not a knocking shop!”
Marjorie was marching two red-faced teenagers out of the toilet. “I know it’s hot outside, but you’ll have to find somewhere else to go.” She led them to the front door and then watched as they scurried away hand in hand.
It was late August, and a heat wave had brought Chalcot to astandstill. The hanging baskets on the Parade had long since wilted, the shop sold out of ice cream within hours of each new delivery, and a hosepipe ban was driving all the gardeners crazy. The coolest building in the village was the library, where the thick stone walls and high ceilings made the temperature almost bearable.
As a result, it was also the busiest building in the village. When June unlocked the door every morning, she found Stanley joined by a queue of impatient pensioners who’d barge past her to claim the prime real estate of a window seat. They stayed there all day, fanning themselves with leaflets from the rack, complaining about their swollen ankles, and demanding cups of water. When she wasn’t running errands for them, June was in the Children’s Room acting as amateur entertainer to dozens of restless little ones while their parents and carers stared listlessly at their phones.
Marjorie came to join June at the desk. “Are you still going into Winton this afternoon?”
“I’m not sure I can face it in this heat. Do you need me to do an extra shift here?”
“No. I need three silver cake platters from the catering shop on Winton high street. Can you collect them for me and drop them back here?”
“Okay.”
“Gayle has announced that as well as the main wedding cake she also wants cupcakes, so now I have to bake one hundred of those on top of everything else.”
June busied herself with some stock so she wouldn’t have to engage in conversation about the wedding. The thought of that hen do still made her whole body ache with humiliation two weeks later.
“By the way, do you know what those so-called Friends ofChalcot Library are up to?” Marjorie said. “They’ve been suspiciously quiet since those bloody posters.”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, keep your ear to the ground. I don’t want any more nasty surprises.”
•••
At midday, June left the library and caught the bus, disembarking on Winton high street into a sea of shoppers and pedestrians. She hated crowds at the best of times, let alone in this weather, but she put her head down and forced herself to join them. All she needed was to collect Marjorie’s cake trays and pop to M&S to buy her usual value pack of plain white high-legged briefs, and then she could catch the bus back.
As she made her way up the high street, June noticed a shop to her left that she’d not spotted before. It had a purple frontage and in the window was a mannequin wearing some black underwear. It was much fancier than the kind of thing June wore and probably twice the price. But, on the plus side, it would save her another ten minutes jostling in the crowds all the way to M&S. June swerved left and headed in.
“Hey, can I help you?” a young woman with facial piercings greeted June as she walked through the door.
“Thanks, but I’m just browsing,” June said. She moved into the shop, but the assistant followed her.
“We’ve got fifteen percent off all toys at the moment, so you’ve come at the perfect time.”
June hadn’t realized she was in a toy shop. She looked around her for the first time and her eyes fell on a display holding dozensof boxes containing what looked like lipsticks. She picked one up and almost dropped it on the floor. “Jesus, is that a—?”
“That’s the seven-speed purple python. It’s one of our bestsellers.”
June was so surprised that she didn’t know where to look.
“We’ve also got a two-for-one on the vibrating bullet.” The girl offered her a small spherical object.
“Sorry, I thought this was an underwear shop.”
