“Right.”
“Pay for some new computers.”
“Uh-huh.” Israel couldn’t be bothered to take the bait.
“You’re unusually quiet, Armstrong.”
“Yeah, well, you know. Just thinking about Pearce.” He was staring at the space on one wall where a bookshelf had been removed: the shelves that had done for Pearce.
“Have you voted yet?” said Linda.
“No,” said Israel. “I don’t think I’m going to bother.”
“If you don’t vote you’ve no right to complain about whoever gets in.”
“That’s true,” said Israel. “That is very true.”
He made his way out of the library, out onto the terrace, where he found George sitting on a bench, smoking, staring out across Pearce’s garden toward the farm in the distance.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” said Israel.
“I don’t,” said George, stubbing out her cigarette. “I’ve something for you, actually.”
“For me?”
“For your birthday.”
“Really?”
“It is your birthday, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
She took a small package from her handbag.
“It’s a book, I’m afraid,” she said, handing it over.
“I don’t know what to say,” said Israel.
“Thank you?”
“Thanks. Shall I open it?”
“Maybe save it for later,” said George.
“OK.”
They sat in silence together, shivering. Israel sighed.
“Big sigh,” said George.
“Was it?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t belong here,” said Israel.
George laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what? What’s funny about that?”
George took a deep breath.
“Let me tell you a secret, Israel. No one belongs anywhere.”
“But you’re from here. You were born here. You grew up. You’re going to-”
“And you think I don’t ever wish I wasn’t?”
“Well. I don’t know. I just…”
“Everyone’s the same, Israel. We want what we can’t have. That’s the meaning of life, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, is it?”
She turned and looked at him. He looked at her.
His phone rang.
“Sorry,” he said.
“I’ll maybe see you back inside,” said George.
“Yeah. Sure. Fine.”
It was Gloria.
He thought. For a moment.
He let it ring.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For previous acknowledgments see The Truth About Babies (Granta Books, 2002), Ring Road (Fourth Estate, 2004), A Mobile Library Mystery: The Case of the Missing Books (Harper Perennial, 2006), A Mobile Library Mystery: Mr. Dixon Disappears (Harper Perennial, 2006), A Mobile Library Mystery: The Book Stops Here (HarperCollins Publishers, 2008). These stand, with exceptions. In addition I would like to thank the following. (The previous terms and conditions apply: some of them are dead; most of them are strangers; the famous are not friends; none of them bears any responsibility.)
Amy Adams, Thomas Adès, Ingeborg Bachmann, Korrena Bailie, Georges Bataille, H. E. Bates, Hector Berlioz, Ingrid Betancourt, Dirk Bogarde, W. E. Bowman, Susan Boyle, Max Bruch, Carla Bruni, John Burnside, Vince Cable, June Caldwell, Lucy Caldwell, Eric Cantona, Helen Carr, Nina Cassian, Steve Chamberlain, Stavroula Constantinou, Alan Coren, Simon Cowell, Curious Candy, Boris Cyrulnik, Charles D’Ambrosio, Edwidge Danticat, Jacobus de Voragine, Denis Diderot, William Donaldson, Ed Dorn, Scott Douglas, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Francine du Plessix Gray, Geoff Dyer, Mircea Eliade, George Ewart Evans, Harold Evans, Maureen Evans, J. G. Farrell, Penelope Fitzgerald, F. S. Flint, Kinky Friedman, Elaine Gaston, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ben Goldacre, William Golding, Martin Green, Hannah Hagan, Patrick Hamilton, Salma Hayek, Geoff Hill, Tom Hodgkinson, Holywood Cricket Club, Steven Isserlis, Philippe Jaccottet, Stephen Kelly, Natalie Kirk, Janusz Korczak, Shane Leslie, Doris Lessing, Joshua Levine, Colm Liddy, Derek Lundy, Humphrey Lyttelton, James MacMillan, Marcel Marceau, Annie Martz, Simon Mawer, James McAvoy, David Mitchell, Haruki Murakami, Rafael Nadal, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Barack Obama, Gina Ochsner, Jay Parini, William Parkhurst, Andrew Pepper, Grayson Perry, Richard Price, Elizabeth Reapy, Alasdair Reid, Derek A. Roberts, Robin Robertson, Eoghan Ryan, Julian Schnabel, Varlam Shalamov, Michael Shannon, Ammon Shea, Barrie Sherwood, Gary Shteyngart, Sixth Bangor Scouts, Rory Stewart, Parminder Summon, Joyce Sutphen, Tilda Swinton, Margaret Twohy, Fred Voss, Peter Wild, Sheena Wilkinson, Qian Zhongshu.
About the Author
IAN SANSOM is a regular contributor to The Guardian and the London Review of Books. He lives in Northern Ireland.
www.iansansom.net
