Poor Jacky, page 3
“Hoi, twat!” she called. “Don’t be so saft. There’s a trolleyful to go up there. Come on!”
Paul sighed. He returned his load to the trolley and he and Amanda wheeled it across the floor and to the loading bay. Amanda’s bangles jangled like Santa was on his way. The loading bay was home to a lift. Paul and Amanda manoeuvred the unwieldy trolley into the carriage. There was just enough space for it and the two of them.
Amanda pressed the button. Paul pretended to check the books on the top shelf of the trolley were in the correct order.
“Have fun, did you?” Amanda asked, folding a strip of chewing gum onto her tongue.
“Um?”
“At the Hall. Jammy beggar. I wanted to go on that skive. Must have been a laugh. But it’s sexist, that’s what it is. Heavy lifting.”
“Ah.”
The carriage juddered to a standstill. Amanda pressed the door release. They steered the trolley through to the first floor. Here things were more serious. Proper Library Silence had to be maintained at all times.
The reference librarian lifted his salt-and-pepper head from his paperwork as he heard the trolley wheels squeak their way into his domain. His steely gaze caught Paul’s. Paul blushed and focussed on the trolley. Amanda smacked her chewing gum noisily. The reference librarian glared at her.
They parked the trolley and Amanda told him who would shelve what. She would do the music scores. He would do the heavy art books and just about everything else.
Paul glanced longingly at the double doors that led to the Local History department. Perhaps he could nip in when Amanda was out of sight.
He grabbed a few books and shelved them appropriately. Amanda sat on the floor, idly shoving thin music scores onto overcrowded shelves with no respect for the intricacies of the Dewey decimal system.
Paul worked his way around the shelves, getting closer and closer to the Local History doors, rehearsing how he would broach the subject with Miss Beamish when the moment came.
Inspiration struck!
The walkman!
He could say Steven had lent it to him or had forgotten it and Paul was keen to return it to him and -
“Hoi, twat!” Amanda hissed in a whisper that was deliberately louder than her normal speaking voice. “Tea break!”
“Um - ah - I’ll just do these few and I’ll be up.” Paul nodded. He watched as she climbed the stairs that led to the private, staff-only floors of the building, the offices and the staffroom above them. As soon as she was gone, Paul dumped the books on the trolley and darted to the double doors.
Locked!
He squinted through the glass into unyielding darkness.
“Is there a problem?”
The reference librarian made him jump. Paul hadn’t heard the man approach.
“Er...” he turned to meet the man’s angry glare. “I was looking for Miss Sq- er- Miss Beamish. “
“Were you indeed? You won’t find her in there. She’s at the new place. They’re shifting the whole lot. Were you not aware?”
“Um, yes, I was helping with that, I -”
“Then you’ll know not to expect her here then, won’t you?”
“Um. Yes.”
The reference librarian gave Paul a curt, patronising smile and strode away. Paul released the breath he found he’d been holding in.
What was he going to do now?
***
Later that morning, Sharon approached him with a pleading, desperate look in her eyes. She was stooped at the waist and her knees were bent.
“Could you watch the desk for a minute, Paul?” she asked through clenched teeth. “I need to um, you know.”
Paul nodded, barely suppressing a shudder. He was glad to leave the monotony of shelving and have a bit of a sit down on a swivelly chair. It was quiet; the mid-morning rush had given way to the pre-lunch lull.
The seat was still warm. Paul hated that. Someone else’s bum heat. It didn’t seem hygienic.
He twisted the chair from side to side. The temptation to spin around and around was almost too strong to resist.
Sharon had left the monitor on. The black screen was full of green letters. She had been manually entering the data of new borrowers. It was a task Paul had been trained up to do but had never been called upon to perform. He looked at the stack of enrolment cards yet to be processed. Perhaps he could help Sharon out. That would be a commendable thing to do, wouldn’t it?
And then he stopped himself but not from any compunction about doing something on his own initiative. He realised this was a golden opportunity to further his own ends. With the records accessible, it would be a matter of seconds to call up Steven’s address.
He clicked the SEARCH button.
He typed STEVEN into the name bar... What was Steven’s surname?... Paul wracked his brains. What had that Darren one called him? Rea? Ray?
No; Rayb. Short for Raybould.
Paul typed in RAYBOULD and pressed ENTER.
No results.
Shit.
He glanced around to see if Sharon was on her way back. There was no sign.
He erased the STEVEN and pressed return. A long list of Rayboulds filled the screen, from Alan to Yvonne.
Double shit.
He clicked on REFINE SEARCH and restricted the address options to Dedley only. Steven didn’t live far from him; Paul knew that much. The screen blinked empty and then refilled with a list, a shorter list of five names and the first lines of their addresses.
Better...
Paul reached for a biro and a scrap of paper. He jotted down the five results, including the female names, reasoning that Steven’s relatives may have seen fit to avail themselves of library services even if he had not.
He was just pocketing the piece of paper when Sharon returned. He closed the screen as she skirted around the desk.
“Oof, that’s better,” she blew out her cheeks. “Come on, buggerlugs; let’s be having it.”
Paul blushed. “Um...”
“Me chair, you plum. You can get back to the shelving. Come on; chop chop!”
She shooed him away, flapping both hands in his face. She reopened her screen and resumed her task. Paul was glad to go. He slunk between the Westerns and the Romances, feeling the folded paper in the tight back pocket of his corduroy jeans. He checked his watch and the big clock on the wall. It would soon be lunchtime. He could nip out...
Feeling like a private investigator, Paul loaded his arm from the trolley and got to work.
***
Lunchtime came. Paul fetched his jacket from the staff quarters and left the library by the main entrance. Out in the street he hesitated. He took the paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He was suddenly daunted. Five addresses - no, four. ALAN and SUSAN Raybould shared an address. A married couple, perhaps. A parent and child. Siblings.
Whatever. It was their relationship to Steven that mattered.
Three of the four addresses had telephone numbers. Paul decided that would be his line of approach. He would call them up in turn and - and what?
And say he was looking for Steven in order to return his walkman!
It was a stroke of genius!
He felt the weight of the cassette player in his pocket. Reassured and emboldened, Paul checked his pockets for change and headed for the nearest telephone box. There was one around the corner and it was empty. Paul ducked inside and stacked his coins on the shelf.
He dialled the first number, Alan’s number, but it was Susan who answered.
“No, lover; there ay no Steven here. T’ra.”
Paul hung up. He dialled the next number. Joanne... There was no answer. Shit. How inconsiderate of this Joanne to be out! He tried the next: Terence...
“Nuh?” a sleepy voice answered.
“Um, is there a Steven Raybould there, please?”
“Huh?”
“Does Steven Raybould live there?”
“No, he doesn’t. Fuck off.”
“I’m sorry -“
“And I’m on night shifts. Fuck off!”
Terence Raybould slammed his phone down. Paul’s face turned the same red as the phone box. Well, really!
And shit.
Paul tried Joanne Raybould’s number again. In case she’d just nipped out to the corner shop or been on the pisser or something. The phone rang and rang.
Shit.
So. He had two addresses left. Joanne’s and the one without a telephone, Thomas’s. How could people live without a telephone, linking their house to the rest of the world? It seemed positively medieval.
Aimless now, he strolled around the town centre. He bought a cheese and onion cob from a baker’s shop. He took it back to the staff room and ate it without enjoyment.
It was quiet in there. A couple of women from the offices were reading historical fiction. A couple of girls from Lending were leafing through bridal magazines. Paul couldn’t focus on his Stephen King. All he could think about was the note in his back pocket. He formed a plan for after work.
He would try Joanne Raybould’s number again, just in case. If that proved a dead end he would visit the remaining, phoneless address. He didn’t know what else he could do.
Something had happened to Steven. And Darren. And Pong. Paul was sure of it.
He glanced at the clock. Time to go back downstairs. He flicked crumbs of grated cheese from the pages of The Tommyknockers, put the book in his locker and walked down the six flights of stairs to the ground floor.
He checked the rota even though he knew what the afternoon held in store for him. Book repairs. More shelving. An hour on the counter to finish off.
Christ.
How was he to cope with these mundane matters when - when the memory of that pale, staring face kept flashing behind his eyelids?
***
Five o’clock took its time coming but it eventually arrived. Amanda joined him behind the counter, declaring him to be a lucky bugger for being finished for the day. Some of us have to stay until seven, she complained. Paul hurried away, not wishing to engage.
He returned to the phone box. It was ten past five. If this Joanne Raybould had been at work all day, she wouldn’t be back yet, would she? He tried the number anyway.
“Hello?”
Her voice took him by surprise. She had to repeat her greeting, sounding a little concerned the second time.
“Oh, hello,” Paul stammered. “Sorry to trouble you but is there a Steven Raybould there, please?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m... a friend of his. Is he there?”
“Who did you want, sorry?”
“Steven. Raybould.”
“Wrong number. Sorry.”
Joanne Raybould hung up. The phone buzzed like a robot blowing an endless raspberry.
Cross another one off the list.
Paul looked at the remaining address. Thomas Raybould’s. He had a vague idea where the street was. If he got off his usual bus a couple of stops early he wouldn’t be far off. If he couldn’t find it, perhaps there’d be someone around he could ask.
Paul headed for the bus stop. He zipped up his jacket. The sky was the palest blue and there was a bit of a breeze. Not exactly a blazing summer. As usual. In a way it made him feel better about spending his college hols shut inside the library. He wasn’t missing much, weather-wise. And the following week he would be back in lovely Leicester ready to start his final year.
As Steven might observe: whoopee-cack.
The bus was packed. A giant tin of sardines on wheels. Paul squeezed himself on board, flashing his pass to a driver who didn’t even glance his way.
Shopping trolleys, pushchairs and high heels; all had their turn on Paul’s feet, try as he might to avoid them. He almost missed the stop he wanted, having to fight his way to the front of the bus and call out to the driver.
He found himself in front of a row of four or five shops. A newsagent’s. A butcher’s. A chippy. A funeral parlour.
Lovely.
He wondered which way he should go. An elderly woman came out of the newsagent’s. Paul approached her.
“Oh! Oh, chick! You scared me to death!” the woman cried. “Thought you was one of them buggers. Muggers.”
“No, no; sorry. Could you tell me where Archer Street is, please?”
“Where, chick?”
“Archer Street. A-r-c-h-e-r. Street.”
The old woman raised a finger to her hairy chin and stared into space for a few minutes. Paul began to wonder if she had died without dropping. At last she revived and pointed off to the left.
“Archer Street? Take the second left and then the first right. I think. I don’t know, love. They keep throwing up houses around here like nobody’s business. It’s all changed around here since the War. All this used to be fields, you know. Archer Street...”
She waddled away. Paul called his thanks after her but she made no sign of hearing them.
Second left and first right. Paul looked at his watch. Mum would have his tea ready. Perhaps he should phone... Fuck that; he was over eighteen. He was a grown man, so to speak. And, he hoped, this little errand wouldn’t take long.
He crossed the road and walked past post-war semis. First left. Second... This street was narrower. Cars parked in the gutters made it narrower still.
And there it was: Archer Street!
It curved away in front of him, more like a crescent than a street. The houses were terraces mainly, broken up by the occasional pair of semis. It looked older than the previous streets - what had that old dear been on about? Most of these houses were older than she was.
But, Paul reflected, the dotty old bat had given him correct directions. Bugger her awareness of local history!
He checked his piece of paper again although he had memorised everything on it. Number 28... It couldn’t be far away.
The breeze picked up as Paul followed the curve of the road. He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets; one hand found the walkman, his ‘excuse’ for being there.
A child’s laughter like a muted fanfare sounded somewhere behind him. Paul froze. He dared to turn around, fearing that pale face, staring with its large, sorrowful eyes.
A boy whizzed past on a bicycle. Paul almost staggered into a hedge. It took him a few minutes to compose himself and for his heart to calm down.
Still a little on edge, he continued along the uneven, littered pavement, keeping track of the house numbers as he passed. Twelve...fourteen...sixteen...
***
Thomas Raybould arrived at his garden gate to find a weird-looking youth with a trendy haircut standing on his doorstep. The kid was wearing a tie. Ties mean officialdom. Officialdom means trouble. Even if the kid was only trying to get him interested in Bible study, it was more than Thomas Raybould could stomach. He thought about walking on. There was a pub around the corner. It was a good excuse to go and have a quick one or five until the kid in the tie pissed off out of it.
The kid in the tie caught his eye, clocked the hand on the gate latch.
“Um...” the kid began.
Raybould decided to take the offensive.
“What’s all this then? I’m not interested. Piss off.”
“Ah...” the kid looked crestfallen. Raybould came through the gate - the kid had been good-mannered enough to close it behind him, he observed; definitely a god-botherer then - and left it wide open. The kid cast a look back at the house.
“Um, is, ah, does Steven live here, please? Steven Raybould.”
Thomas relaxed a little. It was the boy they wanted to fill up with their fairy stories.
“He’s out,” Raybould sniffed. “Round his mother’s, I expect. You are?”
“Me? I’m from work. The library.”
Raybould relaxed a little more. “I see. I doubt he’s got any overdue books, if that’s what you’m after. Not a big reader is Steven. Except when he’s nicking my magazines, if you know what I mean.”
He was gratified to see the kid blush.
“Will he - will he be back, do you know?”
Raybould gave a shrug expressive enough to make him an honorary Frenchman.
“Ah, um... Thanks. Bye.”
The kid stepped around Raybould and, head bowed, went through the gate. Raybould watched him walk off until the curve of the street masked him from view. He unlocked the front door. Of course, he’d just assumed Steven was at his mother’s (useless cow). It was where he went when he wasn’t here. Raybould kicked the door shut behind him. And if Steven wasn’t here, it suited him fine. No loud music. No dirty plates left lying around. No smelly trainers in the living room... The benefits of his son’s absence were manifold and marvellous.
He shuffled into the kitchen.
No one to fix the dinner either.
Shit.
The pub around the corner represented itself as a good idea.
***
Paul wandered back to the main road and the rest of his way home. At least he’d found the right house, even if the house was only the right one part of the time. Raybould père seemed unconcerned about Steven’s absence. In fact, the world and his dog seemed unconcerned about Steven’s absence. Paul appeared to be the only one worried - and not without good reason.
The image of Steven’s disembodied head twisting in the air sprang to the front of Paul’s mind.
Things like that didn’t happen. Not in real life. Not in Dedley. It was like a bargain bucket film from Video Master, the kind Dad brought home when you’d specifically sent him for Back to the Future.
And what had happened to Pong and Darren wasn’t exactly run-of-the-mill.
Paul began to doubt his memory. The mind plays tricks, he knew. Shadows become shapes. Shapes become faces. Sounds become laughter. He must have let his imagination get the better of him; that was the only explanation. If they hadn’t already, Steven, Darren and Pong would get together and piss their pants laughing about how the poofter had run off from the scary house when the witch from the library had turned up.
Ha bloody ha.
Paul let himself in. Perhaps he could drop by the Raybould residence again and catch Steven then. If not he could ask the unfriendly Mr Raybould if he knew where Pong and Darren might be lurking.
It was the not knowing that troubled Paul the most. The lack of concern from everyone else made him think he was losing his marbles.
