He was paid to drive around beautiful, rural, coastal Irish countryside, with a van full of books and pleasant female company. Maybe life as an English, Jewish vegetarian, corduroy-wearing mobile librarian on the north coast of the north of Northern Ireland wasn’t so bad after all.
Look at yourself, Armstrong, he told himself, with a last glance in the mirror: you have nothing to complain about. Really, you don’t.
And he didn’t.
Until, that is, the disappearance of Mr Dixon from the Department Store at the End of the World.
It started with an argument. It was too early for an argument, far, far too early.
‘What d’ye think yer doin’?’
‘Sorry?’ It caught Israel off-guard.
‘Ye deaf, or what?’
‘No,’ said Israel. ‘No. I am not deaf.’
‘Well then.’
‘Sorry?’
Israel had the window wound down, and was staring the man full in the face, and the man did not look happy. Indeed, Israel guessed the man might never look happy; he had a profoundly unhappy kind of a look about him: it was the shaven head and the pierced eyebrow and the nicotine lips and the cigarette tucked behind his ear, and the Manchester United football shirt pulled tight over a hard-looking, family-haggis-sized pot-belly, and the dark, cynical look in his eyes. He looked like a man who woke up angry and went to bed incandescent.
‘Look, you’ve totally lost me I’m afraid,’ said Israel.
‘What. Do. You. Think. You. Are. Doing?’
‘I’m parking, which is not that easy, actually, without power steering and—’
‘Aye, all right, well, you can’t park there.’
Israel had pulled up the mobile library next to a large silver Mercedes.
‘Sorry, I—’
‘Ye blind?’
‘No. I am not blind. And I am not deaf, I—’
‘Can ye not raid then?’
‘Sorry. I didn’t catch that. Can I…’
‘Can ye raid?’
‘Raid?’
‘Aye, raid.’
‘Read?’
‘Aye.’
‘Read? Ah, read. Yes. Thank you. I can read, actually. In fact, as you’ll see, I’m driving the—’
‘Aye, right. So you’ll see that’s a reserved space. See, says here “RESERVED”.’
‘I just thought—’
‘Aye, well, you thought wrong.’
‘Couldn’t I just park here until—’
‘No.’
‘But—’
‘These spaces are reserved.’
‘Yes, but it’s only—’
‘I just said no. What’s the matter with ye? D’ye think I’m joking?’
The man had little flecks of spit – the real thing, real threat-phlegm, the stuff of demented dogs and monkeys – around his mouth, Israel noticed.
‘No. No. I don’t, actually. I don’t think you’re—’
‘Aye, right. Well. Move yerself on in this piece of crap.’ He pronounced crap as though with a double k.
‘But—’
‘Move. Her. On.’
‘OK. Fine. Sorry. Look.’ Israel stuck his hand out of the window in a rather feeble, placatory, let’s-shake-hands-and-make-up kind of a gesture. ‘I feel we’ve maybe got off on the wrong foot here. I’m Israel Armstrong.’
The man ignored his hand. ‘I know who you are. You were meant to be here half an hour ago.’
‘Ah, yes, few problems with the mobile on the way over. You must be the caretaker—’
‘Round the back.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Round. The. Back. You. Can. Parkee. Upee. Round. The. Back. Do. You. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Aye, right. Good. I’ll go open her up for you.’
Oh, God.
Israel was getting a headache. He didn’t always have a headache these days – just every other day. Because, honestly, he was getting used to life around Tumdrum, he really was. Like a prisoner eventually becomes accustomed to his captors, and adults as they get older eventually have to learn to live with some slight stiffness and joint pain in the morning and a sense of perhaps having lost their way a little on the road towards manifest destiny.
‘Move!’
‘Yes. Just going,’ said Israel, grinding the gears.
And he was certainly getting used to the colourful locals and their charming and eccentric ways.
He hadn’t had any breakfast, that was Israel’s problem, a cup of tea before he left the Devines’ farm, which was hardly enough to sustain a growing young man like himself. Israel had lost a little weight since arriving in Tumdrum, due to the lack of readily available non-meat protein, but he still clocked in at a solid 36-inch waist and 16 stone, not hideously fat by any means, but big enough for people to refer to him as ‘big lad’ and to mean it. He’d worked up a sweat already this morning and could have done with a nice fried egg soda or maybe a big bowl of porridge with the cream off the milk. Or some Tayto cheese and onion crisps. Or maybe a nice croissant. No, don’t get him started on croissants, or pains au chocolat, or muffins: Israel fantasised about breakfast pastries. Fresh breakfast pastries were not readily available in and around Tumdrum, although the baker’s, the Trusty Crusty, did do a nice cinnamon scone; scones were about the closest thing Tumdrum had to fresh patisserie items.
He’d been working hard, up until midnight and up again since six, getting the van loaded. Today was the big day. Easter Saturday. Today was the first day of Israel’s first ever mobile library touring exhibition, his debut as keeper and curator of Tumdrum’s heritage and history. Today was the day when Israel got to unveil Tumdrum and District’s mobile-library-sponsored five-panel display showing the history of the famous Dixon and Pickering’s department store, which was celebrating one hundred years of serving Tumdrum and District, and indeed the whole of the north coast of the north of Ireland and beyond, keeping the local farmers and their wives supplied with polyester-cotton sheets, Royal Doulton figurines, and Early Bird Light Suppers in the Cosy Nook, the award-winning cafeteria on the first floor, where on a clear day it was possible to see Scotland while you ate your jumbo gammon panini (served with chips and a light salad garnish).
It might not seem like it to you or me, and it certainly wouldn’t have seemed like it to Israel six months ago, but today was the real deal, a genuine event, a happening around Tumdrum. Dixon and Pickering’s was about as famous locally as the Giant’s Causeway a little further up round the coast: it was the Harrods, the Selfridges, the Fortnum and Mason, the Macy’s, the Tiffany’s, the Woolworths and the Wal-Mart of North Antrim all under one roof, and it had survived and thrived where other family-owned department stores had failed; it had made it to one hundred. And now it was none other than Israel Armstrong, mobile librarian, who had been tasked