The Case of the Missing Books. Ian Sansom
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‘It’s an absolute beauty.’
‘Right.’
‘Like a big ripe plum so it is.’
‘Yes.’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Yes. Thanks. Well. I’ll just pop and get some spare trousers and what have you.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Brownie. ‘I’ll lend you some of mine, sure. You’ll starve of the cold out there. You warm yourself by the stove. I’ll only be a wee minute.’
Brownie left the room, leaving Israel alone with the old man.
‘So,’ Israel ventured, struggling to think of some useful conversational gambit to get things going. ‘Is it your farm, then, Mr…?’
‘My farm?’ said the old man, fixing Israel with a suspicious stare.
‘Yes.’
‘Of course it’s my farm.’
‘Right.’ That was the end of that conversation then.
‘It was my farm,’ continued the old man, as if Israel was in some way to blame for this apparently sudden and parlous state of affairs.
‘Right. It’s a lovely…’ Israel tried to think of the right adjective to describe a farm. ‘Erm. Big farm.’
‘Not really.’
‘No,’ agreed Israel. ‘Of course. It’s not that big.’
‘Fifty acres.’
‘Fifty? That’s quite a lot, isn’t it. I mean an acre is…’ He had no idea how big an acre is. ‘Quite a size.’
‘We had five hundred at one time.’
‘I see.’
‘Had to sell ’em all. To survive.’
Israel nodded.
‘Developers,’ said the old man. ‘From down south. And the mainland.’ He spoke this last word with some menace. ‘Now we’ve just the fifty. Far barn’s gone.’
‘Well, I suppose fifty’s better than nothing,’ said Israel nonsensically.
‘Hmm. All George’s now. Signed over to her.’
‘I see. And how…long have you been farming here yourselves?’
‘Since 1698.’
At which point, thankfully, Brownie re-entered the room.
‘The boy here prefers his books to proper work,’ said the old man, nodding at Brownie.
‘Right,’ said Israel, struggling to find some possible change of subject, his agricultural chat having proved predictably inadequate. ‘Are you a student then?’
‘Yep,’ agreed Brownie, proffering a T-shirt, and trousers and socks, and a towel.
‘Thanks. What are you studying?’
‘Philosophy actually.’
‘Oh right. My goodness. Very good. Where?’
‘Cambridge.’
‘Oh really? I was at Oxford.’
‘Wow. What college?’
‘It was the, er, other place actually.’
‘What?’
‘Oxford Brookes.’
‘Oh, right. Is that the old poly?’
‘Yes. Yes, it is…’
‘It’s got a very good reputation, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes…’
Israel quickly changed the subject, his less than illustrious academic career not being a subject he wished to dwell upon: he should have got a 2:1 at least.
‘Can I change into these somewhere?’
‘Aye. Come on.’
‘And I wondered if you had a telephone I could use at all. My mobile…’
‘Ach, aye, the coverage here is terrible.’
‘Yes.’
‘No problem.’
‘And, er, sorry to be a bother and everything…’
‘Yes?’
‘But you wouldn’t have any headache tablets at all, would you?’
‘Granda?’ said Brownie.
‘What?’
‘Headache tablets, for Israel here. Do we have any?’
‘What for?’
‘For a headache?’
‘I wouldna thought so. We’ve TCP and some bandages just in the first-aid box.’
‘That’s no good.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Israel, wishing he’d never brought it up in the first place. ‘It’s fine.’
‘You sure?’
‘Syrup of figs?’ offered the old man.
‘No, thanks. I’ll be fine.’
‘What’s yon other stuff called?’
‘What stuff?’ said Brownie.
‘Collis-Brown. That’s it. Bind you rightly.’
‘No. It’s really OK,’ said Israel.
‘It’d not do you a button o’ harm.’
‘He’s fine, Granda. Are you sure, Israel?’
‘Yes. I’ll be fine. And you’ve not got any – I really don’t want to be a pain or anything – but you’ve not got any Sellotape, have you, by any chance? Just to fix my glasses?’
Israel took out the two halves of his spectacles from his pocket.
‘Och dear. What happened there?’
‘Well. It’s a—’
‘I’m sure we could fix them up, Granda, couldn’t we? Sellotape or soldering iron or something?’
‘Aye. P’rhaps.’
‘And after that we’ll maybe have some breakfast, Granda? No chance of a fry?’
‘Aye.’
‘Lovely. And you’ll join us for breakfast, Israel, won’t you? Room at the trough, Granda?’
‘Aye.’
‘Well, yes, thank you. That’s very kind of you.’
Brownie then showed Israel into a dining room full of dark, miserable, heavy furniture, hung with cobwebs and family pictures, and with a large black Bible on the sideboard, open at the Book of Revelation, and an ancient grey dial telephone next to it. Israel slowly, painfully got changed out of his wet clothes and dried himself off underneath a photograph of men in robes and with drums outside an Orange Hall, looking for all the world as if they were fresh back from a lynching, and then he rang Gloria at home in London.
The phone rang for a long time before it was answered. Israel imagined the sound of it ringing in Gloria’s lovely pale satinwood, soft-furnished, little-bit-of-the-Mediterranean-in-the-heart-of-the-city, inspired-by-the-World of Interiors-but-not-slavish-in-the-pursuit-of-fashion flat near Borough Market. He could almost smell the fresh bagels and orange juice.
‘Hey!’ shouted Israel, relieved and excited when Gloria finally picked up.