‘Good morning, Mr Major,’ she returned in a sing-song tone. ‘Will we hit our target today?’
‘As easy as negotiating Maastricht,’ I replied, trying to exude confidence when secretly I felt we would manage returns and loans, but fall short of our renewal and reserves target. The team swiftly moved to their allotted places: Mr Churchill, Mrs Thatcher and Stanley Baldwin went straight to the front desk and presented the books to the Sole Librarian. Within a few seconds a steady thump-thump-thump filled the air, demonstrating that work was very much in progress.
At the same time, David Lloyd George and Neville Chamberlain went rapidly down the aisles transferring the pre-ordered picks to a trolley ready to be brought to the front desk once the returns, extensions and reservations were completed – and once that was done, Mr Baldwin could reshelve the returned books, assisted by Neville Chamberlain.
‘Time check,’ I called.
‘Ninety seconds gone, Mr Major,’ replied Mrs Thatcher.
All seemed to be going well until the Sole Librarian’s stamping abruptly ceased, suggesting a clog in the system, and Neville Chamberlain simultaneously announced that she couldn’t find a copy of Wind, Sand and Stars.
‘Try Aviation, three-eight-seven,’ said the Sole Librarian, her deep knowledge of Dewey classification coming to the fore.
While Neville was dealing with the potential mis-shelving of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, I went to see what the logjam was with returns. The problem was a Code 2-76: Mrs Dibley had kept her copy of Henry Ford and Other Positive Role Models for Disaffected Youth for eighteen weeks longer than the permitted time, and the Sole Librarian was filling out a form for an overdue fine.
‘This lady was clearly not for returning,’ said Mrs Thatcher, indicating the overdue book. I grimaced. The Blitz would be tight, but so far the situation was not irredeemable.
‘How is it going with Wind, Sand and Stars, Mr Chamberlain?’ I called towards the shelves as David Lloyd George pushed the trolley full of picked loans towards the front desk.
‘I have in my hand this piece of paper,’ replied Neville Chamberlain triumphantly, holding aloft the book.
The Sole Librarian shifted from returns to loans, and moved on to the rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump of the ‘double tap’, one on the library card, one on the date return slip pasted in the front of the book. The next step was reshelving, and by the time Mrs Thatcher called out ‘two minutes remaining’ we were well ahead of ourselves and a sense of ease descended on the small group: we would clear this Blitz with time to spare. I was just placing a copy of the worryingly popular Cecil Rhode’s Greatest Speeches as Spoken by Oswald Mosley in the Talking Book section when I heard a voice from behind me.
‘May I ask a question?’
I stopped dead, for I recognised the voice. It was one I had not heard for a long time, nor had ever thought I would again. A soft yet very distinctive West Country accent, tinged with questioning allure. I turned slowly, unsure of quite what to say or do, and there was Connie, staring at me with the same intensity I remembered from our shared late-night coffees during freshman year at the University of Barnstaple.
‘Sure,’ I said, not knowing whether she recognised me or not.
‘It’s a book question,’ she replied brightly, and seemingly without a flicker of recognition. Oddly, I felt relieved. I’d been very fond of her, although unwilling to show it, and I think she might have felt the same. But after a few dates – she never called them that although I did, secretly to myself – she was asked to leave the college following a judicial review of the legal status of her attendance, and that was that. I’d always wanted to see her again, and I would see much of her over the coming weeks. I’d be at her side three months from now during the Battle of May Hill, the smell of burned rubber and cordite drifting across the land, the crack of artillery fire in the distance. I had no idea of that, of course, and neither, I imagine, did she.
‘Well, it is a library,’ I said, hoping my sudden consternation didn’t show. ‘What do you want to know?’
By rights, she shouldn’t have been there at all, and not because she was a rabbit. The public, although technically allowed to enter the library during opening hours, never did. We were, after all, simply doing our civic duty by way of the community, and the community, in turn, stayed away and allowed us to carry on the work on their behalf. I deemed Connie not just an old acquaintance, but a Code 4-51: ‘Unidentified public in the Librarying area’.
‘I’m after Rabbit and Rabbitability,’ she said. ‘Like Austen’s classic but more warren-based and with a greater emphasis on ears, sex, carrots, burrowing and sex.’
‘You said sex twice.’
‘Yes,’ said Connie, blinking twice, ‘I know.’
Rabbits aged better than humans so long as they got a chance to age at all, and she was pretty much unchanged in the thirty-odd years since I’d seen her last: smaller and slimmer than the norm, but Wildstock, the generic brown-furred variety. She wore a short spotted summer dress under a pale blue buttoned cardigan and her ears, long and elegant, carried four small silver ear-studs halfway up her right and three near the base of her left. Her most striking feature, then as now, was her eyes: both large and expressive, but while one was the brown of a fresh hazelnut, the other was pale bluey-violet, the colour of harebells.
‘Are you OK?’ she said, as I think I might have been staring.
Luckily, Neville Chamberlain chose that moment to interrupt.
‘Rabbit and Rabbitability would be under six-three-two point six-six,’ she said, referring to the Dewey categorisation number that related to: ‘Technology/Agriculture/Pests/Disposal’. It was a predictably insulting response. She was, after all, married to Victor Mallett and the entire Mallett family’s antagonism towards any social or species group not their own was well known. It was said Mallett children were encouraged to feed the ducks solely ‘to see them fight’.
‘Actually, Mr Chamberlain,’ put in Stanley Baldwin, ‘it’s probably a six-three-six point nine-three.’ This was a little less insulting as it referred to ‘Technology/Agriculture/Domestic Animals/Rabbits’, but was equally of little use. Connie wasn’t after books about rabbits, but the range of British classics retold for rabbits, published when funding was more secure after the Spontaneous Anthropomorphic Event, when integration into society was still seen as guiding policy rather than the pipe-dream of idealistic liberals.
‘Eight-nine-nine point nine-nine, Mr Major,’ added the Sole Librarian, who didn’t much care for rabbits either but hated misuse of the Dewey Decimal System a great deal more. ‘Literature/Other Languages. Shelf nine.’
‘Let me show you,’ I said, handing the returned books to Neville, who hurried off to shelve them quickly so she could return, presumably, to air her anti-rabbit sentiments more fully. For my part I led Connie quickly towards the foreign language section.
‘Hey,’ she said with a giggle, ‘isn’t naming the team after former prime ministers a direct lift from that Kathryn Bigelow heist-gone-wrong movie?’
‘I … don’t know what you mean.’
‘Sure you do,’ she said. ‘The one with Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. What’s its name again?’