The Delegates' Choice aka The Book Stops Here

Israel: 'Good. Well, it's lovely to…'

And there was more! Much, much more, every day: the man who'd come in and take out any books that he deemed were unchristian, and then claim that he'd lost them; the woman who used Sellotape as a bookmark; the creepy man with the moustache who was continually ordering gynaecology textbooks on inter-library loan. It was too much. Israel still found it hard to believe that he'd ended up here in the first place, and the longer he stayed the less he believed it, the more he felt like merely a vestigial presence in his own life, a kind of living, breathing Chagall, floating just above and outside the world, staring down at himself as librarian, as though this weren't really him at all, was not really his life, as if he were merely observing Tumdrum's netherworld of inanities and bizarre and meaningless human exchanges. The longer he stayed in Tumdrum the more he could feel himself slowly withdrawing from the human world, becoming a mere onlooker, a monitor of human absurdities.

He took another bite of his scone.

'I feel like a Chagall,' he said.

'He says he feels like a Chagall,' said Ted to Mi

'He'd need to get himself smarted up first,' said Mi

'What?' said Israel.

'But anyway,' said Mi

'I can't go on, Ted,' said Israel.

'No?' said Ted, reaching forward and taking Israel 's other half of scone.

'Not the scone!' said Israel. 'I mean…this. Life! Here, give that back, it's mine!'

'Say please,' said Ted.

'Just give me the bloody scone!'

'Steady now,' said Ted, handing back the scone. 'Temper, temper.'

'Och, you're like an old married couple, the pair of you,' said Mi

'Oh God,' said Israel, groaning.

'Language,' said Ted.

'Coffee?' said Mi

'No. I don't think so,' said Israel, checking his watch. 'Oh shit! Ted!'

'Language!' said Mi

'Sorry, Mi

'Ted!'

'What?'

'We're late for the meeting!'

'Aye,' said Ted. 'Behind like the cow's tail.'

'What?'

'You'll have to hand in your resignation after.'

'He's resigning?' said Mi

'Again,' said Ted.

'Yes!' said Israel. 'That's right. I am. I'm handing in my resignation today. I was just distracted there for a moment.'

Ted winked at Mi

'See you next week then?' said Mi

'I very much doubt it!' said Israel. 'Bye! Come on, Ted, quick, let's go.'

And with that, Israel Armstrong went to resign, again, from his job as mobile librarian for Tumdrum and District on the windswept north coast of the north of the north of Northern Ireland.

2

'Sorry, Linda,' he said when they arrived. It was his customary greeting; he liked to get in his apologies in advance. 'Sorry, everyone.'

'Ah, Mr Armstrong and Mr Carson,' said Linda. 'Punctual as ever.'

'Yes. Sorry.'

'You are aware that the last Wednesday of every month at three o'clock is the Mobile Library Steering Committee?'

'Yes,' said Israel.

'Always has been.'

'Uh-huh.'

'And always will be,' said Linda.

'Right.'

'For ever and ever, amen,' said Ted.

'And yet you, gentlemen,' continued Linda, ignoring Ted, 'somehow always manage to be late.'

'Yes. Erm. Anyway, you're looking well, Linda,' said Israel, trying to change the subject.

'Don't try to change the subject, Mr Armstrong,' said Linda. 'This is not a fashion show.'

'No. Sorry.'

'Honestly!' said Linda, playing up to the-very appreciative-rest of the committee. 'You put a bit of lipstick on, and they can't think about anything else. Typical man!'

'Sorry,' said Israel, sliding down lower and lower in his seat.

'You're all the same.'

'Sorry. We had some trouble…with the van.'

They hadn't had trouble with the van, actually, but they often did have trouble with the van, so it wasn't a lie in the proper sense of the word; it wasn't as if Israel were making it up because, really, the van was nothing but trouble. The van was an old Bedford, and Ted's pride and joy-rescued, hidden and restored by him at a time when Tumdrum and District Council were scaling down their library provision, and resurrected and brought back into service only six months ago when Israel had arrived and taken on the role of mobile librarian. The van wasn't merely a vehicle to Ted; it wasn't just any old van; it wasn't, to be honest, even a van in particular; the van was the epitome, the essence, the prime example of mobile library vans in general. To Ted, his van represented pure undiluted mobile library-ness. It was the Platonic van; the ur-van; the über-van; it was a totem and a symbol. And you can't argue with symbols: symbols just are. Thus, in Ted's mind, there was absolutely nothing-not a thing-wrong with the mobile library van. The corrosion in the engine, and the mould and mildew in the cabin, and the occasional seizure of the clutch, and some problems with the brake callipers, and the cables, and the wiring looms, and the oil filter, and the spark plugs, and the battery-these were simply aspects of the van's pure va

'So,' the chairman of the Mobile Library Steering Committee, a man called Ron, an archetypically bald and grey-suited councillor, was saying, 'Here we all are then.' Ron specialised in making gnomic utterances and looking wise. 'All together, once again.'

Also on the committee was Eileen, another councillor, a middle-aged woman with short, dyed blonde hair who always wore bright red lipstick and jackets of contrasting primary colours-today, an almost luminous green-which made her look like the last squeezings of a tube of cheap toothpaste. Eileen was a great believer in Booker Prize-wi

Israel did not like Eileen, and Eileen did not like him.

'Can't we just get lots of copies of the Booker Prize-wi