The Pools Read online

  I didn’t go to the counter straight away. I spent about fifteen minutes weaving in and out of the shelves, trying to decipher the shelving system on my own. (Kathryn later explained about the Dewey Decimal. Roses are 635.933.)

  I could see that Kathryn was on the phone, so I hung about, looking at the noticeboard, until I heard her say goodbye.

  I brushed my hands across my shoulders – in case of dandruff – and then I approached.

  She looked up. Her nose was just that little bit too large for her face. But it matched her lips somehow, the size of it, because they were full and curvy, like the rest of her.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Roses,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for books on roses.’

  We pretended not to recognise each other, although I knew who she was, and she told me later that she knew my face on that first day. ‘I knew who you were all right,’ she said.

  She’d been married to Jack Welch. He was killed in a motorbike accident not six months after they were wed. They were quite the couple in their courting days, Jack with his winkle-pickers, and Kathryn with her shiny hair. You’d see them racing through the village, her hands tight round his waist, her skirt dangerously close to the back wheel.

  After Jack died, no one saw Kathryn for a year.

  And there she was in the library, a widow at twenty-six, showing me a whole shelf of gardening books, with several solely dedicated to roses.

  ‘Are you a member?’

  I didn’t know what she meant. I thought I could just stroll in and borrow a book.

  ‘No. But I’d like to be.’

  She showed me the forms. I filled in each section, taking care not to let my letters spill over the printed lines. She watched me as I signed my name with what I hoped was a flourish. I pushed the forms over to her for examination, and she ran a finger along the lines, checking each one. ‘Howard Hall,’ she read out. ‘Totleigh Way, Calcot.’ She looked up. ‘That’s near me.’

  I went there as often as I could after that, sometimes taking the bus on a Thursday after work, as they stayed open until seven that night.

  She did something special when she answered the phone. She said, ‘Good evening,’ before she’d even started. Not just ‘Hello’, or plain ‘Darvington Library’, as I’d heard the others do. With Kathryn it was a three-part structure. ‘Good Evening. Darvington Library. How may I help?’ Her voice sliding up and down. And she always reached for a pad and pencil as soon as she picked up the receiver. She knew she might have to make a note, and she didn’t want to keep anyone waiting while she searched for the appropriate equipment.

  I noticed the way she’d dampen her forefinger with her tongue before she flipped through the membership files. And the way she closed the filing cabinet drawer with her hip, twisting her body and slamming it into place.

  On my fourth Thursday evening I promised myself I would speak, phone or no phone, filing or no filing. I’d go right up to the desk and ask her something. Interrupt, if necessary. I’d say anything I could think of. All I had to do was open my mouth and let the words come out.

  I spent the journey there looking at my reflection in the bus window. The fields smeared past. My nose looked big and red, pockmarked at the sides, the nostrils flaring slightly as I breathed. I licked a finger and smoothed it over an eyebrow, as I’d seen someone do in a film.

  When I walked into the library it was so quiet and warm that it was almost like the place was sealed against the outside world. The strip lights hummed. Somewhere a child shouted for his mother and was immediately hushed. I walked to the counter, my shoes heavy on the wooden floor. My trousers were too hot; the nylon was rough against my kneecaps.

  She wasn’t on the phone. Or by the filing cabinet. Behind the desk, an older woman in a cardigan sat reading a book, and didn’t look up as I went by.

  Just wait until she comes, I told myself.

  I walked towards my usual seat below a window, at the end of the gardening section. Selecting Roses – an Expert’s Guide by Geoffrey Smith, I sat down. I’d seen him on the television, and didn’t quite trust his easy manner. The book left a grubby film on my fingertips. Every book in the library seemed to smell of other people’s hands. The flyleaf had a photograph of Geoffrey holding a rose in his red scrubbed fingers, a fine layer of dirt beneath his nails. I supposed that I was meant to find that comforting. I wondered if Kathryn would like to see a layer of dirt beneath my fingernails, if that would convince her I was a man worth taking a chance on. A capable, outdoors sort of a man.

  The pages of the book were thick and soft. The spine creaked as I balanced it on one knee and turned each page. Burning dust from the overhead fan heater hung in the air; a warm blast agitated the hair on the back of my head. It was going a bit, even then. Mum pointed it out to me soon after my twenty-fifth birthday. ‘Your grandfather was bald at thirty, Howard,’ she said. ‘Mind you, you’ve got your father’s hair. Thick and sandy. He had it all over. And I mean everywhere.’

  I turned a page.

  ‘Good evening, ladies!’

  The voice of the man with the four carrier bags travelled across the library. Every Thursday evening he was there. Usually he was the only other man in the place. He wore a flat cap and a raincoat, buttoned right to the top, and a long blue scarf. Once I followed him as he stormed upstairs to the reference section. He dumped his carrier bags in the middle of the room and began spinning through the catalogue, the cards thudding against his fingers.

  Kathryn was never upstairs. She wasn’t a reference librarian. Nevertheless, he seemed to know her.

  ‘Ah, the lovely Kathryn! When are you going to stop shelving and let me read you the first volume of my memoirs?’ His voice boomed out over the shelves, and I heard her high-pitched laugh.

  So she was here.

  I turned another page.

  Then there was a squealing sound. I leant forward, the back of my neck taking the blast from the fan heater. Yes, there it was, a squeal followed by a series of clicks, surprisingly definite. Click-clack, click-clack, squeal. Click-clack, click-clack, squeal. Kathryn was wheeling the shelving trolley in my direction, her heels tapping on the wooden floor.

  The squeals stopped and I knew she was in the aisle next to mine. I turned my head and glanced through the space between the shelves. The fabric of her red blouse bulged slightly as she reached for a book. She made a sighing sound, and I knew she would be blowing a rush of air up towards her fringe. I’d watched her do it while she was on the phone. A difficult caller, probably. Her jaw would stick out and she’d blow up. Maybe roll her eyes.

  Her hand was on a book not more than ten inches from my ear.

  I looked back at Roses – an Expert’s Guide. Chapter Five. There was an illustration of a Gertrude Jekyll, its petals pink and giving. An excellent all round rose, read the caption. Good scent and even blooms.

  Kathryn’s knee clicked as she knelt to a low shelf. I wondered if she could see my sock through the gap, and I tried to remember which pair I had put on that morning.

  She sighed again and stood up, then selected another book from the trolley. I looked through the gap in the shelves. As she reached for the top shelf, her blouse lifted above the waistband of her skirt and revealed a section of rose-patterned petticoat. It was black and lacy; big petals and leaves curled up her side. Through the lace, the whiteness of her skin was just visible.

  I stared at these white patches of flesh until she stepped back on her heels and the blouse settled against her waistband. It can only have been a few seconds, that time I had with Kathryn’s side right there in my eye line, but I remember every detail of that lace, the way the rose stretched as she stretched, its holes expanding over her skin and sighing back into place.

  The squealing started up again. I looked back at my book. Blooms guaranteed throughout the summer, if you treat this species with respect.

  Click-clack, click-clack, squeal. She turned the corner and then she was right in front of me, standi
ng beside the trolley. The air around us seemed to sway slightly as she breathed in and out. She selected a book on tulips and clutched it to her chest.

  She stood there for a while, gazing over my head. I looked at her hand, the way each finger stretched over the big red bloom on the cover.

  Then she spoke. ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ Her voice was small but firm, each word clearly pronounced.

  I looked down at the book, then back up at her. Sweat prickled on my forehead. Her eyes were on my mouth as I forced out a word. ‘Roses.’

  She nodded. ‘My dad grew them. All along the front of our house.’

  ‘I know.’

  She looked surprised.

  ‘I mean, I remember.’

  Above us, the light hummed.

  ‘Do you have a favourite?’ she asked.

  ‘Favourite?’

  ‘Rose.’

  I searched for a name. She began to drum her fingers along the tulip. I noticed that she still wore her wedding ring.

  ‘Gertrude Jekyll’s very good.’ I took a breath. ‘It’s the best all round rose. Blooms guaranteed throughout the summer. Easy to care for. But the best thing about it, of course, is that it’s very, very beautiful.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She began to smile. ‘A bit pink for me.’

  ‘You know it, then?’

  She nodded. ‘My dad had them all over the place. Flirty Gerties, he called them. But red’s my favourite.’

  I looked at her blouse. ‘I thought so.’

  She looked away then, and I wished I’d said something else.

  As she reached up to slot the tulip book into place, her blouse lifted again. She would have down on her skin there, on her belly and perhaps her side. Fine down, almost invisible, but I would know it was there.

  ‘Do you have your own garden?’

  I shifted in my seat. ‘I’m getting one.’

  ‘And will it be all roses?’

  ‘Oh no. I have plans. Tall wild flowers growing in between the roses. Maybe an archway. Box hedges lining gravel pathways. Nothing straight, but everything in balance. The thing with gardens is you have to have vistas. Something you can look through.’

  She laughed. ‘You sound like you’re going to open it to the public.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’

  We looked at each other.

  ‘Better get on.’ She grabbed the trolley handle with both hands.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I said.

  Her fingers loosened their grip, but she remained stooped over the trolley.

  ‘I want to ask you something.’

  She looked at me, both eyebrows raised and her lips slightly open. The fan heater blew a strand of hair across her cheek and she jutted her jaw forward and blew upwards.

  ‘I have to ask you something.’

  ‘Yes?’

  As she waited for me to speak, she stroked the spines of the books on her trolley, letting her fingers trail loosely over the titles.

  I cleared my throat.

  ‘Do you like climbers or trailers best?’

  For a minute she didn’t respond. She continued to run her fingertips over the books as she watched me. Then she said, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’ll need to know. I’ll need to know which one to buy for you.’

  ‘That Kathryn Welch is one of them.’

  I was late getting to the power station canteen. I missed my usual seat by the window, so I had to sit at the end of a long table right next to the tea urn. The hot metal was at my back and men kept brushing my shoulders as they queued up with their mugs. Steam spurted around me as I stirred my tea.

  At first I thought it was my imagination; I thought that I was hearing Kathryn’s name only in my head, just as I was somehow expecting her to telephone or leave a message, even though she didn’t know where I worked.

  ‘Tweed knickers, but I’d like to get them off her.’

  A big laugh broke over my head. I stirred my tea faster. ‘She’s a lovely one, eh, Howard?’

  I turned round in my seat. Derrick Pearce shot a jet of steam into his mug. He held it high in the air and examined it before taking a slurp. Then he looked over at me. ‘You got that tea stirred? You’ll wear the bloody spoon out.’

  I tapped the spoon three times on the rim of my mug before letting it rest on the table.

  ‘She told me you’re keen.’ Derrick’s voice was softer. He smiled.

  I scraped my chair back and stood up. Derrick’s face was wide and red, and he breathed out a stream of cigarette-and-tea-smelling breath. I noticed he had one collar inside and one outside his jumper.

  I stepped round him.

  When I got back to my desk in the control room, I ripped out the notebook page on which I’d written Kathryn’s name. I tore it into lengthways strips, and then I folded the strips and tore them horizontally. Then I tore each one again and let the pieces flutter out of my hands and into the wastepaper basket, where they lay in a mound of paper dust.

  I managed to stay away from the library for the next month. I didn’t go into Darvington at all until I had to take Mum to town for a doctor’s appointment. While we were there, she took a fancy to borrowing a novel.

  ‘It will help me kill the hours while you’re at work,’ she said.

  I hung back outside as she pushed the door open. It was Saturday morning and I knew it would be busy in there. Probably Kathryn would be overwhelmed by phone calls, filing and shelving.

  ‘Are you coming in?’

  The wind blew a pile of leaves around the door; I traced a line through them with my foot.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, Howard,’ Mum called to me, ‘come out of the wind.’

  The door closed, sealing us inside. Blown-in leaves had been trodden down to soft streaks on the doormat. I stepped over them and tried not to look at the counter.

  ‘Isn’t that Kathryn Welch?’

  Through the Saturday shoppers and the families taking their children on their weekly library outing, Kathryn was walking towards us. She was wearing a short blue dress which fell into and over the curves of her body.

  Mum nodded towards her. ‘That’s a very short frock for a library.’

  I stood there, looking at that blue dress. Then Kathryn’s eyes met mine and she held my gaze for a second before walking away.

  I put a hand on Mum’s shoulder and said, ‘Aren’t the novels over there?’

  I glanced round the library. The man with the four carrier bags was nowhere to be seen. A dampness was creeping under my armpits, so I removed my jacket.

  A branch was blowing against the window I usually sat beneath, but it made no sound. It swayed silently, its leaves pressing flat against the glass for a moment before springing back to life in the wind. The humming of the strip lights was all I heard as I made my way over to Kathryn. The phones, the children, the thud of books being stamped all faded. I walked through the hum towards her.

  She was staring at the spines arranged on the top shelf of her trolley. Part of her dress was pulled up slightly against her thigh where she leant on the wood.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. And without thinking about it, I added, ‘I’ve missed seeing you.’

  She stuck her jaw out and blew up into her fringe. She didn’t look at all surprised. ‘Good,’ she said.

  I think Mum guessed there was something going on from the frequency of my library visits, but she didn’t question me, even after she’d seen Kathryn there in her blue minidress. I suppose I started to come home looking pleased with myself after that. I’d spend at least an hour in the library with Kathryn, following the trolley as she wheeled it round the aisles, sitting down and chatting to her as she reached up to those high shelves, watching for any glimpse of the white skin of her side.

  I decided to ask her to the power station dance. I’d been visiting her for at least a month, but I wasn’t sure if she would be ready to say yes. Our conversations had been about my plans for a garden, her father’s roses, the forthcoming library extension, the
books Kathryn liked to read. She would recommend things to me but I didn’t take them out as I knew novels weren’t my thing. Once I had The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy in my hand all the way up to the counter, thinking it would make her smile and nod if she stamped it for me. But at the last minute I deposited it on the trolley. I knew I’d never read it, which would mean I’d have to lie to her when she asked me.

  So there had never been any mention of anything personal. I had not questioned her about her dead husband. She had not enquired if I was courting any girl.

  On the day I decided I would ask her, I spent the bus journey from Calcot to Darvington forming different ways of putting my question.

  Would you care to join me at the power station dance? I asked the trees that hung over the river.

  There’s a dance on Saturday night. Do you fancy it? I asked the bus stop just after Darvington Bridge.

  Want to join me at the dance on Saturday? I asked the posters in the Co-op window.

  Should I just go straight to the desk and come out with it, leaning urgently on the counter? Kathryn. I want you to come to the dance with me.

  Or wait until she was alone in the literature section and spend half an hour building up to the subject? Perhaps there would be some novel I could enquire about that had a big dance scene in it. Something like Jane Austen. Not that a power station dance would be anything like that.

  Or perhaps I should start with a compliment.

  You look like you’d enjoy a good dance.

  No, that sounded slightly obscene. That was what some of the men at work would be saying to their women down the Barley Mow. You look like you’d enjoy a dance love. And the rest.

  By the time I arrived in the warmth of the library, my mind was blank. I couldn’t see Kathryn anywhere. I even went upstairs to the reference section. The man with the four carrier bags was thundering through the card catalogue. But Kathryn was nowhere to be seen.