2. Forbidden Books

2. Forbidden Books

A line of pillars guarded the entrance to the library, like a great, gap-toothed mouth. Cait hurried through. She breathed deeply, her heart thundering in her chest. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting the crazy tramp to be following her like a zombie in some ridiculous horror movie. But there was no one. She was safe.

A security guard eyed her. He was tall and heavily built, but with more fat than muscle. He looked like an ex-soldier past his prime. He kept his hair closely cropped but there was a sadness in his eyes, as if he couldn't believe how his life had worked out. His uniform was shabby, the trousers a slightly different shade of blue to his tunic, his cuffs and the peak of his cap threadbare. He said nothing, not moving. She sometimes thought they were all asleep, slumbering away the long, poorly-paid hours with their eyes open. She smiled at him as reassuringly as she could, holding up her textbooks to make it clear she belonged in a library.

The large, circular reading-room that took up most of the ground-floor was a maze of desks and shelves. If you knew the path, the dead-ends to avoid, you could reach the sanctuary of the middle, the island of desks where the librarians stamped and piled books. If not, you could get lost and wind up in the dead-end of Ancient History, the wastelands of Chemistry.

Cait relished the familiar, busy hush. The sound of people concentrating, turning pages, scribbling. It was cooler in here. Controlled. She loved the aroma of the books, of all that paper and leather. She started to relax.

She looked for her gran and spotted her across the floor, her head appearing above a high bookcase as if she were a giant the library employed to reach the top shelves.

Cait set off across the great circle, between huge tables carpeted with open newspapers. She walked along passageways, between high walls of books, wondering what they all said. So much knowledge, how could she ever hope to make sense of things? She couldn't read a thousandth of what was written here.

She weaved her way through the labyrinth until she reached the foot of the step-ladders where her gran perched.

“Hi,” said Cait.

Her grandmother was always pleased to see her. Always had time for her. Still, she managed to make it quite clear when Cait had done something she disapproved of. It was never anything she said; she just made her eyes glint in a certain way. How did she do that? The look was there now as she peered down at Cait through her gold-rimmed glasses.

“Cait, love. I didn't expect to see you.” She stepped down holding three large, dusty books in one arm. Her pendant earrings, tear-shaped gold mesh clasping nuggets of polished amber, swayed in time with each tread. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. Just wanted to drop by. You know.”

“Weren't you going shopping with your friends?”

“Oh, couldn't stand the politics.”

“The politics?”

“Oh, Jen has stopped seeing Ed; Devi texted CJ to say that she was going out with Peter after all and yada yada yada.”

Her gran smiled. Her hair was grey. It always surprised Cait that her hair was grey.

“Dear me. If you're not going to give me your daily updates I'll have to go back to watching the soaps,” said her gran.

Cait offered her gran a hand as she landed on the ground. “Sorry.”

“Well, it's not that bad yet. Come on, I have to take these books down to the vault. Walk with me and tell me the real problem.”

“Let me carry the books,” said Cait.

“OK, love. Let me just tell someone where I'm going.”

They walked to the centre of the circle, where her gran conversed with her friend Jane. She was odd, Jane: perfectly nice, but very, very quiet. She was from Eastern Europe, or somewhere. The simplest things left her genuinely amazed, while big things or scary things didn't bother her in the least. Last week a man had got angry about something, shouting and swearing at her, jabbing at her with his finger. She'd smiled as if he were a foolish boy and waved him away while the security guards converged. She was cool, really.

Her gran finished her conversation and returned to Cait. They walked to a pair of grey lift doors. A sign in faded blue said

Staff Only

. Her gran took a set of keys from her pocket and used one in the keyhole where the buttons would normally be to summon the lift. Inside, the paint was scratched, the wooden floor scuffed. They descended slowly, the lift clanking and jerking as if reluctant to descend.

Cait's mobile chimed to say a text had arrived. She read it, still holding the books in one arm, then put the phone away without replying.

“Yada yada?” asked her gran.

“Yada yada.”

There was silence for a few moments more. The lift went past the public basement and down to a deeper level.

“And what about Danny?” asked her gran. “Aren't you going to see him?”

The lift stopped. There was a pause while the doors realised they could open.

“He's not my boyfriend, gran. He's just a mate. We like the same bands, that's all.”

It was dark down here, and distinctly cold. They stepped out. Cait waited while her gran found the light switch.

“Ah yes, of course. Let me see.

Screaming Machinery

. I remember that tee-shirt of his. The one you were wearing. Very colourful.”

“It was just a tee-shirt.”

“I'm very disappointed in you about that, Cait.”

“We're the only ones into them, that's all. There's nothing more to it. He's even got one of their guitar picks from that concert we went to at the G-Mex.”

The lights came on. There was her gran, closer than Cait had expected, smiling broadly.

“I mean about the compilation you promised me. I still don't have it.”

“I thought you were joking.”

“You thought I was too old, you mean. I know how much you love them so I want to hear them.”

“But …”

“You're afraid I'll be shocked or deafened. Is that it?”

Cait smiled. Even when her gran was cross with her she was fun.

“OK,” said Cait. “I really promise now.”

Ahead of them, a straight, concrete corridor led into the gloom. A string of lights provided occasional clearings in the darkness. Old, wispy cobwebs, with no evidence of any actual spiders, hung in the high corners.

“Anyway,” said her gran, “I liked him. I thought he was polite. Made a nice cup of tea.”

“Yeah.”

“So where is he then?”

“How should I know?”

Her gran looked at her and said exactly nothing.

“OK, he's at home,” said Cait. “Revising.”

“Ah, yes. I was coming to that.”

“I thought you might. It's ages until the exams, gran.”

“Three weeks. And I didn't mean that. I meant going home. Your mother will be missing you.”

They walked down the corridor. At regular intervals they passed locked, metal doors, as if the basement were some sort of dungeon. The place the librarians imprisoned troublesome borrowers.

“What is all this down here?” asked Cait. Her voice boomed in the confined space. It didn't sound like her speaking at all.

“Book storage. We only have a small percentage of the volumes on display upstairs, you know. The rest are down here, carefully catalogued and protected.”

“It's huge. There must be hundreds of doors.”

“It's much bigger than the library upstairs. Not many people know this level is even here. It extends a long way under the streets. I like to think this part of the city is built on a foundation of books. It's pleasant down here, so peaceful …” She was half talking to herself. It was something she did. “I like the feeling of the ground all around me. The depths of time. Who knows what's about us in the earth? Victorian coffins. Roman temples. Celtic roundhouses.”

“And … all these doors?”

“In case of fire. To stop flames spreading.”

Her gran glanced at her, concern clear on her face. The mention of fire, the mere suggestion of the building burning. Cait smiled reassurance back at her.

Her gran stopped walking. “She will miss you, you know, your mum. You're all she's got.”

“She's got the television.”

“She wants you.”

Cait shrugged. She could never get a word out of her mother. She would ask her how her day had been, and

fine

was the best she could hope for. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around? The mad thing was, they only talked, had something approaching a conversation, when they watched television together.

The problem was they liked different things. Cait wanted to watch programmes that told her something, showed her something, gave her new ideas. Her mother liked to watch the same safe, comforting drivel over and over. Talent shows and soaps. But sometimes they would sit together and watch a programme acceptable to both. A film maybe. Then one of them would speak, saying something critical. The other would agree or disagree. And so it would go, in a companionable sort of way. They conversed about the people on the screen, never really about themselves, but it was something. It was as if the television was a translator, allowing them to exchange a few broken, half-understood words in each other's language. It wasn't much, but it was something Cait always looked forward to.

“I know, gran,” she said. In the gloom, the quiet, she found she could speak more easily. “Look, I know what she is. She's still your little girl and she's still my mum. But she's given in. She's given up on herself and given up on me. She's a loser. And she thinks I'm a loser, too.”

Her gran put her hands onto Cait's shoulders, then all the way around her.

“If she thinks that it's because she has lost a lot, Cait.”

“I know she has.” Unexpectedly, Cait was crying. The tears were cool on her cheeks. “We all miss Dad. But she's been stuck in limbo for two years now.”

Her gran smiled. She actually smiled. “You know, she used to be just like you. So lively. So strong-minded. So hard to please. Give her time, Cait. However long it takes, she'll come back to us. OK?”

“I'll try, gran. I do try. I just wish she would, too.”

“Well. Anyway. Let's go in.” She nodded to the door behind Cait. “This is us.”

Cait turned to look at the door. The words

Vault 23

were stencilled onto it. She stepped aside while her gran took out her key ring.

The room inside was plain, square and surprisingly large. Its floor and ceiling were concrete. More shelves - metal here rather than wood - lined the walls. Labelled cardboard boxes filled them, each full of books. A kick-stool sat in the middle of the room.

“Right, I'll just put these in their proper place,” said her gran as she wrote something on a clipboard that hung from a hook. Cait handed the books over, then wandered across to one of the shelves, thinking about her mother, her father.

She had the urge to pick a book at random, pick one of the pages in the book, and read a sentence, just to see what it was. See if it was some great pearl of wisdom, some advice to give her guidance in life. But she didn't want to upset the filing system.

“Gran,” she said. “These boxes. I've seen one of them today. Just outside the library. A beggar sat on one. I mean, a flattened one. He was pretty mad actually. Started shouting all sorts of weird stuff at me. It was a bit scary.”

Her gran spoke with her back to Cait as she put the books into their correct places. “Young Tom you mean? Oh, he's harmless, love. We've tried to help him, find him somewhere to stay, but he keeps coming back.”

“He seemed to recognize me. Said mad things.”

Her gran turned to her, not smiling, a very direct look on her face. “He's nothing to worry about. Mild schizophrenia and a hard life on the streets. What did he say exactly?”

“Something about

if they knew who I really was, if they knew I'd been here all along, they'd come for me.

”

“He said that?” She was silent for a moment, her eyes still intent on Cait, sharp as knitting-needles. “Well, as I say, he's not well. But the only person he'd harm is himself.”

Cait nodded. She paced around the room, touching each box with the tip of her finger. In one corner a part of the shelf was sectioned off with strong metal grilling, a large padlock securing a hatchway in it. Several old books were inside, placed carefully onto the shelf so they weren't touching each other.

“So … why are these books locked away when they're in a room that's already locked?”

“Oh they're valuable,” said her gran, turning to face her again. “We sometimes look after books for other people. They have to be well protected for insurance. Some of them have been here for years.” She looked thoughtful for a moment.

“I wonder what's in these,” said Cait.

“Come on. We'd better go. They'll be wondering what's happened to me.”

They locked the door to Vault 23 and retraced their steps to the lift, which still waited with its door open, held by the key. Her gran switched off the lights in the basement as they stepped inside. Cait had the distinct feeling of all the books settling back down to sleep in the darkness, like disappointed dogs in a rescue home.

The old lift doors clanked together. Cait was about to ask her gran whom the locked-away books belonged to when there was suddenly more light in the basement. Flickering, yellow-green beams lit up the walls of the corridor they had walked down.

Cait looked at her gran to ask her what it was, but stopped when she saw her look of terror, saw her step backward from the door as if they were in danger.

The doors juddered slowly together. They heard rapid footsteps then, becoming louder: someone running toward them, although limping slightly, the rhythm uneven. Through the narrowing crack, Cait could see the indistinct shape of someone against the green light, a child-sized silhouette.

Whoever it was reached them as the doors touched together. A ferocious banging rattled the lift doors, the metal denting with each blow. Cait found she had stepped backward, too. She was next to her gran. They were holding hands. There was a faint, sickly smell of burning metal. She imagined motors overheating, cables smoking and snapping, fire in the lift-shaft. Were they trapped down here?

Then slowly, like some creaking, steam-powered space-rocket, the lift began to rise. The pounding on the doors slipped away, fading as Cait and her gran crept upward, back to the light.