SUE

SUE

Monday, January 15th. 9. am. A bitterly cold morning. I started work at
the Central Library. The front door was locked so I had to find my way
round the grim Victorian building to the side door and into a big bare
work room with filing cabinets and catalogue cabinets and two long
tables. At one end an elderly man with a mean face and white hair sat
at an old-fashioned roll-top desk. This was Mr. McLean, the Deputy
Borough Librarian. He stared at me coldly and I said, "I'm Susan Lucas.
I'm the new Assistant Librarian".

"Library Assistant, I think you mean, Miss Lucas. Junior Library
Assistant." In a Scottish accent he grudgingly welcomed me to the staff
and passed me to Miss Roberts, Chief Assistant, who in turn passed me
on to a large, brash, fair-haired youth called Foster. "Just call me
Dennis," he said cheerfully, "and I'll call you Sue".

"Miss Lucas will do," I replied frostily but the youth was unabashed.
He showed me three large trolleys loaded with books and we began to
shelve them, picking out books of one class from the trolley and
fitting them in their correct place on the shelf. He had shelved the
first two trolley-loads by the time I had got through half of the last,
so he helped me with that.

At ten o'clock we went for tea in the mess room, a depressing place
with peeling green paint and badly in need of redecoration. The table
was covered with worn oil-cloth and some of the staff were already
sitting round it. Mr. Foster, obviously intending to irritate,
introduced me as "This is Sue - sorry, Miss Lucas," and I was forced to
add, "Please call me Sue."

After tea I went to work in the counter. I was shown how to take in
books and look through the countless trays for the bookcard and
reader's ticket, how to stamp dates, how to recognise reserved books.
Mrs Walsh, who dealt with requests, gave me a reserve card. "Look for
this please, Sue. It should be among the new books in Mr. Smith's
office. He's out at the moment so you can go straight in."

I looked at the card. It was for an expensive book on broadside ballads
which I had seen reviewed. The office lay off a passage and was
separated from it by a glass partition. Originally it must have been
one big room. The walls were lined with the latest purchases which were
waiting to be stocked. I spent some time looking through them but had
to go back to the counter and report that I had failed to find
it.

"I shall have to go and get it myself, I suppose," said Mrs Walsh
crossly. But she returned five minutes later empty-handed. "You were
quite right, Sue, it isn't there. I expect Mr. Smith has borrowed
it."

"He often does that," said one of the other girls in the counter, "The
rest of us have to wait till they get into circulation."

I was given a book with blank pages and told to rule out next month's
issue register. But I even made a mess of that, writing the days from
Monday to Saturday but forgetting to leave out Sunday's dates.

Twelve o'clock came and I was told I could go for lunch. Mr. Foster
asked me where I was going to eat. "You can come to the pub with me, if
you like,".

"I have no intention of going to a pub, and certainly not with you," I
told him. But he was not to be put off.

"There's always the Town Hall canteen. I like to escape from the local
government atmosphere mysel. They do the usual canteen food, but quite
cheap."

"I don't know where the Town Hall is."

"It's where you had your interview. But I'll show you if you
like."

I thought that if I didn't find a place to eat soon my lunch hour would
be over, so I reluctantly accepted his company.

After lunch I was sent upstairs to the reference library and given a
pile of local newspapers to search. I had to paste the cuttings on
sheets of carboard ready for headings to be added.

While I was doing this Mr. McLean came up with Mr. Foster in tow. With
what looked almost like a twinkle in his eye he told us, "You know what
you two did today?"

I thought of all the books I had put in the wrong shelf. "You sat at
the Borough Treasurer's table."

"But it wasn't reserved and there was no-one sitting there." I
said.

"Every-one knows that's where the BT sits. He didn't mind, in fact he
was quite amused. But do remember it in future."

"I bet you knew it," I said to a grinning Mr. Foster after Mr. McLean
had left, "and why did he call us 'you two'. We're not friends or
anything." I was glad to see that this observation took some of the
conceit out of his manner.

Tuesday. It was still just as cold so I decided to wear trousers to
work. But Mr. McLean's reaction was a sharp intake of breath and a look
of horror. "What do you mean by wearing those garments in here?" he
snapped.

I was so depressed by the thought of another day's work in that
freezing building that I almost broke down. "It's so cold," I
complained tearfully, "The pipes are lukewarm and the fires only have
one bar working"

"The fires are only meant to operate on one bar. I rewired them all
myself. You'll have to wear an extra woollie and some thick
socks."

When Mr. Foster heard about it he infuriated me by saying, "I can just
see you in three pullovers and several thick socks. You'll look like an
overstuffed teddy bear." In a display of infantile humour he puffed his
cheeks, stuck his arms out and waddled up and down.

About ten o'clock a small, grey-haired man came in to the workroom and
gave an letter to Mr. McLean, saying, "Mac, The Chairman wants to take
his wife to Brighton. When you book the hotel make sure he has a
double."

Mr. MacLean shook his head, "I can't do that. The Council will only pay
for the Chairman himself. The rules are quite clear - if he wants his
wife with him he pays for his own room. You'll have to tell him ..." He
broke off and they retired to the office to discuss the matter in
private.

"What was that about?" I asked Mr. Foster. "That was Mr. Smith, the
Chief. In April he goes to the Library Association conference with the
Chairman of the Libraries Committee. By the way, what are you doing for
lunch today? The Canteen again?"

"I haven't seen Mr. Smith before except I think he was at the
interview."

"He doesn't show up very often."

"What does he do then?"

"Nobody knows. In the pub, I expect."

I told Mr. Foster he was just being cynical. "As to lunch, I don't
think I'll ever live down yesterday. I'll find a cafe or buy a
snack."

But when it came to twelve o'clock Mr. Foster suggested that we went to
his pub. And as I didn't want to waste any of my lunch hour I
reluctantly agreed to go with him.

I didn't see Mr. Smith again until one day when I was sent into his
office and started to read a biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I had
to be careful about reading because, although we could do almost
anything else with books, reading them during working hours was frowned
on. I heard a voice behind me, "What have you got there -
Hopkins?"

I said guiltily, "I was just glancing at it ..." But all he asked me
was whether I had read any of the poetry. "We did the 'Wreck of the
Deutschland' at school." I replied.

There was a distinct smell of beer around him. "Thou mastering me, God!
giver of breath and light ..." he began to quote.

I started to ask about my leave entitlement but Mr. Smith was clearly
not interested and told me to see Mr. McLean.

April 2nd.. Winter has given way to spring. Every day I tidy my own
section of the shelves and kept it in order. Every week we are called
into the mess room to receive our meagre wages from the pay
clerk.

In spare moments I contrive to combine visits to the loo with
investigations of the books in the strong room - rare local histories,
expensive art books, studies of nudes, erotically illustrated editions
of the "Thousand and One Nights". Sometimes I encountered Mr. Smith. He
never asked me what I was doing but only what I was reading. We liked
the same kind of books and he would often search out a poet or novelist
that he thought I would enjoy.

Dennis and I continued to lunch together and we sometimes walked in the
gardens afterwards. I told him of the breakdown which caused me to
leave college and he told me of his plans to take a job in insurance.
"I'll never get anywhere in this job," he would say. "I don't have
enough qualifications or exams."

Friday April 21st. Mr. Smith, the Borough Librarian went to Brighton
for the the Library Association Conference.

Wednesday 26th April. There was an huge row this morning when Mr. Smith
returned from Brighton. About teatime Councillor Williams, Chairman of
the Libraries Committee, marched into the lending department. I had
discovered that there are two kinds of Councillor - those who pay their
library fines and those who do not. Councillor Williams was of the
latter kind. On being told that his books were overdue he would shout,
"Don't you know who I am?" He shouted now that he wanted to see Mr.
Smith, and once he reached the office he shouted at Mr. Smith.

"What's going on?" I asked Dennis. He shrugged. Pat, who was also in
the Counter, was deputed to look for a book in the strong room and pick
up some information. Ten minutes later was back, bubbling with
excitement. "You'll never guess what old Smithy did. He wasn't allowed
to book a double room for Williams, so he did nothing about it at all.
When Williams and his missus got to Brighton they found that there was
no room booked for him. They had to come back to London. And, to cap it
all, Mr. Smith is telling him that it was Mac's fault for forgetting
the booking."

The shouting could be heard all over the library and it went on for
some time. Afterwards, Mr. Smith, Mac and the Chairman were summoned to
the Town Hall. Mr. Smith went home and when Mac returned he was
quivering with suppressed rage.

3rd May.Mr. Smith was on holiday. Mac took over his office and
introduced me to a girl from the Town Hall. "This is Miss Jones, from
the audit department," he told me. She is making a routine check on the
new books and I want you to help her. "

When he left the office Miss Jones produced a batch of invoices.
"Dennis tells me your chief is in trouble," she observed.

"Dennis ...?"

"Mr. Foster. Don't you call him Dennis?"

"Yes. But I didn't know you knew him."

"He's an ex-boy friend. Very much Ex. I gather he has a girl friend in
the libraries now."

"If you call out the titles," I replied, icily, "I'll try and find the
books."

The invoices were from booksellers and we checked the new books to find
the items which had been received and paid for. Then we checked the
registers to see whether they had received stock numbers. This took a
day and a half, and at the end of that time we had established that
five hundred new books had disappeared from Mr. Smith's office.

When Mr. McLean was told he snatched the papers and rushed to the Town
Hall. The next day staff were summoned one by one to the office and
cross-examined. When Mr. Smith returned he was summoned to the Town
Hall and when he came back to the library it was only to collect his
coat and go home again.

"Ethel Jones says he's been suspended", said Dennis.

"What will happen to him?"

"He'll get the sack and Mac will become Borough Librarian."

And Mr. McLean obviously expected the same outcome for he strode about
the library looking, as Dennis said, like a cat who has swallowed the
cream.

28th September. Mr. McLean, it seemed, was not considered to be the
stuff that leaders are made of. And the Council didn't want any
scandal. Mr. Smith, dedicated book-lover, hopeless administrator and
alcoholic, was offered early retirement. He was replaced by a younger
man who sold the wonderful volumes in the strong room, abolished the
big black stock-books, installed fluorescent lighting and, just in time
for the Suez crisis and oil rationing, bought oil-fired boilers.

Dennis went into insurance and ended up as a branch manager. I never
saw him again. Nor did I see poor Mr Smith. But both had, in their own
ways, have helped me to recover from my breakdown and in October I
shall return to College.