An Imperfect Librarian - Elizabeth Murphy [54]
At the library, there are no pumpkin lights, though mid-term exams have given students a ghoulish pallor. Reading Room activity is at its peak. I’d expect Henry to be drooling over the view. Instead, he’s staring into space, or more rightly, into his coffee cup. I wouldn’t be in a good mood either if I’d spent the summer caring for a dying father, if my son and daughter-in-law had split up and my teenage grandson was caught shoplifting cigarettes. “That’s the good part,” Henry says about his two-month visit to Ireland.
“I bought some new coffee from Auntie Crae’s, if that will make you feel any better.”
“Since when did you ever brew a cup of coffee that would make anyone feel better?” he says. “You’re a fine one to be talking about feeling better. Look at you. You’d think after the beautiful summer here on the island you’d have a ray of sunshine in you but you’re dark as the arse of a black hole,” he says. “I hope you aren’t hanging out with that Reading Room woman, because if you are, I won’t help you anymore.”
“I’m not seeing Norah Myrick. Elsa’s the problem right now. She’s split up with her Brutus. She’s been sending me emails almost daily.”
“Is this the Viking Vixen who cuckolded you with another Amazon? What would she be wanting with the likes of you? Your semen? Don’t be letting your sperm go to your head. There’s a good one for you.”
“I don’t know what she wants but I’ve decided to go to Norway to tie up some loose ends. I’m leaving on the November eleventh long weekend. I’ll visit with Tatie and Papa while I’m over there.”
“If you asked me, I’d say you’re scrounging for an excuse to avoid your priorities.”
“Remind me not to ask.”
“Sharpening your tongue over the last few months, were you?”
Of all the months, weeks and days, my memory is trapped in the five or ten minutes in Norah’s kitchen. I don’t have time for a relationship where trust is an issue, she said.
“I’ve been focusing on my priorities more than you realise. I figured out that Francis owns the Crimson Hexagon and that he visits there at odd hours of the morning, that–”
“You’re the one who knows most about how our information is managed. Once that privacy policy is passed, you could find yourself with a new title: Dr. Carl Brunet, Data and Information Control Manager, Privacy Protection Services for the King Edward University Library, Lackey for Francis Hickey. Will you like that, with Francis for your boss? ‘Yes, Mr. Hickey. Sorry, Mr. Hickey. Right away, Mr. Hickey. Lick your ass, Mr. Hickey?’”
“More like, ‘Stay off my case, Mr. Hickey. Hand over the Special Collections inventory, Mr. Hickey.’”
“I applied for the position of Head of Special Collections when it came up three years ago. I should have been the obvious choice. I’d been here longer. I have more experience,” Henry says.
“Why did they give it to him?”
“Because he sucks as much as he fucks. I challenged him once. He was presenting a report on Special Collections to Library Council. He put forward a motion to approve a fifteen percent increase in his budget. I argued against it but Francis knew how to manipulate them. He cracked a lame joke that had everyone laughing at my expense. Something about the likes of Irishmen working at ‘Mis-information Services.’”
“A fifteen percent increase to do fifteen percent more of what?”
“Everyone assumes the Reading Room’s a bastion, an Alcatraz, with its fancy security features, the no touching this, no copying that. The real threat is the Trojan horse on the inside. He struts around the library, Head of the People for Privacy, protecting the public good, defender of basic rights. My fucking belly he is.” Henry grabs his belly, one hand on either side and shakes it. “It’s about time someone pruned the prick.”
I turn away from the view of the Reading Room to face him. “Let me get this straight, Henry. Are you trying to rehabilitate me and save my project or are you simply–”
“All that boring Bibliomining banter. I have more sympathy for this privacy stuff. As for rehabilitating you, the curve is steep,”