The Library of Lost and Found

Startled, she turned to see Siegfried, hunched in his long coat. When he reached out, his fingers skimmed against her wrist. Martha inched away.

He took a small step towards her and her own shuffles graduated to small steps backwards, then became bigger strides. All she could picture were laughing faces, mocking her.

She moved with pace, a small jog, along the street and past the cemetery. She’d left her handbag behind and felt her sparkly hair slide slip out. She saw it fall, then shine on the pavement before she moved on.

Her head reverberated and she couldn’t think about anything clearly. As she crossed the road, a lorry sounded its horn. Everything around her sounded louder, the wheels on a bus roared on the tarmac, and she winced when a seagull cawed overhead. A car was suddenly upon her, the driver flashing his lights and shaking his fist as she leaped out of the way.

Silly, silly woman, she scolded herself. What on earth will people think of you?

I’ve left Nora’s washing behind. How will I get it clean now?

Clive Folds will never give me a job.

I’ve not explained how to use the book-rating spreadsheet.

Shame prevented her from returning. She thrust her head down and speed-walked on, her shoulders feeling too light without her bag.

Fine drops of rain prickled her face before they turned to fat drops and she swiped them away with her fingers. A bus pulled up alongside her and the driver opened the doors. Martha hesitated, not knowing where it was heading. She pushed her hand into her pocket and felt loose change.

‘Are you gettin’ on board or not, darlin’?’ the driver called out to her.

Martha stood motionless as people moved towards her on the pavement. A woman wearing a see-through plastic mac chased after her King Charles spaniel, and kids laughed and shoved each other as they made their way home from school. She wondered if Will and Rose were among them and, not wanting them to see her like this, she darted on board.

‘Where to, darlin’?’ the driver asked.

‘Maltsborough, please.’

‘Single ticket?’

‘Um, yes.’

The doors shushed shut and the bus set off.

Hanging her head, she made her way to the back and slumped down onto the seat she’d shared with Will and Rose the previous day. The windows were steamed up and someone had drawn a heart with their finger in the condensation.

A hot tear trickled down her cheek and she brushed it away, angry at her own behaviour. Resilience was something she’d perfected over the years, as she catered to her parents’ needs.

Towards the end of his life, her dad had shrunk in size but was still almost six feet tall. It took all her strength to help him upstairs to bed. She’d formed a hard shell to deal with the monotony of making breakfast, watching the morning news on TV, listening to the same radio shows each day, making coffee and fresh biscuits. She, her mum and dad, all watched the lunchtime news together, accompanied by ham sandwiches (made by her, of course). A few quiz shows followed, before Thomas and Betty took a long nap while Martha dusted and tidied round. Then she cooked dinner, usually something traditional like beef and potatoes, or a steak and kidney pie. This was followed by a spot of encyclopedia reading, and more news and quiz shows. She ran them a bath, helping them both into the water, one after the other, before assisting them to clean their teeth and get into bed. When she turned off the lights, there wasn’t much point doing anything for herself, so she retired for the night at the same time.

She hadn’t actually noticed when her parents’ needs surpassed her own, like Japanese knotweed overtaking a garden. She just focused on being helpful, a dutiful daughter.

It was clear to her now, though, that she’d given up her own chance of happiness to facilitate theirs.

She took her notepad out of her pocket and stared at the green ticks, amber stars and red dots. They were a constant reminder that her only worth was in helping others.

The bus came to a halt in Maltsborough and everyone but Martha got off. She stayed on board and waited, wanting to get even further away from Sandshift. The driver poked his head out and called down the aisle. ‘This is the last stop, darlin’. Hop off.’

Reluctantly, she stepped off and found herself on the promenade.

Even though Maltsborough was shutting down for the day, it hummed with noise and activity. Some shop owners were already locking their doors and pulling down metal shutters over the windows. A line of traffic curved along the high street, car lights illuminating the rain that fired down. In an hour’s time, all that would be open in the town were the bars and restaurants, and the amusement arcades.

Rain bounced off the pavements and made people yelp, jump and run with their coats held over their heads.

Martha stooped over. Moving quickly along the seafront, she passed a group of teenagers who were bunched together, spearing chips with plastic forks.

The rain grew heavier, slinking its way down the back of her neck and soaking through the toes of her shoes. Unsure of where to go, she ducked under a shiny yellow canopy and found herself standing inside an arcade.

As children, she and Lilian weren’t allowed to play on the amusements. Thomas said it was gambling, and that, ‘No one benefits except for the arcade owners.’ Martha used to gaze longingly at the bright flashing lights and plastic horses jerking along their racetrack, as he tugged her past them. Sometimes Zelda gave her and Lilian a sneaky penny or two to spend, but it was under strict instructions that they didn’t tell their father.

Martha could usually tell when Zelda had defied Thomas, because there’d be a sticky silence around the table at teatime. Every scrape of cutlery, each bite of food would be amplified. Betty tried to overcompensate for Zelda’s misdemeanours by fussing around Thomas.

Martha and Lilian had learned to be on their best behaviour when this happened. They tried to be nice and good for their father, until his stormy mood blew over.

Now, Martha stood and watched the rain pounding down, and she edged further inside the arcade. She found herself standing next to an electronic game machine where large plastic crustaceans crept out from under jagged red rocks. They chanted, ‘We are the bad crabs.’ For fifty pence, you could take up a big mallet and bash them.

‘We are the bad crabs,’ the voice repeated and Martha’s fingers twitched. There was an unusual stirring inside her stomach, of wanting to do something for herself for once. A touch of rebellion. She had already made a fool of herself in front of people she knew.

Does it really matter if I do it again, in front of ones I don’t know?

Tensing her jaw, she delved into her pocket for a fifty-pence piece and held it over the slot. A high-pitched electronic voice said, ‘We’re ready to begin!’ and Martha defiantly pushed her coin in.

Taking hold of the mallet, attached to a chain, she stood poised, ready. Even though she still felt exhausted, she found the energy to swipe the mallet through the air. Missing the first crab, her shoulder jolted as it connected with the plastic rocks. But then she thought about the members of the reading group and managed to bring it crashing down on the head of the second crab and then the third. She hit the fourth and the fifth and kept on hammering as the crabs said, ‘Ouch,’ and ‘Yow.’

Adrenaline coursed through her veins and, with each bash, an urge to laugh rose inside her. She was so focused on the bright plastic and flashing lights that her shame and embarrassment at running away from the library evaporated.

When the game ended, she frantically felt in her pocket for more coins, eager to feel the rush of whatever-it-was again. It had been a long time since she felt so invigorated. She fed more money into the machine, then swiped and bashed until her right shoulder felt like it was on fire.

Her eyes glinted as red numbers rolled, reaching the high score then shooting fifty points above it. This was glorious. A strange sensation enveloped her body but she couldn’t pin down what it was.

She stared down at the last fifty-pence piece in her hand. One last go. As she pushed in her coin, across the room she saw a man holding onto the hand of a toddler. The girl clung on to a soft Minion toy and her eyes were wide open. The man pointed in Martha’s direction and she saw he was talking to a police officer. The officer started to walk and there was no doubt he was headed in her direction.

‘Madam,’ he said when he reached her. He had hairy hands like a werewolf and his eyebrows almost met in the middle. He had the weary stoop of someone who’d been dealing with minor seaside offences all day. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises. A father has complained that you’re scaring his little girl.’

With her cheeks afire, Martha traipsed away from the arcade. She examined the timetable on the bus stop and there was a forty-seven-minute wait until the next one. She also remembered that the ticket she’d bought was a single, and she’d just used up all her cash. She was stuck in Maltsborough, unsure how she was going to get home.

The rain had subsided a little and was now more of a sprinkle, so she decided to go for a walk, to stretch her legs and allow her adrenaline to subside. The bright lights of the bars on the promenade shone in her eyes, so she stepped inland, behind the lifeboat station.

The street was in shadow, with the lights in the upstairs windows above the shops giving the pavement a golden glow. It was easy to imagine this part of town in the earlier days, with smugglers creeping along the skinny ginnels between the houses, to cart their bounty to awaiting boats.

She weaved her way around puddles, until she found herself outside Chamberlain’s. The door wore a Closed sign and, inside, the shop was pitch dark.

She peered in through the window at the display, at a vintage edition of The Hobbit, old train magazines and a full series of Famous Fives piled haphazardly. The sight of Anne and Timmy on the covers made her heart flip. They were her favourite characters, though Zelda said they were too middle class and that she preferred the tomboy, George.

The corner of the window featured an eclectic array of leaflets – a one-eyed black cat found near the sports centre, a fairground in Benton Bay and an advert for Monkey Puzzle Books. She reached out and touched its logo, a tree with books as its leaves.

Moving towards the doorway, Martha mused whether Owen lived above the shop, or if he had a house elsewhere. Her fingers curled in her pocket as she fought the urge to knock on the door. The sign confirmed that the shop didn’t open again until Wednesday. But Owen had said that he’d call her. At home, the red light might be flashing on her answering machine.

After the disastrous reading group session and being asked to leave the arcade, Martha wondered if she had anything to lose. In fact, the thought of doing something out of character again gave her a small buzz. And she wanted Zelda’s book back.