“So I feel that a library meeting and anticipating the needs of its readers is absolutely my top priority,” went on Nina, feeling as she did so the sense of her words going into space, of simply tumbling unheard from her mouth. She had a ridiculous, nervous urge to say something utterly absurd just to see if they kept nodding or not.
“Yes,” said a different humorless-looking woman wearing a pants suit and very pink lipstick, leaning forward. “But what about anticipating the needs of your nonreaders?”
“I’m sorry?” said Nina, not sure she’d understood. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re trying to satisfy the needs of all your consumer base, yes?”
“Uh, yes?” said Nina, conscious that she was on unsteady ground.
“So what do you propose for the nonreaders?”
“Well, we have children’s story time twice a week—I’d love to make that three times; it’s so nice for the mums to have a place to get together and chat. And I know our children’s literature section backward and forward, so I’ve always got something to recommend to those who are a bit more reluctant—there are loads more terrific books coming along for boys, who we all know are a little hard to persuade . . . Plus we have adult literacy classes at the town hall, and we’re always directing people there; if you can improve literacy, you’re doing the best thing you can.”
“No, no, you’re not hearing me: what do you propose for the nonreaders? Not the people who can’t read. Your adult clientele who simply don’t like to read?”
Nina paused. She could hear the heavy traffic going around the roundabout outside. A garbage truck was reversing with a loud beeping sound. There was a huge crash as it emptied one of the bottle recycling bins from around the back of the library.
“Um,” she said finally, blushing furiously under the gaze of the four interviewers, one of whom—Cathy Neeson, of course—was already checking her phone for the name of the next person. “I could recommend to them a REALLY good book . . .”
The pink-lipsticked lady looked disappointed rather than angry. “I don’t think you’re seeing what we’re getting at, at all.”
Nina couldn’t disagree. She absolutely didn’t.
“You should have talked about interfaces!” hissed Griffin, as they hid around the corner sipping their consolatory frappuccinos, a justifiable extravagance under the circumstances.
Outside, it was raining, a heavy, joyless spring shower that rendered the city colorless and made the cars splash and thunder through the streets, catching passers-by with sprays of water. People were looking furious, their brows as heavy as the low clouds above. Birmingham was not at its loveliest.
The coffee shop was absolutely heaving with shopping bags and damp coats and strollers and people wearing big earphones and glowering at other people trying to share their table or getting in their way and young kids sharing muffins and sniggering and abusing each other verbally. She and Griffin were sitting at a crumb-strewn table next to the restrooms, beside a lawyer and his client deep in the throes of discussing her imminent divorce. It was hard not to listen in, but Nina felt she had enough problems of her own right now.
“What kind of interfaces?” she said. The interview had not gone much farther after that question.
“It doesn’t matter: computer, or peer to peer, or integrated confluence,” hissed Griffin. “They really don’t care as long as you use a buzzword that they can tick off on their sheet. And if they tick off enough, then it’s like bingo and you win your old job back, except at a reduced salary.”
He took a suck of his frappuccino and looked glum.
“God, I should just tell them all to piss off. Illiterate paper pushers.”
“Why don’t you?” said Nina suddenly, interested. People had given her enough advice; she might as well pass it on. “You’re smart. You’ve got a degree. You’re not tied down. You could do anything. You could travel the world. Write a novel. Go teach English in China. Hang out on a surfers’ beach in California. I mean, you’re not old, you’re not married. The world’s your oyster. Why not tell them to stuff it, if you hate it all so much?”
“I still might do all of those things,” said Griffin sullenly. “I won’t be stuck here forever. Anyway, you’re the one off on wild goose chases to look at crazy buses. I’d say you’re closer to it than I am.”
Nina had known he’d been secretly pleased when she’d come back from Scotland empty-handed. She’d resented the implication of that: that he was worried that if she could get away, pathetic as she was, what did it say about him?
“I know,” she sighed. “It was a ridiculous dream.” She looked around. “I just don’t know . . . I mean, after that . . .” She shivered, remembering Cathy Neeson’s smile, which hadn’t reached her eyes as she’d stood up to leave, before the end of the allotted interview time but after the entire thing had clearly come to a close.
Nina hadn’t slept well since she’d returned from Scotland. The atmosphere had been muggy and gray, pressing down on her relentlessly. Things she’d once liked—the buzz, the city noise—now made her feel like she didn’t have enough space to catch her breath. She’d read lots of books about people finding new lives, which hadn’t helped her mood either, had made her feel more and more trapped and stuck where she was, as if everyone except her was managing to get away and do interesting things.
She’d trawled the job Web sites, but it seemed there was no place for librarians anymore. Information officers, yes. Play advisers and local government PRs and marketing consultants, but nothing that seemed to have anything to do with what she’d done her entire life, the only job she wanted: finding the right book for the right person.
She found herself missing the fresh air, the long views, the clear sunlight bouncing off yellow fields, lush green rolling hills and the sparkling, dancing, beguiling North Sea. It felt very odd that somewhere she’d spent such a small amount of time—and which had ended up so badly—had had such a profound effect on her.
She stared at her coffee again. A large woman barged past her, almost clubbing her in the face with her gigantic, expensive, directional handbag.
“I don’t know,” Nina said again.