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He chortles. ‘I thought it was odd as we lost that deal last week. Lost it to Mogul Media, of all places. Your mother wasn’t too chuffed, I can tell you.’
It makes sense now, why the wheels are falling off. If Mum lost the Dubai deal to her competitors, it’ll only make her work longer hours in an effort to correct it. She really must be pushing herself to her limits. ‘Mother really needs to learn the art of assigning responsibility. She has teams in place for this very thing and yet she doesn’t use them to her advantage.’
‘I know, I know. She’s learning the hard way. It’s only that she’s a little flustered these days without you here doing the promotions. I’ve tried to tell her Teddy is a great fit. The camera loves him. As long as we can keep him on track, he’ll be fine. But she won’t hear a bar of it.’
It’s always about how we look to others. How we photograph. It’s just so mind-bending – so shallow. What about how Teddy can handle pressure? How he can make a surly advertising executive turn to putty in his hands? How he can lead a team and inspire them?
Dad needs to spend time in a stress-free environment, which means I need to return, or demand that Teddy is given more responsibilities at Astor. Surely I get a say in my own life. The problem is, my father’s health is at risk and would I ever forgive myself if I held out here and he had a catastrophic heart attack?
There’s nothing left to do, except get the posters up and hope that we get memberships far more quickly so I can go home and assess for myself. My jaunt takes hours, because I’m stopped by locals who quiz me about the People Library. It really has grown wings and taken flight like Trevor from the pub suggested it would.
I hurry back inside the library and am rewarded with a queue of people waiting to sign up.
‘Maisie, you should have called me!’
‘There was no time!’ She gives me a glazed look as if she’s been so busy part of her has checked out, turned robot to get it all done.
Maisie continues entering new member names into the database so I grab my personal laptop and sign in, motioning to people to make two lines. I hope they don’t get frustrated with waiting and leave!
I almost kiss the ground when Sofia wanders in, yet another platter in hand. She gives me a wink that says,Leave this to me. ‘Hello, folks, can I tempt you with a chocolate truffle at all?’ She goes up and down the queue chatting away, as if she’s in her element. It seems she’s the woman of the hour as people gush about her biography in the newspaper. The tide is turning for Sofia! Didn’t she want to bake for friends? And now she has the attention of the room and it’s not even the event yet! I overhear the odd question about just what her story will include and what exactly she’s going to divulge. They want the nitty gritty, that’s for sure.
Sofia simply says, ‘You’ll have to “borrow” me to find out, lovelies,’ and continues down the line.
After a hectic couple of hours, we get them all signed up and I calculate how many we still need to be able to submit the paperwork for funding.
We need a further 384 members! Is this even doable? It still seems so very far away. But I remind myself, it’s the first big rush. There’ll be plenty of people who haven’t had time to read the paper or look online. Surely there’ll be a second wave. We have to be patient and keep spreading the word.
Mid-afternoon, Maisie is busy packing away fallen books and straightening up shelves. I wander over and pick up books from the floor and hand them to her.‘Hey, you did such an amazing job today.’ Once I returned to help her sign people up, she relaxed into it. She smiled, she joked, she looked like she wasenjoyingwork. It was lovely to see the other side of Maisie. I wish it was like that every day.
‘Well, yeah, there wasn’t much else I could do, otherwise they’d never leave.’ And just like that the shutters come down again. It rings false, for some reason. As if she’s playing a part. Iknowshe enjoyed today – it was written all over her features.
‘Is there any reason why you’re acting this way, Maisie? Is it something I’ve done?’
She gives me the side-eye as if weighing up what to say. ‘It’s justyou, Elodie. The way you strut in here like you’re better than everyone. You try to change things like you own the place. Newsflash, you don’t. You’re just an employee the same as me.’
Her words wind me, as if she’s struck a physical blow. Have I walked in here acting superior? It’s not my style at all but I’m mortified to think I’ve come across that way. Is it because this job is more than just nine to five for me?
When I leave work at the end of the day, I don’t switch off. I work from home, and even when I’m supposed to be relaxing I’m dreaming of ways we can help more people as soon as the funding comes through. Perhaps, it’s the work ethic I learned at Astor leaving me in good stead for this new challenge. For me, this isn’t just a job, it’s the possibility of a whole new life and pursuing a passion that’s been dormant for so long. ‘I’m sorry if I made you feel that way, Maisie. That wasn’t my intention at all. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’m trying to change things at the library only because the old ways haven’t worked. I know I’m an employee just the same as you but one of us has to be in charge,and that’s me. If we don’t commit wholeheartedly, we won’t save this place. So many people will lose the one place they can go that doesn’t ask anything of them. And what about Alfie?’ I throw my hands into the air. ‘What else can I say, except I hope we can come to some agreement about how things are to be done and potentially savebothour jobs.’
‘Look, this is just a job for me. I come here simply to earn money. It’s not my life. I don’t go home and dream about the place. I leave here and I don’t give it a second thought. If the library closes, it closes, I’ll find another job soon enough.’ Her face reddens. I sense that Maisie is holding back the truth, but what? And why?
I frown. ‘Surely you don’t mean that, Maisie. Most book lovers I know live and breathe literature. You wouldn’t have studied to become a librarian if you didn’t enjoy this kind of job.’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m clocking off. I’ve got a headache.’
There’s more to Maisie. Her hostility is like a shield, but just what is she protecting herself from? Is it me? I’ve been more than reasonable with her but she clearly doesn’t want to open up. Most bosses would have fired her by now but I know that like the antagonist of any good book she’s redeemable. Everyone is.
I decide to push the point. ‘Maisie, I don’t want to overstep the mark, but I’ve noticed that you seem a little down lately. Sometimes I see you with glassy eyes, as if you’ve been crying. I hope I’m not the reason for that, and if so, can we talk about it?’ I recall she had red-rimmed eyes when I thought she’d been half asleep but was she really upset and trying to hide it from me?
Her bottom lip trembles and it’s all I can do not to embrace her in a hug. I get the feeling Maisie isn’t a hugger and definitely wouldn’t accept one from me.‘It’s not just you, Elodie.’ She rifles in her pocket and produces a tissue. ‘There’s other stuff going on that’s made things hard of late. It makes all the saving the library job angst insignificant.’
I gesture for her to sit on an armchair and I take one opposite. ‘I’m sorry to hear that things have been hard for you and I understand when there’s stuff going on at home that it makes work seem like another burden. Trust me, Ireallydo understand. I’m here if you want to share, that’s all. And I’d like to help if I can.’
She dabs at her nose with the tissue, holding herself tight like she’s trying to keep it together. ‘My … my gran died a couple of months ago. It’s been really tough. She was more like my mum, you know?’ Maisie lets out a bitter laugh. ‘Mum works in the city so Gran mostly raised me. I feel so lost without her. Like my world has turned grey. When I go home to our cottage, it’s so quiet. There’s no smell of dinner cooking. No sound of her quiz shows in the background. It’s just so utterlystillwithout her. I used to think there weren’t enough hours after work to get everything done; now it feels interminable. The evenings drag on as I sit there alone wondering how I’m supposed to go on. Then I’ve had you to deal with, with your Ted-Talk-style meetings and your obsession with membership numbers and it all seems so pointless. We might save the library, but I still won’t have my gran.’
And with that she bursts into noisy tears. I wrap my arms around her and hold her while she cries. Poor Maisie! I’ve been judging her this whole time, while spouting off about everyone else doing the same thing to Harry, Alfie,Sofia and Pete. It strikes me that I’ve acted the same way as everyone else. Why didn’t I try harder to get to the bottom of Maisie’s attitude?
‘I’m so sorry, Maisie. I wish that I’d done more for you, been there when you needed it. And I’m sorry about the Ted-Talk-style of meetings – that’s quite amusing in a way. I can do better if you give me a chance. I know it all seems so hollow right now, but we can take it one day at a time.
