Page 60 of Waiting for a Bright New Future

Jayne gave him a hug. “Mum will be over the moon; she likes you. And she keeps on at me about a wedding.”

“Was that a proposal? Sorry, I . . .” Stuart’s world had suddenly become turbo-charged.

“Not exactly.” She frowned. “That’s your job. But Mum will need to know a wedding is on the horizon if we’re going to share a bed.”

“I see.”

“You can move in as soon as — no need to wait until the cloth is pulled from beneath you.”

Jayne was pushing the pillow down on him.

Sandra latched on to his unease.It’s OK to take it slowly. There are months before you have to get out of the house.

“And this isn’t just about what’s convenient for Mum.” Emotion was brimming in Jayne’s voice as she spoke. “I love you, Stuart Borefield, with my heart and my body. I understand now that I’ve loved you all my life.”

After years of life in the slow lane, Jayne was moving too fast for Stuart. He couldn’t sprint to the finish line at her speed. He thought he loved her but how could you know for sure? She was looking at him expectantly and his words came out garbled. “I’m not going to make things easy for Robert and George. I’ll stay here until my time is up.” He squeezed her hand. “And being with you is fantastic.”

Jayne seemed disappointed but didn’t press the subject.

After that, the house felt even more like a deflated balloon. Stuart was simply marking time until he handed over the family home to his brothers, using the weeks and months as a window to get used to the idea of living next door.

This isn’t good for you, bro. Bright new future — remember.

Stuart did remember but he didn’t know what to do about it. He spent more time in the library but sitting alone reading didn’t improve anything. He wondered about applying for a supermarket job but that would mean no more visits to William, and he’d grown fond of the old man.

“Back again?” The librarian spoke to him as she shelved books on the large-print romance carousel that Stuart was browsing in the hope of finding something to stimulate Lillian to read. “Could you do me a favour?”

Stuart nodded.

“The toddlers are arriving for story time but I’m a staff member down. Could you direct them into the children’s section and let them know I’ll be with them as soon as possible?”

There was a handful of two- and three-year-olds making a disturbance amongst the local history shelves. Stuart pointed the way to the brightly decorated children’s section and sat down on a too-low, lime-green plastic settee to wait for the librarian to take over. The children’s mothers huddled together in conversation. Stuart thought of the witches at the beginning ofMacbeth. Their offspring walked over settees, pulled books willy-nilly from the shelves and stared at Stuart. The teacher within him started to rise but was immediately squashed by the fear of being accused of interfering, or of something even worse. A small boy decided that a red armchair made a good trampoline. A girl strayed, unnoticed by her mother, towards the adults’ shelves and started moving books from shelf to floor.

Stuart coughed loudly. One of the mums looked from him to the children and back again and frowned. Stuart suddenly got the message: the parents thought he was in charge of story time. He began to panic. The librarian was nowhere in sight.

Breathe, bro.

He had choices. Tell the parents to take charge of their children and risk being bad-mouthed or simply walk away and let the library be destroyed or . . .

Stuart picked up the nearest picture book. There were very few words per page; it wouldn’t take long to read. The noise from the youngsters was growing and other readers were beginning to glare at him as though the growing mayhem was his fault. He couldn’t bear that everything wasn’t as it should be. Stuart liked order and planning. When things weren’t happening as they should, he needed to bring back that order. A handful of toddlers couldn’t be worse than a class of teenagers. Could they?

His hand trembled and tried to focus on the children, not the parents who were eying him critically. “Whoever sits quietly on the floor first for story time will get to choose the second book.”

For a moment there was silence. Children and parents looked at him. Nobody moved. Then a small boy sat down clutching a copy ofThe Very Hungry Caterpillar.

“Who are you?” A girl sat on the lime-green plastic beside him and put her thumb in her mouth.

Stuart looked around for authority or at least a nod of permission. The librarian was deep in conversation at the information desk. This was his decision. It felt like he needed to cough. He swallowed hard. He cleared his throat and swallowed again.

“I am the storyteller. The magic storyteller.” He had their attention. There was sweat under his arms and he had to clear his throat to stop the cough taking over. He made himself believe that he was no longer grey Stuart Borefield and instead he was actually the magic storyteller.

“Once upon a time there was little girl called Red Riding Hood.” He turned the book around so the children on the floor could see the picture of the blonde-haired girl in a red cloak. He made himself read slowly and with emphasis. He tried to put pauses in the right place like the professionals narrating short stories on Radio 4. It felt like the story was taking forever. He glanced to the back of the audience; the expressions on the parents’ faces had softened. There was a satisfying sense of order in the library once more. Then it was the last page. He consciously put the brakes on to avoid dashing pell-mell through the last bit. And then finally, “The End.”

“Now this one!” The small boy pushed the caterpillar book under his nose.

Stuart took some breaths. The magic storyteller had done it once so he could do it again. Grey Stuart Borefield was watching somewhere in the wings, amazed at the ability of his alter ego.

“Let’s begin,” the storyteller began. The children were rapt with attention in a way Stuart’s classes of teenagers never had been. The magic storyteller was generating a kind of respect and even power that Stuart hadn’t felt for a long time. He continued the story of the caterpillar and the multitude of foods he ate.

---