Page 7 of Twilight at Croftwood Library
‘Well thanks for holding onto it for me.’
‘No problem. Sure I can’t get you a coffee?’
Lois couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do than stay and have a coffee with him, but she felt thrown and flustered.
‘No, I need to get home, but thanks anyway.’
‘Nice to meet you…’
‘Lois.’
‘Lois. I’m Oliver.’
Her heart was thudding as she crossed the road back to her bike, forcing herself not to look back to see if he was watching her. She tucked her book in the basket, unlocked the bike and didn’t look at the coffee shop again. As soon as she’d left the high street and started on the road back to Worcester, she smiled to herself. It had been a long time since a man had made her feel like that. He was lovely and he’d been reading her book. Maybe working in Croftwood was going to be better than she’d thought.
4
Steph was on the way to her stop at the Red Lion Inn car park on Old Station Road. She passed one of her customers and gave a gentle peep of acknowledgement on the horn. He raised a hand in reply. She could have stopped to give him a lift, but she knew that walking to see her was one of Bill’s rituals. Lots of her customers had them. Her visit was often the highlight of their week or even month and she wasn’t about to ruin that.
Bill didn’t consider himself to be a reader. He’d admitted to Steph that he hadn’t read more than five fiction books in his whole life. But he loved non-fiction and biographies, particularly books about how things worked so she made sure there was something new of that nature on the van every time she called at Old Station Road. She insisted that he was indeed a reader. What you choose to read doesn’t matter, it’s still reading, she told him.
He’d found the mobile library by chance one Thursday. Since his wife had died, he’d taken to walking to the village shop once a week to buy his lottery ticket. That particular Thursday he’d had taken a different route to usual, simply because it was raining. He came across the mobile library parked up at the pub and on a whim, went inside. It became clear quite quickly that this was going to be a brand-new reason for an outing each month.
‘Good morning, Steph,’ Bill called as he climbed the steps into the van.
‘Morning Bill, cup of tea?’ Steph always carried a couple of flasks of hot water, milk and teabags so that she could make her regulars a nice cup of tea. After all, sometimes they braved the most awful weather to visit her so it felt like the least she could do.
‘Lovely, I’m parched. I’ve come the long way round as it’s such beautiful weather.’
‘Got your lottery?’ Steph knew that sometimes she was the only person her customers spoke to on a regular basis, so she made an effort to remember what they told her.
He smiled. ‘Yes, got to be in it to win it, eh?’ he laughed.
‘Well, talking of luck, I managed to get you a copy of that Lady in Waiting book you wanted. It’s like gold dust, Bill. I had to pick it up from Evesham yesterday. They had the only copy not on loan.’
‘I appreciate that Steph, thank you.’ He sat and sipped his tea while Steph chatted about the other people she’d seen that week.
‘Gloria from Beech End borrowed that Hillary Clinton book. You read that a couple of months ago, didn’t you? I didn’t think that’d be her sort of thing.’
‘It’s always tempting to have an insight into other people’s lives, particularly someone as high profile as Mrs Clinton. I expect Gloria was after her take on the incident in the Oval Office,’ he said tactfully.
‘Oh, the Monica Lewinski thing? I bet that’s it. Gloria is such a devout romance reader, I was shocked that she’d chosen something so out of character but that explains it.’
Bill finished his tea and handed Steph his returns then began browsing for another couple of books to see him through the next few weeks.
‘Quiet today, isn’t it?’ he said as he ran his finger along the shelf as he browsed.
Bill was her only regular at this stop and it was a mystery to her. She lived in fear of any of her stops being deemed unnecessary by someone who wouldn’t care that they were removing someone’s lifeline and maybe their only social encounter of the month. There was more to it than books. At least here Bill borrowed enough books on a regular basis for it to look consistent.
‘It’s been quiet everywhere this week. People are probably busy getting ready for Christmas.’
‘Ah yes. That’s probably it.’
Steph wondered what Bill would do at Christmas. She worried about some of her more isolated customers who didn’t live with anyone. Not only the older ones; there was a woman who often came to the Old Hollow stop who wasn’t that much older than Steph. She lived alone and had no family close by, although to be fair she did have a very healthy social life.
Another couple of people turned up while she was there, they’d never been before, and Steph suspected she’d never see them again as neither of them borrowed anything. It was a far cry from some of her other stops, like Hawthorn Lane where her regulars had become friends with each other. She wished that could happen here, for Bill.
He handed Steph his other choice, a biography of the England cricket team.
