The Librarian

The Librarian

I have been going to the local library near the Court House in Omagh, County Tyrone for the last twenty years, since I was a teenager in fact, when it became my retreat from the world. The library is housed now in a modern red brick building but at that time it was in a rather run down Victorian building in the centre of the town. There was a reading corner with a bay window overlooking the busy main street and it provided an oasis of calm where I could read books on anything from the collapse of the Assyrian Empire to the rise of fascism between the wars. On the other hand I could sit looking out the window and daydream while pretending to do research for one of my school projects. Failing that I could sit flicking through back numbers of Paris Match, allegedly to help me with my French homework.

When I first started hanging out there the librarian was a grumpy old man who regarded the library as his personal kingdom and the presence of young people as a threat to civilisation. Louisa took over when he retired and she seems to have the entire card index system downloaded into her brain because any time I ask her a question about a book or an author she has all the relevant information at her finger tips without the need for a single click on her keyboard.

There is nothing prim and proper about Louisa. She is tall and slim with ash blond hair which falls vampishly down over one eye a la Veronica Lake, and half the boys in my class in school were in love with her. She dresses in shades of black and white and grey which far from being nunnish just accentuate her air of quiet under stated elegance. Of her life outside the library I know nothing and in my mind’s eye I can only picture her surrounded by books. Louisa genuinely loves books and always seems to have time to talk and to help you to find the one book that you need at that moment in time. She isn’t one of those librarians who start clucking when you pull books out, in case you upset the careful alignment of the spines and she also seems to have the ability to detect your mood and find the corresponding book.

Louisa knows all the categories of books that have sucked me in over the years. She knows that I am a history buff and that this can cover anything from historical fiction to the fall of the House of Hapsburg in two volumes, with footnotes and family trees. She is one of the few people who know that I have worked my way through all three volumes of the Letters of the Duke de Saint Simon, translated from the French by Lucy Norton. In fact I think it was this particular request that confirmed my status in her eyes as a serious reader. She was a bit surprised a few weeks later when I ordered a copy of the new compilation of the works of Amanda McKittrick Ross. Amanda developed a cult following among academics and writers of the early 1900’s who earnestly debated which of her many books was the worst novel ever written. She penned such immortal phrases as, “Amanda’s eyelashes swept the marble steps as she descended the staircase into the ballroom” and “dead, dead, and never called me, Mother!” At that point my credentials suffered a bit of a setback.

“What is it to be this week? How about The Red Queen? Philippa Gregory has a new book out on the Wars of the Roses. “No thanks I have overdosed on the wars of the roses. I know the seed, breed and generation of every one of the Plantagenets and I can even name every one of the possible culprits involved in the murder of the Princes in The Tower. Also I know more about the family life of Henry V111 than he ever did or I need to know. “

“Ok. Maybe The last Templar by Raymond Khoury? Combines history with all the thrill of a good detective story.” “Fraid not. I have read my way from the fall of Constantinople to the siege of Jerusalem by Saladin and every thread of the destruction of the Knights Templar in France and as for anything involving the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, forget it! There seem to be as many tombs of Jesus, Joseph and Mary scattered across the Middle East and parts of Europe, including Scotland, as there are heads of John the Baptist in various Italian churches and Turkish mosques.“

“How about something from the Fantastical Corner?” “Did you know, Louisa, every antique shop in Ireland seems to have at least one mysterious object that contains either, a clue to a secret society that is planning to take over the world or a mirror that can take you back in time or acts as a portal to a parallel universe. I need to find one. It would make my life so much more interesting. The Treasure Chest antique shop across the street is bound to have at least one! But maybe I’ll hold off on that until I’m really desperate.”

“Scandinavian detectives?” “No thanks. I’d rather shoot myself now. Every single Scandinavian detective I have read seems to be a middle aged alcoholic with a broken marriage and an estranged daughter, whose career is on the skids but who may possibly be redeemed though his commitment to justice for the underdog. I want escapism, not to wallow in the dark underbelly of late twentieth century life.”

“Now you’re just being picky! Alright, how about a happy detective?”

“Is there such an animal? I thought they were as rare as hens’ teeth.”

“You need to meet Donna Leon’s Commisario Brunetti. He lives and works in Venice, loves his wife, has two children whom he adores and an aristocratic mother in law who lives in a palazzo and whom he really likes. And she’s a good writer”

“Done! Sold to the man in the brown hat.”