Progress Comes To Nearby Bay

21

Progress Comes To Nearby Bay

    Sloane looked limply round the so-called branch library at Bonny Bay—Jenny Henderson had insisted on driving her over, possibly to put her fully in the picture, as claimed, but even more possibly just for the sake of doing something different. Dad was right, it was about the size of her miserable flat’s miserable lounge-room. There was no-one in it, and this was not surprising, because, as its noticeboard announced, its opening hours were Tuesday 10 am-1 pm and Friday 1 pm-3 pm, and today was Wednesday. There weren’t many books, either, and the one she picked up didn’t seem to actually belong to the Nearby Bay & District system at all, but Jenny had already explained—no, make that tried to explain, it was all in its own terms, none of them familiar to Sloane—that their library system got books on semi-permanent loan from something with a very odd name. Sloane had asked weakly where it was, and the answer was Adelaide, but this wasn’t that much more enlightening. It was the public library system, Jenny had urged brightly. Well, yes, it was a public— Oh, forget it!

    The effect of the notice, incidentally, was somewhat mitigated by the presence of a much larger and very much older noticeboard announcing the opening hours of the Bonny Bay Institute, but never mind, presumably the locals were used to this peculiarity of their branch library and/or Institute building. This old notice was, of course, a lie. The building was only used for the library. It had several more rooms but these were all locked off. And the reason Sloane had never noticed it before was that it wasn’t on the main street with the shops, but handily placed down a side street with a sort of semi-bend in it that nicely blocked it from the shoppers’ view.

    Busily Jenny removed some extremely out-of-date notices from the pin-board in the library. This and two large posters, one advertising Children’s Book Week of some years back, with a very nice ginger cat on it, and one advertising Gone With The Wind—the movie, not the original book—were all the Bonny Bay branch library sported by way of adornment, but, true, most of the limited wall space was taken up by bookshelves.

    “Why Gone With The Wind?” asked Sloane.

    “Oh—that. It’s a fake,” said Jenny heavily. “Ms Durrant James donated it, she was really wild when she found out it wasn’t a genuine one. They went to some sort of poster and comics fair in Adelaide—they’re not collectors but he’d heard they were a good investment,” she added heavily.

    Cripes. That sort, in Bonny Bay? “Never mind, the library got something out of it.”

    “Yes!” said Jenny with a loud laugh. “A first, from her, I can tell ya!”

    Right, well, never did to judge a book completely by its cover, did it? Jenny was one of those women who looked as if they’d never quite emerged from the Seventies, but in her case it wasn’t the fuzzy, floppy, Indian-print Seventies look: her style was fairly casual, but her over-all look was very neat and tidy: her cotton tunic was one of those ones with a big curlicue down the front in contrasting colours, fastened with a line of little buttons. They could be very splashy and overdone, but Jenny’s tunic was a tan shade and the pattern was quite a delicate lacy one, in brown, black and white. Both it and the plain dark brown cotton skirt that came to about four centimetres above her ankles were very well pressed. And her light brown hair, which was straight, was very neat indeed, in a chin-length bob. The jewellery was kind of Seventies, yes, but again not overdone: thin silver bangles, and several rings, not those huge messy-looking ones that screamed “tourist junk” but rather nice, especially the turquoise in a plain silver surround. The whole look, in fact, said “nice library lady, any age from thirty to forty-five.” Actually, she’d only be in her early thirties, so it was a bit sad, wasn’t it?

    Sloane smiled at the grinning Jenny, who couldn’t be quite the nice library lady that she’d assumed, after all, and said: “So what’s she like, this Ms Durrant James?”

    Jenny shuddered. “Well, I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but she’s a total pain. They’re using the old vicarage here as a weekender, but they’re planning to retire here, and everyone that’s met her’s praying it won’t happen! She pokes her nose into everything—would you believe, she came into the library workroom and told Marion she should be using some English system for her cataloguing? Heck, everyone knows English cataloguing’s been the worst in the world since Thatcherism!”

    Well, not everyone, but Sloane could well believe it.

    “Then she wanted to see our periodicals list. Well, in a small country town, what did she expect?”

    Sloane didn’t have to guess what she’d expected, because Jenny immediately told her. The English House & Garden, Country Life, that was English, too, The New Statesman, and some architectural magazine that she’d never heard of, because he was an architect!

    “Mr Durrant James? I see.”

    Jenny’s eyes shone. “No! Mr James!” she hissed with terrific meaning.

    Their eyes met. Immediately they both collapsed in helpless giggles.

    After this it seemed perfectly natural to go back to the main drag and buy ice creams, and sit on the beach with them. It was a glorious day, with a wonderful view of the Spencer Gulf, but the tourist season wasn’t yet under way, and the beach was almost deserted.

    Over the ice creams Jenny imparted her thoughts on an improved loans system for the joint libraries, but ended with a laugh: “They’re volunteers at Bonny Bay, they’d never handle it! Well, Marion and me pop over regularly, and they’ve usually managed to mess up the card system, as it is! Besides, the Council’d never wear networking the branch.”

    “I see. What do you do if someone from Bonny Bay wants to borrow a book through the interlibrary loans system, Jenny?” asked Sloane curiously. Jenny and Marion, who was officially the cataloguer but seemed to act more or less as the deputy librarian—she was certainly the only other qualified person—had already said quite a bit about interlibrary loans.

    Jenny made a face. “Don’t! Ms Durrant James has had a go at us over that, as well! And considering she’s only here in the holidays—! But according to her she’s a ratepayer.”

    “You mean she actually said that?”

    “Yeah,” she agreed drily. “The thing is, we only do interlibrary loans from Nearby Bay, the volunteers here simply can’t handle it. The borrowers can do it by phone, if they know what they want, they only have to give us their name and the number on their library card.”

    “That seems fair,” said Sloane weakly.

    “Yes, well, for Heaven’s sake! She really did her nut, but we do it over the phone all the time! I mean, we get books for several of the outlying farms—there’s one woman who’s very interested in the history of fashion, so we got a list of titles for her and she’s been reading her way through them. And Mr Wainwright from Muwullupirri has been reading Zola, he got interested in Dickens and they’ve got a whole set out there, you see, and he said wasn’t there anything similar, and of course there isn’t, really, but Marion and me thought Zola would be the closest. He really loves them!” she beamed.

    “Old Mr Wainwright?” said Sloane dazedly. She’d never seen him reading anything more demanding than a South Australian farmers’ paper.

    Jenny went very pink. “No, um, young Mr Wainwright!” she gasped.

    What with the revelation that Cal Wainwright read French literature, or any literature, and the realisation that there was actually one person in the whole district who called him Mr Wainwright instead of Cal, not to say the introduction of his name at all, when she’d blithely assumed that she’d be quite safe, it couldn’t possibly crop up in connection with the Nearby Bay library—

    Finally Sloane just said limply: “Zola?”

    Jenny was still very flushed but she nodded brightly. “Mm! Marion and me are both very keen on him! Well, I had to do some at uni and I must say they were quite hard going—well, my French wasn’t very good, at that stage. And they were the really classic ones, of course: Germinal and L’assommoir. Only then Marion said some of the lighter ones were really good: great fun, you know! So I went back to him. We both absolutely love Au bonheur des dames, it’s the one about the development of the big department stores in Paris, like the Bon Marché and Galeries Lafayette! Have you ever tried him?” she added somewhat belatedly.

    “No,” said Sloane baldly.

    “You ought to! He gives you a wonderful picture of the real life of Paris in the 19th century, with the shops and the markets and the working people. And then of course, Germinal, that’s wonderful, once you get into it. It’s the one about the mine: and honestly, you just feel you’re there! In the dark and the dirt, way underground, hacking out the coal by hand... Well, I can’t describe it,” she said with a smile, “but I was so glad I’d gone back to it! And Marion was right, the more you read, the more your French improves!”

    Sloane took a deep breath. “Are you telling me Cal Wainwright’s reading French?”

    “No!” she said quickly, pinker than ever. “No, we found some translations for him. Well, Marion reckons a translation’s never as good as the original, and she’s right, of course, but these ones are good, they manage to give you the flavour of the original.”

    Well, bully for them! Sloane had had enough. She got up. “I see. Shall we go back? I’d like to check out your computer, if Marion’s off it.”

    Jenny scrambled up. “Um, yes, sorry! She thought, if she downloaded as much as possible, then when you’ve got our database up she’ll be all ready to import the records.”

    Sort of—yeah. “Mm. Well, I asked the suppliers about the program that converts those catalogue records”—they were in a weirdo format she’d never heard of, but the librarians both seemed to know what it was all about—“and they reckon she’ll have to set it once the database is on your computer.”

    “Yes, she’s on top of that, she’s been working out how to map the records.”

    Yeah, well, maybe. But Sloane had already told Bill Hardacre’s Total Database Solutions people there was no way she was having a bar of that, it was all in library jargon, kind of weirdo codes or something, and they’d agreed that that side of it was completely up to the individual library. So be it. Sloane headed back to the car, looking grim.

    “She’s bawling,” Sloane reported grimly to Dick, three days later. Her part of the operation had gone really smoothly: she’d loaded the software and the database files, and done the basic training session. Well, several sessions, actually: Dick had pointed out that it’d all be new to them, they didn’t want overkill. So together they’d worked out a variation of Gail’s training program, breaking it up into basic searching, then the input features, both Marion and Jenny wanting that, though officially it would be Marion who’d be doing it, and then a slightly more advanced session that taught them a bit about the database structure and managing their catalogue—backing it up and so forth. They had been very interested in the fact that you could add a field at any time, and design new screens, too, and had wanted a lot more on the design functions, so Sloane had shown them the screen designs that had come with the catalogue, and these were, thank goodness, sufficiently baffling to shut them up. They had both then decided firmly that they’d read the manual. It was a good two centimetres thick and, though Dick was quite right in saying it wasn’t bad, pretty hard going. Oh, well, good luck to them. And they’d have the time for it in Nearby Bay, wouldn’t they?

    They had input several trial records manually and the process had gone swimmingly. Only then Marion had embarked on the other program, the one that converted her blimming catalogue records that she’d got from the huge Australian national database. –Sloane, incidentally, had had to load the program for her, the woman had lost her nerve. Well, no doubt she could read French literature in the original, and no doubt, as Jenny claimed, she was very good at her job, but temperamentally she was a complete hen. One of those fluffy-haired women, y’know? The sort that made a speciality of fluffing around and getting themselves into hopeless messes that other people had to get them out of. A rôle which, it was now glaringly clear to Sloane, was normally Jenny’s at the Nearby Bay library.

    “Thought you said she was sensible?” returned Dick.

    “Not Jenny, Dad! You’re not listening! Marion Shawcross! The cataloguer!”

    “Oh, right. –Your brief includes sorting out bawling staff, does it?” he asked drily.

    “No, but considering Jenny’s been feeding and housing me—”

    “Yeah, all right. Go on.”

    It was, of course, the other program, the one the moo had claimed to be on top of. On top of sight unseen—right. She reckoned she understood the booklet.—Dick winced.—And Sloane had checked with the suppliers and there was a patch—Dick brightened—and she’d loaded it, and as far as she could see the program was working—

    “I’ll take a look at it, love.”

    “Um, as far as I can see it’s not the actual program, it’s her ruddy mapping—that’s what they call it. She rung up the National Library in Canberra and they reckon she’s got it right, only she’s got these other records that she reckons are the same, only it won’t do them.”

    “Uh-huh. And did the National Library actually give ’er some records to try?”

    “Yes. She said they were nothing like their actual stock, only they converted okay.”

    “And she loaded them into the catalogue, did she?”

    “Yes; that side of it’s fine, that’s the database software itself, not the other program.”

    “Right, goddit. I’ll come over.”—Dick was at the beach house.—“See you round lunchtime, okay? And look, don’t let her touch the ruddy program again!”

    Given that the woman, in floods of tears, was of this minute in the tiny Nearby Bay Library staffroom being patted on the back and given cups of tea by Jenny herself, a middle-aged Mrs Linda Goodman, who was a volunteer shelver, a Carol Schwenk, aged possibly as much as eighteen, who was a junior, a middle-aged Mrs Juliette Ullathorpe, who was a very part-time processor and book-mender, and a middle-aged Mrs Andrea Hagenbeck, who was a borrower, Sloane didn’t think she’d want to touch the program again today, but she agreed mildly: “No, I won’t. Thanks, Dad.”

    “No worries!” replied Dick with horrible eagerness, hanging up.

    Sloane hung up the library’s receiver and made a face at Jenny Henderson’s hutch of an office. “All right, he’s coming, I’ve done my dash. And if he can’t sort it out I’ll dump it back on the ruddy suppliers, it was them that sold them the flaming thing!”

    The Nearby Bay Library, which was quite a new building, had a really odd layout: well, it felt odd to her, but who knew? Maybe it was standard for the newer sort of small public library. The librarian’s tiny office and the larger workroom where Marion and the “processor” woman both worked were behind what they called “the desk,” the long counter where they issued books and answered enquiries—mostly, certainly the ones Sloane had overheard, as to where the toilets were or did they have a new National Geographic in today, or could they possibly keep an eye on little Diana/James while they went to the supermarket/hairdresser? The staffroom, however, was down the back next to the toilets and adjoining the area that they called the children’s library—not a separate building or even a room, just an area.

    She was just about to step out from behind the “desk” and head for the back regions when a startled voice said: “Sloane?” And the customer’s figure outlined against the big glass doors in the bright morning sun came closer, revealing itself as flaming Cal Wainwright.

    “It is you,” he said, staring.

    “Hullo, Cal,” replied Sloane grimly. “Looking for a French book, are you?”

    “Uh—yeah, as a matter of fact,” he croaked. “What are you doing here?”

    “Database support and training,” said Sloane flatly.

    Then there was dead silence.

    Finally Cal swallowed and croaked: “Um, they rung up and said the book had come. Um, it’ll be under the desk, there.”

    Sloane found she was looking for it, drat him! There was certainly a book with a giant red paper band round its middle and a giant piece of orange cardboard sticking out of it under here, so she hauled it out. The piece of cardboard said, in crooked black Texta, “INTERLIBRARY LOAN.”

    “That’ll be it. See, that’s their piece of cardboard,” said Cal.

    “Yeah, either it or a fashion book for some lady they get them for. The Ladies’ Paradise,” she read drily.

    “Give it here.” He grabbed it before she could stop him. “Yeah,” he said, reading the back of the book jacket: “‘recounts the rise of the modern department store in late nineteenth-century Paris. The store is a symbol of capitalism, of the modern city, and of the bourgeois family: it is emblematic of changes in consumer culture and the changes in sexual attitudes and class relations taking place at the end of the century.’ That’s the one I’m up to. They found a review of it, they reckon this is a good translation.”

    Oh, really? Fascinating. “I can’t let you have it,” she said grimly. “Give it back, I’m not authorised to let you.”

    “You only have to tell them I’ve got i—”

    “No! Gave it back, Cal!”

    Shrugging, he handed it back. “This isn’t the Big Smoke, ya know,” he drawled. “The whole system isn’t gonna break down if you give me a book they know’s for me.”

    “In the first place, I don’t know it is for you: it could well be for that lady that’s interested in the history of fashion—”

    “Sloane, it’s one of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart novels!” he said with a weak laugh. “It is for me!”

    “And in the second place,” replied Sloane, ignoring this entirely, “I’m not gonna be responsible for upsetting their system, Outer Woop-Woop or not!” Unfortunately the counter was only open at one end, near where he was standing: she came round it and stepped past him, determinedly not looking at him, and headed for the staffroom.

    Cal looked after her gloomily. He’d buggered that one up, all right.

    Maddeningly, the minute she said that Cal Wainwright was out there wanting this book, they all brightened terrifically and offered to go out and help him! Yes, the borrower as well, wouldja believe? Even ruddy Marion: in fact she stopped blowing her nose, sat up straight and squawked: “Ooh, yes! He’s up to Au bonheur des dames, isn’t he? I wonder how he’ll like it? It’s more of a woman’s book, really—though of course, you have to remember a man wrote it!”

    Then they all dashed out. Sloane looked grimly at the abandoned mugs on the stained second-hand coffee table. Ten to one they’d used up all the hot water in the jug.

    They had. Grimly she refilled it and plugged it in again. Nothing on God’s earth was gonna get her out there again until Cal Wainwright had gone: she didn’t care if the flaming computer exploded!

    Dick had spent several hours with his head in the library’s new computer, checking out Marion’s program. Jenny Henderson had gone off to person the counter but the rest of the library staff were in attendance upon His Majesty, either slavishly bringing him cups of tea and plates of biscuits or just slavishly watching as screens full of gobbledegook unrolled themselves. Mrs Andrea Hagenbeck, who had apparently known him since their mutual cradles, had, believe it or not, actually gone out and fetched him some lunch when it became apparent, round about two o’clock, that he wasn’t going to take a break. At this point Sloane, grinding her teeth, had given up entirely, gone out to the library and offered to bring poor Jenny some lunch. Not asking why she didn’t control her staff better, because it was glaringly obvious that that would have taken a tank with its guns firing. It was now gone three, and Mrs Hagenbeck had reluctantly dragged herself away, admitting that she had to pick up her grandson from school, his mother was down in Adelaide this week for an old schoolfriend’s wedding. Dick had rung the Sydney suppliers and spoken at length to the boss in person: Bill Hardacre, the guy that Gail reckoned always blinded you with geek speak. Entirely on his wavelength—yeah. He was now on the blower to the National Library in Canberra...

    Sloane went out again, only just managing not to slam the door of Jenny’s office behind her. Jenny was superintending an elderly man who was taking a book out. Large-print.

    “Jack Higgins,” she said with a sigh as he tottered out with it.

    “Is he? I don’t think I know any Higginses locally,” replied Sloane nicely.

    The librarian swallowed. “Um, no, the author’s name is Jack Higgins. That’s Mr Pencarrow. He only borrows Jack Higginses and Wilbur Smiths. He’s read it before, but you can’t tell them.”

    “I see.”

    “How’s your father getting on?” she asked cautiously.

    Sloane took a deep breath. “Don’t ask me. He’s talking to the National Library, now. That is in Canberra, isn’t it? I’m afraid your phone bill’s gonna be astronomical, Jenny.”

    “Well, there is a free-call line,” she admitted.

    “Just as well! But he talked to the suppliers in Sydney for ages, I’m afraid.”

    “Never mind, the council can wear it, for once,” said the Nearby Bay and District librarian grimly. “So is it a problem with the files, then?”

    “As far as I can make out, yes,” said Sloane with a sigh, “but don’t take my word for it.”

    “I thought it was,” said Jenny mildly. “Given that she managed to convert those test files from the National Library okay.”

    “Mm.” Sloane had a very strong feeling that if Jenny had been in charge of this conversion crap, not bloody Marion, the whole problem would have been resolved long since.

    Jenny looked round the now completely deserted library. “Look, would you mind awfully staying behind the desk for a bit? I’ve simply got to get some work done: the paperwork’s piling up, and I haven’t done last month’s statistics, yet.”

    Judging by the amount of custom she’d seen, any statistics wouldn’t take long. But Sloane agreed amiably: “No problem.” And Jenny grabbed the pile of manila folders she’d earlier rescued from her office and went gratefully off to the peace and quiet of the staffroom with them.

    That left Sloane and the empty spaces of the Nearby Bay Library. She leaned on the counter and let her mind go perfectly blank...

    “Hullo, Sloane!” said a surprised soprano voice. “What on earth are you doing here?”

    Sloane came to with a jump. “Hi, Charlene,” she said weakly to Charlene Blakely. “I’m doing a bit of database support and training for Jenny. How are you?”

    Charlene was good, and after the report on the doings and health of the Blakelys and Muhlhausers (Charlene’s side), Charlene, looking wistfully at the completely empty children’s area, wondered wistfully if they were doing Children’s Corner this arvo?

    “Um, I don’t think so. Most of them are in the office: there’s a problem with their computer and Dad’s sorting it out; I could ask—“

    “Ooh, is your dad here?” she beamed. “Say hullo for me, won’t you? Yeah—no, it's Marilyn, you see.”

    Sloane smiled at the plump, solemn-looking little brown-haired, brown-eyed girl clutching the improbably blonde Charlene’s hand. “Hullo, Marilyn.”

    Marilyn smiled timidly but didn’t speak.

    “She’s shy,” said her mother heavily. “I was hoping they’d be having Children’s Corner, I’ve got a hair appointment, you see.”

    “I could keep an eye on her, if you like.”

    “Would you? Thanks, Sloane!” she beamed fervently. “I’ll only be an hour, it’s just a shampoo and set—well, I might get them to trim it a bit—but it won’t take long! –You be good, lovey, and do what Sloane says, okay? –She won’t be a bother! See ya!” And with that she was gone.

    Sloane looked limply at Marilyn, aged about six. Marilyn looked back timidly.

    “Um, well, what do they usually do for Children’s Corner, Marilyn?” she ventured.

    Marilyn stood on one leg.

    “Play games, maybe?” she ventured.

    Marilyn shook her head hard.

    Just as well, on second thoughts. What the Hell was Children’s Corner, when it was at home? “Well, um, they have it over there, do they?” said Sloane feebly.

    Marilyn nodded her head.

    Could the kid talk? Knowing Charlene, she probably wouldn’t even have noticed if she couldn’t! Well, slight exaggeration, but she always had been one of those girls who talked a blue streak and didn’t let anyone else get a word in edgeways. Resignedly Sloane came out from behind the counter and, since Marilyn was just standing there meekly, took her hot little hand and led her over to the children’s area. It contained a large, very low table, some miniature chairs, several cushions and a couple of beanbags. The table held some plastic blocks, not Lego, real blocks, in fact actual alphabet blocks, stacked neatly in a plastic container, a battered but nevertheless not old-looking panda sporting a spanking new tartan ribbon, a very tired plastic tip-up truck somewhat less than twenty centimetres long, and a pile of books. All different sizes, though all thin. Judging by the one on top they were all picture books. James and the Giant Peach.

    “Um, shall we read a book?” suggested Sloane feebly.

    Marilyn nodded her head.

    She picked up the top one. “Well, uh, this one?”

    Marilyn shook her head.

    Yo, boy. “Well, you choose, Marilyn,” said Sloane desperately.

    Solemnly Marilyn sorted through the pile. She held out The Patchwork Cat.

    Sloane took the little volume and looked at it limply. It had a lovely picture on its cover, but the cat was only a tabby, what was patchwork about that? Marilyn had now sat down on a cushion, looking expectant. Weakly Sloane sat down on a beanbag and began to read. Gee, this was absolute crap! The words were very simple and the style was completely... well, flat, really. Um, well, “She says good morning and good yawning to the people who live in her house” was possibly mildly... amusing, would be too strong. Resignedly she read on: “‘They are a mother and a father and two children. They all watch for the milkman. Tabby’s tail begins to twitch. They hear his float,’”—huh?—“‘they hear him—’”

    “Nah!” gasped Marilyn, pulling herself and her cushion closer. “Show me!”

    But could she read? Limply Sloane let her look at the page. Under the unlikely line “They hear his float, they hear him sing” appeared a black and white drawing, very nice, the back view of the tabby cat. On the opposite page was a large, detailed colour picture of a narrow two-storeyed brick house with in front of it a small van, a bit like an old Vee-Dub van, with a man in blue overalls unloading cartons of milk from it. Presumably his so-called float? Was it a misprint?

    Breathing stertorously, Marilyn turned back to the first page of the story. She pointed a small, fat finger at what Sloane had to admit was an excellent colour picture of the cat’s head, yawning. Excellent but rather scary, actually: all those very sharp teeth!

    “Tabby. She’s yawning,” the little girl stated with satisfaction.

    “Um, yes,” Sloane agreed weakly.

    Marilyn pointed at the small oval thingo—vignette, maybe?—on the opposite page with the dedication under it. “Froggie.”

    Uh—Sloane peered. She’d thought it was a rat, actually, it had long grey ears with reddish-pink insides. Oops, no, silly her, it was a frog in a jester’s cap.

    “Fo-or—” prompted Marilyn.

    Good grief, surely the librarians didn’t read out— Limply Sloane read out the dedication. No, two. What the Hell? She turned back to the title page. The thing was by Nicola Bayley and William Mayne and inside the front cover the bit she’d ignored informed her that it was Nicola Bayley’s “elegant illustrations” and William Mayne’s “gently humorous story.” Presumably those who wrote the blurbs for such books and children of six thought it was gently humorous, then, not flat and humdrum.

    “Mm? Yes, that’s her, Tabby,” she said feebly as Marilyn pointed to the picture of the cat curled up asleep.

    “Patchwork cat,” said Marilyn with satisfaction.

    Suddenly the memory of those far-off days baby-sitting little Damian West came back to Sloane: he’d had this blimming book about trucks, and he didn’t just let you read the words, he had to sit very close and you both had to examine every blessed detail of the pictures. A very peculiar, sentimental feeling came over her as she looked at plump, earnest little Marilyn, with her neatly bobbed, straight brown hair, looking gravely at the picture of the curled-up sleeping tabby.

    “Have you got a cat, Marilyn?” she asked kindly.

    “No. Mum doesn’t like them. Nanna’s got a cat, his name’s Nicky!” she suddenly revealed.

    “That’s a nice name. And what colour is he? Is he a tabby, like this one?”

    “No, he’s black and he’s got a white waistcoat and white paws!”

    “That sounds lovely.”

    “Yes,” said Marilyn with satisfaction. She turned back to the picture of the milkman’s van. “Milkman,” she said, pointing.

    “Mm.” Various other items were discovered in the picture, such as mother, pigeons, dog—Not the milkman’s, Sloane, milkmans don’t have dogs!—and empty bottles, before she was satisfied and Sloane could turn over. Yikes, on the next page the ruddy cat’s patchwork quilt was revealed as gone missing! Sloane looked in horror at Marilyn.

    “Um, what, Marilyn?” she croaked. “Yes, that’s Tabby loving the milkman. That’s how cats love you, isn’t it? They rub round your legs.” It was a really good picture, the cat was sort of smooching, it had a smoochy look on its face!

    Unfortunately opposite, under the dread line “But she cannot find the patchwork quilt, her matching, patchwork quilt” there was a sketch of the cat hunting under the bed for the flaming thing!

    “Lost,” said Marilyn on a firm note.

    Sloane had an impulse to shut her eyes. “Mm.”

    Marilyn turned over. “Go on!”

    Sloane began limply to read: “‘Ah, said the mother, we have done some snatchwork on your patchwork.’” –Oh, right, he was deliberately playing with words, that stuff before had been on purpose, after all!

    “Go on!”

    Oh, God. “‘We have thrown it out...’” Numbly she read on. Marilyn didn’t seem at all disturbed, thank goodness: she examined the accompanying picture intently—nothing to do with the text, Tabby having a nice wash: yes, furry tummy...

    Couldn’t they stop now? Before it got worse? Was the cat gonna go off into the wild blue yonder as planned?

    No, they couldn’t, and yes, it was. Oh, Jesus, the blimming quilt was in the rubbish bin and the cat got shut in! This writer was a cretin, what kid wanted to imagine a dear little cat being shut in, in the dark, so stated, in a horrible garbage bin? –Marilyn Blakely, apparently.

    It got worse. Tabby got carted off to the tip by the garbos. Bangings, crashings, and all. When she got to the bit “It tips out Tabby and her patchwork quilt” Marilyn corrected her: “It tips!”

    “‘It tips out Tabby and her patchwork quilt,’ yes,” repeated Sloane numbly.

    “It tips out Tabby an’ her patchwork quil’!” she corrected.

    “Uh—oh! Is that how they read—is it Jenny who usually reads it?”—Marilyn nodded hard.—“‘It tips out Tabby and her patchwork quilt!’” read Sloane.

    “Ye-ah...” she breathed. Satisfaction mixed with awe?

    The cat and the patchwork quilt did eventually get back home, and the mother gave the quilt a lovely wash and mended it—she was a cat mind-reader, presumably, pity she hadn’t read it a bit earlier—and Tabby was able to go to sleep and wake up again on it. Phew! Sloane just sagged, utterly worn out, while Marilyn happily examined the finer points of the cover illustration: paws, patchwork quilt, stripes, green eyes—were they? Well, cat green, yes. Yellow-green. Then she had to have another look at the picture of the milkman, having found Tabby and the quilt, holding her tucked up in his arm. It was mostly cat, you couldn’t see much of him.

    “Shut her eyes,” she reported.

    “Mm? Mm, she does look sleepy,” Sloane agreed.

    “Yeah.”

    “She seen rats!” Marilyn then reported.

    Oh, Jesus, was the kid gonna have nightmares, tonight? “Yes, but it was all right, wasn’t it? Because she growled at them and—and then she saved her quilt and found the milkman and he brought her home,” she faltered.

    “Yeah. Big rats.”

    “Yes, but she was all safe at home in the end, Marilyn! Nothing bad happened to her!” said Sloane desperately.

    Suddenly there was a low laugh from behind the nearby bookstack. Cal came round the corner of the stack, grinning. “Don’t let it worry you, Sloane, kids love that sort of thing. They need the horrors along with the reassurance of the happy ending, or so the experts say! –Hullo, Marilyn: have you been reading about Tabby cat?”

    “Yeah, an’ her patchwork quil’,” she replied happily.

    “Yeah, that’s a good one, eh? Jenny often reads that, doesn’t she?”

    “Yeah. You could read The Quan’le Wan’le’s Hat,” she proposed.

    Sloane gulped and clapped a hand to her mouth.

    “It’s all right, I come over about once a month and read to them,” said Cal mildly. “Jenny called for volunteers a bit back but they all fell by the wayside. That or disapproved of the books she chose.”

    “I’m not surprised! That thing’s really—” She broke off. “Um, T,E,R,R,I,F—”

    “S,C,A,R,Y, yep,” he agreed. “I said: they need it. This one’s merely funny, though.” He pulled up a beanbag and sat down on it, as he did so removing his expensive new-looking Akubra and laying it on the table. It looked bloody silly sitting next to that grubby panda.

    “Here we go! No, hang on: here’s some more,” he said as three little boys came in, pushing and shoving each other, and looking eager, but hesitating as they caught sight of Sloane. “Come on, boys, siddown, we’re gonna have The Quangle Wangle’s Hat.”

    The three boys, two Aboriginal and one red-headed Caucasian, sat down but still eyed Sloane warily. “Is she a library lady?” ventured the little red-headed boy.

    “Nah, does she look like a library lady in that suit?” replied Cal with a laugh in his voice. “She’s a computer lady. –Dunno how you ever got down onto that beanbag in that skirt,” he added calmly.

    As a matter of fact she had hitched it up inelegantly, since there’d only been her and Marilyn here, and she’d been wondering for the last several minutes how the Hell she was gonna get up again in front of him, the blighter! Sloane gave him an evil look.

    Smiling a little, Cal picked up the book.

    There was no sign of any other customers, so at least she wouldn’t have to scramble up in front of him to attend to them. It was a very thin little book, so presumably the agony wouldn’t last long.

    —Not. The kids had to look at every detail of the pictures, which were just about as weird as the words, and then look at them again when he’d finished, and then he had to read it again!

    By this time Jenny had come out to the desk again, looked over at them with a smile, and after audibly directing an elderly man to the toilets, and explaining clearly to two other elderly men that they didn’t have a new National Geographic in today—separately, not together—and helping one elderly (and very deaf) lady to find a large-print romance that she hadn’t already read, was now issuing another elderly lady with a book that her husband would like, repeating loudly—this one must be deaf, too!—“He does like Jack Higgins, Mrs Simpson, but he hasn’t read this one!”

    Marilyn began playing with the plastic blocks and the three little boys took the little plastic truck off to a corner where they began to construct a race track with some of the library’s books. Jenny must be able to see them but she wasn’t doing anything to stop them.

    Cal unfolded his long legs and got up easily from his beanbag. “Here,” he said, holding out a hand.

    What was the alternative? To try and get up in this dratted skirt without hauling it up practically to her waist? Grimly Sloane allowed Cal Wainwright to pull her to her feet. She probably ought to say how good he was with the kids, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead she went over the counter and said to Jenny: “I’ll just see if Dad’s finished, yet.”

    “Hey, is Dick here, too?” asked Cal.

    “Yes, he insisted in muscling in on my job. Just as well, as it turned out, because they can’t figure out this other program they bought.”

    “Clear as mud!” he replied, grinning.

    Ignoring this, Sloane went round the end of the counter. Behind her she could hear Jenny saying: “Thanks so much for reading to the kids, Cal,” and him replying, predictably: “No worries.” So she did call him Cal to his face! Scowling, she went into the office.

    Gee, they were all still clustered round him, fancy that.

    “Have you solved the problem, yet?” she asked grimly.

    “Huh?” replied Dick, “Aw—yeah. It wasn’t the program at all, or her mapping, she’s set it right, all right. Nah, these other files aren’t in the same format: see, this other database she got them off, it does run the same format, only she was just saving the screen format: the program can’t read it. So I’ve written her a little program that’ll put them into her catalogue format.”

    “Yes, it’s really great, Sloane!” beamed the very flushed Marion. “See, I could’ve copied them manually: you know, just a cut and paste job, but it would’ve taken ages!”

    Ages as in more than a whole afternoon? A whole afternoon of, please note, three assistants’ time. One and a half working days, in fact.

    “Good on ya, Dad,” she managed.

    “No worries. –Now, I’ll just put a shortcut here for ya, Marion.” He did so, and demonstrated several times how this would get her to her program and what she had to do to start it and how she could get back to...

    Sloane went out again: she couldn’t stand it. “Does ‘shell to DOS’ mean anything to you?” she said grimly to Jenny, who was now sorting out issue cards and filing them in their box.

    “Um—yes!” she said with a startled laugh. “Help, your dad isn’t expecting us to do that, is he?”

    “I think so, but don’t worry, he’s told Marion how to get out of it, whatever it is.”

    “I think I’d just better go and see—”

    “Yes, you go, Jenny: I can tell them there’s no National Geographic today or point to the loos.”

    Smiling weakly, the more so as Cal was still there, leaning on the counter, grinning at them, Jenny disappeared.

    “But can ya recommend Jack Higgins?” asked Cal immediately.

    Sloane bit her lip. “Shut up.”

    “All the old jokers like him. Most of the old ladies have wider tastes, though. Anything with a blue and white cover.”

    The library had a large basket which stood behind the counter, under the slot for returned books, and Sloane could see that most of the books in it had blue and white covers. She swallowed.

    “What is this database support and training stuff you’ve been doing?”

    She sighed. “It’s a temp job, Gail found it for me. They’ve bought the same software as she got for RightSmart. It’s database-building software, but they bought a ready-made catalogue structure from the suppliers as well. I’ve installed it all for them—it was easy, they’ve just got a stand-alone computer—and given them some training.”

    “Right,” he said, rubbing his chin. “So the council come good, eh? Bob Keating was saying they were trying to force it past flaming Clem Watkins, last thing I heard. You’d think the dough came out of his own pocket, the ole skinflint.”

    “Well, they’ve apparently paid for the lot. But they won’t let them network it on their system. –Just as well, I haven’t got the expertise to load it to a network.”

    “I see. Did you say it was a temp job?”

    “What? Yes.”

    “Thought you were one of the partners, though?”

    Sloane took a deep breath. “Not any more.”

    “Why not?”

    “I just got fed up, if it’s any of your business!”

    “So are ya doing a lot of this database stuff, then?”

    “No! I said, it’s a temp job!”

    “She got used to using it at RightSmart,” said her father’s voice helpfully from behind her, “and then Gail found her a temp job using it for some ning-nongs that imagine their boys are actually gonna look up these tech manuals they wanted indexed and digitised, and then ’Er Majesty decreed that since this job came up, Sloane was It, geddit?”

    “I get the moo’s been pushing her around, yeah,” Cal conceded.

    “Too right,” Dick agreed.

    “She hasn’t!” said Sloane crossly. “I wanted to do it: it’s a new skill!”

    “There’s no future in it,” Dick explained kindly. “See, this was a one-off: the Sydney suppliers, they got the NSW and Queensland scene sewn up, and the Vic suppliers, they do their own mob. The Sydney bloke woulda sent his own trainer over, but she’s on maternity leave.”

    “Right.”

    “Mind you, it’s quite a nice little program; limited because it doesn’t use SQL, but it does a real nice job within its own parameters. Boolean searching, too.”

    “Ya lost me at ‘program’, Dick!” returned Cal cheerfully.

    “No, well, it’s user-friendly, ya see. And it’s flexible—run almost any sort of database. Built-in calculation functions. You could run the station accounts on it, easy.”

    “What are you, a blimmin’ salesman?” gasped Sloane.

    “And your breeding records, if you’re getting into that more, these days,” continued Dick, ignoring her.

    “Uh—the Department of Ag jokers reckon they got a program for that,” said Cal uneasily.

    “Right; it’ll be a turnkey system: totally incompatible with anything else ya care to name. No, see, if ya go with this instead, it’ll let you link your breeding records to your accounts, and you can track your suppliers and link to them, too!”

    Cal scratched his jaw dubiously. “Uh—we don’t have that many suppliers, Dick.”

    “One for the farm supplies, and the Nearby Bay supermarkets. That makes three,” noted Sloane coldly.

    “Two, Mum’s taken a scunner to the Coles,” returned Cal, poker-face.

    Sloane gave her father an evil look. “I rest my case.”

    “Tell ya what, Cal, I’ve put a copy on my laptop—“

    “What?” gasped Sloane.

    “Thought I better, in case I needed to do a bit of tweaking, rather than practise on theirs,” he said airily. “There’s a sample orders database ya might like to look at, it’ll give you a bit of an idea; and then I’ll knock out a trial accounts database for you.”

    “Um, like, you mean it does a list of stuff you’ve ordered?” he groped.

    Dick’s flow was momentarily stemmed. “Uh—no, it’s meant for a firm that’s taking orders to supply stuff. But it’s the same basic idea!”

    “Dad, stop it, you’re getting carried away,” sighed Sloane.

    “Um, well, no harm in looking, I suppose,” said Cal on a weak note, looking at poor old Dick’s fallen face.

    He brightened. “That’s the ticket!” He looked at his watch. “Oh.”

    “Yes, ‘oh’: the library’ll be closing in a minute,” said Sloane heavily.

    “Well, tell ya what— No, hang on: you heading back to Muwullupirri this arvo?” he demanded.

    “I better be, or Mum’ll scrag me, I’ve got a load of groceries in the ute,” Cal admitted.

    “Sitting out there in the sun?” gasped Sloane in horror.

    “They’ll be okay, the cold stuff’s in the eskies. Frozen peas, mainly. They’ll go good with the flaming frozen parsnips—sorry. Forget it.”

    “A bloke can't forgot something like that, Cal!” Dick returned in shaken tones. “Frozen parsnips?”

    “He’s pulling your leg, Dad!” said Sloane crossly.

    Cal made a face. “No, I’m not, unfortunately. She got them off ole Fred Schwenk—that’s his granddaughter, Carol, that’s working here. Well, the old boy’s a great gardener, but don’t ask me why he hadda run mad over flaming parsnips. Then Mum got out her freezing book and did them the same way as ya do carrots.” He shrugged. “Or so the story ran.”

    “Can you roast them, if they’ve been frozen?” asked Dick.

    “Well, yeah, but a bloke can get ruddy sick of roast parsnip! –Aw, hi there, Carol,” he said as the library staff emerged from the office. “Just been telling Dick and Sloane about your granddad’s parsnips.”

    “Ugh!” replied Carol, recoiling.

    “See? None of his family like them, so why did he plant them? –Anyway, Dick, if you and Sloane like to come back to Muwullupirri for tea, I can promise you a decent beef roast with roast potatoes and frozen parsnips. And peas.”

    “Thought your mum and dad were in the new house?”

    “Yeah, but that isn’t stopping her. She’s decided she’s gotta come over and do a decent roast on Friday nights. Well, she did catch me and Pete and Hughie and Kym eating pizza and chips—”

    “No wonder!” said Sloane loudly.

    “Sounds all right,” objected the eighteen-year-old Carol in surprise.

    “Carol, they’re too stodgy,” put in Jenny faintly.

    “Cholesterol, salt and starch,” agreed Sloane flatly.

    “Yeah, that was more or less what Mum said. The chips made it worse, ya see, she might’ve come at the pizza by itself,” admitted Cal wryly. “Anyway, it’s a decent roast every Friday. She lets us get away with cold meat on the Saturday, but then it’s another roast for Sunday lunch.”

    “Cal, doesn’t she realise—well, of course she’s a lady of the old school,” said the fluffy-haired Marion, blushing, “but that is an awful lot of saturated fat.”

   “Tell us about it,” agreed Sloane drily. “Gravy both times, is it?”

    “It’s not a proper roast without gravy, Sloane,” replied Cal, poker-face. “No, well, the hard yacker works it off.”

    “This’ll be until you drop dead of the cholesterol at fifty-two, old mate, like that bloke from Karen’s work. If he hadn’t of already dropped off the twig I’d’ve rung ’is neck for ’im,” said Dick, shaking his head. “Boy, did that let ’er ram it home, or what!”

    “Shit up, Dad. Mum was very upset about it!” said Sloane crossly. “And we don’t want to impose, thanks all the same, Cal.”

    “Yeah, we do: ignore her: talking through that little hole in the back of ’er neck again,” Dick advised cheerily. “Come on, then, before yer frozen peas thaw, eh?”

    And with that, brushing off the fervent thanks of all the library staff and cutting Jenny short in her flow as she began to thank Sloane and Cal for reading to the kiddies, he led them out.

    “Hi, Dick!” gasped Mrs Blakely, rushing up as Dick was unlocking the FWD. “Are they still open?”

    “Gidday, Charlene. That your kiddie, was it? Nah, they closed long since. Popped ’er in that big basket they got under the counter.”

    “Bulldust. Go in, Charlene, they haven’t locked up,” said Cal kindly.

    “Thanks for looking after her, Sloane!” she gasped, rushing in.

    “Did she ask you to?” asked Cal, leaning on the FWD.

    “Of course she did: did you imagine I volunteered for flaming Children’s Corner?”

    “Didn’t know what to think, actually. Thought I was seeing things.”

    “Here, she wasn’t reading to the kids, was she?” asked Dick, his eyes beginning to twinkle.

    “Look, shut up! Little Marion expected me to!” she said crossly.

    “It was a real treat,” Cal explained. “They didn’t notice me come in, ya see. Copped the lot. Pussycats’ furry tummies, and not being afraid of the rats, and it all being all right in the end!”

    “For Pete’s sake!” cried Sloane indignantly. “You sat down and read that flaming Wangly thing yourself!”

    “She’s never heard of Edward Lear,” Cal explained solemnly to Dick.

    “I know. Not entirely her fault, mind: we had a copy of The Owl and the Pussycat when her and Derek were little, but Karen said it was stupid and got rid of it.”

    Cal swallowed. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

    Dick awarded him a kindly pat on the shoulder. “Pretty much the same reason as your dad didn’t stop your mum banishing all them books of your granddad’s to the study or the loft, mate.”

    “That isn’t—” Sloane broke off.

    Dick looked at her scarlet cheeks in surprise. “What?”

    “Nothing,” she said in a strangled voice.

    “All right, nothing. –We’ll follow you, oke?” he said to Cal.

    “Oke,” Cal agreed. He got into the Muwullupirri ute, smiling a bit. He had a fair idea what Sloane had been going to say. So something of what he’d said to her about Dad’s attitude to Mum’s idea of interior décor must have stuck! Well, so much the better! And she hadn’t actually refused to come out for tea, had she? Couldn’t be all bad!

    Uh—would it be better or worse to let Dick talk him into this ruddy database thingo? Blow, couldn’t tell. Well, wait and see.

Next chapter:

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