Andy Hawthorne

The first of a series of Connie Caskett stories. She gets a job at the library…

The bell on the door of the Bethnal Green Public Library didn’t ding. It clunked. A heavy, sad sound, like a dropped brick.

Connie Caskett pushed through it. She was a riot of midnight. Black lipstick like crude oil, eyeliner thick enough to tarmac a driveway. Her t-shirt screamed CATTLE DECAPITATION in a font that looked like a bramble bush having a seizure. The skirt was short; the fishnets had deliberate holes—ventilation; she called it—and the Doc Martens had stomped in many a mosh pit.

She clomped across the parquet floor. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

Old Mrs Stanley looked up from the Returns desk. She adjusted her glasses. Then she adjusted them again, as if the prescription failed her. She looked like she’d just swallowed a lemon whole. Rind and all.

—Can I help you? Mrs Stanley asked. Her voice was thin, like cheap tea.

Connie stopped. She hooked a thumb under the strap of her bag. The bag had a coffin shape.

—Here for the interview, Connie said. —The 2 o’clock. Connie.

Mrs Stanley blinked.

—For the… assistant librarian position?

—That’s the one.

Mrs Stanley looked at the t-shirt. She looked at the boots. She looked at the piercing through Connie’s septum.

—I see, she said.

She didn’t see. She saw a hooligan. She saw a vandal. She saw the end of civilisation as she knew it.

—Please. Sit down, Miss… Caskett.

Connie sat. The chair creaked.

—Right then, Mrs. Stanley said, picking up a piece of paper like it might be contagious. —You have experience with books?

—Loads.

—Reading them? Or just… looking at them?

Connie laughed. It was a surprisingly deep, throaty sound.

—I eat ‘em, love. Not literally. —Though I did chew a corner of The starving Caterpillar when I was two. Irony, innit?

Mrs Stanley’s mouth went tight.

—We are looking for someone who understands the catalogue. —Someone who respects the sanctity of the literary canon. The classics. Austen. Dickens.

—Charles Dickens, Connie nodded. —Old Charlie. Bit of a goth himself, wasn’t he?

Mrs Stanley stiffened.

—I beg your pardon?

—Think about it, Connie said, leaning forward. Her chains rattled. —Bleak House. Spontaneous human combustion? That’s pure metal. Krook going up in flames in his own shop? That’s brutal. And Miss Havisham. Sitting in her wedding dress for decades, letting the cake rot, stopping the clocks. She’s the original goth queen. Put a distortion pedal on her dialogue and you’ve got a doom metal album.

Mrs Stanley opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

—And don’t get me started on the Brontës, Connie went on. She was revving up now. —Wuthering Heights? It’s not a romance, is it? It’s a ghost story about obsession and digging up graves. Heathcliff banging his head against a tree until it bleeds? That’s a mosh pit for one, that is.

Mrs Stanley looked down at her hands. Then she looked at Connie. There was a flicker in the old woman’s eyes. A spark in the dry tinder.

—He does dig up the grave, Mrs. Stanley whispered. —To lie next to her.

—Exactly! Connie slapped the table. 

—It’s morbid. It’s disgusting. It’s beautiful. That’s what literature is, innit? It’s looking at the dark stuff and making it sing. Whether it’s Keats coughing his lungs up or Hardy hanging the kids in Jude the Obscure. It’s all heavy.

Mrs Stanley leaned back. The lemon taste was gone.

—I’ve always found Tess of the d’Urbervilles savage, Mrs Stanley ventured.

—Proper brutal, Connie agreed. —The scene with the baptism? The dying baby? Heartbreaking. That’s the stuff that matters. Not the tea parties. The blood and the mud.

Mrs Stanley smiled. It was a rusty thing, but it worked.

—And classification?

—Dewey can be rigid, Connie said, scratching her nose ring. —But I like the logic. 823.914. I know where things live. I know the hidden secrets.

Mrs Stanley picked up her pen. She looked at the CATTLE DECAPITATION shirt. She looked at the coffin bag.

—Can you reach the top shelf, Connie?

—I’m six foot in these boots, Mrs S. I can reach for the stars on a clear night.

—We start at eight thirty, Mrs Stanley said. —Don’t be late. And Miss Caskett?

—Yeah?

—Maybe leave the coffin bag in the staff room. Might scare the toddlers during story time.

Connie grinned, showing a lot of teeth.

—Deal.