I really love libraries, and our local one is absolutely fine. I often go in and flick through books I would never buy, or read papers I would never read, or write my short stories.
I take a little while to decompress but when I start, I lose myself in the world I’m imagining, and if I look at my watch, I’m stunned that three hours have evaporated.
I was immersed in a new story about a chap who lived in a hedge when an irritating, repetitive sound interrupted my flow. It was coming from a man in his early sixties, typing on a computer close by.
Once I noticed him, my work became impossible. His nose was curled up in fierce concentration and he banged the keyboard slowly with one finger, staring down until the sentence was completed, then gawping up short-sightedly at the screen.
It was up there with noisy eating, false laughing or chainsaw snoring. I put earbuds in to cancel the din but I could still see his angry antics from the periphery of my vision. I gave up.
“Come here a minute. Check this.”
“I don’t work here, sorry,” I said, making my way out.
“Here, just check this.”
I was taken aback but I went over. The gibberish on the screen was incomprehensible.
“I want to make this” – he held up a piece of paper with childish writing and pointed at the screen – “go on to this”.
I looked closer. “What is this?”
“It’s a bill. And I have a slap of them to do.”
I looked again at the writing on the page. It said: “You ____ Owe me ____ For ____ on Date ____ Plus Vat”. Then, at the bottom, was his name and the date.
“So, this is an invoice? You can just use a template and copy it.”
He looked up at me and there was fury in his smile. “I want that” – the hand-written page again – “made into that”. He pointed his fat farmer’s finger aggressively at the screen.
There was something about this man that unnerved me. Not quite check-the-escape-route nervous, but I decided it was best to humour him.
“It’s easy. Just open a Word document and you can lay it out simple enough.”
“You do it.” The fat finger was pointing at me now. “Coz I can’t.”
I sighed, sat down and quickly started. “What is it for?”
“I have a few bad neighbours that are going to have to pay up.”
“Pay up what?” I was lining out the invoice as best I could.
“Pay up for all the work I did for them.”
“Recently?”
A plastic laugh. “Oh no. This goes way back. The first one is for Martin Mulgrew. He owes fifteen pound for me helping unload two hay trailers on the 12th of August.”
“12th of August when?”
“12th of August 1978.”
I saw his eyes look at me and I worried for Martin Mulgrew, whoever he was.
“He thinks he can blather about my land and steal a foot when he’s fencing. That’s plus VAT remember.” The fat finger was pointing again. “And the next one is Martin Mulgrew again. Eight pound for renting my wheelbarrow on 23rd April 1984. Plus VAT.”
I stopped typing and asked him how many invoices he was giving out.
“Well, Mulgrew is getting 35, or 36, I’m not sure. And the others about the same. Plus VAT.”
He told me they all turned on him and were stealing from him and that if they didn’t pay up, he was going to tell the country. That he studied the boundaries and he knew every centimetre and shuck and how much of a fool did they think he was?
And as I sat there typing up name after name after name, with haphazard prices for miniscule favours – plus VAT – I realised that my short story about the chap in the hedge had a new plot line.
There was something about this man that unnerved me. Not quite check-the-escape-route nervous, but I opted to humour him