Every Seven Years Read Free

table and I’m
back at the event in the small, packed library.
Why did they even have a podium,
I wonder now. Everyone could see me perfectly
well. In hindsight it feels like a freak
show tent, with me as the freak everyone
wants to peer at. Karen planned it all
around the giving of the book. She must
have known while she watched me speak
about my pathetic career, my reality show
appearances, the failed comedy series. She
must have known when she cornered me
in the chemist’s.
    I look down at the book.
    I’m getting drunk and I try to think of
an alternative explanation: is this a custom?
Do people give people “the last book
they took out of their school library”? No.
    I should have asked: did someone else
suggest this? But I know in my gut that the
answer would be no. No one else suggested
this. Karen Little suggested giving
you this book. No one else would know
which was the last book you took out of
the school library. And why would they?
Why the hell would they? It means nothing
to anyone but Karen and me.
    I open it. Tech solutions hadn’t reached
this little corner of Scotland yet. There
were no chips or automatic reminders
sent by text to the mobiles of borrowers.
They still stamped books out of the library.
The book has never been taken out
since I had it, seven years ago. Of course it
hasn’t. Its been sitting in Karen’s cupboard.
    I start to cry and stroke the torn flyleaf.
I realize that I’m glad my mum was already
dead when Karen gave me this.
    I flick through the book, as if casually,
but I know, even before the pages fall
open, that the handwritten note will still
be there. The pages part like the Red Sea.
A ripped corner of foolscap paper, narrow,
faint lines. Even the small hairs at the
ripped edge are flattened perfectly after
seven years.
    It is facing down, but the ink is showing
through. I pick it up and turn it over.
There in a careful hand to disguise the
writing, it says,
    She got herself raped by
    Paki Harris. That’s why.
    The stock in the school library has always
been old. Most of it was second
hand, given to the school by well-meaning
locals after post mortem clear-outs of
family houses. The history books were
hangovers from the Empire. Books that
referred to “coolies” and other anachronisms.
The Lichtenstein book was bang
up to date by comparison. It was only fifteen
years old and was about a modern
painter. I was thrilled when I stumbled
across it. I didn’t know Lichtenstein’s
work. I was a pretentious teenager. I
imagined myself walking through town
with the book in my hand. I imagined
myself in New York, in London, discussing
Lichtenstein with Londoners. I
didn’t know until I got there that, one way
or another, most Londoners are from
small, hateful islands, too.
    At the bus stop, on the way home from
school, waiting with the book on my knee
so anyone passing could see me reading it. I’d Rather Drown Than Ask Brad For Help .
And then turning the page and finding the
note. My whole life story shifting painfully
to the side. Who I was. What I was. Looking
up. Karen Little standing across the
road, doing her death stare. The greatest
acting lesson I ever had.
    Replace the note in the pages.
    Shut the book.
    Bite your lip.
    Smile past Karen and look for the bus.
I thought I might be sick. I thought I
might cry. I did neither. I sat, apparently
calm, imagined what someone who hadn’t
just been punched in the heart would look
like, and I did that. I looked for the bus.
    I scratched my face.
    I saw a sheep on the sea front and my
eyes followed it calmly for a few minutes.
Karen kept her eyes on me the whole time,
until the bus came and I got on and
smiled at the driver and took my seat.
Maybe she thought I didn’t get the note.
Maybe that’s why she’s giving it to me
again. Karen Little made me an actor anyway.
I have to give her that.
    When I got to the end of our drive I was
struck by terror. Totty might find