The Generation Game by Sophie Duffy Page B

honour: Library Monitor. This is somewhat ironic considering my illiterate beginnings but all that hard work in the Bone Yard amongst the tombstones must have finally paid
off and I am at long last reading like a veteran. I have read so many books that I can help the little ones with their book choice and try to steer them away from the B section (Blyton) and towards
such modern books as Stig of the Dump or James and the Giant Peach . For those who haven’t yet mastered the mysteries of reading there is always Dr Seuss further down by the
leaking beanbag.
    I am not left alone in my duties. Miss Parry, who looks like she could have been a Tudor queen in a former life, is the archetypal librarian: she is stern and quiet and knows her books inside
out. She defends the Dewey Decimal system to within an inch of her life and would burn heretics at the stake in the defence and upkeep of the library rules. The library rules – NO TALKING, NO
RUNNING, NO EATING, NO DRINKING – are pinned up in bold print at several prominent points in the small library so there is no excuses for them not to be known off by heart by anyone passing
through (except of course if you can’t read which is where the rules usually fall down).
    ‘Philippa, please can you deal with C section. The infants have been on the rampage again.’
    ‘Yes, Miss Parry,’ I nod like an eager Jack Russell, an image of little savages with woad smeared across their cheeks running bare-chested across the dangerously-polished boards of
the library spurring me on.
    And I have to agree with Miss Parry here. The infants are a disgrace when it comes to filing. Ca’s and Co’s and Ci’s all over the shop (as Wink would say).
    And then I see it. The Penguin History of Canada , a single red maple leaf fluttering on the cover as I flick through this grownup book that has somehow made its way into the school
library. And I feel my legs weaken, all my strength sapping away like tapped Maple syrup.
    ‘Philippa, are you all right?’ Miss Parry rushes over to me in an unprecedented fashion and touches the back of her cool hand against my forehead. ‘Low blood sugar,’ she
diagnoses with confidence. ‘Deep breaths, Philippa,’ she urges, as if the Armada are attacking. ‘Don’t move,’ she orders, sitting me down on the library’s one
and only comfy chair, ‘I’ll be two ticks.’ And she disappears, leaving me alone with my head in my woollen skirt, listening to the distant thud of children being let out to play,
little feet storm-trooping down the corridor and out onto the tarmac beyond. The shriek of scattering seagulls. A teacher’s whistle. A heavy door closing with finality. Then all sound stops
and it is just me, alone, in the musty library, the smell of old books and beeswax. The warmth of the chair beneath my legs, my head upside down, the sickness in my stomach, a pain in my chest,
feelings inside me that have been gurgling for so long, ignored and unnamed, but that are now set to explode. Canada … Orville Tupper … Helena .
    ‘Sit up now, Philippa.’ Miss Parry shouts across the room, rushing over with a half-full glass of milk and a Rich Tea biscuit that she has procured from an unknown source (thereby
contravening all the golden rules in one fell swoop, the whole gamut of library law smashed to smithereens by this Tudor queen). When I’ve nibbled at the biscuit and sipped at the milk, I
look at her face trying to find a trace of motherhood. She clearly finds this awkward, examining her wristwatch as if she’s forgotten how to tell the time.
    ‘Thank you, Miss Parry. I feel better now.’
    She cracks open a smile and her war mask slips, revealing the woman beneath.
    ‘Do you have children, Miss Parry?’ I ask. She is almost as surprised as I am at this sudden question.
    ‘Well, no, Philippa, actually I don’t. You see, Mr Parry died soon after we were married so no, I don’t have children, I’m sorry to say.’ And in that