This Is The Way. Gavin Corbett

       4

      Judith said to me to write because I am literate but I did not think of anything to begin. I did not understand and the truth of it is I wanted to forget it. I wanted to walk out of her room. I said I did not like the smell of coffee because I did not like coffee to drink. She said there was no smell of coffee because she was not allowed bring coffee in that room, she said that that was the smell of rotted paper. She said we could go in another room. The other room was brighter and had newer books and like the first room it had the marks of wood pressed in the concrete. She laughed at me she said I had more interest in the building than anything. Maybe that’s your calling was the word she used. I said it to her I should have built buildings. She said no that she meant I should have designed them.

      Then we started again. Would you like to talk to me she says.

      About what I says.

      Look she says and she took me and brought me the way we came. We went in a room beside the first one we were in. The books were bigger but they were brown and again I thought about the smell of coffee.

      We’re not going to stay here but I just wanted to give you a sense says Judith. She says think of all that these volumes contain. She picked up one book and dropped it on a pile of others and it made a clap.

      We went out that room and we went to get water from a machine but the machine was empty. So then we went up the stair to get juice from a fridge. Then we went back to the room that was brightest and had the new books.

      I want to tell you a story she says. We’ll see if this sparks something. I want to tell you about the Lambton Worm she says. The Lambton Worm is a well known folk tale from northern England. It concerns as you might have guessed a monster. Some people say this monster had many legs on the side of its body and some people say it had no legs. How do you think it might have looked she says.

      I did not know.

      In the tale of the Lambton Worm a boy called John catches a creature that looked like an eel she says.

      Did he catch it in a river I says.

      Yes says Judith.

      Then it was an eel I says.

      John threw the creature down a well says Judith. The creature grew to a colossal size. Years later it slithered out of the well and terrorised the towns folk of Lambton. The funny thing is how the tale has changed over the years. The reason it has changed so much is that there are more spoken versions of the story than written ones. The story has versions even in other countries. In New York there is an urban myth about a baby crocodile that was flushed down the toilet by somebody who was given it as a pet but who didn’t want it. The crocodile grew to full size even to an abnormally big size and lived in the sewers of New York for years.

      Many times after being in the library me and Judith would get food in the university. We might go for a walk around the gardens of it. She said she could talk to the grounds man about getting me a job but I don’t know anything about trees. One time we stood in the gardens and looked at the outside of the library. Judith said it was a wonderful and mysterious building. She said it was a puzzle the inside of it and it was a luxury but what it done for people was not a luxury. She said it was like a shelter, it was built of rock and concrete, it was a safe place. She says to me you should never be afraid of it Anthony. You are safe here you are safe in all these grounds, enjoy them. Enjoy the music of the bells she says. We walked over cobbles she says feel the smoothness of them under your feet, you can almost feel the smoothness run up your leg.

      This one time she gave me a card. She said I could use it to get in the library on my own to look at the books.

      But don’t tell anyone I’ve given this to you she says.

      Why I says.

      It could compromise me the word she used.

      I says what is compromise.

      It would put me in an awkward position she says.

      She gave me a book. It was a pad. She said did I have a pen and I said I’d get one. She said she wanted me to write. I was to go home. She said I did not have to go home straight away but I was to go home to the room in the house. She said she wanted me to write something down. To begin I had to think of one moment or a person. I must not try to get it all in she said. Just one moment or a person, and funny, I thought of Arthur. This is what I wrote.

      Arthur has gone the furthest of anyone we know. He left in his van and he lives in it. Now I don’t know where he is. He could be in Spain. He has seen things the rest of his people has never seen though there are some of us have travelled around as far as him. He is seeing mountains. He could be in France. He could be in Africa or China. In fact he has been to those places. What he does is buy things in one town and sell them on in the next. He sells bowls. He has sold winkles though he did not buy those. He sells films and he stripped a factory after the owner of the factory told him he could have it. He took all the metal and he sold it one place, all the rubber and he sold it one place, all the gold and he sold it in the other place. He took up a railway line sold that too. He sells food and antiques. He knows about the history of the antiques and the people listen to him. He can tell them when a thing was made and they will buy it knowing it is real. Wood in antiques is the thing he knows the most. He could tell you when a chair was made. One time he took a table to the top of a place where a man lived in Germany. The man said the table was worth a lot and Arthur knew that, he had taken the table himself up the stair. One time Arthur started a war in Switzerland. He went in a forest and there were no trees in the middle of the forest. He walked there. The men and women let a slab of stone thump to the ground and they had written on it they were going to get together and fight to be together. They needed one more man to write they should fight and that moment Arthur knew how to write and he wrote on the stone. They all shook their hand and Switzerland went on to be free. He moved to the next place. He went to Russia and he met their king. He went to the sea with him. He showed a town in Scotland how to milk a cow. They were not doing it right. Then they knew. He keeps on going. There are others of us has gone as far as him I know. But Arthur is seeing different things. The others go in a circle and always go back. Arthur just keeps going though he knows the way back. There has never been anyone done it the way he is doing it.