14 "Laters"

Years ago when even the smallest town had a public library, before they all lost the second word and three of the first's letters, in the year 10 B.W.E*,  they  kept strange volumes for reference. Local Directories, for example – mostly listing local businesses – but some people actually paid to put themselves in them. This, despite those funny telephone boxes containing big fat books with everybody in the area's telephone numbers, before you could carry them and a phone around in your pocket. They even sent them and the book with people's private telephone numbers along to your house with the engineer, who wired your 'phone into the wall in the hall, next to a table to put the books on. They were big – but if you knew who you were looking for – and roughly where they lived – you could find them. And their address.

I got dressed. Yosserian wasn't a common name. He'd retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, he'd been a Captain in 2006. He could have been a young thruster, but if he had been, he wouldn't have already retired. People who reach Lt. Col before 35 don't stop there.  I doubted whether he'd retired as Colonel of any regiment, either. The Army Retired List might have told me, but something else told me applying to the British Library to have a quick decko would have received a simple 'No' in answer. As for the MOD? That would just be foolish. There were things on-line, but most of them stopped in 1945. Had there been a clue in the Facebook post? Perhaps. But I wasn't going to use my laptop for a while.

After picking up a few items at the  nearby Sainsbury's Local, at 10 a.m. I arrived at 'The Brassey Institute', home of the Hastings Library Service. It looked 'Spoons-ready : imposing building, opportunities to have the toilet facilities 3 floors away from the bar, location not far from the sea-front. Perfect. I hope it stayed a library for a long time, even one with pretensions to being a "Hub".  Inside, Hastings Library, like most nowadays, was bigger on 'services' than books. You could book time on their computers in advance, on-line. If you could do that, why would you need their computer? Only if you had something you needed printing.  I was hoping that, like in most places, nobody – except a desperate few – used them. Of course, I was going to need a library card.  So I went back outside to wait for something, or someone, to turn up.

Fifteen minutes later, someone did turn up. He wore a charity shop greatcoat over a "leisure pants" and layered sweatshirt combo that suggested he wasn't there to do some research for a degree in Empire Studies. His trainers looked new, though. "Look after your feet and they'll look after you." We military-types used to say.

He accosted me,

'Last fag is it? Before you go in?'

I wasn't a smoker, and I'd tried hard not to look stunned when I'd handed over fifteen quid for a packet of Lambert and Butler, a box of matches and a bottle of water.  I'd opened the packet on the way to the library and dropped a cigarette into a litter bin.

'Just put one out,' I said.

The guy looked at the ground. Any smokers on the library staff must have indulged out the back of the building. Then he looked back at me.
'I smoked it on the way here. I'm trying to cut down.'
'What do you want?'
The faded image on the top sweatshirt was a RAF unit crest.

'Were you in the mob?' I asked him.
'Yeah. You?'
'I did some time.'
'Who with?' There was a hint of aggression in his voice, as though I was the one wearing the dosser's clothes.
'You first.'
'The sweatshirt says 54 S.U. It's not that old. You couldn't buy them when I was in.'

'I was at 26.'

He nodded, 'T-Berg.'

He'd passed the test, so I told him what I wanted. I gave him the rest of the packet. 'I don't know how long I'll be. Hopefully before you finish the packet.'

'You'll need this too.'

He gave me a membership-card for something-or-other, with a photo of someone who might even have been him.

'In case they ask, most don't. Try to look a bit scruffier, then they won't even ask for ID. Just the library card, if that. The PIN's on the back…'

He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke skyward.

'Laters,' he said.

*B.W.E. = Before Wetherspoon's Era [I'm not sure where that apostrophe goes, but then neither are/is Wetherspoon, as it varies from pub to pub]