Overdue
First Prize, 2019 Scottish Arts Trust Story Awards
chosen by judge Alexander McCall Smith.
When their eyes locked over the cheese dip at the Bodleian Library’s Christmas party, Alexandria Pergamum and Constantine Celsus felt the stirrings of something long overdue.
Constantine, a cataloguer for the Medieval Dentistry collection, worked in the south subbasement. Alexandria, a more senior member, worked reference in Special Collections, third floor north. Dark and light, day and night. It is truth that cataloguers and reference specialists are the oil and water, the Montagues and Capulets of the library world. Their paths had never before crossed; and the fact was that Constantine was married, that Alexandria, after a series of vivid disappointments, had embraced celibacy.
And yet.
In the new year, Alexandria received a series of book requests written in a bold, forward-leaning hand:
The yearningly interrogative 823.44 – One Sign of Love? (Fiction; 19thC, English).
The deliciously bawdy 641.509 – Take Ye This Luscious Tart (Cookery; 17thC, Baking).
The boldly instructive M93.E00206 – Undressing the Union (Labour; Political Activity).
Constantine returned from lunch to find a daring request to reclassify a title within his own subject area – Fill the Cavity – from 617.62 (Role of Dentistry) to 617.634 (Endodontics, Early).
The following morning Alexandria received a citation enquiry that stole her breath: 808.80369 – The Pop-up Book of Braille Erotica (Literature: Esoteric). She returned the form stamped in red ink: This Item Long Overdue – Urgent Action Required To Meet Patron Need.
That these were rash, wanton acts both of them knew – and they were not deaf to the voices of stigma and scandal. This could not be seduction in the stacks, coitus among the carrels. It was time to move beyond the walls of the Bodleian – but where? The Buttery in Broad Street was out of the question, as was Browns in the Covered Market. Both were too popular, too well-thumbed by colleagues from both sides of the divide. Finding a rendezvous in Oxford which was not right around the corner from one of the twenty-nine Bodleian branch libraries was a task requiring almost superhuman research abilities.
At length, Alexandria slid a set of requests into the pneumatic tube and sent it sucking away to the sub-basement:
PN.U65.B90 GOW DVD – Go West (Comedy Films; Marx Brothers);
X07.E00990 – The Other Side of the Tracks (Fiction; World War One);
X00.H00289 – Paddy (Prejudices; Boston, Irish Americans);
Mus. Pop. E.1903.166 – Out He Went At Seven In The Morning (Employment; Songs)
Thus it was that before work the next day they met at Mick's Transport Cafe, tucked behind the railway station. There, over chipped mugs of steaming strong tea and surrounded by blaspheming cabbies wolfing Full English, Constantine wasted no time.
'There's something I need to do with you,' said he in a low voice laden with intensity.
‘Yes?’ Alexandria’s throat was tight.
‘Something my wife won’t even consider.’
He leant forward, elbowing the sauces masterfully to one side. For Alexandria, the sheer electricity of the moment blurred the chequered, oiled-cotton table cloth beneath her into something resembling a barcode.
Constantine’s secret passion – long held, closely guarded – was for Medieval stained glass.
Specifically, for a design so rare that it occurred in only a handful of locations in England: the 'Lily Crucifixion', depicting The Saviour martyred on the outstretched fronds of a lily.
‘A lily,’ said Alexandria, stunned.
‘Lilium candidum,’ he clarified. ‘The Madonna Lily.’
Alexandria, lured with an explicit promise of carnal pleasure and now confronted with the flower of virginal purity, was two heartbeats away from walking out. But as Constantine spoke – explaining how, by tradition, the yellow flower had turned white as the Madonna picked it – she reflected. So many empty nights spent holding nothing warmer than a cup of orange pekoe. There was passion in his zealot’s eyes, certainly – and therein, perhaps, the makings of a quest. And so she vowed, over their shared plate of Number 12 (Beans on Toast), to accompany him in visiting all five of the ancient windows on his list.
They travelled.
At the Church of St Edmund in Effing Badger, Shropshire, they stood side by side beneath a gothic window, bathed in coloured light, their fingers barely touching. At St Dunstan’s in Great Fossick, Cornwall, they made so bold as to hold hands. At St Barnabas in Tooting Bottom, Yorkshire, they kissed, shyly. But it was at St Hermione-in-the-Wilderness in Chipping Marrow, Oxfordshire, that opportunity stirred and opened one eye. For it was here that Alexandria discovered that the key had been left in the lock on the inside of the church door.
It was a heavy, ornate key. It was festooned with a tassel of the deepest scarlet. As Constantine made his way towards the apse, clutching a pamphlet (50p in aid of the Font Restoration Fund) Alexandria took this key in both her hands and turned it, locking the door behind them.
Constantine was seated on the edge of a raised granite tomb, gazing silently at the tracery, when her shadow fell across him. She laid her hands on his shoulders, pushed him gently onto his back across the polished surface of the granite and slid herself over him. He watched her as she teased open the buttons on his shirt. He fumblingly helped her undo the buckle of his belt before laying back on the tomb and spreading his arms in mirror of the lily glass over their heads. Then they were in the throes: jolting, thrusting, an apocalypse, the coming of the rapture. Spine arching, head thrown back, Alexandria opened her eyes and found herself staring directly into the unblinking lens of a CCTV camera.
For a week they waited for facial recognition technology to forge a damning link between recent activities and their driving licence photographs; but the authorities were, presumably, more interested in metal thieves. The dreaded call – from the police, from church elders, from the Bodleian – never materialised. The blow, when it fell, came from an entirely unexpected quarter.
The video – LOL Lively Recumbents Get Medieval in Oxfordshire Church!!! – went viral, breaking all previous YouTube records in just fourteen hours. And while their gyrating sacrilege spread across the globe, closer to home medieval churches were inundated with tourists, and the more enterprising of local teenagers were selling souvenir condoms at a profit.
That Monday morning, Alexandria’s usually-peaceful reference room was crowded with chortling undergraduates; she didn’t care. What mattered was that she and Constantine now despaired of completing their quest, of seeing their fifth and final Lily Crucifixion. They hadn't the heart to brave the crowds.
Not far away, in peaceable Charlbury, the local Women’s Institute Chapter had finished their tea and biscuits, concluded their review of the last meeting's minutes and were engaged in a lively discussion of short courses in Architectural History. Their fervour led them first to Oxford University’s Continuing Education website, and from that safe harbour into the choppy waters of the wider internet. The Chapter Secretary, whose interests extended barely beyond jam-making, dismissed each suggestion as it was made. Art Deco (licentious!), Brutalism (beastly!), Rococo (naked cherubs??), Roman (oh my dears – orgies!). The membership, restive, put it to a vote; and only then was the phrase ‘Medieval Churches’ typed with martyred reluctance into the search box by the Chapter Secretary – a woman known to her few friends as ‘Dear Felicity’, but more generally known as Mrs Constantine Celsus.
Constantine spent the next several weeks withdrawn from circulation, camping in dark corners of the Bodleian sub-basement, his shoes and effects shelved in among 947.073 (War: Civil; English). Alexandria met him again for their regular tryst at Mick's. They could have met at the Buttery or anywhere, as they had no more secrets to keep; but old habits die hard. They warmed themselves over their plate of Number 12, and Alexandria saw that Constantine's eyes were shining, his inadequately shaven cheeks were glowing. He slid a magnolia-coloured citation card across the table, face down. She turned it over.
DT 298.C7 Rb – The End of the Siege (Constantine; Algeria, History)
306.88 Ru – Liberty at Last (Monograph; Divorce)
And stamped below in black ink: The resource is now available.
They didn’t miss seeing their final Lily Crucifixion – at St Michael at the North Gate, right there in Oxford. They stood before it, listening, as an adaptation of the Bodleian Oath was read out: Do you pledge to preserve this precious volume? Reference specialists on the bride’s side of the aisle, cataloguers on the groom’s. Alexandria and Constantine each carried accession bouquets, lilium candidum, bright as dazzling white trumpets.