The Safety Dance Read online

“Books on eastern Europe?” the librarian repeated, looking at him stonily.

  Crispin nodded eagerly. “That’s right. I need to try and work out where somewhere is. If you can find me some books on Eastern Europe, with pictures, I thought I might be able to spot what I need.”

  The librarian took a moment to think about what Crispin might actually need and made a mental note of the imagery for future use. One of his least favourite kinds of people were the kind of people who claimed that the digital age had long ago brought about the death of the printed book and therefore wouldn’t be found dead in a library. His other least favourite kinds of people were the kind of people who were still too bone idle (or genetically stupid) to take full advantage of the digital age to find out what it was they needed to know and were therefore to be found in libraries with irritating regularity. This latest customer clearly fitted into the last category, as well as a few other categories of imbecile he had yet to devise a suitable torture for.

  And unfortunately the imbecile was still waiting for an answer.

  “I’m a librarian, not a personal assistant,” the librarian explained helpfully. “If you want books I can show you the right shelf, but it’s up to you to find what you need.”

  Crispin smiled and nodded again. “Okay.”

  Watching Crispin carefully, the librarian pointed to an aisle a few metres to his left. “What you need - well I can only guess at what you need - but you might wish to start with Geography and Travel over there. You’ll find Europe on shelf 914...”

  “Right.” Crispin’s gaze followed the man’s finger, but he made no attempt to move.

  The librarian sighed bitterly. “So, have you actually ever been to a library before?”

  Crispin shook his head. “No, not really. Not a real one.”

  The librarian envisaged piercing Crispin’s skull with red hot pokers, then started to wonder if it would actually be less painful to do it to himself. In the end he simply replied: “Look, it’s really very simple: we have lots of shelves; we have lots of books on the shelves; you look through the books, you look inside the books, and that is how you find what you are looking for. You know what the key to the whole process is?”

  “Shelves?”

  “No. I’ll give you a hint. The hint is it’s the ‘looking’ bit, typically via the use of your own eyes.”

  “Okay. So, look, if I needed to find books that are about Eastern Europe and also about 1980s songs? How do I do that?”

  The librarian stared at him, wondering how quickly he might be able to order a set of pokers and a portable furnace on the internet. “This is a library, not sodding Google! Don’t you understand anything?!” he finally answered.

  Crispin shifted nervously on his feet, looking fearfully towards the Geography and Travel section. Finally, his rage defused, the librarian sighed and walked around from behind his desk.

  “Come on then, I’ll help you find your books...”

  Gloria looked at the random sprawl of books scattered across Crispin’s desk. Alongside a quantity of travel books she could see a volume on European history and a Rolling Stone Yearbook. She considered walking away, but once again her curiosity got the better of her.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  Crispin looked up, startled. He’d been so engrossed in his books he hadn’t even noticed her standing there. “I’m trying to work out where they filmed The Safety Dance. The answer has to be in here... somewhere.”

  Gloria picked up a book at random and checked the front cover. “The Rough Guide To Switzerland? What makes you think they filmed it in Switzerland?”

  “There’s a girl, in the video, she’s dressed up like that one from the story. You know, with the hills and the … hair ...”

  “The Sound of Music?”

  “No! Oh maybe... is there a little girl in that, living in the Swiss Alps?”

  “You mean Heidi?”

  Crispin nodded. “Yes that’s it. Heidi, from the Sound Of Music. There’s someone in the video dressed just like her. They must have filmed the video in Europe somewhere...”

  “I see. Well, it’s lucky you’ve already got it narrowed down so well.”

  “... or maybe it’s Transylvania, like those Hammer films...”

  Gloria cast her eyes across the pile of books one more time. “Crisp, honey, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why don’t you just use the fucking internet like any normal human being?”

  He looked at her with a strange expression of cunning on his face. “Because if I’m going to work this out I need to think and act like just someone from the 1980s - and they didn’t have the internet in the 1980s.”

  For a moment Gloria was surprised to discover that she was actually completely speechless. Instead she leaned over and started typing on Crispin’s keyboard.

  “Excuse me,” she muttered, then: “Ok, look.”

  Crispin looked.

  “If there really was some sort of Safety Dance conspiracy it would be all over the internet, which means it would be all over Google,” Gloria explained. “But there’s nothing on Google, nothing at all...”

  Crispin pointed at the screen. “There’s one.”

  Gloria studied the lone result momentarily. “Yeah, that’s just some guy named Rick - and it’s from 2005 anyway. The internet loves this sort of stuff: If there was a real conspiracy there would be thousands of pages. Thousands.”

  “Not if they’d done away with everyone who found out about it,” Crispin theorised.

  Gloria sighed heavily and starting typing again. “Okay, try this - Wikipedia knows everything in the whole world, if there’s anything at all on the internet about a conspiracy it’ll be on the Wikipedia page for the Safety Dance and it’s n-”

  “WAIT!” Crispin shouted, holding his hands up suddenly.

  “Shit! Jesus Christ, Crisp, what? You gave me a fucking heart attack...”

  He pointed at the screen, beaming proudly. “Look, right there: ‘video, filmed in West Kingston’. You found it! Kingston. I can get the train to Kingston from Waterloo.”

  Gloria regretted correcting him even before she did it. “No, it says Kington - West Kington.”

  “Kingston?”

  “Kington! No ‘s’. Just Kington.”

  “Kington? Well … where’s that then?”

  Gloria sucked in a breath between her teeth, which was typically a sign that she was about to do something else she was going to regret. “It’s near Bristol, and you know what? If it’s going to shut you up why don’t you just go there? I’ll buy the damn ticket for you, you take a few days off and you sort this Safety Dance shit out. You’re making a complete arse of yourself - well, more than you usually do at any rate. And if you come back and you’re still talking about that fucking song I’ll - I don’t know what I’ll do, but I tell you it’ll end with me fucking safety dancing on your burnt, battered and beaten remains. Got it?”

  Crispin, who had stopped listening at the exact moment she had promised to buy him a train ticket, just smiled broadly at her: “Aw, thanks Gloria - you’re such a good friend.”