Every time the phone rang the next day I jumped up to answer it before the first ring had stopped. This amused Mary no end.
By lunchtime, and with still no call, I convinced myself I hadn’t got the job, as they’d tell the successful candidate first, and ask him or her if they actually wanted the post. I wondered why a candidate would go for interview if they didn’t want the job in the first place. I decided I’d take my lunch into the reading room. No one was supposed to eat in there, but so long as the readers didn’t get the books dirty, Mary and I tended to look the other way.
I’d taken sandwiches; Mark—bless his heart—had made them for me before leaving for work. I didn’t feel much like eating, so I shared my lunch with Fred, the town tramp. He’d installed himself by the radiator as
