Not all bibliophobes are frightened of precisely the same thing. In most recorded cases, reading is what they fear: the ideas contained within books. Whereas you love ideas as long as they’re exactly the same as yours. You love reading as long as it’s a tract by Andrea Dworkin and as long as you don’t have to read from or touch an object with covers and pages. That’s a prospect that makes you shudder.

I won’t bother sending you any more brilliant novels. Why waste my time? You’re a book-hater. You despise books. If you do happen to have any in your home, it’s as a smokescreen, to hide the truth. Your husband the celebrity chef will of course have his collection of recipe books prominently displayed in the family kitchen, and you wouldn’t dream of asking him to move them to an outbuilding, though secretly you’d love to. I’m certain Oliver Halliday has no idea he’s married to a book-hating low-life. You’re ashamed of your phobia, as you should be, so you hide it from those who matter.

Why don’t you quit the charade and admit it? Why don’t you start your next Lifeworld column with the words ‘I, Sondra Halliday, am a hateful bibliophobe’?

Yours sincerely,

Billy

Chapter 21

21

20/1/2015

‘There’s no truth in it,’ Sondra Halliday said, red-faced and buzzing with indignation. ‘None whatsoever. It couldn’t be less true if it tried. Ask anyone who knows me – they’ll all tell you I only read on a screen when I have to. On holiday I always read paper books. I love them, especially second-hand ones. That smell of old books is one of my favourite things. I’m always going on about it. I mean, it’s one of the things I’m known for.’

‘That and spreading hatred of men?’ Simon asked. ‘We believe you about the books. Not pleasant when someone lies about you, is it?’

Sellers wasn’t so sure he believed Halliday. Why was Billy convinced that she was a bibliophobe if she wasn’t? It was such an odd accusation to pull out of nowhere. Perhaps he’d been pointlessly baiting her, but Sellers wanted to hear more before he dismissed the claim altogether.