Shop 4/ 1 Dawson St Strathalbyn SA 5255 0438847329 tbkstrathalbyn@gmail.com Tuesdays to Saturdays 10am to 4pm

Month: December 2020

I’m not busy

The Book Keeper6 Comments on I’m not busy

I saw somebody say this – those exact words in answer to a question, ‘I guess you are really busy.’ And the person answered, ‘No, I’m not busy.’ She was young.

I say I ‘saw’ somebody say it because I did see it. The utterance was so shocking and unexpected that I saw it. Saw her face and her mouth meaning it. I’d never heard it before, and never have again. I never forgot it.

Because when she said it, her face had so much movement and her thoughts didn’t crash into anything. Imagine the staggering reality of not being busy. A big space of wasted grass with no list. No shopping. No plans except one that’s still on the fridge from last year. And walking next to fences. Rain on your thumbnails. No gasping for air already used up first thing in the morning. Waiting with both feet down. Marking the back of your hand with a dry paintbrush. Evening. Where light and night even out into a nice flat plum. Imagine your time with a faint slice of beautiful thick emptiness right at the bottom. And your feet planted, both down on the warm wet bricks and you seeing that.

Painting by Carlos San Millan

We waited a whole hour, and not even a sausage roll

The Book Keeper1 Comment on We waited a whole hour, and not even a sausage roll

Today, people are discussing Christmas. Christmas is receding gently, but there are things to discuss. I can hear them where I sit, and I think about them.

‘I made pavlova but nobody ate it. Won’t make it again.’

‘They made a wreath out of crystal or something.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘No idea.’

Two young men pass by, fast. They are talking about skiing. They wear black jumpers and black beanies because it has turned unexpectedly cold today. One of them spins to the right and then to the left, acting out a significant manoeuvre for his friend, who is not watching. He is checking his phone. ‘Jazz didn’t like her present…’

‘No way.’

‘Who’s got a spare hand?’ This is a young family carrying too many things. They line up to cross the road, and the father, hoping to pass around some of his parcels, is ignored. ‘Just like the other day, hey! Just like Christmas.’

Another family climb out of a parked car. There are sleeping bags and tents strapped to the roof, and they climb out slowly and stretch and look at each other not very happily. ‘Can we go somewhere where we can eat?’ They all walk slowly to the bakery except for a teenage boy wearing white headphones who remains in the front seat of the car.

A group of motorcyclists across the road are leaving in a group. They are so loud that the customers in my shop pause and look up to watch. Each motorcyclist leaves the same way: pulls out slowly, dramatically, straightens up, adjusts the helmet, moves forwards, and then abruptly lurches into a deafening roar. Fifty metres or so down the road, they roar again, but this time more loudly. Outside the shop, people are standing watching on the kerb. The teenager with the headphones has joined them. Then he sees his family returning and swings back into the front seat of the car. He slams the door. He winds the window down and yells gently to a younger sibling, ‘Give it here. Give us one. Give us a pastie. Oi, Luke, give us one. Ta mate.’

A lady and her friend are near the counter, shoulders together. ‘I really don’t think he can cope anymore. You should have seen. We waited a whole hour and not even a sausage roll. I’m not going there for Christmas next year, and we’re going to have proper custard.

‘I know, I know. Yes. I thought that too.’

Painting by David Hettinger

Warning

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Warning by Jenny Joseph (1932-2018)

When I am an old women I shall wear purple.
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Notes on the year right now right here

The Book Keeper6 Comments on Notes on the year right now right here

The year went fast. It hopped about with anxiety many times. People came to the shop even when I was closed. People rang me and emailed me and texted me. People kept reading, increased their reading, and many people began reading.

Classic literature and poetry were purchased the most followed by history. Self-help sold the least. Fiction outsold nonfiction.

Locals and regulars became more and more important whether they purchased a book or not.

My landlord made it possible for me to stay even when I had to close.

Young readers bought the most books. Children still knelt on the floor and shouted to me that they had already read Peppa Pig, the same way they did last year.

Some customers purchased enormous stacks of reading to help me out, and thought that I did not notice this, but I did, and it did help me out.

Many of the visitors who came in angry in April were not angry in November.

It took three times longer to order in books for customers, but not a single person complained about it except me.

My fantasy and science fiction shelves need restocking. Everything by Anh Do sold out. I sold more Charles Dickens than ever before. I hardly sold any biographies except ones about dogs. I couldn’t get in any Asterix books.

I listened to a podcast about ancient Rome and took all the Roman history books home for myself. I discovered Iris Murdoch (and took all those books home too).

I was asked for Moby Dick about ten times.

A mother who loves reading came in with her son and said that mothers who read always have sons that read. Not so with daughters. Until much later.

Two customers died this year and left two holes there.

I never saw young people work so hard as the young people did this year in Woolworths across the road. This is not a reflection on Woolworths. It’s a reflection on those young people themselves.  

I cleaned about 3000 little handprints off the front door, same as any year.

Trucks still park across the driveway, same as any year.

People still come in thinking I’m the bakery, same as any year.

None of these things annoy me anymore.

Sadness in the shop

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Sad people come into the shop. Then they look at the shelves and smile. They always come in kind of slowly. Then the smile fades a little but comes back when they see a certain book.

Sadness is unique to the person who owns it; like saliva, it carries the story of us and nobody else.  

Christmas is not about sadness but seems to awaken it. Many visitors do not want to talk about Christmas; it is easier to talk about nearly anything else. Some visitors have careful plans for Christmas, details carefully placed to help them get to the other side of it. Choosing books lightens things. They are a hold on the day.

Everyone wishes me a lovely Christmas regardless of their own tricky circumstances.

I remember that J.R.R. Tolkien said, ‘Courage is found in unlikely places.’

Illustration by Mark Conlan

Grab a sentence by its shoulder

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I hear sentences spoken aloud inside the shop and outside on the footpath. Pieces of sentences that are like lengths of rope moving through the air, or a loop of thick tinsel just waiting for an answer, or twisty string with two small knots at the end. The ends of sentences whip against the window, or lace about and pause mid speech, and I listen to them all.

Some sentences are rather beautiful.

‘This is like my kind of day, like overcast, and soda like.’

‘I told the fool to stop ringing all the time, told him to leave it, leave things, leave everything, and just leave.’

Some sentences are festive, cheerful.

‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.’

Some sentences are short spokes.

‘You promised. You promised.’

Often, I hear an entire story, complete with beginning, conclusion, and a small satisfying plot.

‘She says I’m always getting books and stuff. Too many. And I’m like…yeah, I do…so what.’

Action sentences:

‘There was too much on the back of the ute. It hit the corner and overleaned. All on the road then. Fukn idiot.’

Occasionally, sentences contain a small warning sting:

‘Do YOU have a Covid check in? Can’t see it.’

Speakers toss mixed meanings at each other, coated in slight annoyance:

‘I’ve got a lead light with Pooh hanging from a kite string.’

‘Why would you even want that?’

‘ Winnie, you idiot. Winnie the Pooh.’

‘Ok…I thought you meant an actual shit.’

The best sentences come from visitors who call them back to me just as they are leaving.

The Magical Book Store. Like it very much. Had one of these when I was a kid. Somewhere. Might have been this shop actually.

And many conversations are already knotted when the speakers come in.

‘Some idiots can’t park.’

‘That would be you. And I just cracked both knees out because of that.’

People stand in the doorway and complain loudly on phones. I receive complete responses to exactly half a conversation.

‘Then she put milk or something all over it, made it uneatable, now why would you do that to a perfectly good…..well it’s not perfect anymore is it!’

Couples discuss their adult children right in front of me. They speak sentences that give out another rich layer of excellent information.

‘She needs to slow down. I’ve said that.’

‘You have.’

What people tell me

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One man gave me his name and address. ‘Remember us,’ he said, ‘We have an interest in the history of Victor Harbour.’

I often hear about local councils, bus services, and Woolworths. I hear about local doctors and what they say. Some conversations begin without preamble, ‘Kate Grenville, my God she’s a good writer.’ And others are carried on through the door help open.

‘I need the next Lee Child, you got him?’

Visitors show we their art, their families in London, their gardens, and their pets – we gaze together at the little pictures on phones until a text message flashes across the top, where r u did u get bread. One lady knew my family from a long time ago; her daughter had gone out with a very distant cousin of mine. He is now dead, but she isn’t. I learn things about autism, cancer, dementia, death, suicide, and English teachers.

Customers talk to each other while they wait, ‘Is that your own company? Do you do gutters in Mt Barker too?’

I am told about books that should be banned, and why they don’t agree with Harry Potter. They ask me what to do about books they lent out that are not returned, and if I think that books make good gifts. Do I know any editors? Do I bind books myself? Do I live here? Do I know anything about heart disease?

Today someone said there aren’t enough carparks here. Then he told me about the local council again.

A child told me that it’s nearly Christmas. Then she smiled, hugged herself and went back to the Asterix books.

Painting by Henri Matisse

The old couple trying to cross a busy road

The Book Keeper4 Comments on The old couple trying to cross a busy road

It’s hard out there. There’s more traffic outside my shop now. There’s a bus stop, a train station, a bakery and carpark exits. Endless rushing to somewhere. This couple held hands. They wore similar bright red shorts, running shoes and white t shirts, and she carried a bottle of orange juice, and she led him. As they made their way through a gap in the traffic, she led him. They were not fast, and several cars had to slow down, one to stop altogether. The man looked at his wife, stared at her face as she led him along, and although there are horns and hurrying all day long, nobody sounded their horn at them, or otherwise insisted they hurry along.

Painting by Benjamin Bjorklund

The family on the footpath and the mystery of the keys

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There’s a parked car outside my door. It’s hot out there.  The passengers of the car climb out to meet the passengers of another car parked up the road, out of my sight. They meet up outside my window and mill around, talking and shouting, and swinging bags around; then they abruptly part because there is a problem with a bunch of keys.

‘Dad’ is holding them in his open palm, standing at the back of the car. Another man, younger, moves close and looks down, and there is a discussion with their heads close together. The older man shakes his head, no, no, no. The younger man turns and raises his eyes at another man who is standing against my door. I can’t hear them. It’s too windy.

Two women approach from the other car and look closely at the keys. All the men move in again. Intense discussion, shaking of heads. One man makes a phone call, and as he lifts the phone to his ear he is shaking his head.

An old lady is helped from the front seat of their car by a teenager, and she moves close to the group, not smiling, not hurrying. Everyone realizes this at the same time, and there is a tiny movement of surprise,and then they all move apart and look down at her, kindly. She says something and nobody answers, and then she takes the keys from the older man and puts them in her cardigan pocket. The teenage girl turns away from the group with her shoulders raised, grinning, and puts one hand over her mouth, and I hear her say, ‘Yes!’

Sculpture by Will Kurtz