“The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment. And perhaps even more than that, it’s having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels.”
Paul Bowles, The Spider’s House
Illustration by Holly Warburton
This is how some readers stand in front of bookshelves in the shop. Sometimes, they’ve spoken to me but forget. But that’s ok. I’ve spied spines on shelves, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and forgotten what to do.
It’s when we are most able to let ourselves happen.
Other readers pass through as though they are angry, but they’re not. One old lady bent over a wheeled walker seemed angry. But she wasn’t. She bought Paul Gallico’s Mrs Harris Goes to New York. I said, ‘My mum has this book.’ She said, ‘Oh yes.’ And her daughter, who was there to carry the books, shifted onto another foot and looked at her phone. She was angry. But that’s ok. So am I. So are my daughters.
Outside my shop, on Saturday morning, a couple of motorbikes coughed low and steady. Throaty suggestions of leaving. I hoped so. But they didn’t. They were waiting for mates.
A customer said, ‘Noisy buggers.’
‘What do you think I’m gunna do? This was shouted right at the door. A man urged companions straggling along the footpath, who ignored him. He shouted:
‘Come in, come in, come in. Just want to show this book to yous.’
‘We know you Marley.’
‘Na. Na. No way. Ok I’m going in. Watch this.’
He didn’t come in. He was moving through a pastie as fast as he could. And shouting:
‘I don’t know why you won’t come in. I’m not taking the piss. Real.’
‘What book you getting Marley?
‘Facebook. No. Joking. Just come in and look at this. I just want to show you something.’
‘Not going in, Marley. Just fuck off.’
Marley leaned against the post outside my door and finished his pastie, soothed. The group moved on, Marley trailing them, dancing with both arms going from side to side and his head following, strong and rhythmic.
At the door a new voice saying, ‘Oh, oh, oh, a bookshop.’
‘No, let’s go. You won’t cope.’ This couple in the doorway, unable to agree. ‘I’m going in. I need something.’ He want into the front room. His partner leant against my desk and consulted his phone. He said, ‘If Miles was here, this wouldn’t happen.’ He looked at me, and I agreed. Good old Miles.
The partner returned. ‘Come on you.’
‘What’d you get?’
‘Sword in the Stone. Coffee now?’
‘Yeah.’ They left.
Outside, more shrieking at the window. ‘I want to go to bed and sleep. I lay there with me eyes open all last night.’ Laughter
‘You going in then?’
‘Na.’
A group of people looked through the window, bending to peer through the glass. A man said, ‘Is it books? Not much happening in there.’ They moved on.
But books, being alive, have veins and pores and moisture. Mould spores multiply in the lush haven of a book, the paper growing life and disintegrating lusciously, like us. Liquid and angry, rhythmic, and still having the shopping to do and a good series on Netflix waiting.
Sculpture by Ans Vink
The cold is losing interest; turning slightly to ease its aching self. People notice it.
They meet outside my door because it’s an intersection; there’s carparks, a bus stop, the train station, toilets, a bakery, Woolworths, two bookshops, a good solid rubbish bins: a small and complete town.
People meet in person, not intending to, but prepared to follow it through. They recognize someone, lean slightly backwards, make a small movement of the head and neck:
‘It’s you. How are you? Not see you for ages.’
‘Oh yeah. Same day, same shit. You know. Sick of the weather. You know.’
‘I know. I know.’
These two moved together past my door and stood at the window. They are older than me. He is asking her things. She points left, then right and grips her purse. I hear her say,
‘They’re only going to take his stitches out. You want a coffee or anything?’
He does. The conversation has warmed. They change directions, moving back the other way, leaning toward each other. He is saying,
‘Oh well, oh well.’ Then they’re gone. A fragment, no, an edge of the vast.
Then, just voices. I’m busy and can’t look up. But it’s a song of consolation in two parts, but I could only hear one part.
‘Ohhh, ok.’
‘Ohhhhhhhhh yerrrrrs. Ok. Oh I know.’
‘Ooooohh ok. Omg. Goodness.’
Then silence. Then fresh strong new voices: two men with iced coffees, ‘Fuuuuuugn hell. What a pair of fugn morons.’
Then an ambulance siren coming past and a pair or travellers coming through the door, and one saying, ‘They’re second hand books, but that doesn’t bother me.’ And she asked me, ‘Are these second hand books?’ and I said they are, and she said, ‘Well that doesn’t bother me.’
Behind them, two old men walking side by side past my door, one holding the shoulder of the other, and both of them rocking from side to side but making progress anyway.
Sarah dropped in to tell me that phones are going up, ‘Someone bought one for $150 the other day. Ridiculous.’
She told me that politicians give her the shits and that Scott Morrison has made a mess of things. She likes the bit of sun that’s coming through at the moment. ‘But it won’t last.’
A lady asked me if my shop was a library or a shop, and her friend said, ‘No, it’s a bookshop, a second hand bookshop. Don’t be silly.’
A lady said, ‘I want to inhale this music.’ The music was Bill Evans, Peace Piece, way too dense to inhale. But she stood leaning backwards and took the music in through her bones anyway.
‘This GPS is still telling us we’re still coming into Strathalbyn. But we’re right here. ‘Friends shrieked, laughing at technology, which strives, but can’t quite capture what is really happening.
‘I only have the classics now. Everything else is on my kindle.’ A customer, apologetic. No need though.
Two teenage girls clambered behind my counter to get at the Billabong books, Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did. Their mother horrified. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
They said, ‘These are here.’
A good explanation. I approved. They paid with coins, cradling the volumes as young people do because the books are alive full of blood and future, which causes them to cradle the volumes. Lovingly.
Me reading in the shop but actually listening to people at the window.
(Illustration by Paul Milner)
1. It was busy. It was excellent: the antique fair was on, and the town was full of visitors from all over the place, some even from Bairnsdale, who were collecting old things and who wanted a copy of Moby Dick. But I didn’t have one.
They said, ‘Never mind. There’s always tomorrow, ‘and I agreed.
2. There was a knotty commotion outside the door when a family emerged from a car and couldn’t quite get themselves to the bakery.
‘What are you doing Jasmin?’ A young voice, low and outraged. ‘What are you doing?’
I couldn’t see or hear Jasmin. I only heard about her. The brother’s voice sounded again.
‘No. I’m not even kidding. Friggin hell.’
Then I heard Jasmin.
‘Get lost Shaun.’
‘You get lost.’
‘Come over here mate.’ That was dad, who laid a settling hand on Shaun’s shoulders. Shaun said urgently, ‘I’m not even kidding.’
‘I know.’ They disappeared slowly to the bakery, Jasmin hopping behind. She had on a bright red beanie.
3. Someone asked me for Nina George books: ‘I’m looking for the Paris bookshop lady.’ Someone asked me for James Bond books: ‘I’m looking for James Bond.’
4. A young couple piled books into the bottom of their pram, the baby bumping slightly while the volumes were being arranged. They explained to me: ‘We’re making a library.’
5. Outside the door, a teenager said, ‘Where too Pop?’ and then, looking at his phone, followed Pop to the bakery.
6. ‘That’s the second time in Strathalbyn.’ An old lady said this to a friend as they looked through my window. They didn’t look happy. Then one lady said, ‘Look at her sitting at the desk.’ Her friend said, ‘Oh yes. I see.’
7. There was constant clicking and tapping and rustling from the back room. A man opened the door and said to me, ‘It’s ok, I’m just looking for a very distracted lady.’ The clicking and tapping from the back room abruptly stopped and a lady yelled out: ‘I’m here Alan, you go on.’
‘Thank you very much, I will.’ And he did. He crossed the road in sudden sunlight, swinging a bag and his head from side to side.
8. A man looking at books in front of me suddenly looked around and said, ‘My dad was a pilot.’ Then he turned back to the shelf. I felt as though I’d missed a bit of conversation somewhere.
9. Somebody rang for a book I didn’t have. Outside a motorist sounded a horn for a long angry 15 seconds. Inside a lady said, ‘God I hate that.’ Then Sarah dropped in. She’s very pleased with her doctor at the moment but not with the crowds in the town. She said in a glum way, ‘These crowds.’ Then Robert came by, but his order is lost in transit somewhere. He said, ‘Typical Australia useless post.’
10. The town emptying out. More rain, then sparkly sunlight. The last stragglers with coffee and not hurrying. Dog wee on the front of my shop as usual.
Illustration by Bill Bruning
“Last night, when the moon
slipped into my attic room
as an oblong of light,
I sensed she’d come to commiserate.
It was August. She traveled
with a small valise
of darkness, and the first few stars
returning to the northern sky,
and my room, it seemed,
had missed her. She pretended
an interest in the bookcase
while other objects
stirred, as in a rock pool,
with unexpected life:
strings of beads in their green bowl gleamed,
the paper-crowded desk;
the books, too, appeared inclined
to open and confess.
Being sure the moon
harbored some intention,
I waited; watched for an age
her cool gaze shift
first toward a flower sketch
pinned on the far wall
then glide down to recline
along the pinewood floor,
before I’d had enough. Moon,
I said, We’re both scarred now.
Are they quite beyond you,
the simple words of love? Say them.
You are not my mother;
with my mother, I waited unto death.”
Kathleen Jamie
Illustration by Nicolas Martin French
A couple, motionless in the way they are sometimes, happiness lucrative and nobody knows why, especially not them. They always visit the shop. There’s always a struggle with the door and in they come. She has a walking stick.
‘Me again.’ She gripped her purse and the stick, already looking at the shelves. Then he came in. He always looks morose, but I think it’s to cover his pride.
She said, ‘A girl can’t have too many books.’
He said as he passed me, ‘She’s a mental case.’ Then he added, ‘Imagine me without her.’
I looked at him and he looked at the floor. Maybe said too much. I get it. I’ve got someone like him at home. He followed her into the back room.
Outside the window, two people met at the curb. They leaned together, he pointed left, and she pointed to the right. But when they collided, they moved back, close to my windows to talk.
‘Where you off to?
‘Same day, same shit.’ They walked along the footpath a little. I could still hear them.
‘They’re only going to take his stitches out.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘You want a coffee or anything?’
‘Lets.’
But they stayed there, talking. I couldn’t hear him, only her.
‘Ohhh ok.’
‘Ohhhhhh ok.’
Ohh ohh. Oh, my goodness.’
Inside, the couple had returned to the counter. She was standing kind of tall. He went out the door.
She said to me, ‘He doesn’t collect books. I do. He collects coins, stamps. And bottles. We sit at home looking through all our stuff. So good.
Outside the door, he stood, himself a bottle full of light, with belly outstretched and relaxed in the cold afternoon. She drew level and looked at her books. He looked down at her in the blue light.
‘Luncheon?’
She agreed. Off they went.
Painting by David Hockney
“Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful positive obsession blunts pain, diverts rage, and engages us in the greatest most intense of our chosen struggles.”
Octavia Butler
Illustration by Pascal Campion
This wiry, rusting observation was made right at my shop door. And loudly. The speaker was an old lady, bent over a walking stick. So that’s ok. I respect age at all times, especially as I’m gaining so rapidly in it myself.
She was talking to her husband probably. He looked startled and looked through the window with rapidly moving eyes. He made a peaceable remark, and soothed, they continued on with the hundred mile journey to their car, which I could see from my counter.
It was cold. There were drops of rain on the spinning balloons outside my shop. One person over at the bus stop, huddled against the cold pole of transport that isn’t there yet.
Inside, a man sitting in the waiting chair, lurched up at his companion and said, ‘What’d you get this time?’ and his companion, who had a biography of Christopher Wren in one hand and his phone in the other, said, ‘Got a biography of Christopher Wren. And this here is worth a read.’
He was pointing to a biography of Winston Churchill on another shelf. ‘This one is a goer. I’ve read it.’
Outside, the car with the elderly couple slowly, slowly pulled out gently into the traffic, still participating well despite everything.
I looked at the Winston Churchill. ‘Should I read it?’
‘Do.’
I made a half hearted promise. But I had The Root and the Flower including The Near and the Far with an introduction by Penelope Fitzgerald next to me. And it’s next. Sorry Winston.
The men left on a note of blue happiness.
The Root and the Flower is by L. H. Meyers. I’d read about it somewhere else, never heard of it or him. Published in 1935 and apparently a minor classic and astonishingly imagined. That was enough; I decided to crack it and see what’s inside. It’s about India.
A child came in and gave me two books for the shop. A Beatrix Potter and a Little Golden Book. Both hers. It was raining outside.
‘For you.’
‘Really?’
The child doubled in intensity. ‘Yes.’
I stared at the books, emblems of fortune and compassion.
‘Really?’ Outside, the rain dropped and swam in its own disbelief.
‘Can I keep them?’
‘No, you sell them. Here.’
‘Of course.’
The child’s mother arrived, damp and busy, ‘Come on. You done?’
I looked at the child. ‘Thank you.’
But she’d gone, out the door and into further worlds and busy with them.
After that I drooped softly at the counter; people do come in!
Illustration by Di Fournier
Me at work when I’m late opening the shop and there’s people waiting!
The Book Keeper Book Shop 