What happened on February 10th, 2022

A lady cycling past the door this morning slowed to get a better view of the cat in my window. But she slowed down too much, wobbled, and fell against the door with a shout. Everyone was startled, especially me. But she righted and kept on.

An old lady browsing in the front room said, ‘Golly.’

Someone rang for a copy of Mrs Kelly by Grantlee Kieza. Someone rang for Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods.

Kerry came for thrillers: anything he hasn’t read yet and bought two that he has read.

I did some good solid shelving. Put everything in the correct order and neatly because Callie is coming tomorrow. Rearranged the windows, and a lady walking past said into a phone, ‘There’s a cute old place here selling books you’d like’.

Dictionary Chris rang for Sophie Morgan books. Alan came in and said someone was break dancing and fell out of their gopher near his house, and they had to call the ambulance. Then he went over to Woolies to get gravy.

Removed another spider from the front room. Two tradesmen went past with about 10 paper bags of bakery food each. Now I’m hungry.

A teenager bought a Complete Shakespeare, a Complete Sherlock Holmes, and a Beatrix Potter Treasury.  She said (with relish) that her room at home is a library.

I sold out of Morgan Taubert’s My Goblin Therapist. Must message for more. A lady put her head in the door and said the balloons are pretty.

Redid the front shelves so they look refreshed and popping. Sarah came in and said she used to have an orange van and that we shouldn’t listen to the ABC. She said Tales From Wandin Valley is one of the best books she’s ever read. We looked it up online and found a copy on Ebay for 7 British pounds. She said she knew it was going up in value.

Ordered two Francis Spufford books and 3 Christopher Fowler books. Looked online for a copy of People of The Book for myself but then found one in my own shop. Lucky.

Deb got her gopher stuck in my doorway doing a three point turn. She was telling a friend about a hip operation and not really hurrying. So nobody could get in or out.

Sarah, returning from Woolies just then, couldn’t get through, and said (loudly) there were too many people standing about and the bakery needed to sweep up all the mandarin peel. Everyone pretty much dispersed then.

I cleaned windows and stacked shelves quietly for the rest of the day, and when I was packing up, someone asked me if I wanted a small dog, which I didn’t, so they took it back across the road again.  

The little group of friends who all stood together and said things about the books that I couldn’t hear properly

They’ve been in before. They always stand shoulder to shoulder so they don’t miss anything they might say to each other.

‘John Steinbeck. This one. I’ve got it though. Have I, or not…’

The others pause and look at him; then they turn back to the soft shelves, the soft books and the delicate powerful titles.

Strait is the Gate, Paludes, Steppenwolf, The Bloody Chamber, Slouching Towards Bethlehem…

They, the readers, lean in and murmur to each other.

I am interested in this group because they always make outrageous and unexplained choices.

(But why this book? Why? Why? What do you know? I am frantic to see through their eyes.)

‘There’s no Brontes here.’

‘There’s a couple of Lawrences. There’s that Norwegian thing. Huge number of pages. There’s these Penguins. They’re nice.’

‘My God, look at this.’

(Nobody looks, except me, rudely leaning forward to see. Whatever it is, I want it back.)

‘I need Oryx and Crake.’

(But this isn’t at the shop. I know because it’s at my house.)They shuffle along, pulling out oblongs of paperback, pushing their lips out, sharing gently everything they know.

‘I want The Moon Opera.’

(Damn it, so do I, now.)

‘What’s it about?’

‘Oh God. Don’t you know, the boiling water?’

‘Lend it me?’

‘Don’t have it. And it’s not here.’

(I am at my laptop, ordering myself a copy.)

They move along again; they are at the Viragos. I can’t believe how much they’ve read, and I am furious.

They talk and talk, together, but not quite in time. Spirals of it.

‘Any Stephen Crane? Any Helen Garner? Any Beatrix?’ They melt continents and sandwich centuries together.

‘Oh God. It’s Boyd Oxlade.’

‘What’d he write?’

‘You know. Death in Brunswick. I’m getting this, it’s hilarious as.’

‘Give us a look.’

‘You read Don Quixote?’

‘Not yet. Going to though.’

(So am I)

They stack the harvest and come slowly to the counter. I want all the books back. They know. They look at me, hard and assertive. ‘Credit card ok?’

It is.

Damn.

(Italicized line from Birdsong For Two Voices by Alice Oswald)