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

Tag: Marriage

The ladies and their husbands

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The ladies came in first. They wanted Flight of the Eagle. They also wanted Kerry McGinnis. I heard them say to each other, they won’t have those in this shop. They entered in a leaning forward, questing sort of way. They held their handbags out in front of them, like torches.

They also wanted Peter Carey. They thought I wouldn’t have those in this shop. They leaned back in front of classics, but there was nothing useful there. Then they came to the counter and said they couldn’t find anything. They were disappointed. I gave directions to the land of proper books just as the husbands came in and they both went straight to Biographies and stood there for a while. One of them said, look at this, it’s Sting, I don’t mind him. Then they looked at a Donald Trump biography and said nothing at all.

They turned and looked at me. I apologised about Donald Trump. They nodded and relaxed, fair enough.

Then the wives came out, pleased because they had found Peter Watt AND Jilly Cooper. A double triumph. They wanted to tell their husbands about Peter Watt AND Jilly Cooper. About how they were great etc.

The husbands looked around uneasily and suggested the bakery.

 

Winter and reading and a glass of wine

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Under the door of the shop there is a gap, and a thin straw of cold enters quietly, all day long. I have fingerless gloves. Excellent for typing. For looking up any possible gossip about Virginia Woolf that I may have missed. Winter is always bright with possibility because to stay in is acceptable.

One couple came in this afternoon and said, it’s warm in this little place.

He looked like Terry Pratchett, sort of intensely occupied. She looked like Vita Sackville-West, so was probably looking for Virginia Woolf.

They stayed in the room furthest from the warmth for ages, but didn’t seem to notice it. They had, each, a mighty selection when they finally came to the counter and noticed me. I said wisely, ah, the winter reading….

He straightened up in surprise, well, yes of course. He had three Terry Pratchett books.

I said, with a glass of wine….

He straightened up again, this time with joy, well yes of course. We have the place for it at our house, an old place, space for books. The shelves are all bending. Her stuff. He looked at her with an expression of acute happiness.

She presented her Margaret Atwoods and nodded, nursing that private power that comes with Margaret Atwood and husbands like him, and said, it’s winter, time to stay in.

They bobbed back out into the weather, serene, parting the winter into two fields with their own bright path right through the centre of it.

 

Old House in Stepney, Adelaide (photography by me)

 

 

My Wife is Involved in the Pre Raphaelites

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This man always comes in hurrying and always, vigorously, inspects even the lowest shelves, that is how he found Ruskin’s Stones in Venice.
My wife, he said, she will want these very things. She reads a lot; I, myself, think she is very good, in my considered opinion, she is really very good, my wife. And she will like these Ruskins in a mighty way.
I think you and I, that we, you and I that is, will make her happy, my wife.
Then he went into another room, coming back after a while and said: when she was young, she had the longest hair. And she could always let herself go in her books, I always liked that. You see. Now of course, I must just get something for myself to read. When he returned, he was holding two books out in front of him, volumes of Freud and Descartes and he said: I’m going to get some fun out of these.
He paid for the Ruskin, the Freud and Descartes. He took out a wad of notes, some train tickets and a letter and a Woolworths docket, he showed me all of them and said, regarding the money, here you’d better take some of that.
Then he said: I have in interest in mining history, specifically the history of mining tools, specifically at Burra – the copper mining there and Broken Hill, silver, zinc and lead, I am in fact, writing my own book. Well then, and he laughed loudly, all good isn’t it, and he swung through the door and he, Ruskin, Freud and Descartes, all left together.

 

Digital sculpture by Chad Knight

Ethel, not John

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Ethel and John came into the bookshop about a month ago, tangled together and finding it difficult to manage the door. John wanted some Spike Milligan to read, he told me a long story about Spike Milligan and Ethel helped. She was short and square, John was bigger.

She had a British accent and she said you know at the end of every sentence. They had been married 45 years.

Ethel came in by herself two weeks ago to order a book for John, a gift, a biography of Spike Milligan. She was limp with relief or joy that I could find the book and order it.

Last week though, I found that book on the counter, returned.

Ethel came in again, this week, and found it difficult to manage the door. She had a slow, strong face. There was a small amount of sunlight caught in its contours, apologetic light and her features were gathered safely in the centre of it. While we searched for another book she told me a little about her life and she said that John called her the old dinosaur. The book she had bought for him, well, he didn’t want it.

The other day they came back together. He said: look at what I’ve got to work with and I thought he was referring to the book she had bought him,  but he was actually talking about Ethel. He told me another long story about Spike Milligan and he had spit caught in chains at the corners of his mouth. He told me he had worked hard he had, all his life, he had. He told me a long story about it.

They had trouble with the door that day too,  which was Ethel’s fault, and they stood in front of the thousands of oblongs that lined the walls and rooms and John told the long story about his life and the bookshelves leaned over him, the books that already safely contained their story and his story and her story.

He said: sorry about that book but he didn’t want it… his useless dinosaur just wasn’t up to much, all her fault.

Ethel stood still on her piece of earth. And then they left.

 

Sculpture by David Leffel

 

 

 

 

The Old Man Who Said He Had Memory Problems

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Yesterday an old man came into the shop and said he had memory problems. He was very apologetic. He said he loved to read and had no trouble with that, he could remember just about everything he had read. And they were all beautiful memories.

He had forgotten his wallet and he went back outside and stood just outside the door and shook his hands gently from side to side and waited. Sometimes he glanced back at the books in the windows and he smiled at me, he seemed sad as if he was causing me trouble, which he wasn’t. He nodded kindly at all the passers-by.

There is an autobiography of Mark Twain on the front table and he looked at that through the window for a long time. Then his wife returned with his wallet and they both stood there, still outside and I thought they were talking about Mark Twain because the old man tapped on the glass and indicated the book and then they both laughed and nodded together. They stood there undecided for a while, they didn’t come back in, instead they headed toward the bakery and they looked pretty happy!

Thelma and John

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59830ceb33ff5_67WYiHWr__700Thelma and John are regular visitors to the shop. I met them one summer when it was hot and they were concerned for their garden and worried about never finding a copy of The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. They have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, they finish each other’s sentences and find many things hilarious, especially the illustrations of The Gumnut Babies by May Gibbs and especially the picture of the banksia man running away with a gumnut baby upside down.

John loves railway artists and Sherlock Holmes. Thelma, at the moment, loves Roald Dahl. Today John is telling me about Charles Dickens, he has read most of these books. He is telling me about Dombey and Son, which is sad, sombre and just sad. This fellow, Dombey, wanted a son to carry on the business but the baby of course is born sickly. John is hilarious; following the memories of the story in his head (Dickens used so so many words… I shouldn’t tell you anymore…I won’t tell you anymore).

Thelma and John just keep on living on, they have put down roots into the things they love. Alongside their medley of conventional health problems, their lives seeming to grow bigger, richer and deeper as they grow older and slower, telling me about their fabulous library, their fabulous family and the fabulous garden, this fabulous wine, and a fabulous shed where John has an easel and Thelma has flower pots.

Suddenly, today, a young girl appeared at their elbow as they talked to me. She had a copy of The Fault in our Stars which she wanted me to put aside for her until tomorrow when she would have some money.

Thelma swept forward, majestic, delighted and paid for the book herself and presented it to the child, who accepted it anxiously, speechless, delighted.