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

Tag: Winter

Notes for Saturday

The Book Keeper10 Comments on Notes for Saturday

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

‘I don’t know if anyone ever goes into this shop. I shouldn’t think so.’

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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

George

The Book Keeper11 Comments on George

After closing up the shop last night I went over to Woolworths and ran into George at the end of the international cooking aisle. I was going for soya sauce.

He was standing with a modest basket of goods and a walking stick. I looked at the walking stick.

Behind him, three people clustered over a shopping trolley: two women and a man. They were fervent. The man, who a sweater hood over his eyes, was saying that he contacted Woolworths yesterday and they told him there was a three day wait. They exchanged significant looks.

George moved closer to me and raised his walking stick. ‘My God, I’ve had health things.’

I asked him, ‘But what have you been reading?’

He said, ‘Barbara Kingsolver. A giant. And you?’

I said, Evelyn Waugh.’

‘My God. A giant. What else?’

I said, ‘The Baron in the Trees.’

He said, ‘Calvino? My God. A giant.’

I said, ‘Albert Camus. The Plague.’

George leaned back and put his basket on the ground. The trio behind him were discussing salad. The man said, ‘Why the fuck is there no lettuce? And try and get oats.’ He balanced on the edge of the trolley with his feet on the rungs. The women agreed, nodding and nodding.

A lady next to me dropped a pack of instant noodles and apologised. A man walked gently behind us, leading a lady by the hand. He stopped at Pappadams. He said, ‘You love these Ettie.’ But she didn’t answer.

George said, ‘Camus. A giant.’

‘I hated him in high school.’

‘High school. My God.’ We agreed about high school and moved together to be out of the way of school children with wet shoes carrying twisties and coke to the registers. A man with a ponytail and wearing thongs said, ‘sorry mate’, to me because he needed sesame oil and I was in the way.

George said, ‘What else? What else are you reading? What about the shop? Are you still there?’

‘I am. It’s ok. But you know how slow I read.’ Then I remembered something: ‘I read Fleur Jaeggy.’

‘My God, who? Who is it? I’ve never heard of her.’

To find a find unknown to George was impossible. But I’d done it. I threw the bottle of soya sauce into my basket triumphant.  The trolley trio looked at me. A lady up the aisle said into her phone, ‘It’s the best air conditioner in the country.’

I looked at George and said, ‘My God George. Fleur Jaeggy’s a giant.’

He breathed, ‘Really.’

‘She’s Swiss, but she writes in Italian.’

George thumped him walking stick on the floor. The trolley trio looked at us again. A lady looked over from Indian cooking sauces. I saw she had Tandoori and Madras, one in each hand. I needed them too.

‘She wrote These Possible Lives.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s three squashed biographies of three of the biggies: Thomas de Quincey, John Keats, and Marcel Schwob.’

“I don’t know Schwob. Who’s he? And what do you mean by compressed?’

‘Thinned out. Spare. Carved with a potato peeler. But it works.’

‘My God. How?’

‘Don’t know. But she writes about each of them. Who were they? I don’t know, but maybe I do now. They wrote things. Each biog is a slice. Cut with a razor blade. That’s what they say about Jaeggy: that she writes with a razor blade.’

‘My God.’ George banged his walking stick again. A family with three giant packs of cornflakes in a trolley full of mostly toddlers in beanies all looked at us.

‘George, you never saw such a book. You can read my copy. You’ll die.’

‘My God.’

A couple passed us the end of our aisle, and the women said, ‘Get me some fetta, babe’, and the man turned back toward the refrigerated products aisle without looking up from his phone.

‘George, I have to go.’

‘I, too.’

‘See you soon.’

‘My God, yes.’

We parted, and I moved to the 12-item only checkout and waited behind a lady telling the cashier that the eggs in her carton had gone off.

Do you know how much pages there is in this dog book?

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There’s a couple of families in the front room of the shop, nicely tangled and knotted, as families tend to get when they’re relaxed and warm. I like to listen to them. This little question was flung.

‘Do you know how much pages there is in this dog book?’

Someone answered, ‘Mmmm.’

‘There’s 3080.’

‘Yeah?’

There was a soft clatter: books falling.

‘Careful.’

‘I want the first Goosebumps.’

‘I want Selby.’

‘Does that say 3080?’

‘Brian, leave the pram alone.’

‘You read this, Helen?’

‘Long time ago. Give us a look.’

‘Taylor. Is that where they go? Looks wrong.’

A parent wandered out with a paperback clamped under one arm. He consulted his phone. A child followed, holding the parent’s hand, swinging from it, leaning in, clamping an ear to the parent’s thigh and walking easily, a delicate and bent stalk. The father rested the paperback on the child’s head. She smiled.

‘You ready, Troy?’

‘Yeah.’

This family left with an old soft copy of Animal Farm, held carefully in anticipation, and which had recently balanced briefly on a child’s ageless and silky thistledown hair.

The family left in the front room continued buzzing softly.

‘Does this say three thousand and eighty?’

‘Maybe. Look at the numbers.’

‘It says 38.’

‘I think so, too.’

‘Can I get it?’

‘You should.’

The child emerged with the book. They held it up to me with two hands: an offering.

I asked for the necessary $3. The child had the coins. We exchanged the necessary courtesies:

‘Enjoy your winter reading.’

‘Ok.’

I watched them leave, a family, a nub of 3, moving in and out of each other’s thoughts faster than any forlorn and hopeful technology. The child was showing the book to the parent; the child’s face was unable to hold a shape, the jaws compliant and full of heat, trying to find an outline for the significance of the purchase; the bliss of carrying home a bliss.

The family collided with itself in the doorway. A bandaid came away from someone’s small wound and lay flat and spent on the mat. The mother said, ‘Come on,’ and they sailed clumpily out. In the pram, I saw a tiny foot raised straight up; a flag.

Artwork by Le Chat Peles Collective

The urgent child reader

The Book Keeper8 Comments on The urgent child reader

She’s a little reader, but an enormous one. I can tell. They stand there and don’t need to tell me anything. Then I think, ok.

They look through everything kindly. They know what they need.

‘I need Artemis Fowl’.

I say, ‘Ok.’ And we go to look for it.

Young readers are always kind.

‘I need number 5.’

‘Ok.

‘I also need Tolkien.’

‘Do you mean The Hobbit.’

‘No, I’ve read that.’

I say doubtfully, ‘Lord of the Rings?’

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s ok.’ Said to me warmly.

‘Hmmm.’

‘I also need the Flood books.’

‘Ok.’

‘I’m up to number 11.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘It’s ok.’ Said to me warmly.

‘I also need.

‘I also need.

The list goes on, but I don’t have it. ‘It’s ok.’ Said to me warmly. And the child reader leaves, still happy.

Then suddenly she bursts through the door again.

‘Just went to get some money from mum.’

And she gets a book. And dances back out with it held against her neck and her head going from side to side because she’s singing the title out loud and heading for the car across the road, and there’s her mum watching from the driver’s seat and ready to start the engine and get home to start dinner because it’s late now and it’s cold.

Illustration by Katarzyna Oronska

The small tasks that are done on long weekend Mondays

The Book Keeper4 Comments on The small tasks that are done on long weekend Mondays

It’s just traffic driving past really, not fast or slow, just endless, and the sky’s dark and the air is grey and cold. Everyone’s going home. Only truck drivers are stopping for food from the bakery. They walk past checking phones and sometimes they look in see me sitting here: one driver smiled and waved. An older couple spend ages trying to park a caravan outside my door. She stood on the footpath waving directions. Eventually they walked past my door; she had a really heavy shoulder bag and stopped to adjust it. She looked cold and annoyed. They both glanced in at me and then away again.

The carpark across the road is empty. There’s just a lady with smooth pale gold hair. She’s coming across to the bakery. She has an evening bag with a long gold chain. She’s dressed completely in motorcycle leather, including the boots. She looks as though she could go anywhere.

Families with small dogs on endless leads: a father has to untangle terriers and little children who won’t let go of the leads, and he says, ‘All right, let’s just do it slowly. Bridget let go a minute, come on.’

A man walking past fast does an about turn and stares at my door. He stacks two coffees and enters hopefully. ‘I’ve lost someone.’

She’s here, looking at books in the back room. She comes out. ‘I’ll be here for ever.’ He hands her a coffee and says ‘Keep looking. Keep looking.’ They stand side by side with their heads on the exact same angle, hugging hot coffees to hearts.

A mother and two small boys sweep past, but the little boys come back and press noses on the window. Then they move away, but the older boy comes back and stares through at something again. Then he disappears, but returns again, and then again. I cannot work out what he is staring at.

There’s a young man eating a pastie. His shoulders are hunched and he keeps one hand in his pocket. He glances backwards without interest into my shop window and away again. A young woman meets him and he says to her, ‘What’d you get me?’

She says, ‘Nothing.’ And he throws his head back and laughs and says, ‘Mate!’ Then he throws his arm across her shoulders and they walk on, and an old man with a grim face and a green Woolies shopping bag walks up behind them, and then a young woman steering a huge pram with just one hand. Her other hand is steadying what looks like loose apples on top of the pram. None of the apples fall; she is so focused on this one important task.

Illustration by Valentin Rukunenko

What was said this morning

The Book Keeper12 Comments on What was said this morning

I’ve been away from the shop because I’ve had covid. I drooped at home and read books. Sometimes, I went outside in the rain and looked up and down the road to see what other people were doing. I mostly ate instant noodles. I read a book about Queen Elizabeth I caught in the tower of London and doubting the future. Now I’m back at the shop and watching people pass the door, sometimes coming in but mostly not.

Visitors approved my covid reading choice. There’s something about Queen Eliz 1 which catches the ear. ‘Oh yes. She was amazing. And that Mary Queen of the Scots. Were they related?’

A man bought all my Asterix books (except the one in French) and said he’d inherited a stack of Tintins from his dad. He told me about a lecturer who did a thesis on Tintin. He went all around the world to investigate the stories and research Herge, or Georges Prosper Remi, who wrote and illustrated the Tintin books. He said, that’s a thesis people would actually want to read. Probably the only one.

A couple passed the window and stood in the doorway to make some adjustments. He said, ‘The trouble with these straps is they don’t work’, and she said, ‘You’ve got something on one of your thongs.’

A child went past, holding a parent’s hand and wearing a beanie with rabbit ears. They turned their head and I saw their eyes bobbing along, looking in at me before disappearing past the window.

A couple told me about the difficulties of teaching: there’s no support. Someone they knew had a pair of scissors thrown at them. They left their school. There was no support. They said the most destructive thing about schools now is the media. Once they get hold of a story, the truth will never be known.

A woman turned in my doorway and called loudly to someone out of sight. ‘Leave it there, we’re getting lunch.’ Then she walked back towards them and disappeared.

It’s cold and dark. People are dressed thickly. I saw a dad walking past my door, rugged up, scarf, beanie, everything, and his son next to him in shorts and t shirt. The child said, ‘I’m getting chips.’

Colin came in for a while and said he was getting into digital photography. We watched a couple cross the road in front of the shop: they began it together, holding hands, but then parted in the middle and went in completely opposite directions. He looked back and she waved him away. They went into separate chilly areas of the park. He sat down on a bench and she went to their car and threw her bag on the front seat before getting in.

A young man stared down at a copy of Moby Dick.  He had a bottle of coke clamped under one arm. His friend came over and they both stared down at the book. Then they went into the back room, talking about whales.

A very small child handed me a book and told me he liked peacocks. When his family left, sweeping him out through the door with them,  he was singing: dad dad dad dad dad. His dad said, ‘Come on mate. Back to the car.’

The grandsons get parsley

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An entire washing basket full. Roots, leaves, bark chips, a gum branch and two wooden pegs. The little boys all soaking wet.

‘You can have this. For frying, Nan.’ The parsley is flushed with rain, cold and fresh. I remove a small white snail. The smell of cold torn parsley went everywhere; we had to talk through it. They notice it because they flare their nostrils without realising.

‘I’ll have him.’ They want the snail, and they take it carefully. They plod back out in mudding gumboots.

 So much to do.

Try this one, it might work better

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Two men came into the shop today together, and I thought they were brothers. This is because they worked shoulder to shoulder. First they had to check in.

‘Did you get it?’

‘No not yet.’

‘Come inside. There’s another one in here. Try it. Might work better.’ They found my app printed and hung up in a different place.

‘That one out there must be on a shadow or something, generally I get it, don’t I.

The other man instructed him.

‘Come back a bit. Come back a bit.’

‘It’s been working beautiful till now.’

‘Yeah, I know mate. Come back a bit, you have to get the whole thing in.’

‘I’ve got it.’

‘No, you haven’t.’

‘Ok, I’ll have to sign the thingo. Don’t know why that is, it worked beautiful in the bakery, sorry to be a nuisance.’ He looked at me apologetically. I said, ‘Not to worry.’

I rewarded them with Melody Gardot through the speaker. They swayed.

I watched them move. Gentlemen, with hands in pockets. Silence. Leaning over the books with courtesy and interest. One men went into Art. The other man swayed, listening. They passed each other twice in the same narrow space. ‘You right?’

‘I am, mate.’

Hats on, black, coats on, blue, shoes stout helping with winter. Silence and breathing.

Suddenly their wivesentered, signing in efficiently. There are three of them. Who is the third?

‘Come on, girls.’ The see their men.

‘Oh, ello stranger, fancy meeting you here.’

One of the men responds, ‘Do I know you?’

Why are you in the children’s books?’ They don’t answer.

‘Come on Sue, let’s get Nora Roberts.’

Sue, in a beautiful red coat moves gently and slowly. ‘Did you sign the thing?’

‘We did.’ They move off, Sue with a walking stick. They ask each other.

‘How much is this?’

‘Is there a section for crime?’

‘I know what author I’m going for.’

‘Here, watch your step.’

Meanwhile, the husbands are still in art, shoulder to shoulder. They are examining their wallets. I listen to them when they pay for the art book.

‘Hans Heysen, not a bad bloke.’

‘He didn’t do too bad, did he?’

‘Now that I’ve retired I should put my finger back into the apple pie.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you what…’

Then they left, alone, and without their ladies. Outside in the cold, I could hear them still talking, still bent over the book he had open and was holding out under the afternoon cold.

‘Have they gone? Where are they?’

‘The men have left us behind, Sue.’

‘They’ve all gone, have they?’

‘They’re probably looking for us.’

‘Well, we can get back to the car. Don’t need them.’

Then they left, but I can still hear them outside the door.

‘I’ll just look round the corner.’

They moved slowly out and on and past the window. I can still here their voices…

‘…well that’s their fault for just sitting at home…’