Bookshop Blues

IN the mid-1990s, during my three years at the University of Kent, I resided in the seaside town of Dover. Perched on the south-eastern corner of the British Isles like a municipal afterthought, divided between what we like to call the English Channel and the North Sea, Dover is famous for its imposing white cliffs and the Saxo-Norman castle that dominates the skyline as a constant reminder of the eleventh-century invasion. Being a little over twenty miles from the French Port of Calais, at least as the crow flies, the town is also a busy crossing point for the huge ferries that plough their way to and fro like great steel leviathans.

Having become friendly with a local bookshop owner, with whom I would converse on all kind of literary matters, I was asked whether I would be so kind as to take over the running of the premises for a period of two days. He wanted to import some duty-free alcohol from one of the large French supermarkets, so I was happy to oblige. On the morning of the first day, as I met him on the doorstep and was given the keys to the shop, he handed me a can of aerosol. Realising that I was now in possession of the very substance that my mother would spray around the house with the kind of brutal efficiency displayed by a Chinese policeman in the midst of a large-scale protest, I asked him what it was for. 'You'll find out,' he said, grinning mischievously and bidding me farewell.

Entering the shop I turned the sign from 'closed' to 'open', laid the invoice logbook on the counter and awaited the first customer. At this juncture one might be forgiven for wondering whether George Orwell's remark about bookshops being a hotbed of 'paranoiac customers and dead bluebottles' were really true, but it was a particularly quiet morning and unremarkable in the sense that there were just two customers, no bluebottles and, more importantly, no sales.

After lunch, during which I kept the shop open for business and ate my sandwiches on a wicker reading-chair, an elderly man entered and proceeded to peruse the section on Religion. Two or three minutes later, he left the shop without uttering a single word. More alarming was the fact that he did not vacate the premises without leaving his personal calling card. The carte de visites in question, however, did not contain a name and address, as one might expect, but came in the shape of a noxious smell that almost had me diving for cover behind an adjacent stack of leather volumes. It was then that I remembered the can of aerosol that I had received from my friend. Snatching it from a nearby shelf, I proceeded to aim it at my invisible assailant in the hope that the awful stench would recede. Much to my annoyance, the shop had now been transformed into a cross between a box of rotten eggs and the contents of a chemical weapons factory. Shocked that such a deadly and potent brew could emanate from such an innocuous old man I quickly opened the main door to disperse the impenetrable barrier that fate had deemed fit to erect between my lungs and the rapidly diminishing traces of oxygen that remained. 'Welcome to the inner sanctum of antiquarian book-selling,' I thought to myself, closing the door and settling back into my chair.

Twenty minutes later a female pensioner entered the shop, asked me a few questions about W.B. Yeats and then crouched behind the Poetry section as though hiding from the Gestapo. Imagining that my previous experience was something of a rare occurrence and taking advantage of the fresh air that had accompanied her entry into the shop, I engaged her in a little casual conversation and we ended up discussing the accomplished versification of Mssrs. Pound, Belloc and Eliot. At least until she let off the kind of silent explosion that would have turned the course of a major world war. Visibly gagging, I grabbed the spray for a second time and made a vain attempt to exterminate this latest redolent bombshell by pressing down on the top of the can and waving it around as though I were a drowning man trying to capture the attention of a group of short-sighted sunbathers. Thankfully, indignant at my frantic attempts at self-preservation, the woman - more of a protagonist, than a poet - left the shop soon afterwards and there were no further customers for the rest of the afternoon.

When the second day arrived, I returned to the little bookshop with mounting apprehension and was certain that I could still detect the malodorous atmosphere that had so greeted my shocking introduction to the world of literary confinement the previous day. Surprisingly, despite there being five or six customers that morning not a single one of them emitted even the slightest odour and I became increasingly more relaxed over the course of several hours. 'Perhaps it was all just a terrible coincidence,' I thought to myself.

Meanwhile, the afternoon was as quiet as the grave and I was left to read through the pile of vintage literature that I had procured from the shelves for my own entertainment. Around ten to five, just before I was due to end my forty-eight-hour career as a substitute bookseller, the door flew open and a postman entered the shop to enquire whether I had any detective stories. Naturally, I motioned towards the section where Arthur Conan Doyle sat just to the right of Agatha Christie and returned to my pile of dusty books. Without warning, as my eyes began to water, I suddenly realised that I had been subjected to a first class delivery from a petulant postie who seemed utterly determined to ruin my final few minutes in the shop and turn them into a mini-Hiroshima that would imprint itself upon my memory for the next twenty-five years. Once his ignominious form had finally shuffled out of the door, and this time the guilt was indelibly etched all over the customer's face, I left the shop keys beside the money-box, flipped-over the 'closed' sign and hurriedly made my way out into the sanctifying freshness of the street.

It has been said that a room without books is like a body without a soul, but whilst a bookshop without customers won't keep the wolf from the door chances are that will certainly prevent the contamination of body and soul alike. Furthermore, if you ever find yourself traversing the perilous waters of the book trade and are duly informed that the 'customer is always right,' then please ensure that you go suitably attired to the extent of wearing a reliable gas mask. Forewarned is forearmed.