BRIAN ALDISS
The Brightfount Diaries

For my dear ‘Polly’

You are the music while the music lasts

About half of this material originally appeared in the pages of The Bookseller. For permission to reproduce it here – and for many other kindnesses – I am indebted to the Editor, Mr Edmond Segrave.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

June

June–July

July

August

August–September

September

September–October

October

November

November–December

December

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

This is my pet book – the book with which I first dipped my toes into the chilly waters of publication.

Some time after WW2 was over, I returned from the East seeking the grant I would need in order to attend university. I was eventually told that the ex-service grant system was closed.

So, I took an ill-paid job in an Oxford bookshop. At least I was to be among books, those friendly fruits.

The official magazine of the book trade was, and still is, The Bookseller. Weekly copies were circulated among the staff. In the fifties, articles were published about the ‘big cheeses’ who comprised the book trade. There was no mention of those slaves, like me, who actually manned the counters and faced the customers.

I wrote a letter about this state of affairs to the editor of The Bookseller, a Mr Edmond Segrave, saying that ‘the pale face of the bookseller’s assistant was the backbone of English literature.’

Mr Segrave enjoyed the joke and dropped me a line in return. It was then that I conceived the idea for a series of comic sketches set in an imaginary bookshop.

Mr Segrave summoned me to his office. I wore a tie for the occasion. He said they had never published, never tried to publish, a comic series. If I would write six of these proposed pieces, he would consider them to see if he found them funny.

So, that I did. I worked near the celebrated Oxford bookseller, ‘Blackwell’. So, playing on this, I chose the name for my fictitious shop: Brightfount’s.

Those weekly instalments began to appear in The Bookseller. Publishers, it was reported, were amused.

‘Brightfount’s’ had been appearing regularly for about two years when I received a letter from Mr Charles Monteith of Faber and Faber. He asked if I would care to turn my weekly column into a book.

During the next six months, six other publishers wrote to me with similar proposals. But I could not have had a better publisher than Faber, nor had a more pleasant man to deal with than Monteith. He and I had two items in common; both of us as boys had subscribed to Modern Boy, (which published original ‘Biggles’ stories), and both of us had served in Burma, fighting Japanese forces.

I have always been confident. But about two weeks before The Brightfount Diaries’ publication day, I suffered the equivalent of stage fright. The public! – What if they don’t laugh?

Fortunately, they did. My long shambles of a career had begun.

Brian Aldiss

Oxford, 2012

June

SUNDAY

Last week at ‘Hatchways’. Shall be sorry to leave here, partly for Aunt Anne’s sake – she is becoming afraid of being left with Uncle Leo – and partly because I shall miss the country. Shall even miss that seven mile cycle in to work each morning, which I have cursed so often.

Been glorious day. Just looked out of my window to see, low over Claw Marsh, sun setting behind Drabthorpe Priory, while down on the lawn Uncle Leo stood knee deep in the fish pond.

‘Whatever are you doing there?’ I called in some alarm.

‘I hope I have not warped the course of your life too much,’ he bellowed back. ‘You must remember I have had to sacrifice a lot for your mother; she has been a difficult woman, Derek, a difficult woman – always remember that.’

‘This is Peter up here,’ I called back, not without embarrassment, remembering Colonel Howells next door was probably within earshot. ‘What are you doing?’

He climbed slowly out of the water, shouting as he did so, ‘I’m just considering erecting some tessellation instead of that parapet; it would just break the line of the roof nicely. Come down here and see.’

‘Not if it means standing in the middle of the fish pond.’

Nevertheless went down. Uncle was standing there wringing out his trousers. Asked him cautiously what made him call me Derek.

‘Got the boy on my mind, you know, with him coming back to England soon,’ he explained. ‘Shouldn’t be turning you out otherwise.’ Then he rapidly changed subject and said, ‘You work in a bookshop. Bring me back any books on tessellation you have.’

Can’t remember single book on tessellation at Brightfount’s, but Uncle must be humoured. My cousin Derek and his wife Myra and her sister Sheila are all descending on Uncle and Aunt, to live at ‘Hatchways’ until they can find house of their own. No doubt prospect makes him feel a little odd.

MONDAY

Borrowed Huxley’s Doors of Perception for the weekend. He advocates a substitution of the drug mescalin for those dubious Western narcotics, cigarettes and alcohol. Was carried away by his fervour (Huxley always mesmerises me). Eager to experience the beatific vision, I hurried round to Loghead and Beale, the chemist’s, in the tea break, and ordered a half gramme of mescalin.

‘Mescalin?’ the chemist asked, puzzlement in his voice.

He knows me well, and at first I thought he was merely surprised to find I was not after aspirins. But it transpired that he had never heard of mescalin. Nor did he find it in the pharmacopoeia.

‘Huxley experimented in California,’ I said.

‘Ah … That explains it. It’s American.’

So have not experienced that blessed state of beatitude; instead, feel merely a slight frustration. The only consolation about the business is that I described Huxley’s book so glowingly to my chemist friend that he parted with six shillings for a copy on the spot!

Publishers show a business-like alacrity to link books with films: would not a similar arrangement with Boots be easy to make? How fascinating to organize a ‘Read the Book – Taste the Drug’ campaign.

Or perhaps a limited edition could be produced complete with an unbreakable phial of mescalin contained in a back flap. Such a reasonable policy might bring considerable financial rewards; for instance, the tome would probably be chosen as the Underworld’s Book of the Month.

TUESDAY

Travellers much in evidence. What nice hats the Heinemann men wear!

In the quaint, gangling structure known as the book trade, the publishers’ travellers play an important part. Like bees going from hive to flower they provide vital links between the strongholds of London W. and such shabby outposts of literacy as Brightfount’s.

Had to barge into Mr Brightfount’s office while M—’s rep. was there to get a book set aside for someone. Mr B., looking very cheerful, hands in pockets, canting his chair back dangerously, was saying, ‘Of course you know we never had any Ascent of Everest on subscription order!’

Thought this quaint thing to boast about, later realized it must have been a counter-gambit to a new mountaineering book produced as ‘another Sir John Hunt’.

Sold our second-hand copy of Augustus Hare’s Walks in London. Noted from its costing that it was bought into stock year I was born. Twenty-five years on one shelf! Hope it gets a good home.

Pretty busy in afternoon, but found time to play one of Mrs Callow’s hard little games. Think she organized it to brighten up old Gudgeon, who wears far-away look: it gets further away as his holidays get nearer.

Object of this game was to think up literary animals. Thurber had a peke called Darien: did we know any other such pleasant beasts? Dave announced that a Maori had a little lamb, but this was disqualified. We could only produce that hybrid, the old English Bear-wulf, and a Gorbuduck. So Mrs Callow won with a Shakespearian nursery animal called Fardels Bear.

At this point Mr Brightfount appeared, and we returned to our posts. The bear presumably went back to Hoo Wood.

Actually found a book on fortification in our Architecture for Uncle Leo. We are a bit short of staff at present, have been since Miss Harpe departed, and on top of that Edith was away to-day with a cold or something. So I left shop late, and cycled slowly home enjoying sunshine. Arrived at ‘Hatchways’ to find Uncle had gone to bed.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked Aunt.

‘Nothing, as far as I can make out. He simply said he wanted to go to bed with the birds.’

‘But the birds won’t be going to bed for two or three hours yet!’

‘You remember those stuffed owls and things in glass cases up in the front attic? He’s gone to bed with them. I don’t pretend I’m not worried.’

WEDNESDAY

Our junior partner, Arch Rexine, and I spent most of the morning cataloguing. Trade very quiet. A traveller in to see Mr Brightfount, reappeared to tell us the one about the Army Captain and the frog who turned into a beautiful princess in the middle of the night.

Just before closing, about ten to one, a flock of people came in, talked volubly together without looking at the shelves and left after a quarter of an hour without buying anything.

Dave hastily put the blind up, but before he had turned the key one of the talkative group thrust his head in again and said, ‘I say, I forgot to ask – have you a copy of Local Government and Local Expenditure?’

‘Our books are under alphabetical order of authors,’ Dave said sourly. ‘Who’s it by?’

‘Oh. I forget. I had it written down but I’ve lost the piece of paper.’ With that he retreated, and Dave locked the door.

‘You know who that lot was?’ Mr B. said, emerging from his office with his hat on. ‘They’ve come down for the local conference. They’re Efficiency Experts …’

Half-day. Beautiful sunshine. Helen and I swam in the river down past Poll’s Meadow. Not a soul about.

Where do people go to in the summer countryside? Except for Helen and me, everyone might have been sucked up with the morning’s dew into heaven. We soaked in water and sun, and I felt perfectly content – pro tem, anyhow – to remain on earth.

THURSDAY

Foreigner, a Belgian, in shop in morning asking for Galsworthy’s Saga. I tried to imply that Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim presents a more up-to-date, if narrower, picture of us.

‘It must be Galsworthy,’ he said. ‘It is for my friend at home who has never heard of Galsworthy.’

The answer still puzzles me – not so much its meaning as its implication: one of us, despite all appearance to the contrary, was not understanding the other perfectly. What then will his friend make of Soames? (Somewhere here is hidden a pointer to international co-operation.)

Later, while I was wrapping the parcel, I asked our visitor how he liked England (stupid question!). He said he did like it, that it was his first visit here, and that he had always wanted to come over because ‘several of my parents were born in England’.

(Somewhere here is hidden a pointer to international co-operation.)

FRIDAY

A. H. Markham, an old customer and a bit eccentric, bustled in as we opened after lunch and went straight to History. He seized on our new copy of Tate’s Parish Chest (C.U.P., 25s.) and stayed there with it till we closed. Now and again he would pop a peppermint in his mouth and make a note on an old envelope.

Commented Mrs Callow as we trooped out to get our bikes: ‘Quite a tête-à-Tate.’

More cataloguing in afternoon.

SATURDAY

Probably most authors realize how profitable it is to be published in America. Came on an old advert to-day that proclaimed Hammond Innes as the Englishman with most serials in the Saturday Evening Post to his credit. That’ll make some of his rivals wistful! Not that wistfulness will help them get into the Post: the demand is evidently for forthright action.

Still, as Lionel Johnson remarked a while ago:

Some players upon plaintive strings

Publish their wistfulness abroad.

Moral: There may not be a market for every book, but there is for every mood.

Apropos of which, when Dave complained to Mr B. once about some ancient stock, he got the surly answer: ‘There’s a customer for every book, young man.’

‘The trouble is,’ Dave said later, ‘half of ’em are dead.’

Nice to get out of the shop into the summer air. Just getting on my bike when Mr Mordicant appeared; I did my Army service with his son. He is something on the local Journal and Advertiser but never seems to do any work. Ribbed him about this; he said, ‘Well, I’m making a kind of social survey. Nothing organized, you know, but I like watching the odd fish that swim around the tank of post-war England.’

‘Suppose it’s not much different from pre-war?’ I hazard, not quite knowing what to say.

‘Quite different,’ he said. ‘Everything’s changed. People have got an entirely new attitude. You’ll see – I’ll write a book about it some day.’

He’s certainly right about odd fish.

June–July

SUNDAY

Moving day for me. Surprising what lot of junk I’ve managed to accumulate in three and half years here. It’s been home from home indeed, real home being eighty miles away and too far and expensive to get to every week-end. In afternoon, Uncle drove down with me to new digs, which certainly will be handy for the shop.

Landlady is one Vera Yell, nothing much to shout about. Think even Mordicant would agree she is definitely of pre-war vintage. Her husband was once Uncle’s auctioneer. House is one of row of six. My room is up two flights of stairs, looks out over feeble gardens, outhouses, tumbledown walls, backs of other houses and cathedral behind them all.

Room itself is typical bed-sitter; an effort to make it habitable has obviously been made, so don’t grumble. Mrs Yell showed it to me very defensively. ‘I’m afraid the furniture’s not especially new,’ she said.

‘As long as it’s comfortable …’ I replied, glancing rather apprehensively at large photo of large girl in gym tunic hanging by the door.

‘Oh, that’s my younger sister Grace,’ says Mrs Yell hurriedly. ‘I hope you wasn’t expecting Picassos.’

‘Of course not.’

‘What with them and atom bombs and the Russians, and now these poor plastic children, I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’

‘Oh it could be worse.’

‘Yes – and probably will be before it’s better. Anyway, I’ll bring your breakfast up prompt at eight each morning.’

MONDAY

Breakfast was prompt: cornflakes and cold sausage. Walked round to Brightfount’s.

Spent most of morning doing window. Made glorious mêlée of new, second-hand and remainders on theme of ‘Diaries and Diarists’. Am always afraid of getting price tickets wrong since the time we marked a set of Hakluyt £8 8s. instead of £18 18s. Our nice morocco Pepys as centrepiece; it’s been in before, but no matter.

Cross Street looked very pleasant in the sun.

Mr B. spent most of day pricing the library he bought from Professor Carter. One volume had been a gift from a famous author and bore the inscription on the fly-leaf: ‘To D. C., A Parting Shot.’ The book was A Bullet in the Ballet. Was this only the mild joke it seemed, or a veiled but straight tip to D. C. to stay away? An associ-ation or a dissociation copy?

TUESDAY

Slipped out in morning to buy new pair of white flannels, passed two young men talking so animatedly and with such pleasure that I was attracted to them straight away. As they whisked by me, I only caught three words, uttered by one of them in excited tones: ‘I’ve been reading …’ Pass, friend.

V. nice flannels. Expensive. Wore them to tennis with Helen in the evening. Had about enough of her. For one thing, her service is putrid.

WEDNESDAY

Very busy; generally are on half-day. Gudgeon, our senior assistant, had the day off, so most of serving devolved on me. Still no replacement for Miss Harpe, who left in the spring because she was asthmatic and allergic to dust.

In the middle of a rush, some thoughtless millionaire came in and bought our morocco Pepys from the window. Very awkward: nothing decent to fill the gap.

According to Dave, who always ferrets out such tit-bits of information, Mr Brightfount interviewed young girl who starts Saturday; know Mr B.’s choice by now: plump, greasy, prone to sniffing. We’ve got one like that on the staff already – poor old Edith, dumb office wench.

Irritable. On bike ride, Helen and I caught in heavy rain shower. Violent quarrel under horse-chestnut. That’s over! Returned to digs and was furiously barked at by Mr Yell’s dog in the hall. Retreated to room: ‘Lost myself in a book.’

Relevant quote from Rasselas: ‘… the incommodities of a single life are, in a great measure, necessary and certain, but those of a conjugal state accidental and avoidable.’ Must see about getting married; am old enough, if not rich enough. Trouble is, there are few suitable girls – only the Dodd girl, whom I don’t know very well, and Colonel Howell’s daughter Julie, who works in London. Shall probably end up bachelor like Gudgeon; a lifetime of Mrs Yell’s breakfasts stretches before me.

THURSDAY

Gudgeon bought a portfolio of prints for ten shillings yesterday and sold it to Mr B. for two pounds ten. Said he to me, waving the spoils, ‘There’s a beautiful bit of engraving on these notes, you know.’

He starts his holiday on Monday.

Saw Helen in Cross Street. Grrrr!

FRIDAY

Pay-day. Packet seemed thinner than ever. ‘Here’s to the next one!’ old Mr Parsons says each week as he tucks his envelope away.

Arch Rexine loathes to throw a book away; Mr Brightfount pitches them out with heart-warming prodigality. I’ve had several interesting volumes from our ‘chuck-out pile’. Have just found old novel called Store of Gold. Pubd. in the twenties, it is a tale of a future where Big Business has run wild; goodness knows, it may have been credible when it was written. Now, it is alternately funny and fustian. Hero and heroine work in a giant store which stays open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Employees work four hours on, eight off, sleep in gigantic dormitories miles underground. Hero, transferred to Toys, is separated from heroine; book details their struggle to meet in lifts (‘non-stop express to all seventy floors’) and wangle a reunion. It’s comedy-Kafka – or perhaps burlesque-Bennett.

My favourite character was Menucius Replay, who works in the book department. To Menucius (‘the constant burning giant gas jets had etched an ineradicable pallor in his gaunt face’) is given the soul-destroying task of writing two-hundred-word reviews for the weekly publicity sheet of all ‘failed books’ and books cut in price; that is, remainders.

We are told one day, ‘the conveyor deposited before Menucius his quota of work for the next two shifts: a two-volume autobiography of an obscure statesman, a biography of Hannibal, Days Afloat, More Days Afloat, three novels with a religious bias, a symposium on modern science and a book of egg recipes. After but a second’s hesitation, Menucius reached out for Hannibal. Life’s desperate struggle for survival had taught him already to tackle the toughest while he was freshest.’

Dipped into this treasure while dusting and sorting Foreign Lit.

Mrs Callow, just going into Rexine’s room to take his letters, was slightly nonplussed because a customer asked her for Airs of Old Venice. She looked in Music, couldn’t find it, and told the customer so. Gudgeon, without a word, fished the book out of Foreign Hist.: Heirs of Old Venice.

Explaining later, Mrs Callow added, ‘I never turned a heir.’

Which reminds me. Had a hair-cut to-day. Looked at an old Men Only while I waited my turn. One cartoon showed an impressive boss saying to applicant for job: ‘We want reliable men here, self-confident, strong-willed men, capable of saying to their wives, “No dear, I will not ask for a rise”.’

To tennis club in evening. Played one game singles with ginger, freckled chap from Midland Bank.

SATURDAY

Would you believe it!

The rumoured new girl has arrived! And very nice too … Slender, nice high forehead, hair the colour of grapefruit squash. Name: Miss Ellis. She’ll be working in shop with me. Brightfount’s is looking up!

Helen just asked for this.

Chap came in during afternoon trying to sell Rexine glass shelves and chromium stands. Rexine, surveying with dignity our ancient, scarred wood, said, ‘My dear man, we can’t flout tradition; there’s been a bookshop on this site since 1820.’ The dear man suggested it was time for a change.

‘You don’t know the book trade,’ Rexine said, retreating from his dignity with a laugh. When the traveller had gone he added contemptuously to me, ‘Glass shelves! With you and Eastwode beefing about!’

New girl confided before we shut shop that she’s ‘terribly fond of symphonies’. Told her I’d just bought Bizet’s No. 1. Good start.

On strength of this, roughed out sentimental little article on book-selling that I may offer to local paper. It ends with this telling (?) summary of the job: ‘The trade that pays so little and gives so much.’

July

SUNDAY

Rather overcast in morning, but cycled dutifully over to Graves St Giles to see Uncle and Aunt. House in chaos, owing to the grand turn-out in honour of cousin Derek and his bride, who return from Singapore next Friday week. Doubt if Aunt will ever have the place ready in time.

Slightly insulted to see how thoroughly they have thought it necessary to clean my room. It was stripped of everything bar wallpaper.

Uncle Leo paced up and down it excitedly, gesticulating as he did so. ‘I wouldn’t have any furniture in the house at all, if I had my way,’ he says, adding in lower key, ‘not, as you know, that there is ever any likelihood of my having my way here.’ I know nothing of the sort, Aunt Anne being the gentlest of women, and he continues hastily, ‘My whole life’s been devoted to selling empty houses, as was dear old Pa’s before me, and believe me, they’re vastly better without being cluttered by a miscellaneous welter of furniture. You don’t smother the outside with lumber – why spoil the inside?’

Now he is warming to his theme. In trying to sell an odd idea to me, he – how often have I seen him do it! – sells it to himself. A house should be a shell, filled only with the spirit of its inhabitants, a sort of homely monastery. He has forgotten about the necessity for beds, chairs, tables … If he had his life over again, and was free of the tedious necessity of running a miserable, moribund little estate agency (a job he loves), he would live indoors and cultivate his soul. ‘As it is, my soul’s all whiskers and bottom.’ He’d take up Yoga, a sort of Westernized Yoga.

‘Lunch is ready, dear!’ Aunt calls.

‘The voice of authority,’ says Uncle. ‘Come on, may as well eat. Don’t know what Derek and Myra will think of this room – it’s the draughtiest in the house.’

Mr and Mrs Yell are very kindly couple. Would insist when I got back that I went into their living-room and had a slice of cold pork for supper with them.

MONDAY

Workmen in, doing new shelving job in cellar. Ever since I’ve been here there seem to have been workmen romping round.

Poor old Mr Parsons, who as our packer looks on the cellar as his own domain, much put out by this strange activity round him.

‘Trouble with them’, he tells Rexine, ‘is they talks too much. Their boss is a bloke called Vaws; I reckon it ought to have been Jaws, because that’s all he does, jaw, jaw, jaw!’

Spent long while sorting out order for University of Lehukker in America. Dave, seeing me begin to dust a thickly coated set of Lytton, cries in mock-horror, ‘Don’t do that! Our only chance of getting rid of a bit of dust is to send it away with the books!’

Few customers about. Was sent after lunch-hour to get on with ‘Slaughterhouse’. This derelict bit of shop is crammed on all sides with unsorted volumes, piled on the shelves in no order. Being on ground floor, it is all too convenient place to store second-hand books when they are bought to await pricing and categorizing later. But in bookshops, later never comes. There always seems too much to do.

Amusing to note people’s attitudes to the Slaughterhouse. Miss Harpe, who left in the spring, always referred to it as ‘the Miscellany Room’ and refused to go in it. When customers find their way in, they either exhibit extreme displeasure to find such disorder or extreme delight at such a gallimaufry.

Gudgeon, our senior assistant, is on holiday. He spends all his holidays with equally silent friend, fishing up and down England. Poured with rain most of day; let’s hope the fish are rising well.

TUESDAY

Our new assistant, Miss Ellis, is not turning out quite as well as (I) expected. For her looks, much can be forgiven her, but was much shaken to hear her pronounce ‘Goethe’ as ‘Go-Ethe’, the second syllable to rhyme with ‘sheath’. Unfortunately, Mrs Callow, in whom the vein of satire runs deep, also heard it. Suspecting my leaning for Miss Ellis, she devised, and repeated throughout the day, this chant:

Goethe, Goethe,

What very prominent teeth!

They make you look a swine

Compared with Heine, with Heine.

Mr Brightfount in reminiscent mood. While Arch Rexine made himself ostentatiously busy, Dave, Mrs Callow and I listened with interest. It does not sound much fun to me to have earned only a guinea a week, but everyone who has tried it seems to have enjoyed it – in retrospect, anyway.

Mr B. started in the approved fashion, the hard way. ‘I’ve gone without many a meal to buy myself a volume I coveted,’ he admitted with a shade of pride. He is quite right, of course; one of my favourite memories of myself is sitting empty in pocket and stomach, reading Clive Bell’s Civilization. It would not have excited me half as much over fish and chips.

Mr B. says, ‘I explored every avenue connected with books,’ a nice metaphor that gives him a country background. But it was in London that he bought a partnership in a small publishing house. They are still functioning, and have just published By Bicycle Up Everest.

Dave asked him why he had thrown that venture up and returned to bookselling.

He chuckled. ‘Publishing?’ he said. ‘There’s no money in it!’

At closing, Miss Ellis was met by offensive young fellow who took her arm and led her possessively away.

WEDNESDAY

Very neat van stopped outside Fletcher’s, the nearby café. Little windows in either side showed bright books. Sneaked out to have closer look. It was an Oxford University Press children’s book van. Asked the driver where he was going. He winked and said, ‘Cambridge.’

Half-day. Tennis: not playing well this year. Polishing up my little article on bookselling, wrote it out neatly as possible, and posted it to the Journal and Advertiser. Don’t suppose they’ll have it. If they do take it and pay me for it, I shall buy myself a new pair of white socks.

THURSDAY

Life is very irritating really; nothing turns out as planned. Meant to get up early and go for walk but overslept. And Mrs Yell had burnt the toast – not for the first time, either. Mrs Callow greeted me with her nasty chant:

Goethe, Goethe,

What very prominent teeth.

But the afternoon was lovely. Mr B. and Rexine both had to go out, and Mrs Callow was upstairs helping Edith, our dumb office wench.

Dave and I chatted with Peggy – Miss Ellis. Sun shone, warping boards of escape books’ display in side window. Doors open: a dandelion seed drifted aimlessly in. Sold two expensive prints.

Cross Street seemed to dream in the sun. In the church next door, someone was playing the organ superbly. With the sound and the sun and the books and Miss Ellis, life suddenly achieved a pattern, rich and satisfying – and how old the pattern was, though the organ pipes were but recently installed and the books fresh from their authors’ hearts.

Or are books written mainly from the head?

Anyhow a feeling of tranquillity permeated the air. As we lolled on the counter, Dave recounted his most exciting moment in a bookshop. The war was on, and he was alone in shop with a nervous evacuee woman who came to work afternoons only, name of Flossy. The time for closing was drawing near; there were no customers within miles.

It was a soaking wet November night; out of the blackout came a wild-looking giant who commenced to prowl up and down the shelves. He wore no raincoat and his suit was saturated, but he paid no heed, merely dashing water out of his hair. Totally ignoring the two behind the counter, he marched round the shop like a being demented.

Flossy was alarmed. Did Dave think he had escaped from anywhere? Dave said nonsense; but the big man was certainly behaving queerly, leaping from section to section, pulling out a book here and a book there. Some he crammed back on the shelves, some – almost without glancing at them – he formed into a pile on the floor.

‘See what sort of stuff he’s going to buy,’ Flossy hissed; she was all for phoning the Home Guard. When the odd man’s back was turned, Dave sneaked over and glanced at the top book which had been selected. Its title made his hair stand on end: The Criminal Responsibility of Lunatics.

He had just informed Flossy of this when there was a power failure. All the lights went out. Dave was nonplussed, but not Flossy; she started to scream. Fortunately, the electricity reappeared in a minute. The stranger was gone.

Miss Ellis, who had been listening raptly, breathed, ‘Had he stolen any books?’

‘Of course not,’ Dave said. ‘That dream Flossy must have terrified him. He ran out in a panic!’

FRIDAY

Postcards arrived from Gudgeon, who spends his precious fortnights fishing in Norfolk. He sent me one this year for the first time – makes me feel quite important member of staff! Mr B. and Rexine got sober views of Lowestoft, Dave and I got broad behinds and red noses.

Gudgeon being away, Dave has to do the Clique, a duty conferred on him by Mr B. as if it was an honour. Perhaps it is, but this is difficult to determine from Dave’s demeanour.

The Clique is one of the instits. of the book trade. Every week, at a thousand bookshops scattered over the British Isles, people pop in and ask for books which are not in stock. Not only are they not in stock, they are frequently out of print, often are completely unheard of, and are entirely fictitious. The only method of obtaining these phantoms is to advertise for them in the Clique. To the non-bookselling eye, Clique has little to attract: it contains over a hundred pages blackly printed in double columns. These two hundred odd columns consist of authors and titles required by the scattered and hopeful booksellers. This means some nineteen thousand common or scarce books in all, and all ordered! There is a fortune waiting for anyone who could supply them all. But in a week’s issue we rarely report more than a dozen titles, and rarely get answers to all our requests.

All the jokes in Clique (and there are few) are accidents, and not very funny. To see someone advertising for Henry James: The Golden Bowel, is amusing only after thirty pages of dull and correctly printed titles.

SATURDAY

Work.

Poor old Peggy does very well for a beginner really: but today Edith discovered she has been entering everything up wrong in the day-book. Rexine amazingly patient – if Dave or I had done anything like that we should have been hanging by now from the sign over the entrance.

SUNDAY

Over to Graves St Giles. House in slightly better order.

Uncle very quiet during lunch, vanished afterwards without drinking his coffee. Aunt Anne looked very depressed, so asked her when we were washing up if I could do anything.

She shook her head and said, ‘He’s getting so eccentric.’

‘Is it because Derek and Myra are coming home next week?’

‘No – only indirectly.’

She looked as if she might have said something else, but at that moment I happened to let go of a plate, which changed the subject. Before taking her usual rest, she had a sherry, a bad sign.

Went for rather aimless walk hoping perhaps I might see Julie Howells, returned to find Uncle still away and Aunt in orchard, slashing vaguely at some nettles with a sickle. She looked up and began speaking before I could so much as greet her.

‘There’s something I ought to tell you, Peter,’ she said. ‘I think you ought to know, although we’ve always kept it even from your mother and father. Come and sit in the loggia.’

Obeyed, thoroughly alarmed.

‘You know D. H. Lawrence had scores of collaborators?’ she began.

‘Yes,’ I said, not committing self.

‘Well, he had anyway.’ Long silence. ‘You know your uncle is a literary character?’

‘I know he’s known Mr Brightfount a long time.’

‘My dear boy, your uncle used to be a reviewer.’

Said I had not heard this before.

‘I am afraid your mother and father have never been very booky people … However, that’s nothing against them. Mr Brightfount has never told you anything of this?’

Forced to ask Of What?

‘That your uncle once collaborated with D. H. Lawrence?’

At last the bomb was dropped! Of course was wildly excited by news, although furious to think of years wasted without knowing of this. What would Mrs Callow say when I told her?

‘Sit down and don’t behave so childishly …’

Begged her to tell me all about it, how it had happened, what they had written.

‘It was early in 1922,’ Aunt said, ‘and your uncle reviewed Aaron’s Rod in the local paper — it used to run a literary column once a fortnight until the old editor died. About a week later, Lawrence appeared at Newspaper House and asked to see your uncle.’

‘How marvellous! Had Uncle given it a good review?’

‘Far from it. We were living in the little house at Lower Wickham then. Lawrence arrived in time for tea.’

Seemed to me to be most wonderful thing I had ever listened to! Asked if they fought like dogs.

‘Not at all. He stayed eleven days. I did not care for him – we had only been married a little while – your uncle and I, that is. You could hardly tell at times that he was in the house – Lawrence, I mean.’

Asked what they wrote.

‘Oh, nothing that was ever published, of course. They were working on an idea that was going to be called ‘The Gypsy and the Virgin Kangaroo’, but it all fell through, and afterwards Lawrence made two other books out of it.’

Asked why on earth Uncle and Aunt had been so quiet about all this.

‘Well, it was not long after that Lawrence published Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and your uncle had always been well thought of locally, so …’

Uncle appeared at that instant through the side gate, bearing in his arms an enormous bundle of bulrushes, so that I never heard what effect Lawrence’s visit had upon his eccentricity.

Write this all carefully down now not just because it is the only important thing which has ever happened in our family, but because it is valuable scrap of history in its own right. Can’t think why Uncle did not write book on Lawrence; lots of other people did.

MONDAY

Wasted twenty minutes over one customer – and sold her nothing. She wanted a good English grammar that would do for her two boys for reference at home. I felt I knew those wretched children personally before she left: Dennis, aged nine, Wilfred, fourteen. ‘We want to give them really good careers. Trouble is, we can only afford it for one of them. Ought we to concentrate on Wilfred, who’s the elder? – but he’s always been so slow – or cut our losses and just plug for Dennis, who’s frightfully bright for his age?’ Etc., etc.

Finished with the suspicion that she wanted neither book nor advice, just a chat about her troubles. Odd how people unburden to strangers!

Can’t help worrying about Wilfred, though. If he doesn’t watch it, he’ll end up as a bookseller’s assistant.

Tennis in evening: singles with the Dodd girl. Bought her a squash afterwards. May see more of her.

TUESDAY

Late. Rexine saw me come in at 9.15, just looked. Expect I’ll hear about it some time.

Been thinking about yesterday’s customer. Her problem is much the same as a bookseller’s; to push the old, slow stock or concentrate on flogging what is already doing well? In Brightfount’s we’ve never decided.

Mrs Callow’s birthday. Gave her a box of chocolates – only person on staff who gave her anything. Dave and I invited up to her house this evening, went by bus. Very nice there. Food first class. Mr Callow science-fiction enthusiast, to Dave’s delight – we went for walk, left them chatting and diving excitedly into vast cupboard full of magazines with bright, neat astronomical covers and titles like ‘Stupendous’, ‘Staggering’ and ‘Unlikely’.

Have not said anything to anyone about Lawrence. Rather wish now I was going out to ‘Hatchways’ next Sunday, but have already planned to go home for week-end.

WEDNESDAY

Half-day. Rained. Bored. Should not be reading Kafka’s Diaries if they weren’t remaindered. Very good bargain.

Few customers show much interest in anything to do with books apart from whatever particular one they are after – except when it comes to remainders. Name seems to waken their interest. ‘Why are they so cheap? How can you afford to sell them at this price? Do the authors know about this?’

Any number of answers really. Most of our reduced books are not our own dud stock, but come from firms who buy up from publishers. Publishers get rid of books for several reasons, most of which they do not mention, for remaindering is not the glorious business publishing is; all publishers remainder, none do it with cocktail parties. Pity, that!

You are cordially invited to

A COCKTAIL PARTY

at

The Algernon Hotel, Bifold Street,

on

the – July, 19—,

in celebration of the clearance of the last seven hundred and seventy-three copies of Mr ABLE-FURBISH’S Still More Writing Really at Random for one shilling and twopence apiece.

TIES.

R.S.V.P.

And this because, perhaps, the publishers have overprinted a good book, to be on the safe side and avoid reprinting later. Or perhaps they had overestimated the market for that particular book (already glutted by Mr Furbish’s previous works, Writing Really at Random and More Writing Really at Random). Or perhaps Mr Furbish wanted a holiday in Old Calabria and required a lump sum in a hurry. Or perhaps his book had been rather drably produced. Or perhaps the publisher’s production manager had cut his costs on the book jacket, and nobody liked the look of the thing at all.

Or perhaps – which is quite likely – it was just a rotten book.

THURSDAY

Up v. early in burst of energy for swim by Poll’s Meadow. Back pleased with self and peckish. Landlady, spotting me, commented irritably, ‘Fancy getting yourself hungry like that before breakfast!’ (She operates under fixed impression rationing is still on.)

She was annoyed again at tea when I came in filthy from the shop. We moved two old sets of Scott from the Slaughterhouse to the basement and I had cobwebs on shirt and hair. Mrs Yell: ‘Now just look at you! And I thought books was a gentlemanly profession.’

‘Not the retail end,’ I explained wearily.

We all had some of Mrs Callow’s birthday cake in tea-break. Peggy Ellis promised to bake some buns and bring, one day. Dave, being funny, said he would bring some beer. Peggy: ‘You won’t really, would you?’ (She is disappointingly naïve)

Dave: ‘Of course I would. Why, last Christmas I brought some wine and we got old Brightfount so pickled he couldn’t say “Hodder and Stoughton”.’

I heard him telling her later that this Christmas we would have some mistletoe. Those two are getting very friendly, suspect romance in the air; but offensive young fellow still meets Peggy outside shop about twice a week.

Workmen have finished in basement, Vaws has gone. Old Mr B. looking very miserable all morning; perhaps he has had the bill. He spent long while shut in office with Rexine. We know these moods of old. Everyone apprehensive; the next devel. is generally a lecture by Mr B. on saving electricity, paper, etc., commencing with the words, ‘I’ve just been looking at the figures …’

‘He’s probably seen the announcement that U.K. booksellers had a turnover of forty-four million pounds last year,’ Dave said, ‘and thinks he’s not getting his fair cut of it.’

Sudden inrush of customers then, including A. H. Markham who wanted back a book he sold to us two years ago.

We still had it.

FRIDAY

Pay-day.

Tucking her envelope away, Mrs Callow observed, ‘Well, we must be grateful for small purses.’

Had my article on book-trade back this morning: ‘not of sufficient general interest’. Bang goes another promising literary career.

Expected lecture materialized to-day, before we went down to cellar for morning tea. Gathering us all together in the back of the shop by Rexine’s office, Mr B. commenced, ‘You’ll be interested to know I’ve just been looking at the figures …’ Usual talk followed. Try and save string.

The man from the public library came in shortly after and ordered a lot of Biggles books, which seemed to restore humour all round. He and Mr B. get on well together: they were Fire Watchers or something in the war.

Royal Family books selling well – especially on Fridays, market day. Farmhouses hereabouts must be full of them.

Customers not exciting on the whole. We have one or two people whose visits we look forward to: Owen Owen, the town councillor, Ralph Mortlake, who is rather an ass, Prebendary Courtnay, rather stiff, Professor Carter, vague, and of course A. H. Markham, who distributes sweets. And there’s old Maclaren, whose appearance we dread. And the plump fellow we call our Thief, although we’ve never actually caught him taking anything.

Of course, there is also Jocelyn Birdwine, but he hardly ever comes in nowadays. He was the most odd and charming person you could imagine. Now he owes us £4 14s. 6d. and has ceased to call.

Sometimes people make their inquiries so disinterestedly, so tediously, looking away or yawning as they do so, that I long to scare them back into showing a semblance of intelligence. What a luxury to wait until they’ve fumbled into silence and then to drop the dummy mask of assistant – saying in the most freezingly rude tone, ‘Now get back outside that door, come in briskly and say your piece coherently, and then we’ll see what we can do for you.’

Had a lovely customer in before we closed, fully compensating for a hundred stodges. She was dark, slender and sad, but smiled most beautifully. Imagine her name was something Shakespearian, probably Miranda. A car waited outside for her – I saw her climb into it with a flash of graceful legs, watched it move down Cross Street. Alas, she must be bird of passage; she bought an Ordnance Survey map of country south of here and then was gone.

Books of poets dead and gone

What Elysium have ye known—

This one day, in Brightfount’s tavern,

A spirit lit your spirit’s cavern!

Met Miss Dodd (Avril) with her brother after work. Spent agreeable evening with them. Returning late down Cross Street, saw lights on in Brightfount’s; could make out poor old Mr B. up in his office. He works so hard. Who’d be a bookseller?

SATURDAY

Gudgeon’s last day of holiday!

The people you know best are not your friends but those you work with: Arch Rexine, for instance, our junior partner. He was serving an imposing-looking man this afternoon who wanted Shaw first editions. The mere mention of Shaw and Rexine’s homely face lit up.

‘I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this Shaw story,’ he began modestly. He goes on to describe how Shaw sent one of his plays to a famous but penurious poet, whom we will call S.Q. The play was inscribed, ‘To S.Q., with affection’.

But S.Q. was hard up, took the play to Charing Cross and sold it profitably. There, browsing a day or two later, G.B.S. happened to discover it, no doubt with relish. Next day, S.Q. received the play back through the post; under the previous inscription was written, ‘With renewed affection, G.B.S.’.

Rexine trots this tale out regularly. Any mention of Shaw, S.Q., or association copies and out comes the story. If you said ‘G.B.S.’ to him in his sleep, he would reel it off. But it is a good story. Must tell it myself when Rexine’s not about.

Got the 6.50 train home, tra la!

SUNDAY

Luxurious to wake between decent sheets. Did not realize till now that Mrs Yell’s smell of mothballs and toast.

Brother Andrew has delish. new waistcoat. His photographic business seems to be doing well from all appearances. Says airily to me, ‘In a couple of years I may be able to take you on as a junior.’

‘What’ll you pay me? Enough to buy pansy waistcoats with?’

‘Not likely – but by then I may let you wear this one.’

Think I’d rather stay at Brightfount’s. Remember an objectionable little man called Seepage, who sometimes comes to see Mr B., saying to Gudgeon, ‘This day-after-day business would never do for me. Can’t think how you can stand it year after year.’

To which Gudgeon, whose general method of reply is to say nothing, remarked, ‘You don’t think of it year after year, you just take it day by day.’

Forget what Seepage said to that – something about never letting himself get caught in routine. When I get that feeling myself, always recall a French waiter mentioned somewhere in Arnold Bennett’s Journals who had ‘learned a whole philosophy in the practice of his vocation’. This is much better face to put on things than, for instance, Kafka’s face. Did not get far with his Diaries: he groaned too much about going to the office every day.

MONDAY

I’ll say this for Arch Rexine, he does encourage us to take an interest in things. Mr B. occasionally asks for suggestions, but nobody’s ever known him act on them. Rexine will, though, in his own objectionable way. Some weeks ago, he asked us if we had any ideas for new selling lines. Dave, who is sold on that kind of thing, said, ‘What about Space Travel and Flying Saucers?’

Rather to our amazement, Rexine agreed it was worth a try. Next thing we knew, great parcels arrived containing Conquest of Space, Man on the Moon, Flying Saucers from Outer Space, Flying Saucers Are Real, Flying Saucers Have Landed, Flying Saucers on the Moon, and so on. Dave was, to coin a phrase, shattered; but to-day – clearly having recovered – he virtually insisted on ‘a Saucer window’, as he calls it.

‘It would be a waste of display space,’ said Rexine grumpily.

Whereupon Dave showed us a letter in the Journal and Advertiser from someone claiming to have seen a saucer flying low over Bagger’s Dune, a hill about four miles out of town. Dave said he thought it would be an incentive to sales.

So the saucers are in the window. Two sold during the day, so Dave may be right.

TUESDAY

Gudgeon is back from his summer holiday. He and a friend of his have been on the Broads – ‘and in,’ he said; ‘we both fell in in turn.’ We told him how brown he looked, but he said it was wind not sun. Wonder what he and his friend talked about, if they talked at all? We spend hours here in his company without ever feeling we really know him.

The great news to-day is another letter in the local paper about flying saucers from a man who writes, ‘I was driving over the top of Bagger’s Dune when the saucer came over, veered sharply south and looked as if it was going to land the other side of Dune Wood. Unfortunately I lost sight of it then.’

Dave elated. Sold more space books during day.

Did orders first thing, then spent rest of time clearing out Slaughterhouse. Mr B. is thinking of converting this shabby little den into what he ambitiously calls ‘a print showroom’. First the outside wall will have to be rebuilt because the damp pours in. That will mean another invasion of workmen!

WEDNESDAY

Made fool of myself this morning. Customers don’t always pronounce titles clearly and I suppose I had my mind on interplanetary visitors, etc. Anyhow, when I was asked for Vivisection of the Universe, I echoed the title in shocked amazement.

‘I didn’t say that at all,’ the customer replied sharply. ‘I asked for Visual Perception of the Universe.’

This slurring of words is misleading. Professor Carter asked Mrs Callow for a text of Beowulf once, and after a moment’s thought she said, ‘We’ve got Br’er Rabbit.’

Half-day. Went long cycle ride with Jack and Piggy Dexter. Kept one eye open for saucers. Had tea at charming place called ‘The Red Jacket’ (d/w to Stalin’s works, perhaps?). Discovered terrific hornets’ nest in rotten tree on way home.

Piggy said, ‘Suppose the Martians or whoever they are landed just here. If they had never had to cope with insects before, the hornets would be quite invincible and the Martians would have to hop back to base and report that this planet was uninhabitable.’ Hopeful thought.

THURSDAY

Thinking of changing digs; toast burnt again. Opened bed-room door to find landing thick with smoke. Tackled Mrs Yell about it and was told burning was due to poor quality of present-day bread: ‘It don’t stand up to flame like it used to.’

Arrived at shop feeling a little peevish.

Dull day. Gudgeon has got post-holidayitis and Dave pre-holidayitis – he is off for a fortnight on Saturday. I had mine over Easter – too early. Continued in the Slaughterhouse, which is quite amusing, but after lunch had to sit and catalogue old Bohn editions of the classics; Mr B. wants to get out a special ‘Cheap Only’ stereotyped list by the end of next month. Shall these dry Bohns sell?

Heartily glad to slip out at five o’clock, pull off my tie and go round to meet Avril Dodd at the club. Played doubles with her against her brother Charles and old flame Helen. Good game. Went for a walk with her after; she’s a bit solid but agreeable to talk to. Going to meet her again next Wednesday.

FRIDAY

Pay-day.

Forgot to say yesterday that space books are still selling. Dave and Rexine elated. To-day there was a third letter, anonymous, in the local paper at midday. The writer had actually seen ‘two disc-shaped objects such as Adamski described in his book’ floating over the Town Hall. They disappeared with an eerie whistling noise behind the Tastiped Shoe Factory.

‘It’s really getting quite alarming,’ Peggy Ellis said nervously.

‘I don’t care if there’s an entire Martian invasion,’ Dave told her, ‘provided we sell the books.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ said Mr B., overhearing. He called down the cellar to Rexine, who was helping old Mr Parsons unpack parcels, ‘You’d better order some more of those space books.’

Mrs Callow suggested – but sotto voce – that by the trend of things we might be wiser to stock up on the ‘County Books’ and guide books in case some Venusians materialize. Could not help visualizing what a revolution in the book trade, as in other spheres, a peaceful interplanetary invasion would cause. We should have a spate of Venus in Pictures, and there would be Teach Yourself Venusian, Masterpieces of Venusian Art, and as for travel books … The imagination – what’s the exact word? – boggles.

Despite this excitement, I still sat in the back of the shop cataloguing Bohns. Emergency or not, what Mr B. says goes. Our dumb office wench, Edith, came downstairs about four to collect Rexine’s post and said, ‘Cheer up, things aren’t as bad as you look.’

Several American tourists about; most of them are interested in buying prints – to compare with the photos they take, I suppose. Last year we had a Baltimore man in who told us what a lovely old town we had; Gudgeon, flattered beneath a stolid exterior, embarked on a description of the local antiquities.

‘And one wall of St Mary’s church dates back to about 1570,’ he said proudly.

‘Gosh, is that really so?’ the visitor exclaimed. ‘A.D. or B.C.?’

SATURDAY

Swim before breakfast. Very cold.

Always get odd people in shop on Saturday. Our ‘thief’ came in to-day – at least, we’ve suspected him for weeks but have never actually caught him. Everyone brightens up perceptibly when he comes in!

Dave very cheerful, last day at work and his saucer books going briskly. As we closed, Rexine said to him, ‘You know I’ve ordered some more saucer books, don’t you?’

‘I know,’ Dave said, ‘but don’t forget I shall be away next week. You’ll have to carry on the job of writing fake letters to the Press or the sales may fall off.’

Takes his job seriously, does Dave – when it suits him.

SUNDAY

Found self quite looking forward to seeing Cousin Derek and wife. Odd of me really, because relations are never very exciting.

Got over to Graves St Giles earlier than usual. Derek and Myra were out in the car with Uncle Leo; apparently they are looking out for a house hereabouts, and Derek wants to motor to London every day.

Asked what Myra’s sister was like.

‘I thought you’d ask that!’ says Aunt Anne coyly. ‘Sheila is a very charming girl, and about your age. She left here on Friday to stay with some friends in Kent, but she may be back here next Sunday when you come.’

Inquired, not that I wanted to change the subject, after Uncle Leo.

‘He seems to have been a little steadier since Derek arrived. But I fear he is undergoing a very odd phase just at present, very odd. You know my dear, I’m forced to say it, your uncle’s not at all an easy person to live with.’

She looked rather tearful, so I hurriedly asked what effect Lawrence had had on him.

‘Lawrence met your uncle when he was still at a very impressionable age. I’m sure he had a very profound effect on your uncle’s ego. Now I am very far from being anything in the nature of a psychoanalyst, and heaven knows I could hardly be said to be even connected with the world of literature – not as much, even, as you are, Peter. The only thing I have ever had published – and this detail may amuse you (even if you have heard it before) – was a knitting pattern. There used in my young days to be a monthly magazine called Lady and Domicile, defunct now, and they had this competition one Christmas … However, that was not what I was going to tell you.’

Aunt Anne has great strength of mind. She looks searchingly over the rose garden, as if to collect the lost thread of her narrative, and says, ‘Lawrence had certain definite ideas about the human character, some of which were – and I say it without wishing to appear a prude – very unorthodox. He believed that every man should be an individual, and this deeply impressed your uncle. He is now trying to be an individual in the only way he knows: by being an eccentric.’

Had curious sensation of revelation listening to this. Aunt is quiet little woman, rather like one of Smollett’s women, efficient, lively enough and without much depth. Now, sitting on the rustic seat listening to her, suddenly realized that all these years she had been watching Uncle Leo with acumen. Began, in fact, to feel nervous for Uncle, particularly if she had diagnosed wrongly.

At this point the car came up the drive. Uncle introduced me to Derek and Myra. Myra was very elegant and pleasant; Derek seemed a bit hearty. I can just remember him as very small boy running round pretending he had swallowed a balloon, to the consternation of Aunt Anne.

They drove me back here after tea.

MONDAY

Continued clearing out the Slaughterhouse. Miss Ellis and Gudgeon looked after the shop, but trade pretty slack; according to Gudgeon, only customer before eleven o’clock was a woman whose little girl required the nearest lavatory.

Main object of attack in the Slaughterh. to-day was Mr B.’s so-called ‘reserve’ desk – so-called because its drawers are so crammed with rubbish it is no longer usable; he abandoned it long ago for the one upstairs. He had to supervise the turning out; we filled a sack with waste. Every drawer bung-full with old correspondence and catalogues. No system, of course. One drawer contained nothing but empty envelopes, addressed to ‘Gaspin’s’ or ‘Gaspin and Brightfount’, which dates them a bit!

Other contents included loose chocolates, sealing-wax, a bottle of Vapex, early copies of Criterion, Blast and London Opinion, a mêlée of pencil stubs, two crushed cigars, an old pair of spectacles, some lino patterns, a photo of the shop, endless prospectusses and a box of pre-war cheese.

‘We really ought to present this lot to the museum,’ Mr B. said. ‘Ah well, fling it out.’

The only things he did keep were some old rubber stamps and a faded photograph of Mrs Brightfount in a large, floppy hat.

Was laughing about the collection later to Mrs Callow. Gudgeon overheard and said, ‘What’s funny about it? A collection of miscellaneous articles is man’s only defence against time.’

He makes some odd remarks occasionally.

TUESDAY

After last week’s intensive campaign, interplanetary books are still selling well. The Green and Red Planet doing particularly nicely. Mrs Callow, leaning nonchalantly against the counter, informed me that she’d seen an announcement of the first book by a Martian pilot, entitled One of Our Saucers is Missing. Almost swallowed it.

Supposing these beings from another world arrived. Imagine them as dry, detached intellects in a sponge-like body; they casually present man with the secret of anti-gravity. In the succeeding outburst of space travel and planetary exploration, what an orgy of – not adventure, as the rocket-writers predict – but learning would follow! The barriers of every science would be broken down: geology, physiology, astronomy, chemistry, biochemistry, agriculture … What oddities of planetary architecture, to take geology, Mercury might yield, its airless plains eroded by lead streams and undermined by lava seas.

And biochemistry … in the great, gravity-less stations wheeling round the earth, white-coated men peer at their captive rats, rats conceived and born free of weight – rats the size of spaniels with brains accordingly enlarged.

There would be work for the publishers then, and of making many books less end than ever. Some Unclassified Ganymedan Trypanosomes, Plutonian Oceanography, Alien Helminthology: with special reference to the parasites of Venusian Vertebrates, would be unpacked at Brightfount’s by some later-day Mr Parsons. A metal Mr Parsons perhaps.

A dream of learning – shattered maybe by the wail of sirens as telescreens announce, ‘Attention earth, attention earth! Four space stations have been seized by the giant mutant rats, who even now prepare to drop H-bombs down on their creators!’

WEDNESDAY

Half-day. Spent the afternoon lazing in the sun, got cleaned up and met Avril at five. After (expensive) tea we watched dull cricket match on Poll’s Meadow till stumps were drawn, when her brother Charles, who was playing, conscripted me for a match in a fortnight’s time. Could not get out of it! Then Avril and I were making for a spot of peace and quiet when we ran into Piggy Dexter, who insisted on taking us into ‘The Boar’s Head’ (dangerous pub name for Dr Spooner!).

Always expect to hear brilliant talk in pubs, perhaps with memories of Boswell at Child’s. Generally disappointed – people have indisputably lost their fluency since Johnson’s day, trained into passivity by radio and cinema. But one fragment charmed by its ambiguity: two men discussing a third as they left the bar, and one said, ‘But the way he laughed! Do you think he was a bit high?’

‘Oh no,’ replied the other. ‘I think he was genuinely amused.’

July nearly over! Ah me, in summer you forget it is not always summer and are consequently apt to forget to appreciate it to the full.

THURSDAY

Dave is having good weather for his holiday. Don’t know where he is going – he didn’t himself when he left on Sat. night. Said he was having a bookseller’s holiday, i.e. could not afford to go away. Seems quiet in the shop without him; he’s a bit rough, but good-hearted and good company. Think Peggy misses him. Mr B. is going to be away to-morrow, has to go into the country to look at a small library.

More remainders arrived to-day.

‘Remainders are to the book trade what the Grand National is to bookies,’ Mr Brightfount sometimes says; he loves a sweeping assertion as much as a gamble. His way of dealing with remainders is to ‘spot a winner’ and buy it all up, letting it sell slowly over the years.

Our cellar is encumbered with these lucky buys, so-called. There is Ages at Bagger’s Dune, which being of local interests sells slowly: we are now down to the last two hundred copies. There is a study of Saxon cooking and table manners which seldom sells, called Sir Gawaine at the Kitchen Door. And there are stacks of copies of two memoirs by a doctor who worked for years in Poland which – most embitteringly when you think of the success of Doctor in the House and Doctor at Sea – never sell at all; these are Fistulas on the Vistula and its sequel, Hand over Fistula.

One of the most endearing features of book trade is its galaxy of titles, all gallimaufried together. Notice how many facets of human existence lie cheek by jowl in the booksellers’ lists:

Carr, T. H., Power Station Practice

Carriage of Goods by Sea Act

Carroll, L., Alice in Wonderland

Cary, M., A History of Rome

Casanova, J., Memoirs

FRIDAY

Pay-day.

Likewise market-day. We were busy most of the morning with Dave and Mr B. away. Yesterday Arch Rexine put thirty duds from the Slaughterhouse on to our outside shelves; twelve of them sold before I went to lunch. A lot of Ruskins have gone. I’ve noticed before how old and rural-looking men buy Ruskin. These are folk unswayed by fashion. That’s a thought which often worries me: aren’t booksellers as much ruled by fashion as milliners? Inside or outside the head, the way of the world is the only way.

Queue of charabancs in Cross Street after lunch; trippers come specially to view the Castle. Mrs Callow said that once when she was on holiday at Eastbourne with her husband they went on a Mystery Tour and before they knew it were back here looking at the Castle!

‘Hope you bought a guide?’ Miss Ellis said.

‘Not us. We slipped home to get a cup of tea and see if the cat was all right.’

SATURDAY

Dave is pretty illiterate, even for a bookseller’s assistant. Had a card from him saying he was in London staying with a friend ‘who is a bit of a rough daemon’. Conjures up an intriguing, mephistophelean figure. Surprisingly, Dave appeared while we were having tea break. He had had enough of London after looking round Foyle’s and Charing X Road, and cycled home this morning. He cycles everywhere: next week he plans to do Reading, Oxford, Cheltenham, Birmingham. He visits all the bookshops. That’s funny really, because you’d hardly call Dave a keen type.

Puzzle on the till roll this morning. I am a fool. During rush-hour yesterday I entered something that might be taken for either ‘Agamemnon’ or ‘Afghanistan’; to-day I can neither decipher nor remember what it was. Rexine gave me level, evil stare, and said, ‘I wonder if other bookshops have things like you?’

Had supper at Mrs Callow’s; wish I had a landlady like her! Thought it friendly of Dave to come in and see us this morning, but there was an ulterior motive … on way back to digs met him in Park Road with Peggy Ellis, arm in arm. This is odd and no mistake! Wonder what Edith, our dumb office wench, would say? Always used to think she had a sort of rough affection for Dave.

August

SUNDAY

To-morrow is August Bank Holiday. Cannot afford to go home. Yet I do not mind the prospect of two days spent more or less on my own; solitude has pleasures no other state can bring. Generally something interesting arrives out of the blue to think about, or if it does not arrive, boredom which is unbearable in company is good for the soul alone.

Suddenly discover myself at such times, almost like a stranger – had been there all the time, but in the crowd had never noticed me.

Not spectacular day to begin August with, but about what might be expected: warm and cloudy, and the threat of rain. Cycled lazily out to Graves St Giles, taking the longer route through Upper Wickham. A few wild roses still in the tall hedges, but already the green blackberries show.

Ancient car passes me closely, hoots, brakes wildly. Out jumps Derek.

‘Sling your bike in the back, old boy, and jump in. How do you like her, eh? Only bought her on Friday.’

Ask him what it is.

‘A 1925 Cardiac. Sound as a bell. What do you think I gave for her?’

Say £20, which annoys him.

‘Sixty – and that was devil’s cheap. Move over, Myra, and let the blighter in!’

We cut through the village at a smart pace and slither up Uncle’s drive in a cascade of gravel. Derek yells instructions to throw out the anchor, and we stop.

‘How do you find Aunt and Uncle after all these years away from home?’ I ask him as we go into the house.

‘No different – a bit older, of course.’ That is all he has to say; does he know nothing of the Lawrence legend, or is he merely insensitive? But at once Myra slips her arm through mine and says, ‘And what a sweet, old-fashioned question it is for him to ask. And where has he been all his little life?’

Have no answer to this. Besides, she is very smart, has fringe and a pleasingly sharp look, and her arm (even offered in mockery) is not to be disdained. But Derek tells her angrily ‘not to start that sort of stuff’, and we go silently in to lunch. Myra winks at me once over the table.

Did not stay for tea.

Poured with rain before I got all the way back home. Soaked. Mrs Yell rather awkward about drying sports jacket.

AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY

Clouds cleared early. Should have liked day at the sea; the Callows were going to Bismouth on the nine o’clock coach.

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