The Brightfount Diaries. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ