Читать книгу The Brightfount Diaries - Brian Aldiss - Страница 7

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.