Читать книгу Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell - Страница 13

Online orders: 5

Orders found: 5

Torrential rain once again. Nicky arrived fashionably late as always. Even her black ski suit couldn’t repel the rain—she looked like an angry seal as she pushed the door shut against the wind and rain. Nicky is the sole remaining member of what was once a staff of two full-time and one part-time employees. She is a good friend, although our opinions differ wildly on many things. She is a Jehovah’s Witness. I am not religious. She’s in her late forties, with two grown-up sons, and is endlessly entertaining. She’s also devoted to the shop, and enormously capable. She considers me as an impediment to the success of the business, and consistently ignores my instructions, choosing instead to deal with things as though the shop was her own.

At 9.30 a.m. I put the space heater on in the big room and moved the stereo for Petra’s belly-dancing class. I’ve agreed to let her use the big room above the shop which the elderly ladies use for their art class on Tuesdays. Astonishingly, two people turned up. Once the rhythmic thumping of the activity upstairs had begun, I took the mail to the post office (just across the road), where the counter was manned by William, whose disposition was pretty fairly matched by today’s weather. He greeted me as he does everyone, by completely ignoring me and muttering about how much he despises Wigtown and almost everything about it.

At about 10.30, as Petra and her dancers were in full flow, Isabel (who takes care of the shop’s finances once a week) came in to do the accounts, and as soon as she heard the banging she stopped in her tracks and looked horrified. When I explained that it was a dance class, and not an orgy, she was visibly relieved. She also offered to take the cash from the till to the bank for me, since I’ve been stuck alone in the shop for three weeks and unable to get there.

With all the rain, the leaking shop window is dripping incessantly onto the Christmas window display (which was a pretty dismal show at its best) and now looks like a dreary and damp winter flower arrangement.

Three wildfowlers came in. One of them spotted a large, framed Victorian print, Fishing in Connemara, which was priced at £40, and said, ‘I don’t mean to be cheeky, but what’s your best price on that?,’ so I told him that he could have it for £35. He bought it, and three Robin Ade signed prints which I’d bought from Mary, my antique dealer friend. Nobody has shown any interest in the stuffed badger that I also bought from her, sadly, other than children, who are fascinated by it.

In the evening I went to the pub with Alicia (Taiwan), Gina (New Zealand), Elouise (Australia) and Petra (Austria). I was the only Scot at the table. They’re all here working in various pubs and cafés.

Till Total £132.99

5 Customers