Читать книгу Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell - Страница 41

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Up at 7 a.m. to take Anna to Glasgow airport. It was dark, and the wind and rain beat against the van all the way. We bade each other a very tearful farewell. There has been a tension between us for some time, caused entirely by me and a fear of commitment that I don’t entirely understand, so we’ve decided to spend some time apart.

I fear that this may be not just the end of a chapter but the closing of the book for Anna and me. When she first moved here, things seemed perfect: an intelligent, funny, attractive woman who wanted to live in Wigtown and have a life with me. The problem is me, though. I find it hard to see a future except as a cantankerous curmudgeon, living alone. It’s not a future that I—or anyone, I suspect—would wish for, but there it is, and to my shame it has caused hurt to Anna and to my family, who embraced her as a daughter and sister.

On the way home I dropped a van load of rotated stock off at the recycling plant. The man who I have to deal with there seems to become more irate every time I visit. Today he was cursing and swearing about having to find me three large plastic tubs into which to deposit the books for recycling. Returned home at 1.30 p.m. to find the shop locked and a message taped to the door from Flo explaining that she had forgotten that she didn’t have a key, and consequently had been unable to open the shop, so I opened up and checked the mail. It included the planning application for the concrete spirals, with a demand for £401 to cover the cost of the application. I called Adrian Paterson, a local architect, and asked him if he could deal with the application, since it required scale drawings done to an architectural standard.

At three o’clock an elderly couple came in, the woman clutching a plastic bag to her breast like a feeding infant. Inside, bubble-wrapped, was a copy of Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (Ward Lock, 1857). She had inherited it from her mother, and they’d been ‘watching one of them antiques programmes and someone brought a copy on and it was worth £10,000.’ This is not a scarce book, and when I told them that, and that their copy was only worth about £50, they both looked at me with undisguised contempt, as if I was either a charlatan or a fool. I suspect the copy they saw on television was inscribed by Livingstone. I can’t imagine any other reason for it being so highly valued. Books of this period frequently have, as a frontispiece, a portrait of the author, and this is often accompanied underneath by a facsimile of their signature. I’ve lost count of the number of times customers have tried to sell me ‘signed’ copies of books that are clearly reproductions of the author’s signature.

Bum-Bag Dave called in at 4.55 p.m. He often arrives at inconvenient times. So often, in fact, that I wonder if he makes a point of timing his visits to cause maximum disruption. As always, he was laden with bum-bags and various other forms of luggage. He redeemed himself by buying a book about Fokker aircraft of the First World War. When he opened the door to leave, Captain shot into the room at high speed, leaving Dave looking satisfyingly startled.

Till Total £67.49

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