Tea in the Library (22 page)

Fiction writers were always popular, and attracted our “core” customers
—
generally baby-boomer-aged women with their own effort at fiction in the cupboard at home. These authors were, without fail, always happy to answer questions about technique and inspiration, and to tell the story of how they came to write their books. Sue Woolfe, a Sydney writer and writing teacher, was a prime example of this. Possibly because she is a professional educator, she was happy to answer
—
and was good at answering
—
any number of questions from budding authors.

We also covered a huge gamut of non-fiction authors, including Nicholas Shakespeare and his
In Tasmania
history, plus books on cycling in Sydney and finding inspiration in your angels. We had authors with books on passion and finance and diet, and children's authors. We were the venue for the launch of a rather lovely children's alphabet book with illustrations cut from coloured paper, and one with the un-lovely title
The Snot Goblin
. Professor Stuart Rees, of the Sydney Peace Institute, talked about his book on peace,
Passion
For Peace,
and brought with him two lovely musicians who entranced the large crowd with a peace song.

Sometimes we managed to be controversial. Anthony Venn-Brown wrote his autobiography, telling the harrowing story of his transition from a married preacher in a Pentecostal Christian group, to a gay man acknowledging his sexuality. Anthony was a friend of mine, and I was thrilled that he would come to Tea In The Library and talk about
A Life Of Unlearning
. I was quite excited, and said to the staff that we must distribute our flyer on Oxford Street, to catch the gay audience! They duly did so, but on the night we were gobsmacked to find that instead of the pink dollar we had attracted the Pentecostal Christian subset. Anthony's presentation was very honest and forthright, but he was heckled rather insistently by some of the crowd, and I was getting nervous
—
how to quell a bookshop riot? I needn't have worried, however. Anthony was a pro and handled all the questions and comments sensitively and non-bel-ligerently (which couldn't always be said for the questioners.) When we were comparing notes afterwards, Anthony said to me “I used to preach on the streets, dear
—
this was nothing!” More seriously, he recognised that people can feel threatened by him, and in his view the thing to do was to acknowledge that they have different views, and never engage with their hostility. I must say that after the presentation, when Anthony was signing books, many of the hecklers approached him in a friendly spirit and seemed genuinely impressed with Anthony as a person. In some cases they compared notes about mutual acquaintances on the church circuit! We also sold a surprising number of books
—
some hecklers bought two or three to give to friends. Anthony is a hoot, and a great guy, and has done enormous good with his book.

We also heard from Irina Spinadel, (a regular short black drinker at Tea In The Library) discussing her bi-lingual (French/English) book of poetry
Etats d'Ame
, and her gruelling and fascinating life story
.
A Sydney author, Charlotte Wood, talked about her novel
The
Submerged Cathedral,
which had its genesis in the story of her own parents' romantic courtship. Jeffery Watson talked about Australia's own Biggles, Sidney Cotton, and his book
The Last Plane Out Of Ber-lin,
displaying to great interest lots of original photos from Sidney's life.

It is great to write about something that Tea In The Library managed to do successfully. Most Thursday nights I could be found at the shop, kicking back and enjoying myself, and watching our customers do the same. This part of running the shop was very rewarding, providing an opportunity to meet many wonderful people. Plus sell a few books!

In the last chapter, I slipped in a mention of Sandy. This curly-haired dynamo must definitely be properly introduced to the story.

When Tea In The Library had been open for about eight months, it was clear that the sales trends were not soaring skywards as hoped. Dale the business advisor was showing signs of nervousness and even at this early point was beginning to make noises about reconsidering, and
—
quelle horreur!
—
closing down. He suggested that we take the advice of a retail specialist, and one was duly briefed. This specialist, Keith, had two colleagues, both of whom play a significant part in the remainder of the Tea In The Library story. Keith himself, on the other hand, who came up with a “close down” strategy for immediate implementation, was given short shrift. Call me willfully blind and ignorant (I was), but I wasn't ready to give up on Tea In The Library yet.

Keith's colleague Peter comes into the story closer to the bitter end. But Sandy was the person sent by the Universe at this particular moment in time to transform us. Sandy ran a one-woman consultancy business called “Bright Ideas” and they certainly bubbled out of her. She was also a dynamo at the hard work needed to implement the ideas. She described her skills as “marketing and business development” and she
knows
retail. She ran a shop herself once, and had all kinds of small business experience. But morale-boosting was perhaps her greatest strength in this, our Hour of Need. Having decided that I'd give the Tea In The Library project a few more months to work, Sandy joined the team, as a contractor.

The best thing for me in this development was having someone around who was
—
or soon became
—
as passionate as I that the business be made to work, the puzzle be solved, the vision revealed. Someone to talk to! And someone to back me up “on the premises”, where I could be only so infrequently. Sandy covered for me and looked after my fledgling dream while I attended to the day job, and when I traveled away from Sydney. Although Sandy wasn't contracted to work with us full-time, she seemed always to be available, always “on tap”, and she gave her heart and soul to the project.

Under Sandy's “bright ideas” we were able to finally ensure regular tracking of
daily
sales
—
every book sold was celebrated! We brainstormed promotional materials and marketing ideas
—
and those materials appeared and those ideas were tried out. Sandy made sure our flyers were designed, printed and distributed; she re-deco-rated our entrance; she re-organized the café ordering system; she even offered a saxophone busker she came across on the city street fifty bucks and a free dinner to play inside the shop on a Thursday evening. With Sandy on the job, you never knew what new idea was around the corner next.

She met with me and the key staff each week, and we covered off lots of details
—
most of which she made sure were followed through. When I traveled away from Sydney for my day job, Sandy checked on the staff, the sales figures, any issues, and sent me reports. She turned into the manager I always needed, and in the process became a good friend.

In one of her former lives Sandy had been an interior decora-tor. When she decided that our entrance was dull and needed to be more eye-catching and welcoming, she dusted off those old interior decorating skills. The first step was a colourful paint job on the grey concrete walls. Sandy found a rather odd-ball pair of lady painters (very reasonably priced) who spent one weekend painting our foyer in Tea In The Library's elegant “corporate colours” of green and dark red. Apart from blithely painting over the official building name sign, which caused great offence to the responsible tenant representative and necessitated Sandy's brother coming down to paint back in the name, it was a successful job. Sandy added colourful cushioning to the outdoor seating bench, and some outdoor carpeting to improve the welcoming feel. But the
piece de résistance
was the trompe
—
as in
trompe d'oeil
. The vision was for a wall mural depicting the shop interior on one of the concrete walls. The lady painters assured us they could do this, but as it turned out the mural was in fact painted on boards and affixed to the wall.

It depicted shelves of books, and included the Tea In The Library Logo of a reading lamp in the centre. Opinion among The Team was sharply divided. I always liked “the trompe”, as we referred to it; but it was rather roughly done, and there were some strong views the other way as well. Months later Emma would still slip onto the meeting agenda a proposal to “get rid of the trompe”.

It emerged later that the painting had in fact been done by one of the lady painter's estranged husband. Rather mysteriously, he added a title to just one of the book spines in the trompe: “Worstward Ho” 
—
Samuel Beckett. Of course, Charles Kingsley wrote
Westward Ho,
and not Samuel Beckett. And this, somberly, was
WORSTward …
We never found out the meaning behind this cryptic addition. We felt that the estranged husband must have been rather a dark soul.

The trompe, and its riddle, is there still.

One Tuesday morning I made my way to the shop for the scheduled session of “Eggs on Proust” at 8 am. The advertised speaker, Dr John Demartini, was unfamiliar to me, and I hadn't taken much notice of the arrangements for this event. I was running a little late and started down the steps five minutes after the session had begun.

I was stopped in my tracks
—
people were blocking the doorway, filling the shop to overflowing, and spilling out onto the steps. I perched on the third step up, surrounded by five or six other latecomers, and we listened to Dr Demartini on the outside speakers (which I had thoughtfully installed when setting up the shop, for just such a contingency!) Dr Demartini is an American inspirational speaker, and he certainly inspired the adoring crowd that morning. The book he was promoting was entitled
How
To Make One Hell
Of A Profit And Still Get To Heaven.
The audience was made up of young, sharply dressed business-types, and they hung on his every word. Had we tapped Generation Y?! I must admit to being rather impressed with Dr John myself. At this stage I couldn't actually see him, but he could be heard quite clearly on the foyer steps, and he was certainly a pro at this kind of speaking.