The Loneliness of the Long Distance Book Runner (8 page)

The landlords are baffled by my business plan but willing to sign a 3-6-9 lease, which means I am responsible for paying the shop’s rent for three years, after which I can renew or choose to leave. It’s quite a responsibility because the lease is in my name. I am trading not as a limited company (SARL), but as a sole trader because it is easier to set up and makes for less complicated accounting. So I am told.

And then it’s all go. Decoration. Assembling of shelves. Thinking of a name.

A friend suggests ‘Leaves of Grass’, which has a provocative appeal. Bill’s Book Company is another suggestion. I would like
to be associated with the cultured brand of the BBC. I chicken out from using their logo but hope that people will make the connection with the initials. BBC – Bill’s Book Company.

A sign is made and then fastened above the shop of modest proportions. To attract the attention of ex-pats we stick jars of Marmite and a Paddington Bear in the window. The Penguin rep is sceptical of my decision to mix some new books with
second-hand
but she is won over on her first visit. The opening day is also a success, family and friends helping to make it so. Some customers even become good friends, lending support. In addition to making a pavement sign, bass guitarist Beach applies his artistic talents to designing flyers. The novelty of English second-hand books sees me through the opening months. But then we enter the summer months, long hot ones. Compensating a little for the students’ and locals’ annual desertion, the tourist trade ensures survival. And I’m pleased to soon feature in some of the budget guidebooks to France.

Not that I’m fighting the hoards away. In August few people visit the shop. I call this time of the year ‘The Burial of Hope for the Bookseller’.

The inactivity leads to idle speculation on money spinning ventures. I have a recurring fantasy set in a village near Millau (where Derek Raymond laboured in between the writing his Factory series). We occupy the bar terraces in the shade of the square afforded by the plane trees. We marvel at the sunny weather and enthuse about the red wines. We eat, drink and love excessively and what with our novel amounts of leisure, a mood of hedonism prevails for the duration of the holiday. We pretend to compensate for this indulgence by undertaking modest walks in the soporific heat. And of course we get touristy kicks from accomplishing simple everyday tasks, the foreign language negating the banality one normally associates with the daily chores such as a trip to the bakers.

We meet the village’s mayor and self-appointed local historian.

‘Oh yes, it had been an important spot once. Talagout was the market town of the valley, with three hundred and thirty three houses to be exact, and a dream of a church. I remember crying the day, in 1955, they drowned it all,’ he says breathlessly. The lake was later leased out to a water company but the land and the reservoir itself remained state owned. So they didn’t just flog them off like ours back home.

A
notaire
had grouped together all the houses for the sale. And the French State had forced L’Arnack, being the nearest village, into making the purchase. Financial compensation was dispensed to the inhabitants of Talagout, a sum of money still hotly disputed. L’Arnack’s mayor hadn’t wanted to buy the village for fear of appearing to condone the scheme, but the Government had forced his hand.

‘Whenever a property is put on sale in France, the town council always has first option to buy. It prevents ludicrously
low bids,’ he explains. We are amazed to hear of such municipal power.

‘In Britain the mayor is traditionally one of the more ineffectual councillors who get worked up over bottle banks and parking meters. They carry little clout, their post being basically an honorary one.’ Following an explanation of the word clout, the discussion develops with the mayor striving to impress upon his listeners the magnitude of his legal clout.

‘In the strictest terms of the mayor’s mandate, you could sell Talagout then,’ we deduce with mischievous glee. At that moment a transaction becomes a possibility. ‘The village fête is in two days time. Let’s make its sale the central event,’ exclaims the by now grandiloquent mayor.

It rests on a roll of the dice. The old mayor is giggling uncontrollably, aware that a five is going to be difficult to beat. The pastis, council subsidised for the village fête, has robbed him of any residual air of municipal dignity he might once have possessed. The aniseed liquor heightens further the crazy notion of the ‘old village’ being at stake. ‘A three,’ he excitedly declares amid the approving roars of the revellers. We both search our pockets for the one franc needed, egged on by a drunken crowd. The ‘old village’ is ours. The mayor, reckless with age and alcohol, retrieves the deeds. And with the official stamp of the
Mairie
, Talagout village is sold to us for ‘
le franc symbolique
’.

Two days later the mayor has sobered. He isn’t sure of the exact legal position but he reasons it pretty academic. The sale might even generate publicity for the region, which owes its prosperity as much to tourism as it does to the grape. It might also help their recently hatched project to twin the town, I suggest. ‘
Entente cordiale
and all that.’

I get down to a new business. Estate Agency.

By the last week of August, I am convinced that my fortune lies in writing a spoof detective novel that breaks all the rules as laid down by Father Knox. I discover, in a pamphlet on the crime fiction genre written by Julian Symons, that in 1929 the clergyman produced a list of the ten Commandments of Detective Fiction. They are as follows:

In my crime novel, an English protagonist will be undone by cultural differences. For example, an Englishman would expect to be able to leave his front door without needing a key. A French front door could trap him.

In fact Josef Škvorecký, Czech writer and publisher, has already harvested a book from the Commandments. His
Sins for 
Father Knox
, published in 1991, comprises ten stories (two featuring Lieutenant Boruvka) in which a crime occurs that violates one of Father Knox’s rules, thus serving up a double challenge: Who dunnit? and Which rule was broken? An Amazon reviewer says that the ‘result is a genuinely innovative, brain-teaser of a novel that pokes fun at American pulp fiction.’

Having an idea, but not the application nor the actual talent to follow it through, is a prevailing theme in my life. There are so many distractions. Years later, in my second shop, the internet proves another distraction. I even find time to submit haikus to
The Guardian
online.

The site contains haiku of the day, featured poets, and a rejection of the 5-7-5 restrictions. The best topical haiku received will be posted on the site, and each week the overall winner will net its author £20 worth of Penguin Classics. Great. Free stock. But I never actually win, in spite of repeated attempts and a developing obsession. I even get a friend ‘John’ to have a go. Honourable mentions to…

We are rushing to catch the 15.05 Chester train when I catch a glimpse of the Mayor of London. The stooped stance and shock of blond hair. It is undoubtedly Boris Johnson. He is looking a little lost. In taking our seats, we see him walking alone on the platform adjacent to our train. I surmise that he is awaiting the Manchester train in order to attend the Tory Party Conference and make mischief.

On the 6th of October, I send the following e-mail:

On the 14th of October, I receive the following reply:

By strange coincidence, a London customer purchases the dictionary the very same day.

I head to the tables that have books piled upon them. Friendly volunteers man the stall.

I tend to smile benignly without entering into conversation. I can’t allow myself to be distracted from what is essentially my work. ‘You’re a big reader,’ I am told. I nod. Sometimes I come clean and declare my hand but not on this occasion. I put down a pile of James Bond paperbacks (Pan) so as to inspect a neat collection of early (but not Firsts)
Dr Dolittles
, each with a pristine dust wrapper. Nearby is a C. S. Lewis,
The Last Battle
, that looks like an early edition. It’s seemingly in very good condition with its wrapper intact. My mind, upon turning the
cover, prepares itself for disappointment, expecting to see any of the following: a torn page, a missing page, a library stamp, a reprint edition, a pen mark, an inscription, a previous owner’s signature, spotting, a water stain, a price clipped d/j, a remainder mark, mould, bug damage.

None of them. Which is why I can describe it as a ‘good collector’s copy’: cover slightly faded, no chips, no tears, book with illustrations in text, without inscriptions. Illustrator Pauline Baynes, published by The Bodley Head, 1956.
The Last Battle
concludes the Chronicles of Narnia. It deals with the end of time in the old Narnia and sums up the series by linking the experience of the human children in Narnia with their lives in their original world. This copy is on sale for £480.

It’s started to drizzle so I carefully place the book inside my jacket. The weather isn’t dampening anyone’s zeal. People are tucking into fairy cakes. Jam is for sale. The bouncy castle is in operation and other children participate in the egg and spoon races. I think of my son back in France. His school too has fêtes, with tombolas and face painting. But there’s something quintessentially English about egg and spoon and three-legged challenges. Mathieu attends l’Ecole Rudyard Kipling; the French naming many educational establishments after famous artists and writers.

I take him to the school gates where we loiter until a friend calls out. The shout from the other side of the playground exerts its pull. Matty pauses, for just a second or so, before charging off in zig zag fashion. He reminds me of a fish returned to the river, a moment to reacquaint itself with the water before that dart to freedom.

A friend from university works on a salmon farm off the northwest coast of Scotland. His boss is prepared to buy a library of academic books on fisheries, and a more general selection concerning the physiology of fish. I neglect to mention that the books have come out of a skip, jettisoned by the college’s accountants. It happens more frequently than you’d think.