The Bookshop

The Bookshop by John Paul Newbury

Joe stalls at the bookshop door. He hopes the latch misses its ritual observance. Across the street the gargantuan dominates in its reflection of the world he wants to avoid. His future lies fragile outside imitation. Only memories supply distraction.

Elaine stations her billowing shopping trolley by the old hat stand to the left of the doorway. No hats are displayed minimising its function. This is the first indication of impermanence. Her life belongs to books, a widow to the past. She moves from side to side, aims for the classics section with the black bindings, where the titles are larger than the author names, and prepares to update her weekly occupational dose. Last week, Dickens escorted her through a Bleak House, the week before, Austen advocated a stay in Northanger Abbey, and today her hand wanders into the moors of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Joe ensures an obstacle-free passage from the third aisle to the cash register, ready to initiate pleasant dialogue with the well-read elder.

"Hello, Mrs. Peters, how does Charles perform?" Joe diligently inquires.
"Good morning, Joseph. Charles does as Charles does ... superbly. How does the business do?" she returns. Joe considers the connections between truth, decorum and the uncertain future of his diminutive book exchange.
"Dickens ..." Joe struggles.

Small does not equate to weak. Three hundred Spartans stand against the powerful Persian army at Thermopylae. People of small stature run countries. Vincent Lingiari, a Gurindji man, takes on a British pastoral company against the edifice of Lord Vestey. Mother Teresa towers under the poor. Start small, grow, as the shadow splits Joe's inadequate store.

Amis saunters through the former sunlit threshold, his freshly oiled scent in entourage. He has books to sell, he only sells, acquires from unknown sources, few of value, plastic bags dangling close to the ground from either hand, as the angles pierce expandable film. A quizzical moustache seeks money that is money Joe cannot afford to give. He imagines a sign to repel these sellers: Unable to buy books for October. Joe knows he must take control, so he rehearses the rejection three times. Amis unloads his swollen treasure for Joe to assay.

"Hey, Amis, sorry, no buys today or for the rest of the month."
"Joey, you look good. You always look good. How much will you pay me, Joe?" Amis dodges.
"Not today ... maybe next month. We look after each other, just not today."
"Joey, I need money," he implores. The rejection reverses. A simple need and Joe crumbles. He is unsure of the reason's substance as he accedes to fall further.

Joe remembers the carpentry course, how he practised most weekends, and learned to fashion wood, build shelves, a few tables, and create a place for people to share textual love. Nails in fingers, hammers on thumbs, sawdust in nostrils all helped him provide a clean and safe haven for passion. He forestalls the predictable relationship, the one of which his mother continues to ask ... when, Joe, when? He fails to answer, preferring to file it and allow the pressure to brush his neck.

Emily, resplendent in quiet colour, breezes past for her corner. She loves books on nature: photographs, botany, sharks, gum trees, and water. Today her lavender perfume smiles to the front, as she glides above the floor. Joe speaks scarcely with Emily. They exchange smiles and nods. He likes her and she likes him. Nature joins them as one. She glances hours among pages, beaming, remembering, while preoccupying herself with tiger quolls. Joe wonders about a totem, his ache for one, wants the government to make it obligatory that every child claims as they exit the womb, a birthright to learn, examine, and protect.

"No books today, Emily? How are your folks?"
"Good, thank you," she replies.
"I have a special book due next week, just on quolls. I'll keep it for you."

She glows from the words, as her head in dizzy swirls withdraws at a greater force. Joe tastes euphoria.
All those early mornings procuring stock after he scans the newspapers for deceased estates, then stacks the shelves, dusts, stock takes, all in an agreeable routine.

Some plans reach fruition, such as the book clubs, the essay competition, and the kids' space teeters to fall. The coffee machine almost fires. Customers repeat. The word passes, advertisements in the local papers, come in and exchange books at Joe's library for a small fee. Smallness remains. Joe cannot escape the quaintness of suffocation.

His father's voice speaks from behind his eyes. "Joey, cut your losses. You fight the good fight. Aim for a different mark. Make your mother happy." Some words linger.

He remembers the dream, a close friend sparks the initial plan for the two of them, as they tire of mundane jobs, where bosses talk down a product to mistrust, and pressure builds on many sides. Change what you can and work for love. They both love words, books, the smell of a sentence, lexicography, the smile from detection. This dream falls when the friend finds a partner, moves to another city, another life, one that Joe postpones to stay behind, single, and maintain the reverie. Words on wood, slats, boards hold paragraphs on pages; leaves nestle inside bindings of protection. Alphabetical labels direct coordinates from east to west in categories, nationalities, eras, and points of pleasure. Lacquer oils seams in an embellished grain casting worms to the apple with the scent of care. An accumulation builds from the first thought hinting at coercion forming a free spirit, and compact for the walls to contain. Across the street, the leviathan regards him with arrogant superiority.

Coffee brings milk, sugar, cups, mess and ants diminishing the book aroma. In the next dream, he buys a shop next to a cafe, so they can work together, offer book discounts and coffee vouchers. Some of the zeal returns. Next time is not today. Joe sells at a loss to escape cold bitterness.

Joe has had one relationship in his bookshop life. Her name was Greta and he made the two of them an impossibility. He hid behind work, asked the inappropriate of the uncomfortable, acted the teenager, and stayed close to home. He still seeks peace in life, career and partner, derides the white-picket fantasy, desires more than a postcode, sees a book fetish become a store, stays alone, blocks growth, and maintains portability. Spectral mist bleeds under the door.

Sarah's pale, wan face obscures her eyes, as she scrutinises for occupancy, preferring solitude, time and space to buy a book of gloom. She loves vampires, monsters, blood, and death. Ghoulish plots feed a gothic persona. Joe's security appeases Sarah's canine-tooth appetite that exists in containment from the gospels of Rice, Meyer, Mead, and Gray. Joe houses them bottom right on aisle four, under a banner of Medieval Delight, opposite a mid-nineteenth-century edition of Shelley's Frankenstein, behind a glass cabinet, and not for sale. Joe's first major discovery comes as a trinket in a box, a treasure after death shelters vampiric fiction in a literary silhouette from a great aunt.
Joe leaves Sarah to occupy one of the three reading chairs; her book-pile awaits decision on an adjoining table. She never returns books, consumes each to become a piece of her fortress from the world. The usual protocol follows selection, where she backs up to the counter, looks behind, proffers money in front, waves a minimal hello, nods back as her eyes meet the inanimate and she slides from the light.
Rainy afternoons bring the smell of damp asphalt in combination with wet umbrellas and clauses, non-restrictive and relative. Punctuation marks fight for dominance. Some writers eschew colons, while others swamp pages in dashes of em and en. Periods enjoy the last word, unless the ellipsis convinces the pen to flow off in thought. Commas join the show, old and haggard, and sprinkle tears that few understand. Quiet days come in any climate, Joe reviews, assesses, and reads, re-reads articles, some definite, some not.

Ceiling fans whir in February's heat, and sand finds the floor, which planes the rough. A haze lifts off the street, forms a translucent sheen in a tunnel of activity that slows to one side. Hear the lilt appeal to pockets from a supermarket of inferior copy.

Walls rise to the high vault with excess space for decoration, yet Joe decides early on minimal embroidery, no posters, no modern art, just photos of past experts in word maintenance, beyond the authors who swim in fame amidst the shelves. Photographs hang with lithographs, depictions and portraits of great librarians: Franklin, Dewey, Eratosthenes, Meir, Hume and Borges, and famous lexicographers: Johnson, Webster, and Murray. Faces of true believers gaze upon modern adherence.

Powerless prints find a box, and prepare for a new home. Stock sells so the shelves can dismantle. Counter knick-knacks walk out with the last sale. Register stays with Joe because someone needs it. Joe looks up as memories fade and the latch clicks. He smiles goodbye.