The Loneliness of the Long Distance Book Runner Read online

  Some sort of deal has been struck. George Whitman turns up at Attica with a couple of ‘tumbleweeds’ in tow (both American girl students) who each carry a large ‘mail’ sack. David exits the shop for a cigarette and George is soon shuffling around, nonchalantly pulling books, mostly paperbacks, from the shelves. He lets them fall to the floor and the girls obligingly bend down to pick them up. It is an astonishing sight. This bearded and elderly gentleman muttering to himself as he peruses the shelves, setting off mini avalanches of paper up and down the shop. He continues in this fashion until the girls protest at the weight of the bags.

  David hovers by the till and this appears to be the signal for George to produce a thick wad of notes. It isn’t to buy my silence that, following the ‘Whitman raid’, David hands me a couple of 100 franc notes. It’s more his embarrassment, I think, at me having witnessed a transaction involving so much dosh in relation to my meagre wage. He knows that I can’t live on the hours that he gives me in the shop.

  I have to do an Orwell.

  Relevant experience, claimed to secure the job at La Tavern Mexicaine, is quickly exposed as the lie that it is. The manager, Jean-Pierre, however, is perversely pleased; ineptitude rendering me good haranguing material. I can be relied upon to ‘fuck up’. His unnerving presence means that there is the constant threat of a bellowed instruction. ‘Six guacamole, six nachos. Non, non; non. J’ai dit deux, oui deux taco poulet. T’es con?’ The question is in all likelihood directed towards me since Raja has been sent to collect meat packages from a giant refrigerator in the backyard. Apart from me, the kitchen work force is Sri Lankan, men who have fled from the turmoil afflicting their country. ‘We had to,’ is all Raja says on the matter, making it clear that he has no intention of revealing more about the nature of their exile.

  In spite of his competence, Raja is especially targeted since he is able to convey a sense of irony at his slavishness. I observe the battle between the boss and the bossed. Raja smokes illicitly in the backyard, mounts food raids on the stores and furtively mocks the manager by pulling faces. But Jean-Pierre, as if in retaliation, set tasks that are designed to humiliate. Raja is required to re-stack neatly stacked buckets, wash clean plates, and he is admonished for dicing vegetables the wrong size. ‘T’es con? The onions, I can’t see them.’

  Both are French – the manager and the chef, a man who excels not in tyranny but in propagating a mood of sullenness. So it is in the spirit of subtle rebellion that I find myself speaking to the Sri Lankans about cricket. When fed up or stressed, I find sport often to be an effective palliative. In A Fan’s Notes, its author Frederick Exley asks ‘Why did football bring me so to life? I can’t say precisely. Part of it was my feeling that football was an island of directness in a world of circumspection.’ (Incidentally, A Fan’s Notes always sells well despite there being quite a few copies knocking about in the Penguin edition.) He was talking about American football but the quote holds true for other sports. That’s why I am excited about our mutual interest in cricket. The Sri Lanka cricket team is touring England. The newspaper, which I buy on the morning that the first test is scheduled to start, charitably defines their threat to England as one more subtle than that posed by the West Indians. My work colleagues excitedly run through their team’s line up before their thoughts turn briefly to the opposition. The mention of Gooch and Gower causes them to nod with respectful solemnity.

  Our cricket conversations (invariably mine were with Raja) strike me as incongruous amid the cacophony of kitchen sounds: knives striking marble chopping boards, the clanging clash of tray on floor and the near constant hum of an industrial dishwasher. Electing to bat first, Sri Lanka play with a carefree abandon that rules out a big innings. My colleagues are not really disappointed when England win and cricket continues to provides a focus for communication between us. Raja is awesomely accurate as a bowler, sending down unplayable deliveries between the stoves. He insists that Ragunathan, positioned in front of the dishwasher, has caught me out at third slip.

  At the start of the week, Raja is in fine form, both with the imaginary ball and with life in general. He has got one over Jean-Pierre by finding employment for a cousin who has recently arrived in Paris. Raja has circumvented the manager’s authority by making his request direct to restaurant’s Head of Personnel, a woman with an easy-going disposition that I find difficult to reconcile with the atmosphere of the kitchen. After a shift, she doesn’t mind if we stuff ourselves, almost to the point of sickness, with steaks and tostadas. Three of the Sri Lankans have been chef assistants for two years, their lithe bodies testament to the calories burnt up in the course of a hard working day. I mutilate the vegetables whereas they stroke them into slices. They have acquired an unassuming strength that rips lids noiselessly off buckets containing ingredients. I am adapting to the work but remain cack-handed in comparison to them. Going about their kitchen business with impressive efficiency, they do their best to make me feel part of the kitchen brotherhood. I am tipped off if the manager is on the warpath. I am invited to partake in covert food snacks.

  On that final morning, Raja and myself are up to our necks in tomatoes. Since the place is going to be understaffed in the evening, two additional crates of big juicy tomatoes await dissection. I am first to complain. This makes Raja explain, by way of offering consolation, that the task is an even worse one in January. The glossy skinned tomatoes are tougher then and finger numbing cold. ‘But it’s not algebra.’ Nothing is ever as difficult as algebra.

  Raja’s temperament is undergoing a transformation. The manager has spent his morning spitting his foulness with evil efficacy. ‘Propreté and rapiditié,’ he has bellowed. ‘T’es con?’ It is as if Raja’s high spirits earlier in the week have exacerbated the vindictive side to the manager’s nature. And the verbal attack is sustained further, during the heat and panic of a major lunch time rush. Raja says nothing, but beads of sweat break out upon his forehead.

  Finally it happens. I am on my knees, looking for a 10-franc coin that has dropped out of my chequered chef trousers. The manager is inspecting plates before waiters whisk them away. According to Jean-Pierre’s arbitrary system of measurement, Raja is dumping excessively copious portions of degustacion de pacifico on the plates. ‘You try to make us poor,’ he complains. ‘Call this plate clean, you useless fuck?’ The language doesn’t surprise me as I get to my feet, expecting another broadside, but Jean-Pierre is otherwise preoccupied. Raja has him pinned against a shelf. The steel blade of the knife is of proven sharpness, reddened with vestigial tomato skin and juice. A thrilling uncertainty reigns for a moment, the manager grimacing with fright. But in sensing that if Raja is going to strike, he would already have done so, he recovers his composure. With a sad air of contrition, Raja withdraws the knife from the fleshy throat. The manager, along with the rest of us, watches silently as Raja walks out of the kitchen and then out of the restaurant. The next day I, too, walk out after shouting abuse in his face ‘T’es con con con con.’ My voice is breaking up. I tremble with the nervous energy. I’ve spent 24 hours working myself up to this moment. I am expecting a big scene. But Jean-Pierre, completely unfazed, says it is good for me to go. ‘You better off teaching.’ When I return a week later for my pay cheque, Ragunathan tells me that Raja has found a job in an Indian restaurant but that the steam cooking is making him unwell.

  Two days after the Raja knife incident I go to church: the American Church besides the Quai d’Orsay, or rather an annexe of it where English and Americans congregate in their quest to find accommodation and/or employment. ‘Dishwasher wanted.’ Of the human variety, I take it. Three hours a day plus meal. Dish washing – how difficult can it be? I pass the phone interview but can’t start for two weeks, which is when the ‘plongeur’ will leave the post at a Montparnasse creperie.

  Rue du Cheval Vert, Montpeller, Mid 1990s

  Buoyed and encouraged by some good Sunday puces (markets), I decide to open a bookshop in Montpellier. There is alre
ady an English bookshop but they do not sell second-hand books.

  Anne and I scour the city for locations and plump for a road (rue du Cheval Vert) near to a cinema, which screens American and English language films. By chance, the building at No. 3 in the road is where Napoleon’s father met his maker. It says so on the plaque outside.

  ‘Ici est mort le 24 Fevrier 1785 Charles Bonaparte père de Napoléon 1er.’ Customers, thinking it somehow fitting for un britannique to set up shop here, occasionally allude to the plaque. Some even think that it accounts for the shop’s location.

  We jump through all the hoops: applying for a Carte de Sejour, registering with Montpellier’s Chamber of Commerce, signing up to ‘les charges sociales’. We discover, to our dismay, that the social security contributions expected from a small business are much higher in France than in the UK.

  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.

  Let’s Go 1995

  Bills Book Company (BBC) 9 rue du Cheval Vert (tel: 67 22 79 09), off pl. St. Denis. Diverse and exciting collection of literary bijoux. Some new, but mostly second-hand paperbacks (9–20F) Bill the British proprietor, is always up for tea and a chat. Open Mon-Fri 9.30am–12.30pm and 2.30–6.30 pm, Sat. 9.30am–6.30pm’

  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.

  A GREAT EUROPEAN PROPERTY DEAL: 333 house village in South of France for sale. Extensive renovation work required. Derelict since 1955. Lovely surrounding vineyards in hilly countryside. Exceptionally humid climate. Consult us.

  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:

  1 The detective must be mentioned early on

  2 Supernatural solutions are ruled out

  3 Only one secret room or passage is allowed

  4 No undiscovered poisons are permitted

  5 No Chinamen should appear in the story

  6 The detective must not be helped by lucky accidents, or by intuitions

  7 The detective must not himself commit the crime

  8 Nor must he conceal clues from the reader

  9 The thoughts of ‘The Watson’ must not be concealed

  10 There must be a special warning of the use of twin brothers or doubles

  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 Ama
zon 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.

  want to win a prize?

  encapsulate news events

  in three simple lines

  a haiku headline

  snapshot of the world today

  elucidation

  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…