Having come prepared, we soon begin the labour intensive process of packing the boxes. Overweight and in his fifties, Brian isn’t the fittest of individuals. He sweats heavily while helping me lug the boxes into the van.
‘You’re the muscle, eh?’ says the American who has emerged from the kitchen with coffee.
What I imagine to be a wry smile escapes my lips. Oxbridge graduate and former Head of English at Exeter College, Brian now organises poetry recitals in the shop when he isn’t leading a choir in the Cathedral of Beziers, a city to where he supposedly retired. An accomplished pianist, Brian is also something of an artist when it comes to performing lengthy monologues on a myriad of intellectual topics. The American is treated to one on rhythmic patterns in English and French classical music
‘Well, well. You’re the most intellectual muscle I’ve ever come across.’
We leave in a van which, with all its book ballast, now feels easier to handle as we begin the long drive back.
Moving to 44 Rue de l’Université, Montpellier, 1996
The opening of a sex shop next door in rue de Cheval Vert was not our prime reason for moving. Nor was it a reason to stay put. We had been looking for a bigger place.
The owners of a shop, selling new books at the top of the street we’ve moved to, feel threatened by our sudden presence, but we are ignoring their enmity. I won’t be turning down textbook orders but I’m not chasing the student market in spite of our new address. We’re attracted to a different concept, more of an ideal actually, one encompassing tea, cake and a good read. ‘BBC’, in moving from rue de Cheval Vert to rue l’Université, has opened an adjoining tea-room. These days every business refers to a pretentious mission statement. If we had one, ours would be based on the following paragraph from Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.
‘But the spirit of a café is altogether different. Even the richest, greediest old rascal will behave himself, insulting no one in a proper café. And poor people look about them gratefully and pinch up the salt in a dainty and modest manner. For the atmosphere of a proper café implies these qualities: fellowship, the satisfaction of the belly, and a certain gaiety and grace of behaviour.’
We tempt shoppers with scones, melting moments and bara brith. But our business model is flawed. Many customers turn into friends and it’s difficult to refuse them a tea or a scone on the house.
All sorts of people walk into the shop with a multitude of motives other than wanting a good read. In six months, I encounter clowns, buskers, beggars, thieves, novelists (Adam Thorpe, Sam David), poets, pavement artists, aspirant suicides (I have to pretend that I no longer have a copy of the Handbook of Hanging) and replica gun-toting junkies.
A tall Yorkshireman with an eyepatch, who is rumoured to be on the run, steps into shop on the look out ‘for a dirty old man’. He pauses for effect before adding: ‘Charles Bukowski’. I don’t have any because Bukowski is an author that flies off the shelves. It transpires that Bob really is a wanted man. Amenable, and an avid reader of literature, his presence bothers nobody in the shop, least of all me. Eventually caught by police at Montpellier train station, he is extradited back to Britain from where his solicitor contacts me to request a character reference. I willingly comply. There is mention at a Parole Tribunal of a now banned medicine once used for treating epilepsy and Bob is soon released.
Lecturers and authors breach the shop’s entrance but I find myself more intrigued by the conversations I have with society’s more disaffected members.
Hailing originally from Ladbroke Grove, Tony the tramp has been eking out a beggar’s existence for at least a decade in southern France. A diminutive, handsome man, Tony has lived with the gypsies but is now a confirmed inhabitant of the streets. He confesses to having stolen books from outside my first shop but I can’t muster any real anger such is his likeable demeanour, providing he’s not too far gone on wine. We lend pens and help to compose heartrending slogans, on pieces of cardboard, designed to elicit sympathy and cash. Anne gives Tony soup and he genuinely wants to help our fortunes; offering to distribute flyers about the town. One day he is excited because Motörhead are in town. Tony intends to beg a guitar off Lemmy, a former friend, but he misses the concert because of an exceptionally drunken binge.
There are people who believe my working in an English bookshop is proof of an allegiance to all things English, exclusively so. I am required on occasion to point out that the shop contains just as many American authors. And also helping to fill the shelves are plenty of books by Welsh, Irish and Scottish writers.
A great deal of social intercourse is involved in running the shop. Sometimes it is welcome, but there are days when you lose the will to haul up the shop shutters. Montpellier is an increasingly popular destination for English speaking holiday-makers. I give them a potted history of the city, extolling its attributes and warning them about its high petty crime rate. Some express their thanks and buy the guidebook recommended at the end of my spiel. But I grow quickly wary of the tourists who monopolise my time before deciding that they have quite enough ‘reading material’ on them. So why walk into a bookshop? The tourist board would more usefully employ me. I begin to recognise the signs that betray a determined non-buyer. Overly effusive in their praise of the city, they merely want to communicate this fact with someone who speaks their language. I develop a tactic to uncover some paperwork requiring my urgent attention. This doesn’t always work though and I can find myself trapped, longing to escape. One spring morning a softly spoken Canadian walks into the shop, introducing himself as ‘Don Bell, book scout.’ He has difficulty breathing but manages to convey his intriguing life style; that of cruising the bookshops and flea markets in Paris. Our conversation makes me hanker for the open road. I recognise a fellow spirit but learn only after out meeting that he wrote a book, Saturday Night at the Bagel Factory, that won the 1973 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for humour.
Prague, February 1996
The air is cold but invigorating. I’m staying with my brother and his Czech girlfriend who live here. I knew that Czechs were big on beer but their penchant for ice cream has come as a surprise.
Tom and Katka give me a potted tour of the city before taking me to the Globe Bookstore. It exudes a welcoming atmosphere (all the buildings in this city seem to have a surplus of heat) and they serve hot food as well as cakes. I note the international newspapers and permit myself a quick scan of the books whose prices are higher than I expected. A friend tells me of someone who buys second-hand books in bulk from charity book depots to sell to shops throughout Europe. As you head east the prices increase.
Drinking strong coffee, we overhear a good-natured argument over Czechoslovakian literature. A group of Americans debate whether either Franz Kafka or Milan Kundera can be considered as Czech writers. Neither author wrote in Czech, they contend, before an irritated Czech pipes up to question their hegemony of opinion.
We leave the Globe and head out for more traditional tourist destinations. I have a fleeting impression that all in Prague is bars and bookshops. The atmosphere is suitably bohemian.
Agde, South of France, June 1996
Agde is a town on the Herault river about a mile inland from the Mediterranean, to the south-west of the Etang de Thau. It is sometimes known as ‘The Black Pearl of the Mediterranean’ because of the dark colour of the volcanic rock used in many of its buildings. In one of the town’s winding, narrow streets is a garage full of English books. They are all for sale, belonging to a former diplomat, or so I am told by Gerald, a member of Agde’s ex-pat community, who has tipped me off. Gerald has also hinted at the man’s mysterious past.