Maybe it will get a better reception at Shakespeare and Co.
Foxford, Ireland, 1988
A flowing veil of weeds delays its removal. The falls, a riot of motion in rock and water some ninety yards downstream of Foxford’s ancient bridge. Simon eventually fishes it out and prises it open to find that the old tin is watertight. Seeping out is the aroma of stale cigar while fresh light yields an iridescent splash of colour; the feathers of the bronze mallard, the blue jay and the pheasant, some enwrought with gold and silver and all intricately woven onto hooks in deadly disguise.
The room’s former occupants have left behind a packet of Silk Cut cigarettes, water-stained copies of Trout and Salmon, and a book. We laugh when we read its title. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. It becomes one of my favourite novellas. It’s about the Macleans, a Presbyterian family during early twentieth century Montana whose opinions of life are filtered through their passion for fly-fishing. The novella is presented from the point of view of older brother Norman who goes on one last fishing trip with his rowdy and troubled younger brother Paul in an attempt to help him get his life on track.
My friend Simon, Joyce aficionado and former colleague, is tutoring me in that art of catching brown trout from Irish rivers. In casting a cold eye upon waters he can read a river and take from it handsome trout and even the occasional salmon. It’s good to have salmon on the menu for a change. Our bed and breakfast doubles as a bar and restaurant, doesn’t offer the richest variety of food but the family who run the place can’t be faulted on their hospitality. They commiserate with due solemnity on what are mostly unsuccessful expeditions on my part. And they are pleased to toast Simon’s successes. His dark handsome face lights up and he lets rip with his gift of the gab. Pints of Guinness are poured in celebration and in mock consolation. I don’t really care. I’m much more troubled by a dilemma of affection.
I like being on the riverbank, lost in the Moy’s mud and mysteries. I put down the rod to take it in. It’s another country, obviously so but it is more than that. The peal of bells for mass; the shadows of owls flitting across the belfry and silhouettes of bats. Simon catches one in his line, extricating it gently before trudging upriver. I’m fishing with a jungle cock fly, intrigued by its design even if the trout don’t appear to share my interest. Like a hallucination, Mary appears; her face ghostly pale in the moon’s light. She scrambles down the bank.
‘Any joy?’
A shake of the head. She follows a while and I want to embrace this girl whose mellifluous voice stirs the blood. ‘See you another time, take care.’
‘Bye.’ I curse myself.
Train to Liverpool, 2006
Last time I got my camper van stuck in the entrance to a car park, so today I’m taking the train. It’s a pleasant journey from Bangor; the mountains to the right, the sea to the left if you sit facing in the direction of travel. Before we arrive at Chester, a large ship, seemingly marooned on the sands, catches the eye. After noting its name as the Duke of Lancaster, I discover that it has its own appreciation society. And from their website I learn that: ‘in 1979, as a former Sealink passenger ferry, it was beached in North Wales with the intention of turning it into a floating leisure and retail complex. The project never seemed to get off the ground and as such the ship has been on the banks of the River Dee.’
It transpires that the Duke of Lancaster was one of finest vessels afloat in the late fifties and early sixties. The first class quarters were the best around, silver service restaurants, state-rooms and luxurious cabins. The River Dee is tidal, and seeing the sandbanks and the ship, Shelley’s poem comes to mind.
In Henry Bohn’s big bookshop in Liverpool I feel strangely lacklustre. There is plenty to interest the reader, collector and dealer alike. But I’m struggling to muster enthusiasm for the search. I wonder if the Duke of Lancaster is to blame. I leave the shop only with a handful of out of print paperbacks. But I also learn that the 12-volume Pilgrim set of Dickens’ letters on display in the shop’s window was offered by The Folio Society to its members for a knock down price of £400. I have a set in similarly good condition.
The trip hasn’t been a wasted one since I return to Bangor with a typically eclectic range of titles from News from Nowhere, Liverpool’s radical and community bookshop. They have something of an underrated second-hand section.
Porthmadog, 2005
As well as visiting a shop specialising in antique weaponry, I like going to Porthmadog for its sprawling junkshop/scrap yard in the back streets. They don’t make many like this any more. You half expect the characters from Steptoe and Son to appear, only they’d be speaking in Welsh. To get to the books at the back I have to clamber over fridges, televisions and ironing boards. I rather enjoy doing so. The corrugated metal roof leaks in places but most of the books are unscathed.
Beneath a pile of Haynes car manuals, I find a collection of Rupert the Bear annuals from the seventies. They aren’t old enough to command any real monetary value.
A man, smelling of milk who presides over the place, is surprised that I don’t want them but consoled by my purchase of a book on the Tea Clipper ships.
I return to Bangor via Beddgelert. Much of the landscape in the Rupert stories is inspired by the local landscape of Snowdonia, notably around Beddgelert, where Alfred Bestall’s family had a cottage. The character was created by the English artist Mary Tourtel and first appeared in the Daily Express in 1920. In 1935 the mantle of Rupert artist and storyteller was taken over by Bestall, who was previously an illustrator for Punch.
Plotting with Shakespeare’s Ghost in Tylers Bookshop, Bangor, 2005
Dan and I spend hours discussing his various options. He wants to keep his shop going but needs to dissolve a business partnership with someone who takes little active role in the day-to-day running of the shop. I want to help extend the used books section, which Dan thinks is a good idea, but if he breaks ties with his partner, the landlord can hike up the rent. We call it the Rubik cube of quandary; iron out one and another crops up. We scheme and plot, rather appropriately given the shop’s history and its close proximity to Bangor’s Cathedral. Local historians believe the shop to have once been the archdeacon’s house, as mentioned in Henry IV Part I, which was the set Shakespeare play in my fifth form.
Act 3, Scene 1: Bangor. The archdeacon’s house. The men take out a large map of Britain and divide it up as they have earlier discussed: after they defeat King Henry, Glyndŵr will get the western part of Britain — western England and all of Wales; Mortimer will get the south-east part of England, including London; Hotspur will get the northern part, home to his family.
Could Shakespeare have travelled here in the missing years? The building supports a stone chimneystack that fits the Tudor period. Glyndŵr is portrayed in Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 1 (as Owen Glendower) as a wild and exotic man ruled by magic and emotion. Historians describe him as a charismatic leader. And there is possibly a connection to real history too. ‘During Owain Glyndwr’s rebellion, his delegates cloistered in secret session at Bangor with the envoys of his English fellow conspirators, Mortimer and the Earl of Northumberland, to divide the whole of the English realm between them. (from The Matter of Wales by Jan Morris).