The Brightfount Diaries. Brian Aldiss

Brightfount’s by some later-day Mr Parsons. A metal Mr Parsons perhaps.

      A dream of learning – shattered maybe by the wail of sirens as telescreens announce, ‘Attention earth, attention earth! Four space stations have been seized by the giant mutant rats, who even now prepare to drop H-bombs down on their creators!’

      WEDNESDAY

      Half-day. Spent the afternoon lazing in the sun, got cleaned up and met Avril at five. After (expensive) tea we watched dull cricket match on Poll’s Meadow till stumps were drawn, when her brother Charles, who was playing, conscripted me for a match in a fortnight’s time. Could not get out of it! Then Avril and I were making for a spot of peace and quiet when we ran into Piggy Dexter, who insisted on taking us into ‘The Boar’s Head’ (dangerous pub name for Dr Spooner!).

      Always expect to hear brilliant talk in pubs, perhaps with memories of Boswell at Child’s. Generally disappointed – people have indisputably lost their fluency since Johnson’s day, trained into passivity by radio and cinema. But one fragment charmed by its ambiguity: two men discussing a third as they left the bar, and one said, ‘But the way he laughed! Do you think he was a bit high?’

      ‘Oh no,’ replied the other. ‘I think he was genuinely amused.’

      July nearly over! Ah me, in summer you forget it is not always summer and are consequently apt to forget to appreciate it to the full.

      THURSDAY

      Dave is having good weather for his holiday. Don’t know where he is going – he didn’t himself when he left on Sat. night. Said he was having a bookseller’s holiday, i.e. could not afford to go away. Seems quiet in the shop without him; he’s a bit rough, but good-hearted and good company. Think Peggy misses him. Mr B. is going to be away to-morrow, has to go into the country to look at a small library.

      More remainders arrived to-day.

      ‘Remainders are to the book trade what the Grand National is to bookies,’ Mr Brightfount sometimes says; he loves a sweeping assertion as much as a gamble. His way of dealing with remainders is to ‘spot a winner’ and buy it all up, letting it sell slowly over the years.

      Our cellar is encumbered with these lucky buys, so-called. There is Ages at Bagger’s Dune, which being of local interests sells slowly: we are now down to the last two hundred copies. There is a study of Saxon cooking and table manners which seldom sells, called Sir Gawaine at the Kitchen Door. And there are stacks of copies of two memoirs by a doctor who worked for years in Poland which – most embitteringly when you think of the success of Doctor in the House and Doctor at Sea – never sell at all; these are Fistulas on the Vistula and its sequel, Hand over Fistula.

      One of the most endearing features of book trade is its galaxy of titles, all gallimaufried together. Notice how many facets of human existence lie cheek by jowl in the booksellers’ lists:

      Carr, T. H., Power Station Practice

       Carriage of Goods by Sea Act

      Carroll, L., Alice in Wonderland

      Cary, M., A History of Rome

      Casanova, J., Memoirs

      FRIDAY

      Pay-day.

      Likewise market-day. We were busy most of the morning with Dave and Mr B. away. Yesterday Arch Rexine put thirty duds from the Slaughterhouse on to our outside shelves; twelve of them sold before I went to lunch. A lot of Ruskins have gone. I’ve noticed before how old and rural-looking men buy Ruskin. These are folk unswayed by fashion. That’s a thought which often worries me: aren’t booksellers as much ruled by fashion as milliners? Inside or outside the head, the way of the world is the only way.

      Queue of charabancs in Cross Street after lunch; trippers come specially to view the Castle. Mrs Callow said that once when she was on holiday at Eastbourne with her husband they went on a Mystery Tour and before they knew it were back here looking at the Castle!

      ‘Hope you bought a guide?’ Miss Ellis said.

      ‘Not us. We slipped home to get a cup of tea and see if the cat was all right.’

      SATURDAY

      Dave is pretty illiterate, even for a bookseller’s assistant. Had a card from him saying he was in London staying with a friend ‘who is a bit of a rough daemon’. Conjures up an intriguing, mephistophelean figure. Surprisingly, Dave appeared while we were having tea break. He had had enough of London after looking round Foyle’s and Charing X Road, and cycled home this morning. He cycles everywhere: next week he plans to do Reading, Oxford, Cheltenham, Birmingham. He visits all the bookshops. That’s funny really, because you’d hardly call Dave a keen type.

      Puzzle on the till roll this morning. I am a fool. During rush-hour yesterday I entered something that might be taken for either ‘Agamemnon’ or ‘Afghanistan’; to-day I can neither decipher nor remember what it was. Rexine gave me level, evil stare, and said, ‘I wonder if other bookshops have things like you?’

      Had supper at Mrs Callow’s; wish I had a landlady like her! Thought it friendly of Dave to come in and see us this morning, but there was an ulterior motive … on way back to digs met him in Park Road with Peggy Ellis, arm in arm. This is odd and no mistake! Wonder what Edith, our dumb office wench, would say? Always used to think she had a sort of rough affection for Dave.

       August

      SUNDAY

      To-morrow is August Bank Holiday. Cannot afford to go home. Yet I do not mind the prospect of two days spent more or less on my own; solitude has pleasures no other state can bring. Generally something interesting arrives out of the blue to think about, or if it does not arrive, boredom which is unbearable in company is good for the soul alone.

      Suddenly discover myself at such times, almost like a stranger – had been there all the time, but in the crowd had never noticed me.

      Not spectacular day to begin August with, but about what might be expected: warm and cloudy, and the threat of rain. Cycled lazily out to Graves St Giles, taking the longer route through Upper Wickham. A few wild roses still in the tall hedges, but already the green blackberries show.

      Ancient car passes me closely, hoots, brakes wildly. Out jumps Derek.

      ‘Sling your bike in the back, old boy, and jump in. How do you like her, eh? Only bought her on Friday.’

      Ask him what it is.

      ‘A 1925 Cardiac. Sound as a bell. What do you think I gave for her?’

      Say £20, which annoys him.

      ‘Sixty – and that was devil’s cheap. Move over, Myra, and let the blighter in!’

      We cut through the village at a smart pace and slither up Uncle’s drive in a cascade of gravel. Derek yells instructions to throw out the anchor, and we stop.

      ‘How do you find Aunt and Uncle after all these years away from home?’ I ask him as we go into the house.

      ‘No different – a bit older, of course.’ That is all he has to say; does he know nothing of the Lawrence legend, or is he merely insensitive? But at once Myra slips her arm through mine and says, ‘And what a sweet, old-fashioned question it is for him to ask. And where has he been all his little life?’

      Have no answer to this. Besides, she is very smart, has fringe and a pleasingly sharp look, and her arm (even offered in mockery) is not to be disdained. But Derek tells her angrily ‘not to start that sort of stuff’, and we go silently in to lunch. Myra winks at me once over the table.

      Did not stay for tea.

      Poured with rain before I got all the way back home. Soaked. Mrs Yell rather