The Magus of Hay(6)

‘He got fixed ideas on what’s literature. Imposes his own value-judgements. No crime novels apart from Danish, no romance post Jane Austen. Who’s he bleedin’ blame when his business bombs? Everybody but himself.’

‘Robin Thorogood.’ Robin jabbing a thumb into his chest. ‘This is Betty Thorogood.’

‘Jeeter Kapoor. Listen, Oliver ever lets you in, whatever rent he’s asking, offer him half and make him pay for repairs. He quibbles, tell him you’ve spent the last few hours talking to half a dozen suicidal booksellers.’



‘How do you know we haven’t?’ Robin said.

‘You’re still here.’

Robin nodded.

‘So how long you been here?’

‘Erm… free years, just over? Man and boy.’

Betty said bluntly, ‘Would you tell us about the suicidal booksellers?’

Robin frowned. His wife tended to skip the pleasantries.

‘Not all suicidal,’ Kapoor said. ‘Prozac does it for a few.’

‘You’re saying the book trade’s in what looks like terminal decline?’ Betty said. ‘Even here?’

‘Even here? Where do I start? Internet sales? E-books? Yeah, let’s start there. Back in the day, if you couldn’t find a book on account of it being out of print, you came to Hay, had a fun day combing fousands of shelves, and even if you didn’t find it, you’d come away wiv another half-dozen what took your eye. Now… almost noffing is out of print, and one click delivers it to your device for peanuts. Ain’t even second-hand. No germs.’

Robin sighed.

‘So you think we may be taking a… small risk?’

‘Depends how desperate you are, mate.’

Kapoor strolled over to a coffee machine, began messing with it.

‘Look, can I…’ Robin fished around for a tactful question, then his hip twinged. ‘How do you make a living from, like…all this?’

Kapoor tweaked a smile. Robin put up his palms.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’

‘Nah, nah, fair question. Answer is, this is niche. You prob’ly wouldn’t know, coming from a baseball nation. Don’t need whole books to explain baseball, pamphlet, maybe.’ Kapoor nodded at the computer on the desk. ‘Good portion of my trade’s in there. Mail order. Internet sales. Autographed copies. You get test cricketers passing frew town, none of ’em gonna walk past this shop. And I know what they all look like and I’m ready wiv the pen. You ain’t got their book, you get ’em to sign old programmes, anyfing.’

‘So how much value’s a signature put on a book?’

‘Varies from a couple of quid to a hundred. Depends who it is. How often they sign. Or if they’re dead by now. Lot of my stuff goes abroad – all the big cricketing nations.’

‘You’re the only cricket bookshop?’

‘Only one in Hay, mate, and masses of stuff to go at. Biogs, real and ghost-written, back copies of Wisden, facsimile back copies. Then you got the specialist stuff, scientific analysis of bowling techniques, spin ratios. Also cricket novels, cricket poetry, vintage cricket annuals for kids. And cricket video on the side. No end to it, mate.’

Robin surveyed the racks.

‘A Hundred Great Cricket Jokes?’

‘Volume One,’ Kapoor said. ‘Ran for fifteen years until nineteen eighty. Full set, depending on condition, can fetch up to ninety quid. Another seventeen sets in the stockroom, job lot, firty quid. Small tip: only display one. Suggests rarity value.’

Kapoor stood back, looking at Robin.

‘You’re gonna be feeling your way, yeah? You need advice, you ask anybody. Well, almost anybody. What I’m saying, Hay ain’t about competition. Not that kind. Not now. Even the old-timers’re well pleased to see a new bookshop, long as it ain’t too shit or too cheap. Your visitors’re buying into the whole package. What’s left of it. Used to be over forty book dealers in Hay, back in the day. And that was only yesterday. Am I telling you stuff you know already?’

‘Uh…’

Kapoor peered into Robin’s face.

‘So, your niche. Trust me, a niche helps. Nobody wants their nice cricket library in a bit of plastic tat you gotta keeping charging up.’

The coffee machine started to babble and hiccup.

‘OK,’ Robin said. ‘We have a niche.’



Kapoor smiled.

‘Weird stuff, yeah? Witchy books, Teach Yourself Cursing.’

Robin felt himself going red, also felt Betty’s tension, which was rare. They’d told nobody. Nobody.

‘Hey…’ Kapoor lifting up his hands, like in some Indian benediction. ‘No cause for panic. Bloke here seen you hanging round Oliver’s shop and recognized you. You got some sympaffy, mate, leave it at that.’ He looked down at Robin’s stick. ‘You still do that stuff?’