Robin unclenched his fists. An uneasy silence had broken out.
He swallowed some wine. His face felt hot. Mistake. Hadn’t intended for this to surface. Not so soon anyway, because it was one explanation of why he’d felt driven to open a bookstore. And what kind of bookstore it had to be. And he’d been sitting on this, thinking it was gonna make him look stupid.
‘I take it you don’t like publishers very much, then, Robin?’ Gwenda said gently.
‘It’s… one reason why we’re here. We came over one day, and I’d just been kicked off of what I’d figured for a long-runner, replaced by some kid with an Apple Mac, and I’m feeling pissed because I love books, and… and I’m thinking second-hand, that doesn’t do publishers any favours.’
His face felt redder than Gareth Nunne’s birthmark. Looked up to find Nunne giving him a level stare that was not unfriendly.
‘No need to apologize about that, man. Not yere. You’re right. We’re no good for publishers, and they know it. They love the Hay festival to bits – good publicity for new merchandise. But they don’t like the town so much. Or us. Specially us. They say they do, but they bloody don’t.’
Jeeter Kapoor was pulling out a stool, sitting down at the table opposite Robin, refilling Robin’s glass.
‘Be better for publishers if all our stock got bleedin’ pulped. Better if we all got closed down, replaced by one big book-chain branch that only sells new and shiny.’
Robin looked up at the globes of light, a line of them like planets. Felt that everybody in here was tuned in now, waiting for him to say something. Somebody started to clap, and it got taken up. Somebody patted him on the back.
‘Finish the bottle, Robin,’ Gwenda said. ‘On the house.’ She looked around, meeting eyes. ‘Well, he is, isn’t he?’
‘What?’
‘Starting to sound like one of us.’
Robin glanced from face to face, unsure whether they were winding him up. He heard a throaty laugh, turned and met the eyes of Connie Wilby, a comfortably heavy, elderly woman with a shop in Lion Street. She lit a cigar, the smoke drifting into the inglenook beside her.
‘We started asking customers if anything had gone wrong with their e-book readers. Or if they’d been accidentally broken or dropped in the bath. And could they pass them onto us, in exchange for free real books. And we put them all together and we all brought hammers one market day and battered the guts out of them. An e-book massacre. Great fun. Great therapy. Luddites? We’re not Luddites, Mr Thorogood, we’re bloody aesthetes. Four bookshops shut down last year, replaced by shoe shops and frock shops and number five – but for you – would be a bloody nail bar.’
Gareth Nunne sank some beer.
‘You smell it in the air sometimes, boy.’
He burped. Robin looked at him. All he could smell was the rich smoke in the air around Connie Wilby. The smell of old pubs. She pulled from her pulpy lips the slender cigar she was puffing in blatant contravention of the law of the land, and gave Robin this lavish smoke-wreathed smile.
‘Never been banned in the Kingdom of Hay, Mr Thorogood.’
‘The beginnings of decay,’ Gareth Nunne said,
‘Huh?’
‘What you can smell.’
‘We gotta stop it,’ Robin said. ‘We gotta fight!’
His fist in the air like freaking Che Guevara. He was halfway smashed. His head sang, the yellow lamps were fused into a sweating necklace of light and somebody was talking about a drowned old man, a floater in a waterfall.
‘And that was Peter Rector? Thought he was dead and gone years back. Peter Rector out at Cusop? All these years?’
‘Gone now. Peter bloody Rector.’
Robin saw Gwyn Arthur Jones coming in, dipping his head under the hanging lantern, silently taking a seat at Connie Wilby’s table. Taking out a pipe and tobacco, saying nothing.
‘You got any Lord Madoc novels in your shop, Robin?’ Gore Turrell said, an arm around Gwenda’s waist.
‘Dozen, maybe.’
‘Consider them sold.’
‘Naw… no way. You fixed our sign.’
‘It was an honour,’ Gore said.
Robin felt his eyes fill up, struggled to his feet.
‘Think I could use some air.’
30
Blowtorch
SO, OK, HE was not exactly smashed, but far from sober, he’d admit that. No fit state to drive and that truly was a problem, the truck being their only vehicle. No way he was getting pulled over, losing his licence for at least a year.
So getting home tonight – not a prospect.
But, Jesus, there were times he might’ve cared more.
It was nearing midnight, a waxing moon and stars on show – not much light pollution from Hay, no traffic, no people. When Gwenda’s bar had closed and his drinking companions had gone home, Robin had walked the empty sloping streets, up and down stone steps, across cobbles, for over an hour, intent on clearing his head.