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Confessions of a Bibliophile
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2
Confessions of a Bibliophile
1. Two Mistakes
The phone rang.
“Book Department,” I said.
“There’s a Mrs Wright here to see you.”
“I’ll be right up.”
As I hurried to the Valuations Counter, with that sense of
unreality which the prospect of meeting a stranger always
instilled in me, a distinct image of Mrs Wright had already
formed in my head. Where do these imagined people come
from, the ones we expect, but never meet? On the strength
of a mere five minute phone call a week before, I was
expecting a solid, middle-aged woman. Instead, I found
someone very old, very frail and very small, whose eyes,
reddened and distraught, stared up at me with a terrible
entreaty, as if she was drowning.
“Hello, Mrs Wright,” I said, shaking her hand; or, rather,
taking hold of it for a moment, feeling its intricate joints
beneath the dry fabric of her skin.
She didn’t acknowledge me. Instead, she said “This is my
husband,” indicating the man standing beside her. He was
wearing a suit and tie, but something didn’t seem quite
right with him, as if the suit and tie belonged to someone
else. His eyes were, like his wife’s, hungrily transmitting a
need which I couldn’t identify. I shook his hand in turn: it
was powerfully tight and needy, like something that might
grab your foot in the sea and not let go.
“I flew Spitfires,” he said.
3
“Don’t, Arthur.”
“Spitfires,” he said. His eyes filled with tears. “They went
out,” he said, “but never came back. They drowned.” His
voice rose to an alarming cry, and splintered: several
people glanced at him.
“Arthur,” said Mrs Wright.
“People don’t know that,” he went on. “Harry, Tom,
Charlie. All of them. Shot down over the sea. All drowned.
All of them.”
“He’s very upset,” said his wife, laying her arm on him. It
was as if she was talking about something that had
happened to him five minutes before; not fifty years.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what I was apologising for.
I realised I was still holding his hand. He was trembling
wildly now; but then he gave me a nod, an affirmation of
sorrow, and let go.
“We’ve brought the books,” said Mrs Wright.
*
My first job after leaving university was as an ‘audio
typist’ for an auction house. As auction houses went, it was
pretty low on the food chain: you could almost call it
‘bottom-feeding’. But, so keen was I to secure a place in an
auction house – any auction house – that I had taken this
lowly administrative role on a salary of £7,000 per annum.
4
This was back in 1989, but even then, it was pretty bad. I
was so poor I used to steal instant coffee from the big tub
in the staff canteen, scooping it, when no one was looking,
into a Styrofoam cup and sealing the top with Sellotape.
Although I was fresh from university, and steeped in
English literature, from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, typing
was my only employable skill. I had developed it after my
mother had presented me with her old ‘manual’ typewriter
when I was five. I never looked back. By adolescence, I
could manage phenomenal speeds, with just two fingers.
Indeed, when I attended my initial interview at The Brook
Street Bureau on Victoria Street – a depressed graduate,
for whom the real world of employment was a gradually
dawning horror and lying in bed all day already a fond and
distant memory – the assessor, Rachel, stopped me within
seconds of starting my typing test to summon her
colleagues from their surrounding offices. “Come and look
at this,” she said. They gathered around and watched, in
fragrant, glossy-lipped amazement, as I started again,
rattling away like a First World War machine gun. Yes, I
made mistakes, but, boy, was I fast. Rachel said I was the
fastest typist (with two fingers) she’d ever seen.
Then, through the agency, I took the job at the auction
house.
One day, when everyone else was engaged in their – as I
saw it – enormously exciting and successful occupations of
valuing Chippendale furniture, discovering lost
Rembrandts and growing eccentric moustaches, I was
sitting at my desk with my earphones plugged in –
somehow amplifying my isolation – when it suddenly
struck me, at twenty two years of age, that I had wasted my
whole life. I stopped typing and began crying quietly and
steadily to myself. No one noticed. The office, bright with
summer sun, revolved around me in a kaleidoscope of tears.
Six months later, I got my break. Having once vaguely
expressed an interest in books, I was ‘promoted’, if that’s
the right word, to a new position as ‘Junior Specialist’ in
the Book Department under the delightful tutelage of its
dapper Old Etonian head – and only other member – Jan.
The interview went like this.
Jan: “Do you like books?”
Me: “Well, yes.”
Jan: (holding up a book). “What’s this?”
Me: “A … book?”
Jan: “Brilliant. You’ve got the job. Welcome aboard. Two
sugars, please. And leave the bag in.”
It was quite fun: I did some basic cataloguing and
counted an awful lot of plates. Jan saw me off at 5pm each
day by calling brightly “Thanks for popping in!” At night, I
immersed myself in Alan G. Thomas’s Great Books and
6
Woolf, Virginia
OrlandoPublished: Crosby Gaige,
New York, 1928.
£3,000.00
click for more information
Book Collectors and John Carter’s ABC.
It paid off. My annual salary was increased to £7,500
and, on the strength of it, I bought a new suit. Well, I say
‘new’. I mean it was ‘new’ to me.
But I’d arrived.
In this auction house there was no such thing as ‘training’
– unless you counted Jan’s rather haphazard and patrician
guidance – and I was thrown in not so much at the deep
end as at the bottomless one. Suddenly, miraculously, I
was a ‘Book Specialist’. People, unbelievably, came to show
me their books. I remember a hapless colleague, a porter,
experienced a similar apotheosis, finding himself
appointed, quite randomly one morning, to the role of
‘Print Specialist’ (the previous one having suffered a
nervous breakdown).
One day we were standing next to each other at the
valuation counter where we performed our imperilled
charades of ‘expertise’. A member of the public – a
knowledgeable one too, judging by his
unforgiving steel-rimmed glasses,
bow tie and big successful overcoat
– had brought in a William Blake
print to be valued. He held it
forward for the ‘expert’ to
examine; the ‘expert’ who
8
confessed, with a disarming shrug, that he had, quote,
“never heard of William Blake”. “Excuse me,” the client kept
repeating, understandably dumfounded, glancing at me for
corroboration, “Are you sure you’re the Print Specialist?”
*
So that’s how I came to be here, standing at the valuation
counter, nervously watching as Mrs Wright extracted from
her bag a few leather bound books – thirteen in total – and
placed them in a row in front of me: like bodies, for
identification.
“They belonged to Arthur’s great grandfather,” she
explained. “Didn’t they, Arthur?”
He didn’t reply. He was staring at me, his mouth moving
with unsaid words, confessions. I sensed, very strongly,
that he was barely with us: that he was in a cockpit
somewhere, high above the English Channel.
Of course, I knew nothing about books. But when Jan was
away on a ‘valuation’, or just ‘couldn’t be arsed’ (his
phrase), it was left to me, the impostor, to muddle through
with clients at the counter. And rather than explain the
situation to this elderly couple, who seemed to be
depending so very much on me, I pretended I knew what I
was doing.
Big mistake.
9
I picked up the first book. It was an odd volume of TheSpectator, dated 1788, in a worn calf binding. I matched it
up with three other volumes from the same periodical. At
least I could read Roman numerals. Four out of twelve.
“Do you have any other volumes of this?” I asked,
convincingly.
“Oh no,” she said. “Do we Arthur?”
He shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “That’s all of them
there.”
It got worse. Amongst the other books was a 19th-century
New Testament, a grubby Book of Common Prayer from
the same period, a single volume of a late edition of JosephAndrews, an almanac for 1802 which had lost its only
claim to interest, its frontispiece, and something without a
title page which appeared to be in Greek or Hebrew (or
Martian for all I knew) and was bound in vellum. I picked
it up and pretended to study it closely: in reality, as an
object, it was entirely opaque to me, and no amount of
staring could help. But they didn’t know that. At least, I
hoped they didn’t. For all they knew, I had a PhD in
Martian.
“This is rather nice,” I said. Specialists quite often said
banal things like this, usually as a prelude to saying
something spectacularly learned. “It looks quite old,” was
what I came up with.
“Do you think it might have any value?” stressed Mrs Wright.
10
“It may have some,” I said. “In all honesty(Ha!), I need to
do some research.” I felt like I was throwing them a lifeline,
only the other end wasn’t attached to anything. I added,
brightly, “I think it’s in Greek.”
“In Greek?” said Mrs Wright, clearly impressed. “Is that
good, or bad?”
“Oh, good,” I said. “Definitely good.”
“Do you hear that Arthur? The young man says it’s in
Greek and that’s good. Arthur?”
Later that afternoon, when Jan had come back from his
‘valuation’ (redolent of red wine and cigarettes), he went
carefully through the little collection which I had taken in
from the Wrights, one by one. “Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.
Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap,” he said. “I
can’t believe you took these in.” He lit a cigarette.
“What about this one?” I said, showing him the one I’d
saved till last, the little vellum-bound book in which I had
invested so much vicarious hope.
He opened it.
“Oh – my – God!” he gasped. He sat down, or, rather,
collapsed into his chair.
“What?” I said.
“I can’t believe it!”
“What is it?”
“Crap,” he said, and tossed it accurately into the bin.
11
I dutifully retrieved it.
“What estimate did you put on them?” he said, blowing
smoke in my direction.
“Thirty to fifty.”
“Pounds?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” he said. “Someone might buy them, I suppose.
A blind one-legged dwarf from Albania, for instance. Is
there any wine in that cupboard? Get us some would you?
There’s a good chap.”
The date of the sale was set for August 15th. This was not
an auspicious time to sell books, or anything for that
matter, but Jan had thought we needed to have a ‘clear out’
of the department’s warehouse and there was also the
troublesome runt end of a dealer’s stock to be disposed of,
everything to be sold without reserve. Despite my
protestations, he insisted that I put Mrs Wright’s books in
this sorry sale of no-hopers, also-rans and rejects,
catalogued as a single lot with minimal description: ‘A
collection of 13 miscellaneous books, one in Greek and
bound in vellum.’ The tantalising addendum, made
speculatively, was entirely my own; thankfully, Jan didn’t
notice it.
Regarding the poor timing of the sale, I comforted myself
with the following reasoning: the dealers might think that,
12
because the sale was in August, there would be bargains to
be had and, consequently, they’d show up in their hordes.
They didn’t. Ten minutes before the sale was due to start,
there were four people in the room: an elderly book dealer
whose name I could never remember, and three others I
didn’t recognise but whose attitudes of slumped
despondency hardly filled me with optimism. They seemed
to be together. One, I noticed, was even listening to a
Walkman: its solipsistic itching filled the saleroom. This, I
thought, glumly, was going to be a very long day. We had
400 lots to get through, with not a single decent book
amongst them.
And yet … And yet … There was something about that
little volume in Mrs Wright’s lot, something I couldn’t
quite put my finger on. Although my technical knowledge
of books was limited, I felt I had a fine instinct; I thought I
could pick up on things which Jan – with his years of
experience, his cynicism, his long lunches – had become
inured to. And my instinct here told me that there was
something very interesting about that little book in its old
vellum binding. In fact, I strongly suspected, based on no
evidence whatsoever, that it must be worth a lot of money,
and that later, after the sale, I might have cause to make a
rather exciting phone call … “Mrs Wright? Are you sitting
down? You are? Do you remember that little vellum-bound
book ..? The one I was so excited about ..?”
I heard a commotion. Encouragingly, a group of people
had entered the saleroom. Then I saw – with mixed
feelings, but predominantly a sinking one – that it was Mrs
Wright who was marshalling them. Manufacturing an
enthusiasm I didn’t feel, I bounded towards her and shook
her excitedly by the hand. She seemed rather proud to
show me off to her companions.
“This is the Book Specialist,” she said, with proprietorial
relish, and I felt her tiny arm about my back. They cooed at
me and wondered why they didn’t recognise me from TheAntiques Roadshow. Mrs Wright introduced her retinue.
“These are my sisters, Peggy and Shirley. This is my half
sister, Edna. This is her husband, Jack. This is my son,
Ralph, and my daughter-in-law, Alison. This is my grand-
daughter, Kylie, and my grandson, Jehoshaphat. And this
is my friend, Jill. Oh, and that’s her husband, Geoff. With
the video camera. And their son, Jason. And his girlfriend,
Donna.” I thought the last two, who were chewing gum
malevolently and in perfect synchronisation, looked like
they’d come under duress.
“So many!” I said. “Where have you all come from?”
“Derby,” they agreed.
“The Wrights of Derby!” I cried, to a blank reception.
“We came down on the coach last night,” said Mrs Wright,
“and stayed at a Travelodge in Mitcham. Then we had to
take three different buses this morning to get here. I can’t
14
The Bibliophilist’sLibraryPublished: Printed Only for
Subscribers by George Barrie,
Philadelphia, c. 1900.
£4,800.00
click for more information
tell you how excited we are …” I noticed she was clutching
the hastily photocopied ‘catalogue’ I had sent her: a proper
printed catalogue, with colour illustrations, hadn’t been
considered appropriate for this particular sale. “Will you
sign it for me?” she said. Suddenly, everyone wanted theirs
signed, the ones they had purchased for 10p each at
reception, partly for information, but also as mementoes of
their exciting visit to London, their first auction!
As I scribbled at the proffered sheets with a certain
amount of gratification, I asked Mrs Wright, “Is Mr Wright
not here?”
“He wasn’t feeling up to it yesterday,” she said. “But I’ll
phone him with the result the moment the sale is over.”
“Do send him my regards,” I said.
She glanced around the room. “There don’t seem to be …
many …
Thankfully, before I was forced
to lie and tell her not to worry
because there were lots of
commission bids, three loud
raps – like gunfire –
signalled that the sale was
about to commence. The
auctioneer – a charmless
man whose famously
unhappy marriage gave
16
him the air of always wanting to be somewhere else – set
about tediously enunciating the ‘terms and conditions of
sale’ with all the dynamism of an aged priest delivering the
last rites to someone no one cared about. Since I was
‘commissions clerk’, I stood beside him, ridiculous at my
own little podium, from where I watched as Mrs Wright
exchanged excited looks with her companions. Geoff
pointed his camera at me, and waved.
“… and we won’t be showing the books today,” the
auctioneer concluded, without explanation. “Lot One.
Twenty pounds? Ten?” He stifled a yawn. “Pass,” he said.
‘Pass’ was auction jargon for ‘unsold’.
Mrs Wright’s books, second to last in the sale, were lot 399.
During the next two hours, Mrs Wright and her
companions (with the exceptions of the perpetually
masticating Jason and Donna) were transfixed by the
proceedings. Perhaps one in ten lots found a buyer: more
‘passes’ were made than at a conference of travelling
salesmen. If anything sold for over a hundred pounds, it
was received with a subdued, but rapturous, delirium from
the floor. After lot 286, the three sinister strangers left,
leaving only the nameless book dealer (who was asleep)
and Mrs Wright’s immediate family, who thankfully, from
their vantage point in the front row, were unaware of the
yawning chasm behind them.
17
As the last few lots of the sale approached, the auctioneer
seemed to sense that escape was within his reach and his
pace quickened. Geoff started filming as lot 399
approached.
“Lot 395. Ten pounds? Five pounds? Pass. Lot 396.
Twenty pounds? Ten pounds? Pass. Lot 397. Twenty
pounds? Ten pounds? Five pounds? Pass. Lot 398. Five
pounds? Pass. Lot 399. Ten pounds? Pass. Lot 400. Ten
pounds? Five pounds? Pass.” Down came his gavel for the
last time. Bang. “Thank you very much, ladies and
gentlemen,” he said, and hurried off.
I noticed a flurry of activity from the Wrights, which
Geoff was avidly filming: they were all asking questions of
each other. What was the significance of the ‘ten pounds’?
What did ‘pass’ mean? Had the books sold? or not? What
was going on?
The nice Book Specialist would know! He’d tell them
what had happened.
But, strangely, he’d gone.
Two weeks after the sale, unable to bear my guilt any
longer, I wrote to Mrs Wright, saying how sorry I was that
we hadn’t sold her books for her. ‘I was particularly upset,’
I wrote, ‘because I knew it meant a lot to you and to your
family.’ By return, she wrote to say that it didn’t matter one
bit and that I should do with the books as I thought best,
18
even take them to a charity shop, because she didn’t, just
yet, feel able to come to London to collect them. ‘Very
sadly’, she wrote, ‘the day of the sale, my dear Arthur
passed away. It has been a cruel blow to us all, and I hate
to think of him being there on his own.’
After I read this, I folded the letter, put on my coat and
told Jan I was ‘popping out’ for a moment.
I went to the car park and, holding my head up into the
rain, wept.
* * *
I had never, to my knowledge, met Bill Bryson, or seen a
picture of him, but this was exactly how I imagined he’d
look: bearded, bespectacled and benign, in an outdoorsy
kind of way. He looked as if he had been hatcheted out of a
block of timber, and, standing there in his woollen jacket,
check shirt and shapeless green corduroys – like the
gnarled trunk of a tree – he said he had a book to show me.
Ten years had passed since the incident with Mrs Wright
and I had moved to a more respectable auction house with
an SW postcode quite low in the odd numbers. In these
intervening years, I had developed, instead of expertise, a
convincing counterfeit of it: a casual, breezy manner, and a
throwaway technical vocabulary (“one of the signatures is
starting, and – oh, look here – just as I thought – your
19
gutta percha is all perished!” might be a typical opening
gambit), which suggested I knew a lot more about books
than I was letting on.
As Mr Bryson fished in his cloth bag, I tried my best to
look as if I was trying hard not to look inconvenienced.
That afternoon, we had a catalogue going to print, and now
the computer seemed to have mangled everything up,
including my head: the last thing I needed right now was a
book valuation. But he was so nice – with those fine
appeasing wrinkles around his eyes, and his kindly,
avuncular, flustered manner – that I was disarmed, even
when I discovered he was an American. I have nothing
against Americans. In fact, I like Americans, on the whole.
But they always make me feel at a tactical disadvantage, as
if, behind our polite social interaction, the relative size of
our stockpile of nuclear warheads was being compared. To
my disadvantage.
He put the book on the counter.
“It’s a first edition,” he said, without the culturally-
uncertain interrogative tone with which Americans
sometimes turn statements into queries.
His certainty riled me: I’d be the judge of whether it was a
first edition or not. “Let’s take a look,” I said.
I knew immediately, and with a certain satisfaction, that
it was definitely not a first edition, and therefore ‘NSV’ (No
Saleable Value). The satisfaction was on two counts. First,
20
Costume PortraitsPublished: ca. early 19th
century [n.p.].
£1,440.00
click for more information
it meant I would get back to my desk sooner (I wouldn’t
have to go through the rigmarole of booking the thing in
for sale) and secondly, I had proved an American wrong:
put that in your pipe and smoke it, Paul Revere! I was
familiar with The Hound of the Baskervilles: in my career,
I must have seen ten, twenty copies of the first edition. And
they didn’t look like this. For a start, the first edition was
yellow. This was red.
“I’m afraid,” I said, “that this isn’t a first edition.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said.
“That’s funny,” he said. “We’ve always been told it was a
first edition.”
With a hint of condescension – manifested in an
exaggeration of the blowing sound of ‘whom’ – I said, “By
whom?”
“Well, I don’t know,” he said, flustered. “I guess it’s been
a sorta family … myth.”
“It’s a reprint, I’m afraid,” I said, pushing the poor
compromised volume back towards him. “Quite an early
one, but a reprint, nevertheless.”
“And so it’s worthless?”
“Ten pounds? Something like that?”
“Oh gee,” he said, picking it up and popping it back in his
bag. “Well, I guess I can say goodbye to that shopping
spree in your Harrods store.”
22
I consoled him with a patronising laugh, then, having
wished him a good afternoon, hurried down the back stairs
towards the subterranean book department and the
profound mysteries of my computer.
It was about half way down these stairs that something
rather strange happened, and my precipitous pace slowed
somewhat. Hang on, I thought. Wait a minute. Draculawas yellow. The Hound of the Baskervilles …
I began to mutter expletives to myself. By the time I had
reached my desk, I was certain I had made a mistake, but I
had to confirm the fact before I made an even greater one.
I called out to anyone who would listen, “What colour is
the first of Hound of the Baskervilles?”
“Red,” came the answer from three places. Someone
added, “With a pictorial design in gilt and central panel
blocked in black. Come on, everyone knows that.”
“Shit,” I said, matter-of-factly, and hurled up the stairs
again. “Where did he go?” I said to Mary who was in charge
of the valuation counter.
“Who?”
“Bill bloody Bryson!”
“Was that really ..?”
“Mary. Mary. I really do not have the time right now to
stand here discussing with you – much as I’d love to –
whether or not that was the famous American writer and
commentator Bill Bryson, known across the world for his
23
witty apercus chiefly pertaining to English culture.”
“He left,” she said.
I sprinted to the front entrance via an auction of
surprisingly expensive teddy bears.
“Where … did … he … go?” I said, now breathless.
“Who?” snapped Ruth, the elegantly coiffured
receptionist who had mastered the art of looking down at
you even from her sedentary position at the front desk.
“Bill Bryson.”
“Who?”
“Man with beard. American.”
“Oh,” she said. “Him. Well, he asked me for directions to
the underground station so I imagine he must be going
there. He said he’d come from his hotel by bus, but that he
had to get back quickly to meet his wife, something about
some disappointing news …”
I was already half way to the station. On the blustery
concourse there were the usual rapids of people, but there
was no Bill Bryson amongst them in his kayak. I ran back
to the auction house. Ruth observed me gasping for breath
and bent double at her counter.
“Find him?” she said, without the remotest interest.
“No,” I said. “I don’t suppose he happened to mention the
name of his hotel, did he?”
“Funnily enough, he did.”
I couldn’t speak: I just looked questioningly at her.
24
“Claridge’s,” she said. She probably kept a suite there
herself.
I took the Piccadilly Line three stops to Green Park, then
the Jubilee Line to Bond Street. This seemed the most
direct route, although, in retrospect (which, looking back, I
didn’t have), instead of the Piccadilly Line, he might just as
well have taken the Circle or District Lines to Victoria and
picked up the Jubilee line from there …
There was no sign of him at Bond Street station. And it
was only as I was tearing down Brook Street that I caught
sight of his distinctive cords in the distance. By the time I
reached him, he was at the canopied entrance to the hotel,
engaging the doorman in conversation. With a strangled
cry, I collapsed against him and cried, “Mr Bryson!”
He steadied me, then studied me. “Hello?” he said,
amused and concerned at once.
“It’s … me,” I gasped.
“I can see that,” he said, “but I’m afraid I have no idea
who you are, young man.”
“From the auction house.”
“Oh my,” he said.
“First edition,” I said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“First edition. In your bag. Hound of the Baskervilles. Fine
copy. Original red pictorial cloth gilt. Estimate £400-600.
Reserve with auctioneer’s discretion. Suggested sale date …”
25
“Would you stand away from the door, sir?” said the
doorman.
“That’s nice to know,” said Bill Bryson. Then he added,
“By the way. I’m not Bill Bryson.”
*
After my efforts, Ike – that was his name – was too nice
not to consign the book, and, in the Autumn – sorry, the
Fall – we sold it for £800, which was a pretty good price.
He was kind enough to send me a postcard after the sale in
which he told me that everyone in Michigan knew about
my record breaking run to Claridge’s. ‘The good thing was,’
he wrote, ‘you admitted your mistake, and put it right.’
The same cannot be said for my conduct with Mrs
Wright: I still have cause to recriminate myself and barely
a day goes by when I don’t think of her or her husband
with a crushing sense of guilt. I suppose Mrs Wright must
have died years ago; I think it unlikely she would have
survived her husband very long. I’m not unhappy: I like to
think of them reunited somewhere.
As for her books, I took them, as she had suggested, to a
charity shop, where I hoped they might do some good. The
volunteer sneered at them, then put them on a shelf at the
back of the shop priced at one pound each.
Nicholas Worskett
26