One Man's Treasure
I often like a walk in town, particularly that part round Devonshire Green. It has so changed recently. The Forum has come along so much it is the quintessence of cutting edge cool. This City so in touch with it’s transient population of studenthood that parts just seem to attract them like flies to an Insektacutor. Young girls walk by in fine weather almost in the altogether and lads lie around watching them. Families picnic out on the grass and the scrape-clunk of skateboards on a half pipe fills the air. The elderly are nowhere to be seen as if they fade to nothing. In fact I don’t recall seeing them anymore. Before the trendy restaurants, the coffee shops and the designer stores they were heavily in evidence, now they just seem to fade to grey, if you will excuse the pun? Yes, I love this area of town!
What I love most though are the bookshops. Somehow they hang on like wet tissue on a newly cut shaving nick. Once they blended in, now their very quaintness burns the retinas as they stand proudly in their shabbiness against the glitz. I sought a particular one now, Odd and Risqué, a long time favourite of mine for the treasures it has held in its long and distinguished sojourn over the Green. I had heard on the grapevine among other collectors of certain antiquities that J.T. Furnival’s entire library had been cleared to here from his estate after his mysterious disappearance and subsequent court appointed death. He had been missing near a decade but the authorities had held on longer than normal before deciding he must be dead under pressure from his only son whose only interest was how much junk he could buy to shoot into his arm from his Fathers property. The son died last week but not before selling the entire library for the princely sum of £200!
I crossed the Green with hurried stride hardly noticing the pneumatic brunette in pink halter and shorts. Well I am only human! Even on such an errand as I was on time could be spared for appreciative glances. The bell over the door tinkled to announce my entry and I was assailed by the glorious odour of aged scriptures and yellowed paper. That’s what makes books better than reading them on computer screens. It’s the smell and feel. Nothing on earth is quite like it. I made my way to the new acquisitions section and there they were. 300 assorted leather bound books within well oiled bindings. Care shone from them only making some more obvious than others. An ill aspected 1940’s reprint of The Books of Dzyan, a folio of pages of translation from the scribing of that mad Arab of lore’s infamy and of course that for which I sought. Standing almost aloof in its battered oilskin cover stood an original binding of Moorcroft’s Messages of the Pharaoh. My studies had shown the notorious fates that had dogged the owners of such a chronicle. The Human race was drawn to self destructive impulses by their very nature and who was I to defy natural yearnings. The nervous shop owner informed me that he was putting it up for the paltry sum of £45. The price insulted its pedigree!
I placed it reverently into the carryall I had bought for the purpose and left before he realised his mistake. I imagined envious eyes glaring with insatiable desire for my precious purchase and flagged down a Taxi. The black Hackney carriage pulled over and the Asian operator brusquely asked my destination. I knew his game; he only wanted to know where I lived in order to arrange the theft of the book. I gave him an address two streets over knowing I could cut through a couple of gennels to get to my abode. The citrate eyes of the driver seemed to be boring into me from his mirror. He knew what I had, he had to know! I banged on the Perspex divide and indicated for him to stop. With slow cunning he did as I said and I pushed a twenty through the slot and bolted for the park. I could see his expression of frustration and cheered at my narrow escape.
Pain exploded in my eye as the fist connected with my face and I fell sprawling to the path. A burly hooded youth stood over me, Burberry cap prominently protruding. Air escaped from my lungs as a trainer connected with my solar plexus from his coloured colleague. The carryall was torn from my hand. I must stop them, the book was mine! Purposeful anger filled me and I lunged at the thugs. White hot pain lanced through my chest and warmth flooded me. The glint of sun on steel rouged with my life’s blood glinted almost mockingly as I sank mortally wounded to the path. As the light faded from my eyes I saw the youths rip my prize from the bag and disappointedly hurl it into the hedges. I wept at their ignorant abandonment and heard the gravel scrunch at their renewed approach. The last thing I felt was their scrabbling dirty hands searching me for a more vulgar reward for their crime before my own fate claimed me!
Copyright Tony Bennett 14th July 2005
What I love most though are the bookshops. Somehow they hang on like wet tissue on a newly cut shaving nick. Once they blended in, now their very quaintness burns the retinas as they stand proudly in their shabbiness against the glitz. I sought a particular one now, Odd and Risqué, a long time favourite of mine for the treasures it has held in its long and distinguished sojourn over the Green. I had heard on the grapevine among other collectors of certain antiquities that J.T. Furnival’s entire library had been cleared to here from his estate after his mysterious disappearance and subsequent court appointed death. He had been missing near a decade but the authorities had held on longer than normal before deciding he must be dead under pressure from his only son whose only interest was how much junk he could buy to shoot into his arm from his Fathers property. The son died last week but not before selling the entire library for the princely sum of £200!
I crossed the Green with hurried stride hardly noticing the pneumatic brunette in pink halter and shorts. Well I am only human! Even on such an errand as I was on time could be spared for appreciative glances. The bell over the door tinkled to announce my entry and I was assailed by the glorious odour of aged scriptures and yellowed paper. That’s what makes books better than reading them on computer screens. It’s the smell and feel. Nothing on earth is quite like it. I made my way to the new acquisitions section and there they were. 300 assorted leather bound books within well oiled bindings. Care shone from them only making some more obvious than others. An ill aspected 1940’s reprint of The Books of Dzyan, a folio of pages of translation from the scribing of that mad Arab of lore’s infamy and of course that for which I sought. Standing almost aloof in its battered oilskin cover stood an original binding of Moorcroft’s Messages of the Pharaoh. My studies had shown the notorious fates that had dogged the owners of such a chronicle. The Human race was drawn to self destructive impulses by their very nature and who was I to defy natural yearnings. The nervous shop owner informed me that he was putting it up for the paltry sum of £45. The price insulted its pedigree!
I placed it reverently into the carryall I had bought for the purpose and left before he realised his mistake. I imagined envious eyes glaring with insatiable desire for my precious purchase and flagged down a Taxi. The black Hackney carriage pulled over and the Asian operator brusquely asked my destination. I knew his game; he only wanted to know where I lived in order to arrange the theft of the book. I gave him an address two streets over knowing I could cut through a couple of gennels to get to my abode. The citrate eyes of the driver seemed to be boring into me from his mirror. He knew what I had, he had to know! I banged on the Perspex divide and indicated for him to stop. With slow cunning he did as I said and I pushed a twenty through the slot and bolted for the park. I could see his expression of frustration and cheered at my narrow escape.
Pain exploded in my eye as the fist connected with my face and I fell sprawling to the path. A burly hooded youth stood over me, Burberry cap prominently protruding. Air escaped from my lungs as a trainer connected with my solar plexus from his coloured colleague. The carryall was torn from my hand. I must stop them, the book was mine! Purposeful anger filled me and I lunged at the thugs. White hot pain lanced through my chest and warmth flooded me. The glint of sun on steel rouged with my life’s blood glinted almost mockingly as I sank mortally wounded to the path. As the light faded from my eyes I saw the youths rip my prize from the bag and disappointedly hurl it into the hedges. I wept at their ignorant abandonment and heard the gravel scrunch at their renewed approach. The last thing I felt was their scrabbling dirty hands searching me for a more vulgar reward for their crime before my own fate claimed me!
Copyright Tony Bennett 14th July 2005
posted by Tybalt at 12:14 am
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