The Bookshop on Jacaranda Street

by Marlish Glorie

  Helen had nodded her way enthusiastically through his speech, but the last bit had her squirming. ‘Why don’t you come and live here for a while?’ she blurted out without stopping to think.

  Jim slowly turned his head, sizing up the improvements without comment. ‘I’ll pay my passage. I know this bookshop backwards.’

  Helen felt uneasy. This was a man who had run the shop into the ground. But she pushed her disquiet aside; there were more important things to concentrate on. ‘You will have to remain sober. Absolutely no consumption of alcohol. Maybe you could go to AA meetings? Think you can do that?’

  ‘Give it a whirl. Always love a meeting.’ He took hold of her hand. ‘I’d do anything for you Helen.’

  She prised her hand out of his. ‘Let’s just make this an agreement between friends.’

  ‘I was hoping, perhaps in time, for a little more, after all … you did well by me.’

  Helen said nothing.

  *

  ‘Mum, this is crazy. We can’t have him living here. He’s a pisshead, and from what Vivian’s told me about him, that’s his best attribute.’

  Helen leaned over the kitchen table, ‘He’s given up the drink.’

  ‘Whoop-dee-do … for how long? We don’t want him here.’

  ‘Well, neither do I. But he is homeless.’

  ‘What are we running here?’

  ‘Shhh, keep your voice down.’

  Gabriel shook his head. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ he whispered furiously.

  *

  Penny was outside on the pavement cleaning the front windows with water and newspaper when Jim sidled up to her. She stepped away from him. He took another step closer to her. ‘Just being friendly,’ he laughed low.

  Penny kept on cleaning the windows.

  Jim leaned in closer, whispering in his smoker’s rasp, ‘Boyfriend’s a bit of a dipstick isn’t he?’

  Penny kept on cleaning.

  ‘You’re a quiet one, eh?’ Jim paused, before putting his arm around Penny’s waist and pulling her towards him. ‘What’s he like in the sack then? Keep you happy?’

  Penny struggled to get out of Jim’s grip. From inside the shop Gabriel saw Penny’s predicament and rushed out to confront Jim. ‘Get ya fucking hands off her!’

  Immediately Jim released his hold and began strolling back into the shop, saying to Gabriel as his sauntered past, ‘You wanna watch her, she was coming on to me.’

  Gabriel lunged at him, grabbing handfuls of his suit, and bringing Jim’s face close to his own. ‘Keep ya fuckin’ hands off her, ya fuckin’ bloody sleazebag, or else.’

  ‘Else what?’

  ‘There’ll be a funeral. Yours.’

  ‘Watch yerself sunshine. Because I might just become a part-owner of this joint, and you might just find yourself out of a job, along with your crazy girlfriend.’

  ‘Mad bastard,’ cried Gabriel.

  ‘Am I? Don’t think so. You see, your mum as good as stole this shop off me. I was drunk when I signed the papers. Highly illegal. I know because I’ve sought legal advice,’ Jim boasted, smirking at Gabriel. ‘I’m the victim here. I should’ve got another two hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Lot of money. And then there’s me creditors. Sharks, the lot of ’em. They’ll be after your mum in a shot if I let slip that she got this place so cheap.’

  Gabriel released his hold on Jim, shoving him away. ‘You’re shit,’ he yelled in disgust.

  *

  Later that day Gabriel met his mother on the stairs. ‘Mum, when you bought this shop off Jim how drunk was he?’

  ‘Drunk enough,’ said Helen.

  ‘Christ.’

  Helen clenched her hands as if wringing wet washing.

  ‘At what real estate agent’s offices were the papers handled and signed?’

  ‘They weren’t. All the paperwork was done at the National … Hotel. A friend of Jim’s organised it all.’

  ‘Any witnesses?’

  ‘The barman.’

  ‘Oh man,’ Gabriel wailed as any optimism he might have had turned into desperation. ‘So did you do him out of two hundred and sixty grand?’

  ‘Yes and no. You see, the market value of this place was six hundred thousand. He offered it to me for four hundred thousand, and I beat him down to three hundred and forty. If anything, I might owe him sixty thousand.’

  ‘But the market value was six hundred grand,’ said Gabriel reflectively.

  Helen shrank back. ‘It’s true I got it cheap, but I had to think of Vivian, and myself. I had very little money. And even that was a gift from Astrid. I didn’t steal it off him. This place was an absolute dump.’

  ‘But, you cannot, by law, do business with a drunk. I’ve had legal advice, just then on the phone. Creditors are a potential problem too. They can come after you and put this place on the market for its correct value. Let’s hope Jim’s bluffing, and he doesn’t take it any further. You could lose the bookshop if we don’t find a way to fix up this mess somehow.’

  ‘Well, one thing we can’t afford is fights in front of customers. Be nice to him, Gabriel. Please.’

  ‘Will nice work though? I think he wants to become a part owner. Then we’ll all be stuffed.’

  ‘Now you’re reading into things. He just wants a home.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’ said Gabriel. ‘Why are we taking such a risk with that jerk? I don’t think nice is the way to go. Jimbo’s a coward who is getting away with murder.’

  *

  Upstairs, Helen discovered another reason to tear her hair out, for Jim had swapped one addiction for another: junk. Useless belongings found their way into the flat in his wake.

  Helen watched, horrified; life was repeating itself. She was back in the land of junk. She heard Jim moving amongst her books downstairs, arguing with her customers! But what could she say, filled as she was now with dread? The threat of ruin hung heavily. Be nice had become her mantra.

  The attic, where Jim had been installed, was beginning to bulge with second-hand clothes, torn books, a broken guitar with a busted amplifier. Then there was the kaput CD player, complete with hundreds of fractured CDs and a useless computer. In the kitchen, chipped coffee mugs appeared, and a defunct electric fry pan. In the bathroom, weighing scales — broken of course.

  Objects bloomed and Helen wilted. She tried to get through to him. ‘Jim, we don’t have room for all this.’

  ‘Do you wanna know something Helen, why I’ve got this stuff?’ He began to pick up things and hold them up to her. ‘Look, a guitar I can’t play anymore. A broken surfboard I can’t use. It’s all broken. I’m dying Helen. I’m useless and nobody wants me — just like this stuff. Can’t you see I’ve lost everything? And these things give me comfort.’

  *

  Gabriel was not inclined to be so nice. Despite Helen’s protests he threatened to throw Jim’s junk out of the flat. Gabriel had been newly immunised for life against hoarders.

  Jim retaliated. ‘You throw my stuff out sonny boy and I blab. Tell the authorities about your mum.’

  Gabriel guffawed in Jim’s face. Outside the shop he parked a trailer, and he threw Jim’s junk into the trailer with all the might of a javelin thrower, then tore off in a plume of smoke to the tip.

  Helen worried incessantly, fearful of what Jim might do.

  But Jim didn’t say boo. Not a word to Gabriel. Or Helen. Or to any authorities as far as she could tell. His only reaction was that now he seemed to visibly shrink whenever Gabriel came near him.

  *

  Ella didn’t want to touch the new pram. It had been delivered in the morning and now in the evening shadows it sat imperiously in the nursery. There even seemed to be something officious about the cot. She brushed aside the curtain of lace she had draped around it. She had made up the tiny bed. All was in order. But for some strange reason even the miniature white pillow was cause for apprehension. She surveyed the nursery. Why did it make her feel so ill at ease when she had gone to such gr
eat pains to create it? Then it hit her: this nursery with all its baby things was sure proof that the baby she was carrying would arrive soon, to turn her world upside down, to force her into an identity and a way of living she was sure now she didn’t want. This nursery was bullying her into what would soon be expected of her. She was in a trap of her own making.

  *

  Razoo was sitting with Helen for his weekly reading lesson. She ran the pencil beneath the words, and Razoo read them with ease, ‘Gizzard doesn’t count, kid. A gut-shot hombre can still put six slugs into you then mebbe dance on your grave before he croaks.’

  ‘You’ve been practising,’ Helen remarked approvingly.

  Razoo turned towards her, and recited, ‘Draw, point, trigger.’ He started to smile, but then stopped short on seeing Jim behind the shop counter. He hadn’t expected to be confronted by the sight of an arch enemy in one of his favourite places.

  Jim nodded his head with gravity and then walked straight up to them, and stood, hands on hips, scowling at Razoo, who scowled back.

  Helen immediately felt the tension between the two men and in her nervousness gave a lively account of how they’d come to this situation. ‘You two obviously know one another, so no introductions needed. Phew! Thank god for that. Razoo, Jim’s just staying with us until his brain stops shrinking, no, what I mean is until he gets over his drinking problem. He’s a recovering alcoholic.’

  An awkward silence followed, but which Razoo quickly filled.

  ‘He’s slicker than snot on a doorknob, is our Jim.’

  ‘What ya you doing here?’ growled Jim. Stabbing his forefinger in the air.

  ‘Darning socks. What’s it look like?’ replied Razoo evenly.

  Jim spoke to Helen. ‘I’d watch him, if I were you.’

  Razoo rolled with laughter, but once his laughter had settled he turned to Helen. ‘Suppose he told you his wife left him. Well she did — twenty years ago. And I’ll lay a bet he’s told you he’s dying of a broken heart. Told me the same bull and I fell for it big time. Our Jim’s as cunning as a dunny rat. Didn’t pay for a single book he got off me. Not one. And he got a helluva lot of books. I never saw a cent. He turned my head with all his fancy words and dying heart routine. Tell ya now, sober or drunk, Jim’s trouble. Him and the truth are distant relatives. Get rid of him Helen.’

  Razoo raised his hand and shaping it into a gun, pointed it towards Jim, and cried, ‘Pow! Right in the gizzard.’

  Jim, as if he’d actually been shot, stumbled backward, but then finding his footing, stood scowling at his opponent before making his way upstairs.

  Helen placed her hand on Razoo’s arm and quoted from the book they’d been reading, ‘You sure know a lot about shootin’, don’t you?’

  ‘Just don’t want him hurting you,’ answered Razoo.

  *

  The air in the flat was stifling and, it seemed to Helen, exacerbated by overcrowding. She walked around, surveying her once empty flat and groaned out loud on reaching the kitchen, startling Penny out of her catatonic state. The writer had grafted herself onto one of the kitchen chairs and leaned heavily onto the table while she wrote.

  Time to act, decided Helen. She sat down opposite Penny studying her hair, a lustrous shrub of curls that swept the tabletop. ‘Penny.’

  Penny’s head shot up, revealing a face which never failed to take Helen’s breath away. Her blue eyes seemed encrusted with diamonds they sparkled so fiercely. Through her translucent skin Helen could just make out the branching of tiny blue veins. Her well-defined lips with their promise of breaking their seal and speaking volumes. She looked expectantly at Helen, silently.

  ‘How’s the book going?’ Helen opted for hedging.

  Penny shifted her head a little. ‘Mmm,’ she hummed, barely audible.

  The ensuing silence was too thick for either to rupture. Helen found it unbearable. ‘Suppose, I’d better get dinner going,’ she said in a defeated tone.

  Penny was sharpening a pencil, carefully collecting the shavings in a matchbox. Then Helen heard the sound of the pencil working its way across paper again. She stood against the kitchen sink and opened the kitchen window. A cold refreshing wind played on her face.

  She addressed Penny. ‘Can you just tell me a little about the book you’re writing?

  ‘It’s difficult.’

  ‘Say that again,’ said Helen, who had not heard two words come uninterrupted from the writer’s lips before.

  ‘It’s difficult.’

  Helen, surprised, turned to face Penny and waited for the writer to realise what had happened.

  ‘Sometimes it’s just really difficult explaining things,’ said Penny.

  ‘Your stutter. Where’s it gone?’ demanded Helen.

  ‘Wrote it away.’

  ‘Wrote it away?’ repeated Helen, astonished by this explanation, as if stuttering was something you ordered out of a catalogue, and when no longer required, simply passed it on.

  ‘I wrote my old self away.’

  Helen was lost in a vortex of selves, but tried to comprehend what Penny was saying. ‘What happened to your old self?’

  ‘What happened to me is all here in these books.’

  Helen glanced at the pile of battered exercise books, then at Penny for an explanation. There was a lot of ‘old self’ if the number of crammed full pages was anything to go by.

  Penny sat upright, pulled her hair back, folded her arms, unfolded them, coughed as if to clear her throat, and then looked at Helen as if geared up for something important. ‘I had a twin. An identical twin. One day she left me, for good. Got married. I wanted to go with her. But she didn’t want me in her new life. So I was left with just me. A half. She went to live in Queensland with … her husband. She’d promised never to leave me. We’d always told each other, from since we were little, that no matter what, we would always stay together, that we’d never leave …’ Penny’s voice petered out, as if the weight of her past was still too much to bear. ‘But she did leave me. And I fell apart.’

  Helen was stunned. She could see the remaining pieces of a puzzle falling into place. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

  Penny gave a small smile. ‘I’m getting over it, thanks to you.’

  Helen studied the pile of exercise books before saying with some hesitancy, ‘Well then, may I read your book?’

  ‘No. I’m going to burn it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Helen, disappointed. ‘Burn it? Why?’

  ‘It’s not a real book. It’s a diary about me being sad. Twenty-two exercise books worth of sadness. Do you really want to read it? Do you have a Sad section downstairs? Shall I put it in there?’

  Helen felt the whip of Penny’s sarcasm, but her words carried legitimacy, which Helen felt she had to acknowledge. ‘You’re right,’ she said.

  Penny collected her bundle of exercise books, hugged them to her chest and left the kitchen.

  *

  Standing at the laundry sink with her bundle of sorrow, Penny slowly tore the pages from their stringy backbones and dropped them into the trough, gutting one book after another until their covers collapsed like broken bird wings.

  Once all the pages and covers lay in their stainless steel incinerator Penny struck a match and lit the paper. It quickly burst into flames, raging as it burned up all her sorrow. The fire transformed the pages into black flakes. Penny turned on the cold-water tap, saturating the ashes and releasing an acrid smell which floated out from the laundry and down into the shop.

  Helen, who was way down near the Travel section, caught the distinctive odour. Twenty-two exercise books worth of sadness up in smoke, she thought. It still nagged at her that what Penny had written was to remain unread. But then she remembered her own pyromaniac tendencies when it came to destroying sadness. Hadn’t she burned her own bed to rid herself of the horrible nightmares she’d suffered?

  Penny was right. It was best to burn the exercise books.

  *

  They met at
the coffee shop across the road. It had become their unofficial boardroom where they could sit in comfort away from Jim, drink good coffee and keep an eye on the bookshop as well.

  Vivian spoke first. ‘I think we need to find two hundred and sixty grand somehow and pay Jim off. It’s our only way of getting rid of him.’

  ‘No it isn’t! Tell the bastard to piss off. If he was going to cause us any trouble, he’d have done it by now,’ countered Gabriel.

  Penny spoke next. ‘It’s easy, really. Borrow the money from the bank.’

  Gabriel shook his head in frustration. How could he argue against Penny?

  Helen gulped. Easy? she reflected. Sure, if you’re not the one having to service a huge debt when you’re effectively broke.

  ‘It’d be like having a mortgage Mum,’ Vivian explained, sipping at his cappuccino.

  ‘And how do we service such a debt? And how much do we really have to pay Jim. Two hundred and sixty thousand or just the sixty?’

  Helen examined Vivian’s face. She guessed he’d done some research, probably been to a bank. However she didn’t want to hear about it. She hadn’t the courage to confess the true state of the shop’s business, and that the money wasn’t there to service a debt.

  Vivian spoke. ‘You service the debt with some of your profit —’

  ‘Hold it,’ Helen cried. ‘Give me some time to think, to decide.’

  ‘Come on,’ Gabriel interjected. ‘He’s all bluff, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He’s a total prick. We don’t owe him a cent. And, in the unlikely event that creditors do turn up, we buy the shop off them for market value, but that’s a last resort. It’d be a huge mortgage to service.’

  *

  Later that night Helen slid the shoebox and accounts book from beneath the till, took them into the kitchen and sat at the table. She looked at the accounts book and her heart sank. There were few entries, scrappy at best, but enough to reveal that the Book Maze was breaking even at best. Some weeks it ran at a loss.

  This accounts book was non-fiction. Real life. Damn real life. Helen tried to focus her thoughts as she got up from the kitchen table and busied herself around the flat. Cleaning and sorting things out, the truth hit her hard. She was no good at business and she couldn’t sell. If she’d been a hooker in her younger years, clients would have asked for change. Running a business, she realised, was an art form, not something you could do off the cuff. Again she had misjudged. She needed help.