The Man Who Wanted to Smell Books

by Elspeth Davie

  ‘Please, please, do not do it!’ he implored her as she climbed in. ‘I have told you not to go in so far.’ He now told them, as they waited for the others, the stories of disappearances – of people running away just like that, running after God knew what, after some flower or stone, after mirages of trees and water. He had heard of some who went after a non-existent sea to wet their tongues, after fruits that never were, after boon companions that had never been. In the end, after the terrible sun itself. ‘Oh, you would never believe the stories – I could be all night. Only, please do not do that again!’ Even the sober ones with cameras came quickly now, seeing the driver with his hands already gripping the wheel, his head already thrusting towards the endless road ahead.

  He did not accelerate. He was too careful a driver for that. But already the stones and the prickly bushes were throwing their sharper, blacker shadows. He had planned to reach the motel long before dark, but he warned them their dinner would be late tonight. Yes, it would be late, but it would be good. He had phoned some hundred miles back and made absolutely certain of it. It would be the best meal and the best bed they had seen since being on the road.

  The evening light was still brilliant, but in half an hour the passengers looked back to see a fiery red sky such as they had never seen before, and minutes later the huge sun was plunging to the horizon through blue and purple bands like a glaring metal ball plunging through strips of silk. Suddenly it was dark. Eyes glittered here and there along the edges of the road – but all day the driver had been pointing out the dingo dogs and kangaroos. Now he had come to the end of what he would say. The leaping, luminous eyes were left to silence.

  It was another hour before the low, grey buildings appeared suddenly in the headlights of the bus, set incongruously in space and darkness like sea-shell fragments in a desert. In addition to the motel, there were a small shop, a garage, various sheds where provisions were stacked, and some distance away a tank for storing water. Two huge trucks were drawn up outside and the bus came in behind them. As at every stop on their journey, the stunning silence struck like a knife the instant the engines of the bus cut out. It took the passengers several moments to recover from this blow. Then they stretched and reached for the racks. They started to clamber out, demanding their luggage.

  In many ways this was the worst time of day for the driver. He had to drag out the heavy bags and cases from the dark innards of the bus, heave them to the ground and line them up for the waiting passengers. He had to dive and search again and again for the lost bag, while reassuring its owner that nothing was ever lost, few things were even dented, handles were seldom frayed. After the baggage, he had to supervise the search for rooms, making sure that the married would be safely tucked up, dealing discreetly with dedicated wife-swappers and generously with anxious lovers. Tact was also needed for those persons travelling alone. Would the girls very kindly share? For girls they must ever be, whether sixteen or sixty. Yes, they had better share, he might have added – three or sometimes four to a room – as there was nothing else for them to do. He had to enquire again about the meal, making sure that what was promised far back on the road was forthcoming now in all its details and that there was plenty of it. His passengers were dead beat. It was the one comfort of their hard day. He had to see, moreover, that their aversions had been catered for. The vegetarians were to be served no hulking steak, no tinned shrimp was to lurk amongst the lettuce leaves of shellfish allergics. Last but not least, the driver had to make certain they knew the time of departure in the morning. 8 a.m. with their luggage on the dot. Yes, and very kindly not one minute later, please! It was the last lap of the journey, but it would be a long one.

  Tonight was no different from any other. The driver was praised extravagantly and harangued by turns – praised when he returned from the kitchen to announce that beef was on and chicken too, with matching gravies and green vegetables, deep apple pie and cream. He was harangued by some when it was discovered that certain unexpectedly cramped bedrooms were a long way from the main building, and that someone’s hot and cold had let out nothing but an empty gurgling. A young man with his girl came up to him and thanked him for extracting their lost map, which had got wedged between a seat and a window. He pointed out the part of the road they had missed and showed them the distance they would go tomorrow. The engineer went by and said a few low words to the driver in passing. Someone, catching a word at a distance, said it was something about the day’s journey, and for a wonder might have been amiable – seeing the man was smiling. But a closer listener said it was a scathing remark on the driving, a comment about the slowness, the roughness and the late arrival. One of the women spoke to the driver about hats, said what a good idea – one last get-together before the parting tomorrow night. Every journey had an end. For her part she would be sad, really sad to see it come. A German approached to say he had been inspired by sights remarkably impressive and instructive that day. Tomorrow he hoped his experience would be as equally rewarding as today’s.

  The driver stood up energetically to all these things, though certain changes in his colour were noticed by some: an unpredictable paleness, a strange smoothness of the cheek at the praise, a spreading, blotchy redness across the forehead at the blame, so that the man who found the handle of his bag had been crushed kept quiet about it. The couple who had been led to expect pork as well as mutton and beef swallowed their disappointment in silence. What no one could swallow in silence was the announcement five minutes later that supper would not be half an hour ahead, but one whole hour. ‘Yes, yes,’ called the driver, throwing up his hands for silence, ‘but it will give you all time to sort yourselves out and have a proper rest before your meal. And then what about those hats? I want to see some prize hats, ladies. Ladies and gentlemen!’ He swung round in the direction of his own room – almost, it could be said, clawing and plunging his way towards his place as though making a last desperate lurch towards rest. They let him go.

  The two single women had been put together in one room as they knew they would. They were resigned to it, and in fact counted themselves lucky that another two were not in with them. The older woman unpacked her small case. She hung a wide, blue nightdress on the end of the bed, hung a skirt and blouse in the wardrobe and a spongebag on the basin tap. Sitting on the bed, she began to unlace her large canvas shoes and to knock off the heavy sand that had thickened between heel and sole. From the eyeholes she unpicked a few green spikes. Then she washed her hands and face, brushed her hair and lay down on her bed with a magazine which dealt with chickens – how to rear them and house them and feed them, how to market eggs, how to preserve them and pack them.

  ‘It’s my back and neck,’ she said, looking up after a while. ‘And even my eyes. Squinting sideways for hours. I’m not sorry we’ve to wait an hour. Right now I couldn’t get food down – my throat’s so dry.’

  ‘Well, don’t drink from those taps,’ said the other. ‘Remember he warned us. You’ll have to wait till supper.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got my own,’ said the older woman, leaning over to rummage in her carrier bag and bringing out two small cartons of orangeade. ‘More than enough. Have some.’ They swallowed slowly, seriously, as though mindful of the preciousness of any liquid in this land. For a time they read in silence, one with her magazine, the other with a newspaper two days old.

  ‘Will you join in this hat business?’ said the younger woman, looking at her watch.

  ‘Not likely. If I have to – and of course I don’t have to and won’t – I’ve got, as I told you, the long, brown headscarf. As if anyone could be bothered at this time of night!’

  ‘Some have bothered already. Those two widow-sisters at the back have made things from napkins that look like bridal wreaths.’

  ‘Trust widows!’ said the other.

  ‘Then there’s the other who went running after spikes. Looks like hers would be a crown of thorns.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, poor thing. Di
d you get a good look at the husband?’

  ‘Some of the men are all for it. Back there on the road I heard them discussing elastic bands and feathers.’

  ‘Yes – children, most of them. Any chance to play cowboys and Indians.’

  ‘What will he do, I wonder.’

  ‘The engineer?’

  ‘Yes. He’s no child.’

  ‘Maybe not. But he’s a bully. Are you interested in bullies? Some women are, of course.’

  ‘He’s alone. He has nobody. Anyone he ever loved is at the ends of the earth.’

  ‘Anyone he ever what? So he’s drinking himself to death?’

  ‘No. But worse.’

  ‘Is there worse?’

  ‘I’m afraid what he might do to himself one day.’

  The older woman read fiercely and intently about chickens for a few minutes. From either side of them in the adjoining chalets – except for the first sounds of unpacking and of heavy shoes being kicked off – there had been a profound silence for half an hour, as though all the couples had thrown themselves exhausted upon their beds. But now gradually the sounds began again, taps flowing, the creak of cheap wardrobes swinging back and stiff drawers opening. Voices could be heard, irritable or placating after sleep, voices hungry and demanding. The grandmother turned a page and carefully examined one by one the separate coloured photographs of first-prize cocks and hens. Then she said: ‘I expect we’d better be getting ready. These table arrangements can be tricky. Three minutes late and you’ll still be waiting for your cold soup while all the rest are on to apple pie.’ She got up slowly, took the blouse and skirt off the hanger, and with fierce, life-long modesty sat stretching and buttoning on the edge of the bed with her back turned. The other meanwhile had got into a hot flowered dress and pressed her feet into a pair of light slippers grown tighter and tighter with each day on the road.

  They emerged at last into the dark together and walked along by a line of small, lit windows, past striped and flowered curtains, bright squares which cut out suddenly onto total blackness like flimsy posters pasted on the void. Round the corner, figures were emerging from other chalets to be joined by latecomers hurrying up from behind. A long strip of yellow light slanted from the door of the dining room. There was a smell of chicken, roasting beef and hairspray, and the more intermittent hint of apple pie from swing doors opening at the back. Only now, freed from bus and cramped bedroom, came the chance to take a long, hard look at one another under the sudden light.

  There were whoops and cheers, murmurs and quiet compliments. At least two-thirds of the travellers had been at work on their hats, but the headgear varied like its makers from the unobtrusive to the wildly flamboyant. Some were made simply from thin ribbons tied round the forehead. Others were exotic creations out of knotted scarfs or gaudy pyjama-legs wound into turbans and crusted with an assortment of beads, clips and brooches. Several tall hats had been cut from newspaper and, drawn by their conical fashion in millinery, a witch, a cardinal and a chef flirted happily together. The vampire of the company – a shy and hatless man who had managed to attach two cardboard teeth inside his upper lip – stood reluctantly beside the open door. One or two full-blooded women approached him and were swiftly redirected. He was a total introvert, avid for books, and inclined to come out of himself only at dead of night. To be a clown was simple. A small inverted wastepaper basket was found the easiest quick-change method. Other wants were more complex. One young man, grasping a lasting need for female guise, wore a stiff blue paper coif looped in mediaeval style around long, straight hair. A dark blue blanket cloak fell from shoulder to heel. The peculiar seriousness and elegance of his appearance outdid that of the women, and stilled others in the company for an instant, as though an area of gravity had been disclosed amongst the bizarre efforts of the rest.

  Now the long tables filled up quickly. The soup arrived. What kind is it? It looks unusual.

  It’s mushroom – the same as you get at home. It’s from a packet. The same as you get from Timbuktu to the North Pole. Did you think it was kangaroo?

  Do you wish water?

  Is it safe?

  Yes, of course it’s safe. But for heaven’s sake not from the taps. Don’t even brush your teeth from the taps. But everything’s safe at table, so we’re told. Except yourself, Mrs Rodger. Oh, I see now what a dangerous woman you really are – behind all that gauzy stuff on your head. What is it anyway? A nun’s veil? A nun – my word! Well, I must say you nuns know a thing or two … and where’s your husband got to, by the way? Oh there he is, with Betty Scott. Well, he’d better look out, hadn’t he, because what you women won’t get up to once you’ve tasted blood … And where’s Mr Scott? Hey Jimmy – your wife’s started to make eyes at me already! Where’s your room? We should get together, Jimmy. Better put the wardrobe against the door tonight. These women can get through iron bars once they take a fancy to you!

  Plates of chicken, with a choice of beef, were now being set down. The grandmother sat on the edge of her seat, inclined towards the table with a back as straight as a slanted board. She was examining critically the parts of chicken on her plate as though comparing them with the plump, proud specimens in her magazine. Though she had made no concessions to hat-making, she had done her hair with particular care – combing and twisting the long strands of black and white into a shape as crisp as a cap. Not to be outdone, her younger companion had also made certain slight changes about the head. Her dark hair had been drawn back more tightly over the ears – a severity tempered by the use of two sparkly combs stuck into the knot at the nape of her neck.

  And now began the time of waiting. At first it was hardly noticed. The second course was finished and had been cleared away some time ago. This allowed the passengers to lean freely on the empty table, to talk without interruption. But after a while, and only gradually, the talk faded to a minimum, increased again and faded again, once more revived, then slowly died away as though, one by one, every voice had been withdrawn.

  And now the silence fell. It fell between the couples chatting opposite one another, it fell diagonally between the self-appointed cheer-leaders at either end of the table, between adjacent lovers sitting in passionate isolation from the middle-aged. Even the clatter round the swing doors to the kitchen was subdued. No sweet was forthcoming, no smell of coffee. The serving-women quietly laid down the plates of biscuits on side-tables, laid out the cups and softly rubbed them round with paper napkins. Space and silence widened and widened over the tables, until it seemed great gaps had opened in the crowded room to let in the hot night outside. One or two, as though recalling something in a dream, lifted their heads and smelt through open windows the mysterious whiff of space and darkness. The senses were confused. They felt not only distance but knew time moving past – hours and days and years covering them up as sand had covered rocks. Close by, an unfamiliar bird was screeching.

  And now – and one by one – as though by common consent, there was a gradual removal of funny hats. First, and almost stealthily, the witch removed the scroll of newspaper from her head and released a bundle of grey hair onto her shoulders. Quietly the widow-brides undid the big pink ribbons from the back of their heads, picked off the folded napkins, the glossy roses they had cut from magazines, and laid them down between their plates. Slowly, almost unthinkingly, a turban was unwound, and then a bathcap removed, stalks and feathers, beads, clasps and brooches were picked off. The wearer of the basket lifted it off with both hands like a heavy crown, revealing for the first time a curiously thoughtful man. The youth removed his blue coif, sleeked back his hair and loosened the cloak from his shoulders. Reluctantly he showed himself as man again. The cardinal was the last to remove his high cap. ‘This thing is too tight round the forehead – and the heat in here is frightful,’ he said, as he laid it on the floor by his chair. ‘Anyway, we can all put them on again when it comes to the judgement.’

  ‘He means the judging, of course – that’s to say, the prizegi
ving,’ someone murmured.

  The grandmother said she was thankful now she had not bothered about hats. But her room-mate had grown increasingly uneasy during the last half-hour.

  ‘He’s not here yet,’ she said, looking up and down the long table. ‘Is he going to turn up at all?’

  ‘The driver? Well, he knows the people who run the place. He’ll be having his meal with them. He’ll appear all right when it’s time for the prize.’

  ‘No, I’m not talking about him.’

  ‘Oh the other one! Well, maybe he’s hanging onto the bar for dear life. Or stretched out somewhere with the liquor running out of his ears. I wouldn’t worry about him if I were you.’

  ‘I’ll be happier when I see him, though.’

  ‘Is he the kind that makes them happier?’

  ‘I never told you all he said back there on the road.’

  ‘No? The cliff-edge confession? That was nothing.’

  ‘I never told you the other things. Some day he’ll simply disappear.’

  ‘We’ll all disappear some day.’

  ‘It could even be his last trip. This one or the next.’

  ‘It could be mine too. All that fearful jolting and those clouds of dust. I’m getting too old for it. Maybe they’ll just have to visit me after this.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I mean his last trip anywhere. He’ll do away with himself, sooner or later.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘And much more. Physically and in every way, he feels he’s done for. His life is all in pieces.’

  The older woman smoothed out the bit of tablecloth in front of her with a capable hand, examined her pudding spoon carefully and put it back again. ‘So what are you supposed to do about it?’