Tea in the Library

by Annette Freeman

  However, as is apparent from the story, there were times when the shop demanded attention, particularly during the shopfit and set-up period. I always made a point of being open about the shop’s existence with my business partners — sometimes dragging them down there to admire it (potential customers!) One or two of my partners who worked most closely with me were generous on backing me up in the office, especially during the opening phase. But I always felt obliged, correctly I’m sure, to make certain that my work was done efficiently and promptly, that my client service was not compromised, and that my charging levels for the firm were maintained. In fact, when the shop was about ten months old, one of my partners took two months’ maternity leave and I backed up for her the whole of that time. My charging levels went through the roof. In short, I was working damned hard.

  Another aspect that concerned me, beyond charging levels and getting the work done, was my commitment to the firm and the development of its business, promotion, involvement in management issues, and contributing fully. Was I pulling my weight in that regard? But this train of thought only led me to consider one of the many motivations for pursuing the café bookshop dream: dissatisfaction with the day job. At that time, I strongly felt that there were few opportunities within the firm to contribute beyond the day to day work itself, that my offers to get involved in other areas had been rejected by management, and that there were no opportunities for me to get out of my comfort zone, spread my wings, and learn new things. Tea In The Library certainly supplied all that! Indeed, I was usually wonderfully happy in the café bookshop adventure and thus more contented in the day to day work of the office. My world no longer ended at the office walls.

  As to my clients, when I met them face to face at meetings or conferences where we shared coffee or lunch and small talk about our lives, I would tell them the story of Tea In The Library. Every one of them was interested and enthusiastic, and some of the most heartfelt support — and commiseration in the aftermath — came from my client friends, who still ask about the shop today.

  In any event, despite my fairly constant worrying about these issues none of my twenty partners ever raised any concerns with me. As to what they thought of the mad scheme in private — who knows?!

  In the end several factors came together to catalyze the demise of Tea In The Library. One was the resignation of Emma, following our second Christmas. She had family reasons for the decision, but she probably could see only an uncertain future anyway. Damien, the bookseller Emma had hired as her assistant, was willing to carry on while I decided whether to throw in the towel or recruit a replacement manager.

  Despite the appalling sales figures, I was still hatching schemes to keep the shop afloat: down-grading the cafe menu, shorter hours, renegotiate the rent … the money was holding out (just). I could do it somehow! Then an unexpected blow fell. I was about to leave for a long-planned adventure holiday in Antarctica and Patagonia. This had been in the planning for around a year, and despite financial constraints I had worked to pay off the cost gradually over that time. The crisis of Emma’s resignation had coincided with the departure date, but even that had not deterred me from going — I would think over the future of the shop while trekking in the Andes. The trip was very important to me, and I craved the opportunity to get away from the busyness of my life and see the mountains. At 5 pm, the night before I boarded the plane for Buenos Aires, and as I was clearing my desk in the office, the management of the firm decided to read the riot act. I had been taking too much time off. “People” (unspecified) didn’t like my involvement with the shop — it “took me away from the firm”. Had I considered retiring? (I was 48!) Had I considered semi-retiring?

  I was appalled. Here were all the issues I had gone over and over in my mind, and which I had convinced myself I had dealt with satisfactorily. I raised questions. I defended myself. I asked why no-one had mentioned a word about such concerns for a year and a half. But in the end I went away to think things over. I thought them over on a 20 hour journey to Argentina. I thought them over through two and a half days of hideous seasickness crossing the Drake Passage. I stopped thinking when the astounding ice of Antarctica surrounded me. Then I thought about it again during two more days of seasickness on the return journey, and on two weeks of 25 km per day treks in Patagonia, through sore feet and heat and dust and gale force winds and exhaustion. I imagined a variety of scenarios. Perhaps I should “retire” and take on the shop full-time as manager myself? I thought about that long and hard. But it was doing so badly by now that I couldn’t see how it could go on without the support of the money coming in from the day job. Even I couldn’t convince myself this was a good idea. If the ultimatum had come six months earlier! What decision would I have made then?

  Finally, with an expensive and eagerly awaited holiday pretty much ruined, I dragged my heart into line with my head and decided to close. The straw had broken the camel’s back.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Out of my comfort zone

  Antarctica was a visual feast. Icy mountains so enormous that they made our ship seem just a speck. The thought that most of what I could see from the viewing deck — and the view went on forever — had never been trodden upon by human feet was astonishing. Skimming lightly over the two and half days of seasickness that I endured to reach the Antarctic Circle — trust me, you don’t want to know — we arrived in a wonderland that I just don’t have the words to adequately describe. Our ship was a Russian-crewed vessel that usually did duty as a scientific craft, but it was used for the tourists during the short Antarctic summer. It wasn’t exactly a cruise liner, but it was comfortable and serviceable. In addition to the crew and staff, there were about 70 intrepid tourists. Each day we were offered the opportunity to climb down the side of the ship on a wobbly makeshift ladder arrangement to board inflatable “Zodiac” boats to buzz around in the iceberg-strewn water, or sometimes to go ashore to explore. Not being of a very nautical bent, I was a bit nervous of these arrangements, and didn’t avail myself of every opportunity for a buzz in the Zodiacs. This was particularly fortunate on one occasion, when the sea ice in the Lemair Channel closed in surprisingly rapidly and caught several of the Zodiacs far from the mother ship. The expedition leader, “Dutch”, was in radio contact with the crew who were operating the tourist-filled inflatables, but all their strat-egizing was going nowhere, as the sea ice continued to expand and compact before our eyes. Dutch asked the Russian Captain to take the ship closer to the trapped Zodiacs, but “neit” — there were no charts of that bit of the Channel, and the Captain wouldn’t risk the ship. I watched all this drama from the top viewing deck. In the end, a loose Zodiac was sent over to the area, and the tourists were carefully walked over the recently-formed ice floes, holding on to a rope, to the rescue craft. The crew then pulled the empty Zodiacs across the ice too, and eventually all arrived safely back on board. Apart from a few strained bladders — they were out there for hours — no harm was done. After a few restorative Long Island Teas in the ship’s bar, the adventure was soon transformed into a tale which seemed destined to warm the dinner tables back home in the US for many a long day.

  So this was all in a day’s touring in Antarctica. As I hung over the rail on the viewing deck for hour after hour, snapping a ridiculous number of photographs and gazing awe-inspired, I saw mountains that made even the Himalaya seem moderate, and ice and snow as far as the eye could see, often in dazzling sunlight. It was summertime, after all. On the Antarctic Peninsular, that usually means temperatures of about minus 5 degrees up to highs of about 3 degrees Celsius. Occasionally wind made it seem a lot colder, but the days were often quite balmy — relatively speaking. Being in Antarctica was a huge dream come true for me, and the trip had been in the planning for a long time. No, I wasn’t exactly Mawson or Scott, or even Shackleton — this was no grueling adventure. I was on a cosy ship with skilled crew and expedition leaders, and a bunch of elderly American tourists, albeit of the more adventurous k
ind. Oh, and a cheerful group of Portuguese doctors, too. The expedition staff were Australians and Canadians — “Canadians know ice”, one of them told me, explaining why there were so many of them. I was well-looked after and assisted in my personal adventure each step of the way. Almost.

  I loved just watching the extraordinary world around us as we cruised along. I adored the abundant wildlife — humpback whales swam about the bow of the ship like dolphins. Penguins dodged through the water like flying fish and massed on promontories and rocky foreshores. Seals could be spotted on ice floes and the sky teemed with birds. The wildlife was uniquely unafraid of us, presumably because of their protected and un-hunted status. When I did venture out on Zodiac trips, it was absolutely worthwhile. A humpback swam by our little inflatable, its eponymous hump surfacing just a few metres away! We moved up close enough to a family of seals on an ice floe to almost smell their fishy breath. Huge towering greenish icebergs, with their surfaces gouged into fantastical grooves and waves and patterns filled the bay. I joined the “photog-raphy Zodiac”, which means we spent 20 minutes circling the same iceberg until every photographer on the boat had had their fill. Bliss, as far I was concerned.

  When we went ashore, the penguin colonies were a huge attraction. We were drilled to mind the rules about keeping our distance from the penguins, but if you sat on a rock for a few minutes, you’d be surrounded by cautious but curious birds in no time. Everyone took too many penguin photos. How could you not? Is there a more photogenic animal anywhere? At one beautiful bay, the Gentoo penguins dived among the “bergy bits”, chunks of ice fallen from the glacier, which littered the foreshore. They roosted on top of the hill, squawking and flapping to protect their young (two per penguin father) from the circling skuas (these birds eat baby penguins, apparently). They formed little “penguin highways” from the foreshore up the hill to the colony, following each other up and down on the same track until a groove was worn into the snow. Here, I climbed a snowy hillside trail, to revel in a view across the bay and down onto the glacier face. I’m not very good with snow — I’m from Australia — but the slope here was mild, and the trail was broad, and I very much enjoyed the climb.

  One reason I had chosen to take this tour with this particular tour company was because they offered the chance to actually camp out on the Antarctic continent. This was a huge attraction for me! Not everyone on board was quite as keen, but a reasonable number of people decided to give it try. One evening after dinner (we didn’t attempt eating on the continent) we took the Zodiacs over to land, climbed up to the top of a snowy ridge, and dug ourselves little cra-dles in the snow. We put down a rubber mat, a sleeping bag inside a bivvy sack, loaded on very piece of clothing we had with us, and settled for the night. Of course, it didn’t go that smoothly for everyone. A few things blew away into the bay. Some people changed their minds and wanted to go back to the cosy ship, moored invitingly in the bay in front of us, with its lights winking in the gloaming. But I was thrilled to bits with the experience. Actually sleeping on the Antarctic Continent! Wow! Penguins scuttled about down on the foreshore. It didn’t actually get dark — just a couple of hours of deeper twilight — but I was so swaddled in clothes and bags and beanies that I actually slept quite well. We had to be careful to ensure minimum impact on the environment, which is one reason we didn’t take food, and next morning we shoved snow back into the little holes we had dug, packed up and went back to the ship. You might be wondering about the toilet arrangements. I won’t describe them, but suffice to say they involved a plastic drum named “Mr. Stinky”.

  So far so good. I had coped with the seasickness, the wobbly ladder down the side of the ship, the proximity of very large sea mammals, climbing on snow, and Mr. Stinky. I had also managed to suspend worrying about the shop at home and the ultimatum from the management. This wasn’t too difficult once I was up from my sick bed and reveling in the visual beauty and the new challenges. I am quite keen on trying things that push me out of my comfort zone a bit. I have always found that, in the end, I grow and learn and feel a glow of achievement. Things like driving on the wrong side of the road, flying in a small plane, public speaking — or, I don’t know, opening a bookshop? For everyone the point at which the boundaries are pushed will be different. There are plenty of people who would read that list I have just suggested and be puzzled that everyone doesn’t do those things every day. But my personal boundaries are what they are, and I like to push them occasionally. I like to learn and grow and try new challenges. Not all the time, of course, but sometimes. In Antarctica, I had pushed quite a few personal comfort zones, in traveling there on my own, coping with the wretched seasickness (which from past experience I was quite well aware would happen), and then getting involved with the excursions. I was feeling good, and proud of myself.

  Then … (you knew this was coming, didn’t you?) there was a shore excursion where I got just a little too confident and pushed a little too far outside the comfort zone. We had gone ashore to visit a Gentoo penguin colony, and I’d done the wobbly ship’s walkway, and the leaping into the sea to wade ashore, and I was feeling cocky. The colony we were to visit was up a snowy incline — been there, done that, I said to myself, with way too little forethought, and up I started.

  Have I mentioned that I’m not very good with snow? This particular slope was much steeper than the previous hike. It zigzagged up the hill, where others had blazed the trail, and I had walked up two or three zigs and zags before I looked back down — and froze. I immediately decided that I was going no further, I would sit on a convenient rock and regroup, and then descend. The sitting on the rock part went OK, but I just could not contemplate the descent without horror. I was quite convinced that if I stood up and faced downhill, I would tumble down. The fear was quite paralyzing. So much for the brave adventurer.

  Now, there were plenty of people about. Indeed, as I sat glued to my rock, others were cheerfully trudging uphill, waving hello as they confidently and competently ascended. So not only did I feel scared rigid, I also felt stupid. But then that feeling was mitigated somewhat by the fact that others began to join me. Before long, there were three or four of we frightened souls sitting at the junction of a zig and a zag, perched on the rock or plopped in the snow, wondering how the hell we were ever going to get down, and — almost as mortifying — how to pretend to the others that we weren’t really such incompetent cowards. One lady sitting with us was blessed with a husband who had no trouble at all with the slope. When he came by, I thought he would gallantly rescue her. But all he did was urge her to get up and keep going because “what was the problem?” She was practically crying with fear. He went on up and left her, presumably planning to fetch her on the way back.

  One member of our little troupe of people way outside their comfort zones was a big guy named Don,who was a squid fisherman from Newport Beach, US. He had been the life and soul of the ship’s dining table. Now he was cracking jokes as he sat, dressed from head to toe in vivid yellow waterproofs, stuck on the side of a steep snowy slope in Antarctica, with several basket case women. You have to hand it to him. While we were sitting, we watched a Chinstrap penguin (who really shouldn’t have been there, because this was a Gentoo colony) work its way laboriously up the slope, making its own ‘penguin highway’ to the top. This distracted us for a time. When the penguin reached the people highway that our group had made when zigzagging up, it found a nice cosy indentation, and decided to sit there. So now we had a large yellow fisherman, several ladies with no head for heights, and a sleeping penguin.

  About this time, our eccentric group was noticed by Dutch, our fearless expedition leader, who walked up from the foreshore to investigate. As he ascended, he noticed the penguin, and stopped, because the rules are that you don’t approach the wildlife too closely. He enquired about our problem, and we told him we couldn’t get down. This seemed to puzzle him, as of course he could keep his balance on the steep slope, and found it hard to believe that we couldn�
�t. His solution to the situation was to tramp out a new route through the snow, skirting the penguin widely, say to us “there you are!”, and then head on up to the rest of the group. Since the new trail was no less steep than the old trail — in fact, possibly more so — we were no better off.

  Now, I don’t know about the others. They may have told this story to their friends when they got home and it may have seemed quite different to them. But I was so far out of my comfort zone that I was close to hysteria. Because of the people around, I really didn’t get into the mode of trying to figure things out for myself. Apart from an attempt to slide down the trail on my bottom — thwarted by the penguin — I didn’t really try to use my own brain to solve the situation. I just waited for someone to rescue me, and grew increasingly distraught that they didn’t seem to be doing that. Then Don began to be funny, and I dissolved into hysterical giggling. The amusement arose from Don’s efforts to get the penguin to move, without breaking the rules about annoying the wildlife (or at least not letting anyone see him doing so). He began by surreptitiously throwing bits of snow at it; and this was followed by cat imitations. Would penguins be afraid of cats? Probably this has never been tested. I can report that this penguin was unmoved by either tactic. Don’s stream of wise-cracks was probably intended to keep up everyone’s spirits, which it sort of did, but being extremely amused and extremely scared simultaneously was very weird.