by Paul Magrs
And there was coffee and cigarettes, steam and smoke drifting languidly from somewhere deep inside the shop. It was cavernous and they couldn’t yet see the cash desk or the owner. They didn’t know how deep into this labyrinth of bookcases his centre of operations lay. For the moment, they were hushed and glancing around the narrow space; at the bookcases that lined the walls up to the ceiling; the heaps that lay tidily but unsorted on the threadbare carpet. In the dim, dusty air Simon’s eyes were gradually readjusting. There was a single standard lamp, casting a dull bronze glow. It gave a unique ambience to the place. It felt exactly like the wee small hours of the morning. To stand in there, the first room of the Big Book Exchange, was like waking up unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Like sleepwalking, or dozing and drowsily taking one step after another into a room you’d just dreamed up.
Together they embarked on a slow, astonished exploration. Somehow, as they advanced into the next room, and then into the next, almost identical one, they decided that they oughtn’t split up just yet. They couldn’t stop to browse the tantalising shelves all around them. They had to know the full extent of the Exchange first. It seemed uncanny, as if the shop’s chambers might go on for ever, deeper and deeper, the amber light gradually becoming more golden, the ceilings and bookcases growing higher and higher. Simon and his gran crept on together as if scared they’d be split up and lost for ever in this measureless place.
Other rooms branched off into different directions and narrowing corridors. The layout was perplexing. That mattered less and less as they went on, now pausing occasionally to read the subject headings that were written in black marker pen on pieces of card. They were the oddest categories Simon had ever heard of. Stories of Mystery, Fury and Dismay. Tales of Furniture and Geometry. Stories of Exploration and of Staying at Home.
‘Someone’s got a funny sense of humour,’ Winnie said. ‘You’d never find anything you were actually looking for, would you?’ She kept her voice low, hissing out of the side of her mouth. She’s nervous, he thought. He had never seen her like this before. Taking these tiny steps, hardly daring to dart birdlike glances side to side. They made slow, pecking and scratching progress.
The owner of the shop didn’t look up. He was sitting at his wide desk in the room furthest back, deepest into the building, reading under a green shaded lamp. When Simon and his gran shuffled in, the owner didn’t even stir, he was so focussed on the paperback he was holding open with both hands down on the desk.
Simon felt awkward, as if they had blundered into somebody’s living room. He gave a fake cough, to let the owner know that he had customers. The white-haired man was sitting in a bubble of illuminated privacy. Simon turned to smile reassuringly at Winnie, and saw that she had turned away and was scanning through the shelves closest to her. She was walking her fingers along the brightly coloured spines.
Then there was a fourth person in the room. A scowling girl came bustling in from one of the side rooms. She was carrying a heavy pile of art books, which she crashed down on the main desk, puffing up clouds of dust. Her black dress was covered in pale dust. It was a granny’s kind of dress, Simon thought. The girl had stark black hair hanging down, with a single electric-blue streak in it. She’d made her face even whiter with make-up. A Goth! That’s what she was. That’s why she was scowling like that, through all her black eyeliner.
‘We’ve got punters,’ the girl said, in a curious, rasping voice. This made Simon jump and turn quickly aside, to pretend that he was scouring the bookshelves like his gran. Still he felt nosy and intrusive. But now, as the bookshop owner raised his grizzled head, Simon himself became the object of scrutiny. The owner’s eyes were blazing at him from behind his thick glasses and Simon flinched. Then he coughed again, embarrassed.
The Goth girl sighed heavily and went to sit on a high stool behind what must be the cash desk. As the owner closed his book, the girl was flicking to the correct page in her own and ignoring the customers completely. Almost instantly she had transported herself elsewhere, sitting cross-legged on her stool and holding the novel in front of her face like a mask.
Simon was aware that both he and Winnie were being observed by the owner. Self-consciously he tried to browse.
‘Can we help you at all?’ the owner asked at last. His voice was mellifluous and rich. Simon couldn’t place the accent. He turned to look and the old man was staring at him with all his attention. Simon wasn’t used to that. He blushed.
‘Oh,’ he smiled. ‘We’re just looking. We popped in on the off chance. We didn’t even know you were here. Is this a new shop?’
‘No,’ the owner said, still staring.
‘Mv gran is a big reader,’ Simon said. He didn’t know why he was using Winnie as his excuse for being here. Something about the way that old man was looking at him searchingly. It made him feel a bit ashamed and as if he didn’t want to be here. He imagined being back aboard the warm, stuffy bus, still heading into the town centre. To the normal shops and the reassuring crush of the ordinary crowds.
Now he was off the beaten track. He had strayed off the path through the woods. He gulped.
Winnie was no help. She was completely tangled up in the books. She had given herself over to her search. Simon could hear her breathing a little more heavily, gathering up a handful of paperbacks, flicking through soft yellow pages.
‘And you?’ asked the Exchange owner. His voice was sweet and cajoling. He was standing up and smiling wryly. His white hair stood out in unruly tufts. His ears were large and, with the desk light shining behind him, they glowed scarlet. His skin was smooth and somehow thin-looking. He seemed translucent to Simon. Now he wasn’t sure he was as old as all that after all. It was true, he was dressed like an old man: shapeless cords, a knitted waistcoat, threadbare slippers.
Simon gave a sudden, stilled gasp. The man’s arms. There was something odd about his arms. The way he held them rigid in front of himself. He held out his arms as if he was afraid to damage them.
He stood there, smiling broadly. Simon could see now that the eyes behind those thick glasses were hazel; almost golden. There was a strange, mischievous light dancing there. The man stood about a foot away from Simon, holding out his arms stiffly, and said: ‘Are you a reader, too?’
‘Me?’ Simon said. His mouth had gone dry.
‘Oh, yes.’ The owner nodded. ‘You’ll both be joining, then? Hm? I’ll have two new members?’
‘Joining?’
The owner’s grin broadened. ‘Why, the Exchange, of course. The Great Big Book Exchange.’
Simon was silent for a moment. Behind the wide cash desk, the scowling Goth girl tutted loudly once, and tossed her head at Simon’s ignorance.
An hour later, Simon had collected up a whole armload of novels. They were in incredible condition. Some of them were as much as fifty years old. Their pages were onion-skin thin but perfect, as if they’d never been opened before. Others were reassuringly fat and their spines were uncracked. His fingers roved indiscriminately across shelves furry with dust. He plucked out bottle green detectives; scarlet translations of European classics; sickly yellow horrors and science fiction with covers that glittered midnight blue. Then the children’s books caught his eye. He found books he had for gotten about. The ludicrous adventures of a particular — and very argumentative — clockwork rabbit. He remembered every one of the crisp, gorgeous line drawings. This was the very first book in the series. A perfect copy.
He paused. This shop would be very expensive. The quality of these books was amazing. They were rare. They were far better than the run-of-the-mill charity shop stuff’ Simon was used to. Maybe they would cost far more than he could afford. In fact, they were bound to. It wasn’t every day you found books like these.
He flicked to the front cover of each of the paperbacks he’d rashly picked up. That was where the prices were most often scrawled. Nothing there. Then he turned to the back covers. He blinked. One pound. Then the next one: 70p. And the n
ext: 90p. He was astonished. He had expected at least ten times that amount. Easily. He’d been to antiquarian bookshops before. They’d had books in immaculate condition like this. Some of those shops had even been stocked as impressively as this one. But their prices had made Simon gulp and flush and hurry out of the place. He had been ashamed of even being there and taking the books down off the shelves. They made him feel like he hadn’t the right to inquire or to imagine owning books that expensive.
These books, though, were cheap. Obviously they were paperbacks. They’d never really be vastly expensive. Simon was no expert. But surely they were under-priced. There was something else, written in pencil underneath each price. There was another price: 35p, 45p, 25p. ‘Exchange value,’ it said in each case. He frowned, puzzled.
This was the Exchange.
This wasn’t a shop that they were visiting. It worked by rules different to a shop’s. Simon and his gran didn’t understand yet. It would take them some time to fully appreciate and to learn how to partake in the Great Big Book Exchange. It wasn’t even that complicated. The owner explained it to them very patiently.
‘You must bring your books back,’ he said. ‘You must return them here, to me, when you have read them. You get half the value back each time, and you may put that credit towards your next set of books.’
‘I see…’ said Simon uncertainly. Already he was confused. Any talk of money or figures tended to throw his concentration out. It sounded to him like the owner was promising to buy back the books they’d buy from his shop.
Beside him Winnie had gathered an armload of her own. ‘I think I see,’ she said. ‘So you keep your customers coming back again and again.’
The owner glanced at Winnie and looked her up and down. ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Sort of. It’s like being in a kind of club, isn’t it? Do you see? You’d be involved in the Exchange. You would be included. You’d be reading your way through the many novels we have in stock here. All the great novels in the world. And some surprising ones. You’d be returning them and paying just a little bit of cash each time. But you’ll be swapping them along with all the other many customers we have here.’
Simon could have sworn he heard the Goth girl tut once more at this.
‘It’s brilliant,’ the owner said. ‘It’s fantastic, the way it works. This place is like… like a city of books. Or a gigantic brain… yes, a brain. And all the books and the readers are like brain cells or synapses or flitting thoughts, passing through and crossing over…’
Winnie pursed her lips. ‘It sounds exactly like a library to me. But with money.’ It was plain from her face that she didn’t like libraries much.
‘A library!’ said the owner hotly. ‘Madam, this is the Exchange. It’s nothing like a library at all. It’s like a very exclusive private club. Why, just anyone can walk in off the streets and join a library. Anyone at all. People who want to come in from the cold. People with no interest in stories at all. Oh dear, no. This is nothing like a library.’
‘It’s an Exchange,’ the Goth girl said in her rasping voice. She slid off her high stool and moved to a silver coffee machine. There, she noisily made herself a strong cup of coffee. She used the smallest cup and saucer Simon had ever seen. ‘In fact, it’s the Exchange. It’s the only one like it in the whole world.’
‘Oh,’ said Winnie, worried that she had caused them offence. ‘In that case…’ She looked at Simon. ‘Shall we become members?’
The owner was nodding at them both and grinning again. To Simon it felt as if they were about to join a secret and rather dodgy society. He wasn’t at all sure whether it was a good idea. But… the books he had glimpsed, and those he had gathered up in his arms… they were irresistible. Long-vanished thrillers and mysteries and meandering sagas. Books that were out of print, obscure, forgotten, never-heard-of. He knew that he would never find them anywhere else. Not in any other bookshop. Not even in the library.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think we should join.’ His heart was beating a little harder. The girl at the counter glanced at him. Her heavily kohl-blackened eye winked at him. We’re really getting into something here, he thought. Something we never expected to find. Now he and his gran were happily giving themselves up to the adventure of it.
The Exchange owner was delighted at this. He hurried back across the worn, elaborate carpet and set about finding fresh membership cards. They were small, grey, old-fashioned things. He wanted them to fill them in immediately, with their full names and addresses. He asked his Goth girl assistant to find a pen.
Then he prodded the two grey cards across the desk at them. Winnie looked down and found herself staring at the tips of his rather small, neat fingers. She realised that he was holding them very stiffly. Both hands were like that. They were lifeless. Her breath gave a little catch in her throat as it hit her that the man had two artificial hands. She almost cried out but Simon, who had noticed the same thing at precisely the same moment, nudged her silently in the ribs. Don’t say anything. Don’t draw attention to it.
Simon took up the proffered Biro and the stiff piece of card. He signed himself up for the Exchange, and tried not to stare at the man’s plastic forearms as they rested there on the desk before him.
Four
They didn’t tell Grandad. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It wasn’t as if they thought they should treat their joining the Exchange as a secret. It wasn’t as if they had done anything wrong, like spending an exorbitant amount of money.
They just both knew that Grandad wouldn’t appreciate the tale of their Saturday adventure and the discovery of the place — that labyrinth of novels — owned by the man with two plastic arms, and his taciturn. Gothic assistant.
Grandad wasn’t a reader. He would never understand their hushed excitement, their spooked out nervous enchantment. He would think they were silly. He’d look nonplussed as they explained it all: what the Exchange was like, how the owner had behaved, and what he had said to them. The tale would turn to ashes in their mouths. Worse still. Grandad might even ridicule them. Tell them they were getting worked up about nothing.
With that mocking tone of his he might make them feel that the whole escapade wasn’t all that important or interesting. What on Earth were they on about? So what?
So they kept quiet about it. They brought the books home, hoping they would go unnoticed by Grandad: Simon adding his to the heaps by his bed; his gran keeping hers safe on her bedside table.
It was frozen, foggy and dark by the time they returned home that night. All Grandad was really bothered about was sending Simon to fetch back fish and chips from the chippy in the town square. Simon went gladly, clutching a tenner, into the silvery dark. He was starving by now, thinking of chips and scraps of golden batter, glistening with malty vinegar. He tried to duck unseen by the kids next to their phone box.
‘We saw you! Going out with your granny!’
‘She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?’
He queued in the fish shop, ignoring them. Especially ignoring the oldest lad, who was grinning at him nastily and wolfishly. He could still see the kids through the wide window, capering about and laughing. He blocked them out. He thought about the long, lovely quiet hours of that evening to come. The first of his novels from the Exchange, open on his lap. The gas fire blazing away, and some old record of his grandparents’ crackling on their ancient stereo. They still had their old vinyl and they favoured syrupy string arrangements of golden oldies.
He would start on the first of his Exchange novels. He had to. He had to get them read. They had to go back next Saturday. That was the bargain.
The first of his novels was — it said on the back — a classic of Fifties existentialism, set in Paris. He didn’t know what that meant exactly, but judging from the deliciously lurid cover illustration it involved people in grimy little cafes, talking about life and how hopeless it was; being very glamorous and smoking lots of cigarettes.
He couldn’t wait to get home wit
h his steaming parcels of chips and battered cod. He looked forward to getting through what had become their various Saturday night rituals: lottery on the telly after the fish and chips, then a pot of tea and Madeira cake. And then Grandad turned DJ, opening up the wooden cupboard and flipping through the records, as Winnie and Simon settled down to their reading for the rest of the weekend.
Simon had learned to grit his teeth and simply get through his time at school. He kept his head down and thought himself lucky if he got through a day without getting punched or yelled at or deliberately tripped up in the dark, crowded corridors as the kids went from room to room, bells ringing in their ears.
‘You’re wishing your life away,’ his gran would say, when he counted down the days each week. ‘You should enjoy your time at school. Best days of your life, you know — what they say is true. All too soon you’ll have to work for your living and that’s no picnic. You shouldn’t hurry time up, wishing you were older…’
Yet that was precisely what he did do. He wished he was older and free to go off anywhere he wanted and become anyone he wanted to be. Like Winnie, his best friends weren’t real people. They were lords and ladies in the eighteenth century; they were roughnecks and pirates in the wild west, the untamed seas or in Sherwood Forest; they were exotic heroes in the far future, or they were flashy femmes fatales in a more glamorous age. Inside his head, Simon could pretend to be in whichever company he wanted. He could imagine finally growing up to be anyone at all.
As the day-to-day circumstances of his life closed in around him his fantasies grew more and more elaborate.