The Booklovers

Part of the joy of moving is packing up all the stuff you’ve been dragging around for years but have never found any use for, knowing full well it’s just going to sit in a cupboard till the next time you move. The plan was to give away a stack of books to the bookshop two doors down the road.

The reality is I’m handing the shopkeeper one book. He doesn't get up from his chair. He’s staring at the image of a bird on the back cover. I don’t know what the bird is called and I’ve a sneaky suspicion he’s no ornithologist either. He calls the bird something like ‘whirly-whirl’, a pet name for sure.

“Ah interesting, a whirly-whirl.”

“Sorry?”

“The bird on the back. Whirly-whirl.”

“Right.”

“Does the Whirly-whirl feature in the book?”

“I don’t remember the bird. It’s a book about a travelling musician.”

“Ah, so he travels with the Whirly-whirl?”

“I have to leave now.”

I pitter-patter out of the shop as he sits fixated on the back cover.

The next day, having lost my sentimentality, I have a stack of books to give away. I’m relieved to find it’s a different shopkeeper. He's standing, slightly stooped in an apologetic way. He tells me I’m very kind to give him all these books.

“Are you sure you’ve finished with them?”

“Yes thanks.”

He volunteers in the bookshop once a week. He asks me if I live locally, I tell him two doors down for about the next half an hour. It’s just a flat above the shops but it was my home. It turns out he lives with his mother and they live on the street with the Aston Martin, paying £50 rent a week. That’s the way to do it. His neighbours pay £400 a week. But then he tells me that when she passes on he’ll have to find somewhere else. He likes it in Highbury too and he’s worried he’ll have to move away. I chat to him a while and then tell him I need to finish packing the last of my stuff.

There’s no sign of the book I brought in yesterday. I’ve no doubt though that yesterday’s shopkeeper is at home, scouring the pages for Whirly-whirl.