shook her head and said, ‘He’s getting so eccentric.’
‘Is it because Derek and Myra are coming home next week?’
‘No – only indirectly.’
She looked as if she might have said something else, but at that moment I happened to let go of a plate, which changed the subject. Before taking her usual rest, she had a sherry, a bad sign.
Went for rather aimless walk hoping perhaps I might see Julie Howells, returned to find Uncle still away and Aunt in orchard, slashing vaguely at some nettles with a sickle. She looked up and began speaking before I could so much as greet her.
‘There’s something I ought to tell you, Peter,’ she said. ‘I think you ought to know, although we’ve always kept it even from your mother and father. Come and sit in the loggia.’
Obeyed, thoroughly alarmed.
‘You know D. H. Lawrence had scores of collaborators?’ she began.
‘Yes,’ I said, not committing self.
‘Well, he had anyway.’ Long silence. ‘You know your uncle is a literary character?’
‘I know he’s known Mr Brightfount a long time.’
‘My dear boy, your uncle used to be a reviewer.’
Said I had not heard this before.
‘I am afraid your mother and father have never been very booky people … However, that’s nothing against them. Mr Brightfount has never told you anything of this?’
Forced to ask Of What?
‘That your uncle once collaborated with D. H. Lawrence?’
At last the bomb was dropped! Of course was wildly excited by news, although furious to think of years wasted without knowing of this. What would Mrs Callow say when I told her?
‘Sit down and don’t behave so childishly …’
Begged her to tell me all about it, how it had happened, what they had written.
‘It was early in 1922,’ Aunt said, ‘and your uncle reviewed Aaron’s Rod in the local paper — it used to run a literary column once a fortnight until the old editor died. About a week later, Lawrence appeared at Newspaper House and asked to see your uncle.’
‘How marvellous! Had Uncle given it a good review?’
‘Far from it. We were living in the little house at Lower Wickham then. Lawrence arrived in time for tea.’
Seemed to me to be most wonderful thing I had ever listened to! Asked if they fought like dogs.
‘Not at all. He stayed eleven days. I did not care for him – we had only been married a little while – your uncle and I, that is. You could hardly tell at times that he was in the house – Lawrence, I mean.’
Asked what they wrote.
‘Oh, nothing that was ever published, of course. They were working on an idea that was going to be called ‘The Gypsy and the Virgin Kangaroo’, but it all fell through, and afterwards Lawrence made two other books out of it.’
Asked why on earth Uncle and Aunt had been so quiet about all this.
‘Well, it was not long after that Lawrence published Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and your uncle had always been well thought of locally, so …’
Uncle appeared at that instant through the side gate, bearing in his arms an enormous bundle of bulrushes, so that I never heard what effect Lawrence’s visit had upon his eccentricity.
Write this all carefully down now not just because it is the only important thing which has ever happened in our family, but because it is valuable scrap of history in its own right. Can’t think why Uncle did not write book on Lawrence; lots of other people did.
MONDAY
Wasted twenty minutes over one customer – and sold her nothing. She wanted a good English grammar that would do for her two boys for reference at home. I felt I knew those wretched children personally before she left: Dennis, aged nine, Wilfred, fourteen. ‘We want to give them really good careers. Trouble is, we can only afford it for one of them. Ought we to concentrate on Wilfred, who’s the elder? – but he’s always been so slow – or cut our losses and just plug for Dennis, who’s frightfully bright for his age?’ Etc., etc.
Finished with the suspicion that she wanted neither book nor advice, just a chat about her troubles. Odd how people unburden to strangers!
Can’t help worrying about Wilfred, though. If he doesn’t watch it, he’ll end up as a bookseller’s assistant.
Tennis in evening: singles with the Dodd girl. Bought her a squash afterwards. May see more of her.
TUESDAY
Late. Rexine saw me come in at 9.15, just looked. Expect I’ll hear about it some time.
Been thinking about yesterday’s customer. Her problem is much the same as a bookseller’s; to push the old, slow stock or concentrate on flogging what is already doing well? In Brightfount’s we’ve never decided.
Mrs Callow’s birthday. Gave her a box of chocolates – only person on staff who gave her anything. Dave and I invited up to her house this evening, went by bus. Very nice there. Food first class. Mr Callow science-fiction enthusiast, to Dave’s delight – we went for walk, left them chatting and diving excitedly into vast cupboard full of magazines with bright, neat astronomical covers and titles like ‘Stupendous’, ‘Staggering’ and ‘Unlikely’.
Have not said anything to anyone about Lawrence. Rather wish now I was going out to ‘Hatchways’ next Sunday, but have already planned to go home for week-end.
WEDNESDAY
Half-day. Rained. Bored. Should not be reading Kafka’s Diaries if they weren’t remaindered. Very good bargain.
Few customers show much interest in anything to do with books apart from whatever particular one they are after – except when it comes to remainders. Name seems to waken their interest. ‘Why are they so cheap? How can you afford to sell them at this price? Do the authors know about this?’
Any number of answers really. Most of our reduced books are not our own dud stock, but come from firms who buy up from publishers. Publishers get rid of books for several reasons, most of which they do not mention, for remaindering is not the glorious business publishing is; all publishers remainder, none do it with cocktail parties. Pity, that!
You are cordially invited to
A COCKTAIL PARTY
at
The Algernon Hotel, Bifold Street,
on
the – July, 19—,
in
