OFTEN books are said to ‘open your eyes into new worlds’, but at Love Vintage Books in Willoughby, the most unimaginable thing had occurred, the books had ears; they had listened.
‘Good afternoon,’ a soft voice said from behind a book-filled, oversized desk. Her floral shirt and marble coloured glasses hidden by the mountains of balancing books in her midst. Next to her, the unofficial owner of the bookstore sat, curled in his bed, only his breath being heard. His name is Hugo, a King Charles Cavalier, that surprisingly was not named after French Romantic writer, Victor. ‘You could say he was, it just won’t be the truth’, Margaret Dunstan, the official manager, laughed.
Her husband Kim, sat nestled on a stool in the corner, only his peppered beard visible from behind his tablet. ‘My collection is inscriptions’, he responded, ‘To The Very Reverend The Dean of Chester from his sincere friend Victoria. Dec 24th 1834.’ He paused before proudly saying, ‘Princess Victoria gave this book to her religious mentor a few years before she hit the throne!’
‘The children’s books go to well-meaning parents. And others for nostalgic reasons. Some collect for the bindings. Others for a dad who has everything or graduated from medicine. With vintage books, much more care was taken with the production of the whole book’, Margaret said, ‘Books have to reflect what people are interested in and doing, you know. And certainly, for example, more people like trains, planes, war, they’re not doing displays of cut flowers.’
The bell attached to the door chimed, as a lady and her father stepped into the store.
‘Do you have any children’s books?’ the young mother of two asked.
‘Oh yes we do’, Margaret said, with a subtle wink, as to recall our conversation earlier. ‘They are up there’, she said, pointing towards the saturated bookshelves of Enid Blyton, J.R.R. Tolkien, A.A. Milne, and even a shoe-shaped book tangled in yellow shoelaces.
With Noddy book in hand, the lady then grabbed a dark green, dusted book, before calling out, ‘There’s a book about surgery, Dad, you could learn a thing or two?’
Laughing, I saw Margaret, our jaws unhinged from amazement. ‘Children’s books and Medical journals, the only thing that was missing was cut flowers and plants’, I thought, before being interrupted.
Hannah had approached the front desk, ‘Could you direct me to books on plants? I love flower clippings.’
‘On plants?!’ Margaret gasped from disbelief, ‘Yes, we will just have to move Hugo.’
Shuffling back towards her desk, she looked towards me and said, ‘That’s a bit weird, isn’t it James?’
