My customer sways in front of the counter like a drunk leaving the pub at midnight.

Question, he says, you used to have all your cards along the left-hand wall, didn't you?

No, I say. Never. Never had our cards along the left-hand wall.

Pah! he says.

I look at my watch. Although it is only just past mid-day, he is drunk. Very drunk. I have some sympathy with this - for a large part of the 1980s I worked in publishing.

I've got the wrong shop haven't I? He sways, before hanging on to my display stand and a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days.

Yes, I say. You have.

He blinks at me.

You want the shop three doors along, that's the place with all of its card along the wall, I say, (mentally adding, and the display of Charlie and Lola paperbacks) wondering briefly what kind of havoc he could cause in a shop that sells girly dresses and incense and which describes itself as 'on budget and on trend'. Plenty,I would have thought.

You're more of a...he says.

Bookshop, I say.

Books, he says, looking at the book in his hand, and sighs. I read a book in nineteen-seventy-three, he tells me... It disturbed me... and I haven't read one since... Not one.

Comments

[Jo Dodsley]

Like dear old Uncle Matthew come back to life...

[MikeP]

Beautifully described.

I thought I was reading Amis for a moment there.