Thursday, 12th February
It’s my turn to choose this month’s book for the Tarnleigh Book Club. I’m tempted to print out eleven copies of the draft of my old novel Will This Man Ever Lose His Virginity? There are no rules that stipulate it has to be a published work. It would be good to get feedback.
As my bric-à-brac shop is called: The Resurrectory, customers often refer to me as The Rector. I’ve been sorting out some of the many books I have for sale. I need to make room for eleven ceramic lamps, three framed mirrors, a carriage clock, and a collection of paperweights. These are all coming from Mr Bright the cowman at Bridge Farm.
I paid him £100 for the lot.
The quote below was taken from Dr Vane’s book: Logontology and the Threshold of Disclosure: Beckett and the Metaphysics of Waiting (1994). It’s one of five volumes of his work we have in the shop. For some reason I had annotated the page and circled the quote with a pencil.
Mimsy, my assistant, calls the shop The Waiting Room. She’s a kind of Godot groupie. She must have seen the play at least a hundred times. Unlike Vladimir and Estragon, the characters in my shop have no choice but to stay and wait for Godot – Godot being the customer who’s going to give them a second life.
On my way to the shop I saw Mrs Viola standing in front of the Methodist church looking up at the For Sale sign. I think she might have been quietly crying. The church is where she was christened. It’s where she got married. It’s where her children took their first communion. It’s where she said goodbye to her husband.
Mimsy had already opened the shop. Mimsy Paloo has been my assistant for over three years and is very good with the shop’s congregation of objects. I’ve never found such sensitivity in anyone so young – she’s 23. I finished the ceiling yesterday. Only one item, a paper goldfish with a torn tail, was damaged. Mimsy placed it in the ‘graveyard’ we have in the garden at the back of the shop.
I took delivery of my main What-Is-It Fair purchase on Monday afternoon. He arrived at my house in a large cardboard box. It took three people to carry him in. “Put him in the living-room,” I said. That was a mistake. He’d go better in the spare bedroom, but I can’t move him on my own, let alone carry him upstairs.
Monty Pegler was stuffed by Hargreaves & Daughter, Natural Preservationists, in 1859. Apparently they specialised in rare birds, foxes and domestic pets, and had an office in London, where Monty was killed by a runaway Hansom Cab. They agreed to turn their taxidermist skills to preserving Monty Pegler as payment of a large gambling debt accrued by Mr Hargreaves.
Monty came dressed in his favourite costume. These can be removed, washed, repaired and/or replaced – if necessary.
He was wearing:
- A black frock coat.
- A dark green waistcoat.
- A very white shirt.
- A grey silk cravat.
- Charcoal coloured wool trousers.
- Black leather shoes.
- A gold watch (chained to his waistcoat pocket).
The Victorian gent came with instructions and a large wooden box of paperwork. His last request was that the paperwork should ‘always be kept with me. For without them, I shall not be known.’
In the box there are:
- Ledger books.
- Notebooks.
- Letters.
- Bills and receipts.
- Calling cards.
- Investment papers.
- Insurance documents.
- His will.
Mimsy said I was taking my love of abandoned objects too far when I introduced her to Monty. Harriet screamed and ran out of the house. Edwina cried and said she had seen him at the fair and had considered giving him a home but the price tag had put her off.
Saturday, 14th February
I forgot it was Valentine’s day. I invited Mimsy over for Christmas pudding. I made four in December and had one left over. I put a candle on the table – I don’t know why. I served the pudding with Madeira Sherry. I joked, “well, this is romantic.” I think it would have been okay had I not winked. She stood up and blew the candle out. “The pudding was nice,” she said, as she hurriedly put on her coat. She took one last look at Monty. “You have a kind soul,” she said to me as she left. She smiled and shook her head as she got into her dad’s old Ford Capri. She waved as she drove away.
Monday, 16th February
My good friend Barry, now long-deceased, introduced me to the art of Welsh Rarebit one sunny afternoon. I was just nineteen years old. I remember the old gas cooker with its grill above the stove. I remember the warmth of the sun on my back as I leant against the windowsill watching the artist transform a bit of cheese, some mustard powder, ale, Worchester sauce, and, of course, homemade bread, into something unimaginably tasty. We used to talk philosophy, poetry and religion most evenings – until the sun set.
Time is so unkind.
The bric-à-brac I have in my shop are the scars of our living. I have several souvenirs from my friendship with Barry waiting for new soil, waiting to be planted in someone else’s imagination.
We are unfinished objects, life’s projects. Like the unfinished novel I keep in a French jug. (A novel that I hope to finish one day – whatever that means). When I went out to fetch a hod of coal I heard the cry of a tawney owl coming from the little woodland that hides the old mine shafts.
8:15pm
I’ve been thinking about Godfrey Fisher. The traces of the diary’s former lives can be seen. I see them. I see them as I write every day. I’m tempted to try rubbing a pencil over the page before I add my own words, to see what had once been written. Am I allowed to do that?
Tuesday, 17th February
Mr Taylor, the Ticksmith, has asked to see me next week. I’m worried he has some bad news about the clock. He’ll have the results of the tests he carried out last week. Edwina invited me round to share freshly baked bread. I took the lemon-curd. We had a chat about electricity, birthdays and the art of pickles. Edwina is addicted to conversation.
The mug has never reappeared.
Thursday, 19 February
A woodpigeon called me to attention this morning. I returned to the study where I do most of my writing, placed Einaudi on the turntable, and woke my imagination. I’ve seen several oyster-catchers recently, a curlew in mid-flight and a snipe. I’ve heard the haunting song of the lapwing but I’ve not seen any yet. It’s nearly spring and the waders are arriving to nest. This is wonderful. It’s a joy every spring when the song of the coast comes to the hills. I’ve also seen two starlings.
As an owner of a bric-à-brac shop, my life is ‘all about stuff.’ (As Godfrey Fisher pointed out). I’ve always believed that ‘things’ exist for a purpose. Understanding how things work is not the point, it is the meaning-of-things that is important. If we don’t understand the ‘why’ we will never understand the ‘how.’ That’s a thought worth holding on to.
Ruth, my second wife, gave me a notebook in 1998, on the day of our divorce. She glued a photo of herself onto the cover. I keep the notebook in my sock drawer and use it for my deeper thoughts. Not that I have many of those at the moment. I sometimes take it to the shop. If I’m going to do any profound thinking, it’ll be in The Resurrectory and not the shed.
The other day a book dropped from the bookshelf in the shop. As I lifted it from the floor it fell open to a page discussing the relationship between keeping diaries and logontology – my preferred philosophy of disclosure.
Here’s a quote from the page:
I’ve come to see my writing in this diary as footprints on sand – a disclosure of the divine. One day the sea will wash them away and they’ll be forgotten, just like the body that produced them. The sun shines, gulls glide beneath the blue of the sky and we scribble in the sand trying to leave our mark, trying to say something before the tide returns. It’s not the words that hold meaning but the act of writing. So let the sea wash them away. We have proved the existence of the divine simply by leaving meaningful trails in the sand.
I have a feeling this Liber Communis is going to become a companion in a way my notebooks have not. Edwina tells me Liber Communis means Common Book of Shared Book. I don’t mind. I think this is going to be that start of the adventure I’ve been looking for. Thank you Godfrey Fisher.
Friday, 20 February
Friday. The winter socks I purchased at the What-Is-It Fair, are far too good for my sensitive feet so I’m going to put them in the shop. I’m sure someone with less sensitive feet than mine will find them useful. Harriet said she’d make them into sock-puppets and donate them to a care home. Maybe that’s a better idea.
Monday, 9 March
I took the bus to Hexham today. The sun followed me there as I chatted to Mrs Viola who was also on the bus. She was on her way to meet a mystery man. She was hoping he’d fill the ‘husband shaped gap’ she has in her life. I get the feeling Mrs Viola is succumbing to sadness. She talks about her childhood as if it were spent under dark clouds. She seems not to know why. She sat in silence for a while looking out of the window watching the landscape slip by. She has become a victim to the passing of time. I have a feeling she wants to stop it and get off but doesn’t know how.
I had a cup of coffee, and a slice of walnut cake at The Cloister Café. It was busy in a nice way. People were cheerful. I needed that after my conversation with Mrs Viola. I took my notebook to Hexham so while in the café I jotted down a few thoughts. Before that though, I spent a few minutes sitting quietly in the Abbey. It’s funny how a single conversation can hide the sunshine, bury the daffodils and silence the birdsong. Thank goodness for happy people in cafés and notebooks that just listen.
Percy Preece is coming round tomorrow with his two broad-shouldered sons to help me move Monty into the spare bedroom. I’m currently decorating it in a Victorian style – I’ve furnished it with stuff from the shop which has freed up some useful space. I’ve put the complete works of Charles Dickens – Imperial Edition (1901) – in the Monty’s room. I plan to read Dickens to get to know Monty’s world a bit more. I’m hoping Monty might help me re-write my novel. I know it sounds odd but I feel inspired sitting with the stuffed man. From a letter he wrote in 1846 I have learned that he was ‘afraid of the dark.’ Not the normal lights out dark, but the infinite one, ‘the abyss that is absolute.’ It seems he believed that this is what awaited him due to some ‘terrible, terrible crime’ he committed when he was just sixteen years old.
Mimsy gave me a photo of herself yesterday. She came to Tarnleigh to photograph the old Norman church. St. Eadburh’s is popular with photographers. It’s less popular with the faithful. Mimsy stopped at my house to deliver the odd socks she had promised Edwina. “I’ll not take them to her myself as I’ll be there for ages,” she said. We had tea. She had a conversation with Monty telling him how he’s going to like his new room. She gently touched the clock as she walked through the hallway. We talked about how we first met. She was only sixteen and fell from a tree just behind my cottage. I cleaned her grazed knee. Incense, my cat, was still alive then. Mimsy fell in love with him. She was devastated when he disappeared – presumed dead. He has never returned.
Mimsy gave me the photo as she was leaving. “You haven’t got one of me have you?” I have. But I needed another. She asked how Ruth was. She said she had been offered a place at Plughole Seminary. “I’ll continue to work for you,” she insisted.
Just after Mimsy left, Harriet phoned and invited me over for a meal at the end of the week. I’ll be at the shop on Friday so I could stop by. “I’ll cook lasagne, your favourite,” she said. Lasagne isn’t my favourite, and never has been. I don’t really have a favourite dish. Although a Sunday roast done well…
The clock is making a funny noise – again. It’s coming from behind the pendulum. It actually sounds like someone walking heavy-footed up an old wooden staircase. It makes the sound seven minutes after every 5pm chime. It’s quite creepy. The first time I heard it I thought Monty had come back to life and was wandering about the house. I wasn’t able to finish my scrambled eggs supper and had to put it in the bin.
Here are the café reflections from my notebook:
I think we exist to encounter: This is the true meaning of life. When I was young, the ‘meaning of life’ question excited me so much. I was on a journey of discovery. Now, I don’t think the answer actually matters. The conversations, the sharing of ideas are the joys of the journey. These are the things that matter. I have always been good and kind and my intentions have always been honest. This is what matters. I miss the not-knowing, though. And the discovery.
Time was once measured by the speed at which ideas were drawn upon a page. This must return. I must bring back my scribble-shaped thoughts. Fear has no place in a poet’s heart. For nothing is so terrible as a page left alone and ink left unrolled. Whatever the thought, free it. Let it come forth.
I’ve been looking at some of the pictures that came with Monty in his trunk of treasures. There’s one particular photo, of a young woman who looks so familiar. I’m sure I know her. Which is impossible. Looking at the old photo sends a shiver down my spine.