The Diary of a Bookseller

SATURDAY, 10 JANUARY

Online orders: 2

Books found: 2

Nicky opened the shop.

In the morning I went to The Picture Shop in Wigtown to see about framing a print I had bought at auction last year. I was shocked to find Jessie, the owner, in her chair, looking very ill. She is keen to go to hospital, as she says she can no longer look after herself. Anna was worried and went to tell the doctor that he ought to visit her. Jessie is in her eighties, but works every day in her shop. She is the only person still alive to have been born in a house in the Mull of Galloway – the peninsula west of the Machars – before the hospital opened in Stranraer and the maternity unit was set up.

Anna, Nicky and I spent much of the day rehearsing our lyrics for ‘Readers’ Delight’. The Bestels came over for supper, and we worked out a loose choreography. The plan is to film it next Friday. Nicky is MC Spanner.

In the afternoon a customer dropped off two boxes of books, among which was a copy of Chattering, by Louise Stern. Louise came to the book festival in 2011 and was utterly wonderful. She is deaf and doesn’t speak. For most of the time when she was in Wigtown she had a signing interpreter, but in his absence she communicated by scribbling on bits of paper. The day after her event she told me that she wanted to go for a swim in the sea, so I took her to Monreith and we braved the October waters. The evening she first arrived in Wigtown she turned up in the Writers’ Retreat at about 10 p.m. There were quite a few of us there, and a lot of wine had been drunk. Her arrival brought with it a slight sobering of the atmosphere, purely because very few of us had encountered anyone who was deaf and didn’t speak. She sensed the tension and suggested that we each take it in turns to ask one another a question. She pointed at me, and Oliver (her interpreter) signed my nervously pedestrian question ‘Did you have a good journey here?’ to her. She replied, ‘Yes, thank you. My turn. When did you lose your virginity?’, at which point the atmosphere instantly turned back to the bawdy ribaldry it had been before her arrival.

Later that night at about 2 a.m., having drunk a fair bit, she attempted to return to her accommodation, but having no idea where it was (other than a key with the number 3 on it), she wandered around until she found a house with the same number on the door. She tried the key but it didn’t work, so she banged on the door until a bleary-eyed man in a string vest appeared and asked what she wanted. She made some sounds and started waving her arms. He swore at her and slammed the door in her face. Thankfully, she had been the last person to leave the Writers’ Retreat and hadn’t locked the door behind her, so she was able to get back into the house and make some sort of a bed for herself on a sofa. At 7 a.m. the following day when Janette (who cleans the Retreat during the festival) turned up to tidy the room; she spotted the sleeping Louise on the sofa and tiptoed around her, silently clearing up. At 8 a.m. Twigger came down from his room. On seeing Janette, he bellowed ‘Morning Janette’, at which point Janette put her index finger to her mouth and shushed him, pointing to the recumbent Louise. Twigger looked at her and said, ‘Don’t worry, Janette, she’s deaf. Look.’ He then walked over to Louise and shouted ‘Wake up’ right next to her face. There was, of course, no reaction whatsoever, so Janette got the hoover out and began the task of clearing up the carnage from the previous night while Louise slept silently on.

Till total £149

9 customers