The Man Who Wanted to Smell Books

by Elspeth Davie

  ‘People like yourself?’

  ‘I admit I am a very busy man.’

  ‘Important?’

  Oh, the nerve of the round, blue eyes. ‘No, busy,’ he said sharply. ‘I have commitments – responsibilities.’ In the heavy silence that followed he actually heard birds twittering and flapping around the arches of the roof.

  ‘They come in through the broken panes this time every evening, regular as clockwork,’ said the girl.

  ‘Well, they certainly don’t follow the clockwork in this station. There’s that clock stopped – and that, and that!’ He jabbed an umbrella in their direction.

  ‘Mrs Woodlock says that sometimes, just before a train’s due, every one of them stops whistling.’

  ‘Mrs Woodlock?’

  ‘We do have names. My name’s Estelle. Mrs Woodlock’s no fool. She’s been all over the world of course. But not in the usual way.’

  ‘Not in the usual way?’ asked Molson. Did the woman have wings?

  ‘Oh no. Years ago she got in with this top trombonist. She followed him in bands up and down the country and across Europe more times than she can count. And for more years. He could put his hand to anything – that one. Bright wasn’t the word.’

  Molson stared about him as though vainly searching for something to take the shine off the man. Only one wan thing occurred to him. ‘And did he ever marry her?’ he said at last.

  And now, as though conjured up from the shadowy depths of the stall, Mrs Woodlock herself appeared behind Estelle’s shoulder. A pair of black eyes in a heavy white face studied him. Dense, wavy hair held up by jewelled combs made her head seem massive, and now and then, as she pushed one further in, there came a glitter as though an icicle had been crushed, unmelted, to her scalp.

  ‘We’ve been talking about how busy everybody is these days,’ said Estelle.

  ‘Well, we’ve certainly an opportunity to see it here,’ said Mrs Woodlock, ‘but of course I don’t equate rushing around with work. We’re busy enough ourselves. But we simply stand all day.’

  ‘As you know by your legs,’ said the girl.

  ‘As I certainly know by my legs,’ Mrs Woodlock agreed. The dark eyes and the blue watched him.

  ‘I suppose someone has to organize the world’s affairs – someone must try to keep things straight,’ said Molson, his glance falling on dishevelled figures fleeing from vampires.

  ‘This gentleman tells me he’s busy enough anyway,’ said Estelle. ‘He has these endless meetings.’

  ‘Whom does he meet?’ asked Mrs Woodlock with a smile. ‘A meeting can be a very pleasant thing. I see endless meetings here on this very platform. Some of them look as if they might turn out to be very agreeable indeed.’

  ‘This is the other kind – around tables,’ said the girl.

  ‘Tables are all right,’ said Mrs Woodlock.

  ‘These are those polished tabletops. No food,’ said Estelle.

  ‘Oh those! Well, there’s not much pleasure to be had in that. Just paper, pencils and glasses of water. Oh yes, I’ve had a sight of those meetings and it’s a very dismal business indeed!’

  Molson had begun to show little relish for this discussion of himself as a busy man. Oh, to get onto some other tack – present himself as an adventurer, a reckless wanderer such as the trombonist must have been! Instead, by cruel force of habit, he found himself taking the diary from his inside pocket. With his back to the bookstall he flicked quickly through it. These pages were black with engagements. There were names, addresses, times, underlinings in black and red, arrows pointing down to future dates and back to past ones. Certain places and persons stood out where the ballpoint had instinctively thickened itself upon them. Fainter lines marked dates of less importance. Even the crossings-out varied from the bold, impatient stroke to the narrow line. There appeared to be a sign-language here decipherable only by the dedicated diarist. ‘Not many blanks there!’ came Mrs Woodlock’s voice from behind him. Whatever the language was, it interested the two women. They were bending forward over the stall. Both were smiling. But he had the feeling it was their own secrets which amused them. Their faces, as they leaned towards him, came into shadow, but the stall lights shone down directly and theatrically on top of the blonde and the black head. This was their stage. Molson had no inkling what the entertainment was about.

  ‘No, there are not many blanks,’ he said. ‘Year after year my diaries get filled up. There’s not much I can do about that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘A diary!’ exclaimed Estelle. ‘Of course we sell plenty of diaries ourselves at New Year. It’s always struck me as a very funny name to give them. I’d always thought of a diary as a day-to-day account of exciting events. Did it strike you like that, Mrs Woodlock?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Woodlock. ‘A daily write-up of happenings is my idea of a diary. As a matter of fact Johnson kept a diary for many years – a real diary, you understand. But then of course he did have something to record. There weren’t many countries he hadn’t set foot in. He knew the lot. As for people – he met all sorts and he was a match for all sorts. Of course trombones weren’t the whole of it, by any means. He was a first-rate chess player, an excellent cook, and I’d say he was a bit of a magician too. More than a bit. A hypnotist. You could almost say he made them see white where there was black.’

  In the pause following Molson felt an unpleasant frisson of nerves. ‘But not white to black, I hope,’ he said.

  ‘Oh no. Johnson was a good man. He didn’t play malicious tricks – even when people deserved them. But he was clever all right. Once he found this gigantic advert on the hoarding outside a hall he was to play in. Cigarettes it was – cigarettes and the fantastic joy and peace of lighting up beside a river with nothing but a pack of hounds to keep you company. Well, Johnson took exception to it, a love to hatred turned you might say. He’d been a wheezy man once, you see, a very wheezy man before he broke the habit. It very nearly cost him his job. Anyway, there he was staring at this thing till quite a crowd came up to see for themselves. “Why must they always keep this great blank placard on the wall,” he kept saying, “when so many good things could do with a bit of advertising? Me, for a start. Doesn’t that waste of space offend you? Doesn’t that great white glare hurt your eyes?’ And, believe it or not, there were always two or three who saw a blank and nothing but a blank. I’m telling you God’s truth. He had the power and some fell under. Didn’t I say he could make black white?’

  Molson put up a hand to loosen his collar, but he managed to smile, murmuring: ‘There must be some gullible people around.’

  ‘Oh, very likely,’ replied Mrs Woodlock with ominous restraint. A red spot had appeared on one cheek and her eyes flashed.

  ‘Gullible!’ exclaimed Estelle. ‘Bamboozled by a cigarette the size of a tree-trunk and a puff of smoke like a mushroom cloud! There’s “gullible” if you like!’

  ‘At any rate he taught me a thing or two that’s helped me no end in a tough, ungrateful life,’ said Mrs Woodlock, still speaking with straight lips. ‘Call them tricks if you like.’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Molson said quickly. Very high up, somewhere amongst the broken panes and the birds, he heard rain falling, and a wind was finding its way under old, bolted doors and up abandoned stairways. Lights only emphasized the darkness of pillars and girders. The whole place lay under a coating of black. Why couldn’t they scrub off this gloom as they did with other buildings?

  Estelle, who’d been silent for some time watching Molson, leant forward: ‘No amount of cleaning would help,’ she said. ‘Everything’s iron here. Painting might do it. But who’d spend money?’

  This time Molson took care that his nerves should not be visible in his face, but his limbs looked eager to be away. Even his arms made ineffectual gestures towards the end of the platform as though signalling his train to emerge suddenly from the tunnel and deliver him. But this was not to be.

  ‘I don’t think it’s coming yet. I think
it will be very late tonight.’ Even as Mrs Woodlock uttered these words the booming announcement of its lateness filled the station. ‘How unpleasant – having to hang around here,’ she said with biting amiability. There was nothing to keep him, yet Molson still leaned against the bookstall as though pasted on by his pocket.

  ‘Have you got all the papers you want?’ Mrs Woodlock went on. ‘A busy man has to keep up with things, hasn’t he? Periodicals?’ Molson stretched over and picked up a couple of weeklies.

  ‘Books?’ Mrs Woodlock persisted.

  ‘They are not exactly my kind.’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ said Mrs Woodlock with a smile, not explaining if the surprise was in the books or the people who bought them.

  Molson had an armful of newsprint now – enough for the longest journey. It made him no more popular at the bookstall. He had long come to the conclusion that this pair had an ingrained hatred of the papers they were handing out.

  ‘You’ve got a nice pile to get through before the night’s out,’ said Estelle. ‘Yes, a man does need to keep himself informed.’

  ‘Not every man,’ said Mrs Woodlock. ‘I must say Johnson was different. That’s to say he was well-informed all right. Prodigiously. But he didn’t rely only on the print. Oh goodness no! Most of his information he got by moving round the world. Using his wits. Wits, Estelle – that’s what we miss these days. Information to the eyeballs, facts at the fingertips – oh dear, yes – but where are the wits?’

  Molson was silent, his head bent over the papers on the stall, as if intent on drawing the very heart and guts from the world’s news.

  ‘But don’t let us disturb you,’ said Mrs Woodlock. ‘For us it’s different. Any chance for a chat in a long day. But we’re used to looking at tops of heads; I am quite an expert myself. Believe me, it would never occur to us to try and compete with print.’

  The platform was now filling up again and Molson felt some return of optimism – only a scrap, but enough to get him on the move again.

  ‘… Signalled at last,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Have a good journey,’ said Estelle. ‘Anyway, good or not, you’ve got plenty to occupy you.’

  ‘Yes, that’ll keep you going,’ echoed Mrs Woodlock. ‘Never a dull moment – and I hope you’ve good eyes.’ Estelle and Mrs Woodlock smiled and smiled at him, but only with their mouths. The black and the blue eyes were boring into his with remarkable intensity.

  ‘Goodnight, Mrs Woodlock … goodnight, Estelle,’ said Molson, careful to get the names across and to pronounce them well.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Mrs Woodlock, ‘but I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure …’ There was a grimness about this familiar phrase – something almost approaching a threat. Molson was about to give his own name when he was engulfed by a group who had emerged from the buffet and were hurling themselves at the bookstall for last-minute buying. He had the sensation of falling back as he started to speak. From a distance he tried to utter his name again, and again shouts drowned the sound. There was no knowing whether it came out as cry or whisper, or whether he had perhaps not opened his mouth at all. Molson suffered a momentary and appalling loss of identity. But with the arrival of his train his attention turned to finding a seat. It was only when he was seated and had time to wipe the steam from his window that he looked towards the bookstall. He had a flashing glimpse of Mrs Woodlock and Estelle between the heads and shoulders of bystanders. To say they were laughing was an understatement. Molson marvelled that the jokes of late commuters could produce such mirth.

  The train was full, but it was fast with one stop only where, twenty minutes later, his compartment emptied, leaving one other man. Usually at this point in the journey Molson would start on his papers. But not tonight. Tonight he sat with one hand on them, waiting for his mind to settle. As black fields, lines of street-lights, factories, bridges and rivers flashed past, so his imagination flew from one scene to another over the past week. He saw small committee-rooms fitted like Chinese puzzles inside large committee-rooms, and the long, windowless corridors which stretched ahead through a series of revolving doors. He saw his trays of letters, trays of rubber stamps, trays of coffee-cups. He saw halls of typewriters, silent under their night covers. In the dark landscape, between sheep and cows, telephones gleamed, and filing-cabinets. Huge, black-lettered office calendars slid by across clumps of trees. In front of all these, brighter and more ravaged, floated his own face. Molson turned his head away quickly and nodded to the man in the opposite corner – known to him by sight though not by name. They were travelling companions, meeting occasionally on platforms and in waiting-rooms. They shared grievances.

  ‘Later every day!’ the man exclaimed. He stared at his watch, sighed, and fixed his eyes on the space above Molson’s head. ‘Ideal holiday, is it?’ he said at last. ‘… Acres of bog and a crumbling castle! No thanks – not for me.’ Molson sat tight as though chary of a crick in the neck. The man’s eyes wandered to a space on the other side. ‘Now that’s more like it. If you can rely on that golden sand and the purple sky. And in my experience of adverts it’s a very big “if”.’

  Still Molson made no attempt to verify the colours. Instead, he quickly picked up the top paper on his pile and looked down the front page pictures. Statesmen stared out at him, honest-eyed to an alarming degree. He turned over to the back and read the fortunes of footballers and found himself going methodically down the list of names chosen for some unknown swimming team. After some minutes, Molson turned to the middle pages – and his heart jerked in his chest as though shaken by derailment. He turned to others. Between back and front every page was empty – blank and dingy as unprinted cotton. Molson raised the paper to hide his face. Once in a while, he told himself, it was bound to happen. Some freak paper amongst hundreds of thousands would get through. Stealthily, scarcely rustling it, he folded it and laid it down. He picked another – an evening paper – and held it for a time, still folded, in both hands, as though reassuring himself of its proper weight of black print, then swiftly opened it in the middle. These pages – blank from top to bottom – brought ice patches to his cheeks. This time he’d not been careful to hide his face.

  ‘Look here, you’re not cold, are you?’ came the voice from the other corner. ‘Just a minute. I believe there’s a window open.’ He got to his feet and Molson heard him some way along the corridor pushing a window up, saw him come in again, careful to slide the compartment door tightly behind him. Molson thanked him briefly, folded his paper again and placed it on top of the other. The man was still watching. ‘There is flu about,’ he said, ‘and then of course it does none of us any good – all that hanging about on the platform.’

  Molson agreed it had done him no good at all. He sat back again and tried to take a grip on himself. What had happened? Nothing had happened – nothing except that the bookstall women between the two of them had managed to give him a set of dud papers. That was the beginning and end of it. A poor trick. Why, then, this appalling loss of nerve?

  The train was making up for lost time. Small stations flashed past in a single chain of blue and yellow light. Tunnels were reduced to the momentary lowered note. Molson was glad of the speed. For a time the sensation seemed to smooth out thought. Yet in spite of this, an increasing unease came over him as he saw in the distance the lights of one of the larger stations. He sat forward on the edge of his seat and looked out. The train was almost at the station and reducing speed slightly as it approached. And now, for a few seconds, Molson was staring into the empty station, staring with such anxiety in his eyes that a solitary porter on the platform craned his neck to get a further sight inside the carriage as it went past. Molson himself had the flashing impression of familiar lights and stairways, walls and sign-boards – then they were out again into the countryside. But he was still sitting forward. All was not right with the station back there. It was not something he cared to name. What else, he decided, but an illusion from speed and darkness �
�� the flicker of white spaces where the posters should be, that great, blank signboard without a name? It was far behind him now. Molson settled back into his corner, but before three minutes had gone by, cautiously, as though lifting a baited trap, he took up one of the weekly journals. Its cover had the familiar, cheerful layout in black and red. One hand pressed to his lips, he flicked the page over. There was empty paper inside. Molson dropped it on his knee and grabbed up the second weekly – cheerful again in black and green. Every square inch between front page and back – hopelessly blank! Molson let them slide down onto the pile beside him.

  ‘… Only if you’re absolutely finished with them …’ the voice came from the other corner.

  ‘Take them – take them!’ Getting to his feet Molson lifted the wad of papers in both hands and let them drop with a thud on the seat opposite. The other’s good nature faded a little. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but I’ll hardly get through that lot, will I? Not unless we’ve more than the usual hold-ups.’ He got no answer. Molson was staring through the window on his own side as though life depended on it. Yet nothing outside held him rigid. He was staring at the reflection of the man in the opposite corner. Molson watched as he took up the evening paper, saw him run his eye down the front page, and waited an age while he turned it. His expression didn’t change. He spent a long time on this page and on the one after it. Certain bits he read more intently, holding the sheet close to his face.

  ‘A very peculiar paper tonight, I think you’ll admit,’ said Molson. His rigid face cracked in a smile.

  ‘No different from any other night to my mind,’ said the other, ‘except for that chap drowning himself on his first soak in his solid gold bathtub. Then of course there’s the woman helping the police with the hand and the three ears in the laundry bag. Three! That certainly makes you think.’ Another age passed before he picked up the second paper. ‘The odd thing is,’ he said at last, ‘the daily doesn’t say a word about either of them. I’ve been through it from end to end – not a word! No gold bathtub. No ears. Whether or not the pound’s had a good day – oh yes. There’s always plenty on that subject. Do they ever worry about what kind of day we’ve had. You’re not looking any too great. Anyway, thanks …’ He was about to hand back the papers when Molson leant over and pushed his arm back.