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batgirl
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March 12, 2008
Time to whistle a new tune.
Filed under: Uncategorized — treacleandink @ 4:41 pm
Tags: bookshop, Penguinbooks, roses, Spring, writing

Spring always feels like a good time to launch new projects, don’t you think? I see that the Penguin online story project starts next week. It looks good, but I don’t think I’ll be following it. It’s not sour grapes exactly, more like regret.
Early on in the discussion they suggested I be involved. My lovely editor, Charlie, called me and said:

“Darling, I’m not nagging, I’m not chasing, don’t think for one moment I am, but this one tinsy-winsy little project? Won’t you think about it? It could be just your thing, short stories, back in the saddle and all that.”

I said I’d think about it, even went into the shiny offices on The Strand to meet the team who are putting it together – they’re all so young! But the awful truth, the fact that caused a sinking sensation in me like the day of the French vocab test when you know you haven’t learned the words, the truth was that I couldn’t find an idea for it. Just like all the other times.

When I used to have the privilege of being asked to speak to audiences about writing, this was always the question uppermost on their minds.“Where do you get your ideas from?” they’d say. I never knew how to answer them: the idea for my first book just popped up one day while I was dead-heading the roses. And despite all my attempts to recreate the moment (let me tell you, no rose near me ever keeps a dead head for long) nothing has ever popped up again.

Hey ho, as my father used to say. Time to whistle a new tune. An intriguing offer has come up: a friend my uncle Bernard’s is in the book trade, runs a little second-hand bookshop in North London. Mr Marsh-Ayre is his name. He’s thinking of retiring, apparently, and is off to the south of France to look at gites. All right for some, eh?
The idea would be for me to take over running the shop for the next few months, with a view to buying it when he eventually retires. Which all sounds like rather a good plan to me. A fresh start, away from my sorry attempts to begin a new book without that fire-wisp of inspiration, and among other people’s books at last!

March 18, 2008
Marsh-Ayre Books
Filed under: Uncategorized — treacleandink @ 1:01 pm
Tags: Books, Jacques, marsh-ayre, shop

The shop is charming, truly. I knew before I even stepped inside that I’d take it. It is on a little parade of shops in Muswell Hill, it has a bowed front window with 1940s utility hardbacks displayed delightfully on a green back-cloth as if tumbling over a meadow.

The shop even smells right. I pushed open the door, setting a small bell ringing, and the proper scent of bookshops engulfed me: old paper and leather, dust and binding glue, candlewax and furniture polish. A young man with a sharply-cut floppy fringe and a pair of very tight trousers was standing behind the display case containing rare books at the front desk.

“I’m here to see Mr Ayre,” I said.
“Mr Ayre, ‘e ‘as gone,” he said. And before you all ask, yes, his accent was absurdly French and there’s really no other way to convey it. “
“But where has he gone? When will he return?”
The man shrugged his shoulders, as if to indicate that he neither knew nor cared.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, who are you?” “I am Jacques,” he said, smiling thinly, “can I ‘elp you with something?”
“Ah,” I said, “I’m… Alice Klein. I rather thought I’d be taking over running this shop while Mr Ayre was away. But, um… look, really, do you think he’ll be gone long?”
“Oh,” he said, “I ‘ave ‘eard of you. Mr Ayre, he left me a note for you.” He rummaged in the drawers under the desk, muttering to himself “always with the notes, all these notes everywhere…”
At last, he retrieved a large brown paper envelope and handed it to me. I pulled out a folded note written in neat, old-fashioned handwriting.

“My dear Miss Klein,” it began,

“I do apologise for hastening my departure such that I am not able to greet you. However, I have heard such marvellous things about you from Bernard that I am delighted to leave you with temporary charge of my little corner of the world of books. The keys to the shop, and to the rooms upstairs which are used by H. Loon’s Antiques-Emporium in Grove Street for storage, are enclosed. I do not advise you to enter the storage room; some of the objects are precariously placed and I would not wish you to place yourself into danger.”

I tipped a large bunch of keys out into my hand.

“Jacques will be able to show you the ropes, as they say. I do not expect to be gone long, not more than a month, or six weeks at the very most. My business simply could not wait, I’m afraid. You are very welcome to inhabit my rooms, at the back and above the shop, if they please you. I have also enclosed an honorarium as thanks for your assistance in taking care of the shop. Do look after yourself. I shan’t be long.

Yours with all best wishes,
T. Marsh-Ayre”

I tipped the last object out of the envelope: it was a largeish bundle of £50 notes, tied together with an elastic band. More money than I’ve seen in one place for a long time. Jacques whistled under his breath. We both stared at the money for a moment.

“So,” Jacques said at last, “you will be staying?”
“Yes,” I said, “I suppose I shall.”

I am writing this from the back-bedroom of the shop. Jacques is just closing up downstairs, and he’s promised that tonight we’ll open a bottle of wine and he’ll tell me all he knows about Mr Marsh-Ayre. And tomorrow, I’m going to take a proper look around: “precarious objects” be damned, I want to know what’s in there!

fretty
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batgirl
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fretty wrote:

oh and we have an email for alice too

marshayrebooksSPLATgmail.com

Dear customer,

Thank you for your enquiry, one of our sales advisors will deal with
your request and be in touch with you.

Regards,

Marsh-Ayre Books

batgirl
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Treacle and Ink
March 14, 2008
About me
Filed under: Uncategorized — treacleandink @ 9:52 am

Once upon a time there was a writer called Alice Klein. She wrote a book - some people even said it was a good book - and vaguely hoped she might write another some fine day, but it never seemed to come to pass. Her publisher, Penguin, even tried to involve her in wetellstories.co.uk, but she knew she wasn’t quite up to the task. But life’s not so bad. She’s come to London for a new adventure in the world of books: running a little bookshop while the owner’s away. It’s a brand new start, and it begins right here.

You can email me at marshayrebooksSPLATgmail.com!

Tregina
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Cabbage
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batgirl
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Cabbage wrote:

Whilst we're on about puns, Klein must be German for Liddle...

Amadeus
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Cabbage
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Um.... I'm fine thanks, busy but good. Did you have an enquiry about books?

Artichoke

Afgncaap5
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Cabbage wrote:

Whilst we're on about puns, Klein must be German for Liddle...

batgirl
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Hello Daisy,

I'm biding my time to get Jacques out the way and have a good poke around in that mysterious room! I'm sure I'm setting myself up for a disappointment, it's just a store room after all, but curiosity has taken a very firm hold.
Sorry to be brief, but I've got to get back to the shopfloor - we're rushed off our feet here today, seems all people aim to do over the Easter holiday is read!

All the best,

Alice

batgirl
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Treacle and Ink
March 21, 2008
Filed under: Uncategorized — treacleandink @ 5:40 pm

Thanks to all the readers of this blog for the emails I’ve received; I certainly didn’t expect the doings of a bookshop manager to generate this level of interest! A number of you have suggested that some sort of “message” for me has found its way into the Penguin online project. I don’t know anything about that, but I suppose it could be some sort of computer glitch, since I was once slated to work on it. Do you know what this “message” is? I could point it out to Penguin so that they can erase it.

In the meantime, I think I’m warming to Jacques. Or perhaps that’s just the wine talking. We managed to finish off a couple of bottles of Mr Ayre’s excellent claret the other night between us, although I’m pretty sure Jacques did most of the drinking. Between swigs, he told me what he knows. He’s a drama student, going to be a “famous acteur” one day he says. “Like Gerald Depardieu?” I asked, but was met with stony silence.

Marsh-Ayre took him on last autumn because he said he was “engaged on a project that was consuming a great deal of time and energy”. Jacques has no idea what the project was, but says that the owner of the antiques shop, name of Hattie, seemed to be round here an awful lot, as well as another woman whose name he never knew. Was the old goat just running two affairs? Jacques doesn’t think so. They used to spend ages locked in the antiques store room, apparently, emerging a bit glassy-eyed and dishevelled. When I pointed out that this sounded exactly as if they were having an affair, Jacques said, quite sensibly, that in that case they could have gone to the bedroom, not an antiques store-room. Strangely, though, when I suggested we take a look in the store-room ourselves, Jacques didn’t seem to think this was a good idea.

“Oh no,” he said, “I ‘ave been in once. Only musty old things there, nothing interesting.”
This makes me more keen than ever to take a look, but we’ve been run off our feet today in the shop, serving customers and ordering things from suppliers. I had no idea running a shop took so much time! And Jacques is apparently used to spending his evenings and weekends here, rehearsing his dramatic monologues. So I’ll have to find some reason to get rid of him, and then take a look while he’s out.

Cabbage
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Amadeus
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Dear Chris,

Hello right back. Nice to know someone out there reads blogs, you tend to forget that kind of thing when you write one. My 'About Me' is supposed to sound like a story - because I'm a writer. It's sort of a joke, but I guess it doesn't work out all that funny. Thanks for your supportive words about the shop, I'm looking forward to this new start kind of thing.

All the best,

Alice





Dear Ms Klein,


Just saying hello. It's very odd writing your 'About Me' in 3rd-person, I'm not entirely sure this e-mail is indeed going to the person I think it is but hey ho, there we go. I would like to send you my best wishes for running the store and if you let me know the name of the book you wrote I would be very interested in picking up a copy some time in the near future.

All the best,
Chris.

Tregina
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batgirl wrote:

Update to the blog:

Treacle and Ink
March 21, 2008
Filed under: Uncategorized — treacleandink @ 5:40 pm

Jacques has no idea what the project was, but says that the owner of the antiques shop, name of Hattie, seemed to be round here an awful lot, as well as another woman whose name he never knew.