I open a new Moleskine and start the outline for the third novel in the series that started with Shepherds & Butchers and continued in The Soldier Who Said No.
The Super14 final is on the television. “Why are you so quiet?” my wife asks.
“What do you mean?” I counter. Women always want men to talk when we are quite content just to be with them.
“You’re not swearing at the referee or the players,” she says. She knows me too well. I look down at the T-shirt she gave me. Supporting the Sharks is like loving a woman who cheats on you every weekend. My team is not playing in the final; hasn’t played all season.
“I’m doing the outline for another book,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Why don’t you rather buy an old car and restore it?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s no use,” she says. “They hide your books on the bottom shelf at the back of the store in the section for African fiction.”
“What car?” I ask.
“An old Porsche.”
We go out to buy the Auto Trader and we mull around in the shopping centre.
How did it come to this?
I read somewhere that some foreign publishers pay to have their books displayed at the front of the store and that they dump large numbers of their books on the local market, even below cost. Thus we find their books in stacks at the entrance to the store, on the floor, on tables and on the counters. They are right in your face, under your feet, in your way. You buy on impulse, not realising that you’ve been scammed. Quantity is not necessarily quality.
I think the newspapers do a good job, though. I see regular interviews and reviews in the Star, the Sunday Times, The Witness and The Mercury, to mention only those circulating in my area. And I recently saw that Volksblad has a regular column.
As for the bookstores, I don’t enter them or buy from them anymore. Exclusive Books should really change its name to Foreign Books. Bargain Books in Hillcrest and Gateway are doing their best, as far as I can see. The CNA sells good chocolates – and the Auto Trader! By far the best in KZN is Adams & Co – Peter Adams is a hands-on manager of this proud outfit, which supplies textbooks to students and a very good selection of South African fiction, displayed honestly where we can compete fairly with the foreigners.
I break my vow and take a peek in Exclusive Books. My wife was right: bottom shelf, back of the store, African fiction. One copy.
On the way out we stop at the CNA for Auto Trader and I buy my wife some chocolates.
Does anyone have a rust-free Porsche 911, around 1968 to 1972, for sale?