‘Do you read?’
‘Of course!’ said Carmen indignantly. She decided not to mention how much she loved her e-reader. He didn’t look like an e-reader kind of a person at all.
The door of the shop tinged, and a woman walked in. Mr McCredie looked at Carmen in a ‘go on’ kind of a way.
‘Hello,’ smiled Carmen.
The woman looked around, slightly discombobulated by the mess. Carmen couldn’t blame her. But maybe this worked well here. Maybe it was an authentic gold mine of a place that people liked because it wasn’t like other shops which had clean shelves and … took credit cards. Hmm.
The woman was pushing a large pram, and there was nowhere for it to go without bumping into things.
‘Let me take that for you,’ Carmen said hastily, looking at the round bright baby, fresh as new minted coconut ice, sitting up and taking a keen interest in their surroundings.
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ said the woman. ‘I was looking for a copy of The Jolly Christmas Postman.’
Carmen smiled; it had been a favourite of hers, except she’d lost all the letters and Sofia, who never lost anything, had got cross with her.
‘Of course,’ she said. She couldn’t imagine a bookshop at Christmas time that wouldn’t have it. She smiled winningly at Mr McCredie, who frowned distractedly.
‘I’m not sure … ’ he said. ‘Do you know what year it was published?’
The woman looked bemused.
‘Um, no?’ she said as if this was a very bizarre question to be asked, which it was.
‘You file your books by year?’ hissed Carmen, genuinely surprised.
‘Um, sometimes,’ said Mr McCredie.
Carmen quickly leafed through a box of children’s books. There was an old hardback edition of The Water Babies, several lavishly illustrated lives of the saints and a very old picture book about a rabbit who had wings, carrying a lantern over a snowy waste.
‘Oh my,’ said the woman, as Carmen held it up. ‘Is that Pookie?’
Carmen snuck a sideways glance at it.
‘It is!’ she said. ‘Pookie Believes in Santa Claus.’
‘My granny had these,’ said the woman wonderingly. ‘I think she had this very one.’
The copy was red-bound, with gold picked out on the illustration. Although Carmen had never heard of it, there was something unutterably charming about the illustrations.
Carmen gently brought it forward; it smelled comforting, dry and warm and she opened it and held it up to the baby, who oooohed and pointed.
‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ said the woman. ‘I know what happens next … show me the page Santa Claus arrives … ’
‘Oh, I’ll show you,’ said Mr McCredie, taking it off them. ‘I met the author, you know! She lived in Edinburgh. And married her publisher! Such a journey. So anyway, the publisher was originally William Collins, then they were bought out but the original artwork … ’
The baby in the pram clapped its hands with delight as Carmen smiled at her.
‘You know,’ said Carmen, interrupting her boss, which she normally wouldn’t do, but she had immediately got the sense that they might be there all day, ‘she’s very much at an age where she might eat quite a lot of The Jolly Christmas Postman.’
‘That’s true,’ said the woman. ‘But I have to have this. I just have to. How much is it?’
The printed sum on the back read 2/6 which was absolutely no help to anyone, and Carmen looked at Mr McCredie, who shrugged and mentioned something called the Net Book Agreement and patently had absolutely no idea and seemed about to launch into quite a long book-based spiel again.