Diary of a Shopkeeper, 18th April
‘I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed last week’s column,’ said Mrs Stentorian.
‘You don’t want to buy anything, then?’
‘Goodness gracious! You don’t mind the hard sell, do you?’ She pursed her lips, as if she’d just tasted a particularly pungent Roquefort.
‘I was just trying to help, Mrs Stentorian. If you don’t want anything today that’s fine, I’ll carry on with…’
‘I bought a bottle of Sherry at Christmas. What do you think I am, some kind of alcoholic?’
‘No worries. As I say, we have this new computerised till, and I’m in the middle of trying to…’
‘You really captured his character perfectly,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘George Mackie,’ she said. ‘Wonderful writer, and a lovely man too.’
‘Brown,’ I said.
‘No, I think he was a white man. Not that it matters either way, of course, I haven’t a racialist bone in my head. But whatever his colour – and I’m surprised at you bringing it up in this day and age – he was certainly a lovely man. And a gentle man. A lovely gentleman.’
I sighed. ‘He was, Henrietta. But his surname was Brown, George Mackay Brown.’
‘That’s what I said,’ she said, ‘George Mackie Brown.’
I turned away to grab a cloth to wipe up some crumbs of cheese I’d spotted – and to stop myself from saying something I’d regret later.
‘You know, I really have to thank Mr Brown for introducing me to the Orkneys. If it hadn’t been for him, my late husband and I might never have moved here,’ she said.
‘I’m sure we’re all very grateful to him.’
‘The funny thing is, it was really a ghastly mistake. I’d asked Bertie to get me a biography of George Brown, the Labour politician of the 1960s. I can see you’re surprised I wanted to read about one of your socialists, but let me explain. This was before the internet was discovered, you see, and if you wanted to check any obscure fact the only way you could do it was by looking inside a book.’
‘Reading! I’ve heard of that,’ I said. ‘But if you tell the young people today they won’t believe you.’
She ignored me. ‘I grew up among archbishops,’ she went on. ‘I was a Canterbury girl, you see, a Canterbrat as Bertie used to call me. That was one of his little jokes. Anyway, I was always greatly interested in those holy men I used to see wandering the streets, sometimes in their full regalia, and sometimes in mufti if they were going to the pub.’
‘Archbishops in the pub? Are you sure?’
‘Well, they certainly go to dances! Because George Brown met one while on a tour of Peru for Harold Wilson. He had drunk quite a lot at the official function, as he tended to do, and when the band struck up, he staggered over to what he thought was an elegant woman in a long red dress and asked for a dance. Whither came the reply, ‘I will not dance with you, sir, for three reasons. First, you are drunk. Second, the band is not playing a waltz, but the Peruvian National Anthem. And third, I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima.’’
I laughed. ‘That’s a good one,’ I said, ‘But I don’t see what it’s got to do with George Mackay Brown.’
‘Well, Bertie wasn’t paying attention in Penge Public Library, and instead of coming back with a biography of George Brown, politician, he came back with a novel by George Brown, Orcadian. I was half-way through before I noticed I was reading completely the wrong book. I did wonder why there was so much about this fellow Magnus, and whether the biographer really had to go all the way back to George Brown’s Viking ancestors. But by the time I realised Bertie’s mistake I was hooked.’
‘And the rest is history,’ I said.
‘Yes, there was a lot of history in that novel. There had to be: it was set in the Middle Ages. And that summer Bertie and I were inspired to visit the Orkneys for the first time, and we simply fell in love with the place. All thanks to two Orcadian saints, Magnus and George.’
I gazed over Mrs Stentorian’s shoulder to see if any other customer was coming down the close to rescue me. No luck.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’d like to talk about books all morning, but I really have to get on with the day job. Shops don’t keep themselves.’
‘I don’t suppose they do. You’ll have to…well, I’ve really no idea what you’ll have to do.’
‘What I have to do is give you a recommendation,’ I said. ‘Another excellent Orkney writer: Robert Rendall. He wrote some beautiful poetry, and a wonderful book about collecting groatie buckies called Orkney Shore.’
‘I’ll go straight across to the library,’ said Mrs Stentorian. ‘Robert Rental, you say?’
‘Rendall. And he was a shopkeeper too, actually. Worked all his life in a draper’s along Bridge Street, where The Brig Larder is now.’
‘What a wonderful shop that is,’ she exclaimed. ‘Now you mention it, I think I’ll pop along and pick up some cheese and a bottle of wine for the weekend. Must dash.’
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 22nd April. Other diaries continue to appear weekly. I am posting them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.