WINDERMERE'S PAPERBACK SALOON

 

The narrator remembers the golden age of Melbourne's bookstores.

 

No violent thrill or transport of exaltation can compare to the gentle pleasure of sifting through the musty stacks in Windemere's Paperback Saloon back before the industry succumbed to vulgarity from abroad. Nestled between a hotel and a modest skyscraper, Windemere's was the epitome of a lost time, an era when Melbourne bristled with bookstores, pedestrian and esoteric. The Enchanted Mole, the curliest children's book supplier in the southern hemisphere, was perhaps the most famous, but Windemere's was, for those with a sense of adventure, unmatched. The manager, Terry, a pimply apparition in flared pinstripes, but with a prodigous knowledge of non-fiction imprints, could prance across the torqioise shag-pile. "Have we got a treasure for you this time!" he'd say, clutching you by the arm, complete with the lisp of authenticity, and dragging you off behind the floral curtain to a copy of Fran Bossinger-Pringle's greatly misunderstood expose of ninenteenth century rose breeders, the limited edition. "Probably the only copy in the country," he'd say. Or he might surprise you with a bombshell, like Tony Crispwind's saucy life of Lenin. These were new arrivals. But the stock on the shelves was just as good. Old Mrs Windemere was an enthusiast but had faulty business sense. Over the years she had filled the store with dusty obscura, precious volumes little known. Its said that her son, Rusty, who managed all the money, and once played football for Essendon, would have sold it all without a hesitation if he hadn't feared her fierce repraisals. It was in fact her hobby. When she was taken to her bed, never to recover, she appointed the begoggled Mrs Churlyburg, an ex-librarian, to hold the fort. She, however, suddenly confronted the bottom-line and had to hold a sale. Fantastic authors - Jan Spanner, H.P. Lovesong, Nigel of the Nile, John Fosdyke - thick ones! went for a spare coin, just to clear the hallways of the accumulated debris. But even this was to no avail. Mrs Windemere's legacy lingered on. Years after she'd gone you could still amble in from the Flinders Street entrance, avoiding the rabble at the hotel door, and pick up a long-lost thriller over lunch. The crime section was outstanding. Everything from Aaron Alexander to Zygorvski's trilogy of grisly homocides set against a background of adultery and double-dealing among international financiers in Prague. They once had a book signing with D. P. Harold, author of 'The Cyprus Parchment' and other gripping mysteries. You could shake his hand and ask him if his characters were really based on members of the Royal family, as they said in the reviews. They also scheduled Penny Holmes (who never showed), six months before it was revealed she was a man. There was a famous skirmish with her publisher. Terry was just an assistant at the time, but Mrs Churlyburg was on leave visiting her sister in New Zealand. The publisher's representative, Perry Simplesmith, who advocated American methods, threatened to revoke their 'Sale or Return'. In response Terry threatened to boycott their other titles. The stand-off made the news. Eventually, Rusty intervened, considering the impasse a bloody nuisance. There was an apology in writing. Terry taped it to the window for the customers to see.

 

Second-best after Windermere's was without any question the Mid-city Book Emporium, popularly the MBE. This tiny little oasis of good taste, jammed between a sandwich shop and a shoe store at the far end of the arcade, couldn't compare when it came to the fast genres, but for idle purchases, like a cookbook, it was just the place. The only surprise was the penchant of the proprieter, Malcolm Straightways, for early travel books and tales of British conquest. The British campaigns in Hindustan were his speciality. There was a handsome glass class of treasured titles in the bottom corner. On rainy days you could sit on the bench provided and ask Mal for a careful peruse of Langley's classic, "Road to Bangalore", blackbound on rice paper with copious engravings. Poor Mal would be carried off with customers looking for a book on puddings; he would have preferred taking you through the full history of the Raj, with asides about the exploits of his Uncle Clive, the second Clive of India, as he'd say. Often, at lunchtimes, women would attempt to bring their big blue baby-strollers in and the browsers at the back would find themselves trapped with nowhere to go but Reference. Mal would have to stand up on a crate and call for attention. "Excuse me ladies! Please! I know its an inconvenience, but could you leave your strollers outside the store!" Some women would object. The truth is, Mal had packed more juicy titles into his tiny nook of the arcade than the space could reasonably handle. The best time to drop in was early morning. It was less crowded. Then you could appreciate the depth and breadth of the selection. It was possible, some mornings, to find three or four titles you thought you'd never see except in surface-mail catalogues from Canada.

 

For spiritual nourishment, the place to go in that era was the Candlemas Bible Repository beneath the Masonic Hall on the hill in Little Collins. The building has since been demolished and the Presbytereans have sold the remnants of what was once a thriving business to an on-line magazine distributor from Asia. Walking bye now you have no idea of the original architecture, nor of the parade of quite famous people - scholars, bishops, poets - who would take advantage of the Repository's quiet below-street ambience and its fascinating array of diverse Judeo-Christian literature. All denominations were represented, except Catholics. It was a place of meditation and sometimes of intellectual ferment. It is said that the once influential right-wing Southern Christian Alliance - what would today be called a "think-tank" - started as a heated debate in the "Just Released" section, when a bloc of prominent Anglican customers, each of whom just happened to be there that day, took issue with Edmund Fudgewent's pioneering book on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Others report that the infamous Archbishop Long - the "Pirate of St. Philips" - who resigned for reasons of "ill-health" in a scandal in 1949, shocking his flock, was "given the finger" when confronted by Church accountants in the Pauline Epistle Room. Ecclesiastical wits larked that Long had taken refuge in Paul's doctrine of freedom from the Law. For many years the MCB was run by Stephen Wilde, a retired army veteran and lay preacher, and consequently, during his reign, it specialized in historical works, biographies and the like, on the Australian army chaplaincy. Following Wilde's death, the store was managed by a husband and wife team, Gordon and Lidia Greystains, with a background of missionary work in New Guinea. The tenor of the store changed. It became more outlooking, more cosmopolitan, more conscious of the wider world, the Churches' mission to the common man. The Greystains installed a whole wall of the Everyman Library, a personal favourite, and a lavish selection of sacred writ in the vernacular tongue. The store began to deteriorate after an incident in 1974 when a large, inquisitive labrador followed a customer in and set off a new fire sprinkler system causing extensive water damage. The stock was underinsured and the enterprise was scaled back to a mediocre selection of devotional works, audio-cassettes and greeting cards.

 

For fine works, an open fire and the highest standard of service - though at a price beyond the range of most - you could also drop in to Lora Cousin's on the second floor of the Smith Building on Elizabeth Street. This was a store with old world ostentation, announced by the ornate brass doorknobs. Before the war they had served sherry to their clientele, but later they merely provided leather chairs, free newspapers and occasionally a lunch-time violinist. It was an old establishment, but not well-known beyond its own class of person. It is said that D.H. Lawrence berated the store in a three-page letter still unpublished. The writer's wife Freda, during their brief visit to Australia, claimed the store "jipped" her of two pounds twenty. The supposed letter, rumour says, remains in the possession of the Cousin's family, although they no longer have anything to do with the store. Sometimes you could find a bargain. Every six months or so a new shipment of quite inexpensive editions of Hardy and Dickens might arrive, or the novels of Florence Sedge. Every now and then you might pick up volumes of verse, beautifully bound, for somewhat less than you expected. In any case, the demeanor of the staff always left you feeling that it is quite inappropriate to quibble over pennies. There was no visible register or even a cash drawer. To make a purchase you presented the book, along with ample notes, and made no mention of price. At length the assistant returned from a backroom with change and receipt and talk of the splendid volume now in your possession.

 

A more democratic readership was to be found just around the corner at Randal's. This was a sub-newsagency and so catered for punters after daily race guides, but further from the street you encountered a good display of popular works. The real pleasure here, though, was as a place to bump into people you knew. The area around the fiction shelves, further defined by a row of Penguins, functioned as a popular standing room where you could meet other avid readers and chat about a new release or the sorry state of the weather. Faces would reappear day after day. The same gentleman in the brown coat. The short banker. The woman with the argumentative hair-do. Eventually, either you or they would say hello, and then a week later offer an exchange of names. Then, some days, as you walked in, it would be nods of "Afternoon. Afternoon. Afternoon." to a dozen familiar faces and one would come over and say "I see you like Dennis Prentice. He's got a new one out, you know..." Strange to relate, several years ago, there was a radio programme on the BBC on how wedded couples had met, and a happy couple rang in to explain that their paths had first crossed at Randal's, Melbourne, Australia, twenty years before, standing by the "Authors A to Z". They joked that they were both looking for Romance on the wrong side of the shelf. Before the television bands were extended, when the written word still lubricated the social mind, Randal's was as much a part of the hum and crush of the windy streets as the Marathon Capaccino House or, in an earlier time, the bar at the King Edward Hotel.

 

Apart from these lingering establishments, the period also saw a generous variety of excellent but short-lived undertakings that filled the gaps and catered to arcane tastes. You could mingle with the avante guard at "Both Ends Books" that had as its emblem a candle burning from two wicks. The concept was for a bookshop that would open late and satisfy the city's community of night-owls. Or you could overhear cryptic conversations full of verbal paradoxes about Matisse and D. P. Milkwood's plays for voices, at the "Beyond the Pale" where the assistant wore a top hat and spoke in urgent whispers. For collectables and such like you could visit, for a time, Miss Green's on upper Russell, and spend an hour among the coin catalogues or the supporting tomes of history, ancient and modern. For classics you could go to "Father Pliny's" on Flinders Lane where even the subject categories and notices to customers were written in Virgil's Latin. These speciality stores came and went, like the city's first legal purveyors of erotica, the "Hill of Consent", not far from Parliament House.

 

Needless to say, this era has ended. The creamy brown brickwork is largely replaced with glass and steel. It is as if a whole epoch of history has intervened. The check-outs came and more and more the shelves were filled with non-book items. Young people turned to the music stores, old people to the lottery; Windermere's was absorbed by a large cartel, Terry got a job in Sydney, Florence Sedge disappeared into obscurity, the crowds in Randal's moved on, Malcolm, like Milkwood, died of ale, and it transpired that Edmund Fudgewent had, after all, written his archaeological reports without once leaving his office at Oxford. Now there are impressive skyscrapers, actually scraping the sky, as the grey clouds and brown haze hang low together, and bright orange advertising signs that, even as you fly into Tullamarine for the first time in thirty years, seem three dimensional, visible marks of an eagerness to be new. "It looks just like Ohio," says the businessman next to you. "From the air." He points to the new bridge, an arch of lights. The construction company almost bought his range of safety gear.

 

But you'd rather not make conversation. In your hands is an old, tattered copy of Boris Charlesworth's Captives of Rage, a saga built around Crimea. Charlesworth was a journalist with a florid but engaging style. It is the warmth of its pages, you want, though. The feel of the paper on your fingers, not its tangled narrative of ambitious captains and their belles. You found it on the bottom of a stack in Windermere's on a bitter winter's day, a day it hailed like golfballs throughout the afternoon. You took it home, reading it on the tram as highschool girls jostled for a seat, and at home you read it by the coal heater until nodding off to sleep, absorbed in the lush panorma of history. It sold well in its day, and won favourable reviews, but in fact, as the plane hits the tarmac, you think of the weakness of the characters, and the transparent imitations of Turgenev, and decide its not as compelling as you recall. But at the instant its the weight of the book in the hand that is important. On the inside cover is "Windermere's Paperback Saloon" and the price, imperial, and a phone number that is just a recorded message.

 

 

- O. Spaniel Murray