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PROLOGUE

1964

The woman hovering in the antiquarian section is a regular customer within my shadowy ocean blue walls. She is kind and thoughtful, though furtive of late—constantly hiding the evidence of her book-buying habit. She sits on the cracked leather sofa and begins to turn the pages of the book she has taken from the shelf. The moment comes when she decides to buy it— a shift, a shimmer of anticipation. I know the moment well. She approaches the counter, chats briefly, tucks the wrapped brown paper package beneath the contents of her bag. And I know (though don’t ask me how) that when she reaches home, she will hide the package before greeting her husband, to prove her bags are filled only with necessities; no new books to earn his ire. But the woman lives for the books and will keep collecting despite the teetering piles that fill whole rooms of her enormous house. Visits here will be her happy reprieve. 

Book collectors can become obsessed. It can become an addiction, fed by the lure of undiscovered treasure: that last volume in their collection about ancient Greece or steam trains. That first edition, exquisitely vellum-bound; the elusive signature of a notable author; that rare, illustrated copy with annotated endpapers. It must be found and possessed.

But booksellers can be equally passionate. Behind the counter stands a girl. She is nineteen now, so no longer a girl I suppose, but I am old, and time is circular. She—the girl—is the spine of this story. In here, her heart patters for the items locked inside the rare book cabinet, but outside she laughs and rides her bicycle through the rain. In winter, she walks barefoot on ice-brittle grass, and when the summer sun arcs its shimmering path across a cobalt sky, she makes love to her paramour beneath the river elms. She saves and plans to travel; to climb mountains and watch fishing boats return to the bustling waterfront in Tangier. She dreams of attending a Beatles concert, of wearing a miniskirt as the girls in London do. She sees a radiant, glittering future alive with promise. She is wrong, of course. I know exactly what happens.

Her early chapters will be lived here, inside my walls. She will enjoy my sanctuary for some years before the cataclysm; a violence that will split her life in two. She will live her later chapters on the run, always looking over her shoulder.

The girl will know love and experience unfathomable loss. Her sweetness means she will suffer for others. But she will seek knowledge, learn to lean into pain, to understand what it means to exist. She will become a book collector, with an interest in Celtic mythology. She likes the way it embraces feminine intuition and spiritual wisdom, the cycles of the seasons and the veil between the worlds. It symbolises a life out there. For now, though, she is satisfied with here. She ponders love and fate and the smell of a rose. She studies and partakes in humble, simple pleasures: wine and dance and song. She waxes the drawers of the old mahogany cabinet full of brittle maps of shipping routes and distant continents. She polishes the glass display cabinet and runs her fingers over the precious books within. She enjoys the font, the hand-tooled leather bindings, the gilt edges of the pages.

The girl will see more birthdays than most. But nine or ninety years, we are all here on Earth briefly, my dears. Time is gloriously absurd! A blink, a slip, a crinkle.

For now, she is here, wrapping a book, giving change, smiling at her customer. I will give one piece of advice, if I may, to both the girl and the woman collector who is hurrying out the door: books bring knowledge, but they are no substitute for life. You must live. Through the winter and its storms, you must endure before yielding to the first buds of spring. And if you learn to live alongside your past, to walk with it while the raven flies, you will better understand the balance of the seasons. You will find power within. That is the fullness of life.

So, read my books, but listen to your intuition. Live for the day and love with all your heart. The girl behind my counter will one day return to share her final lesson with us. Curl up, my dears, and turn the pages of her story. And welcome to The Bookshop of Buried Pasts.

Extracted from The Bookshop of Buried Pasts by Sarah Clutton, out now.

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The Bookshop of Buried Pasts

by Sarah Clutton

Secrets, humour, love and mystery abound in this uplifting novel from the bestselling author of The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains.

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