The wandering book searcher had in the meantime surveyed the rag-tag of books on the shelving. He cast his eyes over the titles, holding his head askew this way and that way trying to read as much as was still visible on the torn covers. He munched approvingly on his rotating burger which was now almost eaten to its core.

His usual modus operandi was to exchange his quarry inside the back-pack for any unread ones. He mainly succeeded in that, especially if he traded two books for just one.  Depending on his limited finance he would just sometimes buy a book, a reckless splurge of the moment which so far he had never regretted.  His need for books was till now still unrequited dating back to childhood, deprived of letters and words printed on pages by an uncaring culture and not made better by a bookless neighbourhood. He would never fill the void but made up the deficit as good and as diligently that he was still capable of. He was lucky to have been taught reading in the first place. He knew that if he was to catch up with books and the reading of them he could never waste time working for a living and money. He wanted to understand more of the world that he lived in. Time was of the essence, and because of that he could not afford wasting time in working for anything, let alone just money whose value could never be read.

His reading skill had been installed when very young and in a far away country of which he still had some vague memories. He also remembered fondly that a distant uncle, rumoured to have emerged from a Tsarist Russian background and nobility, had taught him to play the mouth organ. He now had a small ‘Hohner’ organ with a button on the side for half-notes. His early childhood training had stood him in good stead despite the deprivations later when circumstance had transferred him to the relenlessly hot and dusty world he now resided in. When he arrived at a place that, through no intent of him, featured a market he would put down his belongings, told Bluey to ‘sit’ and start to play his mouth organ. He would only play long enough for people to provide him with enough coins for some future food and a frayed but un-read book.  He knew that by following a certain repertoire the coins would be dropped in his hat, especially during his playing of the very popular ‘When the Saints come marching in’. The combination of the music with Bluey’s mournful looking eyes, cast upwards towards the audience; many would not walk past without chucking a couple of pennies.

When the hamburger had finally been eaten and the last of the tea been squeezed and scored from the tea bag our searcher stood up and paid for the food including a couple of Spam-ham  cans, making sure the cans still had the keys attached at the top.  He already knew that there was yet an unread book on the shelves that he badly wanted. He took a book from his back-pack. It was a well thumped ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. He asked the large breasted shop-owner if he could swap this for the maroon coloured hard cover book on the top shelve. He also offered to top his offer up with a tuppence coin. She agreed and offered him the use of the outhouse for a shower; that’s if you want to shower, she asked?  He, for a split second thought there was something in the furtive way she looked sideways as she made the offer, away from his open gaze.

She knew the rule for wanderers with swags and cattle dogs. Itinerants, ringbarkers, fencers and shearers, they were the ones that she still managed to eke a living from. Some she befriended and even loved for a night or so, snatched away from the uncompromising hard fist of an otherwise solitary life, a life not unlike those that she sold her wares to. She hardly remembered her husband who had vanished without a grunt of a good-bye years ago. A hopeless drunk of piss-pot, he was. That’s the most she recalled. Her solemn but generous giving of relief to the itinerant wanderers and flotsam of those on endless dirt roads cut both ways and she preferred that to her previous marital mishap. Besides, it did give her business a chance to limp on.

To be continued.