Are you like me, a public reader? Someone who takes their books everywhere and anywhere, the shops, the school run, appointments, family gatherings, barbecues, weddings, christenings, even a funeral once and yes I did sneak a quick read of it too!
There are plenty of us out there, I know I’ve seen you wrapped up in your coats and scarves, one finger poking from your glove so you can swipe your kindle pages, tiny fashion handbags across your shoulders and a gigantic hardback under your arm, carrier bags filled with fantasy just waiting for a quiet moment. On buses and trains, benches in parks, at tables for one and waiting rooms galore we readers don’t mind where we indulge our passion for the printed word and we quietly acknowledge those who are part of our group. A slight incline of the head, a small lift of the book in recognition or a quick meeting of eyes over the tops of our respective novels before diving back in to our literary adventures.
All very grown up and dignified aren’t we? Well no actually, at least not me anyway I’ve made more than my fair share of social faux pas and I’m going to share one with you.
Let me set the scene for you: A beautiful autumn’s day, bright sunshine, pleasantly warm and release day for the latest Stephen King novel- Perfection.
Of course I, constant reader that I am, just have to have it and I want the Hardback and I want it as cheaply as possible. I’ve trawled the internet, checked and double checked and found Waterstone’s to be the cheapest outlet in the near vicinity that has my book in stock, so off I pootle to purchase my latest fix of King.
The outward journey is quick and uneventful, hop on the bus get into town and walk straight to the shop, pick up my book, pay and leave. There’s no dilly dallying in the town centre, I’m straight back at the bus stop desperate to get home, curl up on the sofa and disappear into Stephen’s latest literary nightmare.
Of course, I’m not going to wait until I get home to start reading not a chance, what am I, an adult?
The book is out of its bag and in my hands before my bum’s hit the bus seat and I’m lost immediately, swallowed up by King’s typically intense yet simple prose. Of course I glance up occasionally to make sure I know where I am, I’m not that stupid and then it happens… I glance up and see the exact same book that I am reading, I gaze at it an internal dialogue swirling round my head ‘Oooh another King fan’ ‘I wonder where they bought it from’ ‘ Ha they couldn’t wait to get home either’ ‘I wonder if this is their first venture into King territory’ and so on.
I’ve no idea how long I gazed reverentially at that book cover, it can’t have been that long, less than the time it took for the bus to get to the next stopping point at least but not long. The jolt of the bus stopping broke my reverie and I lifted my eyes to the owner of The Book’s face, perhaps to share a moment of mutual understanding, the journeys we constant readers undertake with every new novel published, the joy and anticipation of pages yet to be read.
To be confronted by a young man, no not even a young man, a teenage boy looking at me in horrified disgust. Unable to comprehend that this insane, middle aged woman who had been gawping at his crotch for the last few minutes in unbridled and obvious admiration had dared try to make eye contact with him.
I blustered, I blushed and I raised my own book in an attempt to explain but it was too late, he’d gone and I was left to finish my journey, beetroot red and imagining the conversations he was having right then (and probably even today) with friends and family about the dirty old woman on his bus that had been dribbling over his nether regions.
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