Page 14 of Secrets at the Little Music Shop

I stared him up and down. ‘Honestly? Yes. And those tight trousers don’t do you any favours, you know. What’s wrong with ordinary jeans?’

‘Is this some kind of quiz?’

‘Never mind. E-mail me if you sell anything else, and I’ll go and make a few more bits to replace the ones you have sold so far.’

I had my hand on the door latch and was pushing the truculent door open when he spoke again quietly. ‘I’ll come.’

Puzzled, I turned to face him. ‘Where?’

‘To dinner. Your short-term memory is really shot, isn’t it?’

Something deep inside me was relishing this banter. It was — now, what was the word again? Ah yes, fun. Something I had forgotten about, until now. ‘It’s all this having to restrain my intellect, use little tiny words that you’ll understand. My address is on the card I gave you. Little Gillmoor. Near Kirkbymoorside.’

‘Those are real places?’ Ben came past me and pushed the door shut again. ‘This dinner invitation. It is . . . I mean you obviously don’t — you don’t want to get to me for any reason?’

‘No, Mr “I fancy myself more than a bit”. I do not want to get to you, whatever you might mean by that. I’m only asking because Rosie wanted me to. Personally I don’t care if you never eat again.’

‘Wow. I bet you’re fun to be friends with. Look.’ He’d clearly come to a decision, and one that had cost him. But he’d stopped rubbing muck all over his face. ‘I need someone to help out in the shop. Only for a few hours a week that’s all, but I have these . . . appointments and at the moment I have to close so that I can go. If I had someone to just man the till — and with me selling your things, I thought you might be interested. Proper rate of pay obviously. And of course I am doing you a favour by coming to dinner.’

Say what you like about our man, he did have a lovely smile. For a walking anatomy lesson, of course.

‘Well . . .’ I balanced the time that I’d have to spend away from making jewellery with the fact that I’d get paid regularly. ‘All right. But you don’t even know if I can work the till or deal with cash. I might sell everything while you’re away and run off with the money.’

‘You’re trusting me with your buckles. I’ll trust you with my shop. Deal?’

He held out a grubby hand. I hesitated, but shook it eventually. He had a warm grasp, and fingers which were so long that they met around my hand. ‘Deal.’

‘I’ve got an appointment tomorrow. Can you come in around ten? I’ll hand over to you and then leave you to find things for yourself. It’s not too difficult.’ Ben looked around at the obvious lack of customers. ‘We’re hardly Marks and Spencer. Do you know anything about guitars?’

‘Some. I had a friend who played.’

‘I thought it was your cousin?’

Damn. I was usually better than this. Something about those deep eyes, his manner, made it hard to remember. Or should that be easier to forget. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ll run you through what you need to know in the morning then.’ A pause. ‘You were going,’ he said, at last.

‘I am.’

‘And dinner will be . . . when?’

I shook my head. I was feeling a little bit shaky at my own inconsistency. Cousin. Yes I’d told him my cousin played . . . ‘I’ll ask Rosie. Let you know tomorrow.’

A nod. A dismissive turning away. I went out of the shop and stared for a few minutes at my buckle in the window.

* * *

23rd April

It’s funny, y’know, how life is. There you go, strumming along, everything the same grey bassline, and then, wow, it’s like the melody just kicks in and there you are, singing it all out again. Like you’ve done it forever. Today was one of those days.

I felt human again. Went out this afternoon and bought some clothes, just retro gear, nothing fancy, but . . . She thinks I’m skinny! Whoa with the pot-kettle interface there, babe! But there’s something . . . she’s hiding something. Her face when she talked about the guitars, like she’s been told the apocalypse is coming on the back of a Gibson. And her eyes went all kinda deep and dark and I could hear this tune in the back of my head, up and down the scale like a warning. She’s trouble. I can feel it, the music knows it, but it’s like I can’t move out of the way in time, it’s gonna hit me and, you know what? Part of me wants that. Something vast that hits and breaks and blows me open . . . Sorry. That’s a lyric there. One of my better ones, from the days when . . . yeah. I know. Don’t dwell, don’t look back.

See, the trouble is, when you don’t look back, you don’t see what’s creeping up behind you.

Chapter Six

I lay in my tiny bed in my tiny room listening to the regular breathing of Rosie next door. It was comforting hearing her snuffles and the musical plucking of bedsprings whenever she turned over. Being able to reach out and touch all four walls at the same time. Womblike. Safe.

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