Page 15 of Secrets at the Little Music Shop

Rosie couldn’t understand how I could bear to sleep in such a small space. ‘You’ll only have to put on half a stone and we’ll need special equipment to get you in and out.’ I hadn’t told her, compared to a cell, this cosy little room, with its bulgy plastered walls and the ceiling with the suspicious dip in one corner, was a palace. Everything in it, from the daisy-embroidered duvet to the collection of shells on the wonky window ledge, was mine. And I didn’t have to fight to keep it. Didn’t have to sleep with a wary eye open in case my random cellmate took a fancy to something and backed up her desires with some sharp edges collected earlier from the prison workshop.

A faint memory crept through. A room like this. A trail of perfume, a soft hand under my chin, a whispered conversation about — something. The anticipation-filled weight of a Christmas stocking pushing a pony-patterned eiderdown onto my feet, and a pink night-light showing me exciting shadows against a papered wall. A memory that hurt, despite its benevolence. There was so much more underneath than that one Christmas morning, but I was afraid to look too far back, and the pain made sure I never did.

The psychiatrists had a name for it, this deliberate blocking of all memory. It had gone on so long, and become so effective that I’d probably rate my own chapter in any given psychology text book. In fact, one of the prison doctors had written some kind of thesis based on me, a fact which made me quietly proud, in a horrible sort of way, an acknowledgement that at least I could do something, even if that something meant cutting dead any memory of anything that had once been good.

But, just sometimes, the urge to have some of it back forced me to let a little remembrance seep through, with a blinding snatch of pain as payment.

In the shapes made by the bizarre arrangement of cracks in the paintwork I could see faces. One reminded me of my brother Randall. The way the crack curved as it met the plaster looked just like the way his nose hooked round to the left, or had ever since he’d had that run-in with a guy who’d turned out to be a better fighter. I shook my head into a more comfortable position and forced my body to relax. Remembering my family always made me tense. Made me smaller, reduced the target.

And as for Chris — I wouldn’t remember him. Not now.

Chapter Seven

‘What do you think?’ I held up the finely twisted wire shape for Jason’s approval.

‘Yeah. What’s it meant to be again?’

‘It’s a musical stave. With a treble clef.’

‘Oh yeah, right, getcha now. Lovely.’ Jason turned his attention back to David Beckham, who was proving a little troublesome. The material he was painted on kept tearing away from the bolts Jason had used, and shreds of canvas hung from the footballer like an epic disease.

‘Right well. I’m off. If I get the nine o’clock bus I can be there in good time.’ I pushed the beginnings of the new buckle to the back of my workspace and rubbed my eyes. I’d spent hours working on it yesterday evening and my eyes felt strained and boiled. I’d started early after a night of disturbed sleep and bad dreams, and didn’t want to get caught by Rosie before I left. Didn’t want to admit to her that I couldn’t be a stand-in mum for Harry whenever she had work to finish, which made me dislike myself more than I usually did. Surely as a friend, blah blah blah, should be only too happy to help out with crying baby, blah blah? But something about Rosie just lately disturbed me. I had the feeling that if I was available she’d palm Harry off onto me whether she had work to do or not. A kind of blind hope had seized me that she’d find she could cope perfectly well if I wasn’t always there to step in; hence the getting up early and sloping off to the workshop. At least Jason hadn’t put in another night shift, trying to work whilst he alternately hummed and ran an arc-welder would have made Harry look like the peaceful option.

‘Ah. You’re here.’ Ben was fussing around at the front of the shop when I arrived. ‘Here’s the keys to the till, those are the front door keys. If you have to pop out be sure to lock up. I’ll see you later.’ He was pulling on a ramshackle jacket as he spoke, something that looked as though it had been a horse-blanket when it was new.

‘Is that it then?’ I squeezed past him in the doorway, coming in as he was going out. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me how to deal with shoplifters or anything?’ I tried to ignore the brief moment of contact when I’d felt the bones of his shoulder against mine.

‘Are you serious?’ Ben looked around the walls at the big heavy guitars. ‘All right, if anyone comes in wearing a tent, search them before they leave.’ And he was gone, trailing a surprisingly nice scent for someone who didn’t date.

I spent a pleasant half-hour searching for any clues as to where he had gone with his newly shiny hair and his expensive aftershave. There was a calendar hanging behind the counter but today’s date didn’t bear anything more informative than a circle in yellow highlighter pen. I did establish that Ben kept a spare T shirt in a drawer in the little kitchenette and that he had 145 unread e-mails, but I couldn’t log in to read them even if I’d wanted to.

After that I got a bit bored. No-one came in even to browse. I flicked through Kerrang! even though it was an old copy, straightened a few instruments which had become oddly angled under their own weight and finally started walking about reading the posters on the walls.

‘Zafe Rafale!’ they all screamed in various fluorescent colours. ‘Brit DJ of 2008!’ Zafe apparently had played numerous gigs in and around York in the last year and every single one seemed to have been commemorated on these walls. I wondered why. Did Ben have some connection (maybe sexual, I thought pruriently) with Zafe? Or did he just have an affection for dayglo posters? Maybe he was colour blind?

I was out in the kitchenette making myself a coffee when the bell went off with a vibration that made the walls tremble and ran down my spine like an electric shock.

‘Goody, a customer.’ I rubbed my hands and squeezed through the hatch so that I could pop up from behind the till. ‘Good morning.’

‘You’re a woman!’ The lightly bearded young man with the stripy hat and earrings took a step back.

‘Well done. There are men that have got my clothes off before they discovered that.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I mean, how may I help you?’

‘Is Ben in?’

Ostentatiously I looked around the tiny shop. ‘Good Lord, he appears to have sunk through the floor! Never mind, he might be skinny but he’ll snag on the foundations. Try again later, we’ll spend the rest of the morning winching him up.’

The lad was staring at the ground as though he really did expect to see the top of Ben’s head slowly subsiding through the planking. ‘I just . . . I saw . . . thought he might want to know,’ he finished. Presumably he charged by the word. ‘Will you show him?’ Almost coyly he pushed a magazine across the counter. ‘Page forty,’ he whispered, and by the time I’d picked it up he was gone.

The magazine, contrary to my first impressions and beliefs, wasn’t ‘Fashion Crimes and Your Part in Them’, but the latest edition of Metal Hammer, the best-selling music rag for the discerning heavy metal freak and indie-guitar strummer. Page forty was full of news snippets, what’s on the grapevine. As the lack of customers continued, I sat back to read through it.

* * *

When Ben came back into the shop, carrying the jacket to reveal the surprisingly tight white T that he’d had on underneath, I thought I’d found it.

‘A lad brought this in to show you.’ I slithered down from where I’d been sitting on the counter swinging my legs and presumably putting off customers in their droves.

‘Uh huh. Did you get a name?’

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