Page 37 of Close to You
With David saying his haul is ‘enough to make it worthwhile’, I wonder if I should finally bring up rent. He’s been living with me for three months now and I’ve never quite got around to asking him to contribute to our living arrangements. Perhaps not even rent, but food or a share of the bills – that sort of thing. On average, he’s probably gone for a day a week at various fairs, though I’m not always sure. Until he brought me here, I was beginning to think that he was, essentially, unemployed. I never brought it up, but he might have picked up on it, which is why we’re in Edinburgh – and why he has been paying for everything.
So far, we’ve spent a whole day wandering the streets, which was topped off with afternoon tea and a whisky-tasting that somehow left me both light- and heavy-headed. I slept well last night.
David is still scanning the floor, where the long rows seem to be split into sections. There are records in one area and books in another, while I can also see magazines, comics, newspapers, figurines, street signs, football programmes and toys. There is even a stall below us selling the sort of bobblehead that’s in the back of David’s car.
‘Is this the type of place you sell?’ I ask.
David hums a little, turning from side to side. ‘Not really. It’s small fry here. People come to be cheapskates. The big money is in importing. If you can get something in bulk from somewhere like Bulgaria or Romania, there might be some first editions in there.’ He licks his lips and then adds: ‘I might be on to something in Slovakia. Got a supplier who reckons he’s come across a load of records from the sixties and seventies. All smuggled stuff from back when it was behind the Iron Curtain. Perfect condition, he says. He mentioned some Bowies, but that’s probably only scratching the surface.’
I’m not sure how to reply. It’s the first he’s mentioned of it and, if it’s true that big events like this are a waste of time, then I’m not sure why we’re here.
‘The problem is having the money upfront,’ David says.
He lets it hang for a while and only continues when it’s clear I don’t know how to reply.
‘A lot of my money is tied up in stock,’ he adds.
He has mentioned this before, although I’ve never been quite clear where David’s stock actually is. He told me he’s got records and books in storage that are waiting for the right buyer. When I asked how long it might take to sell, he shrugged and said that’s the business.
‘It’s true what they say,’ he adds. ‘It takes money to make money – but the banks don’t want to know.’ With barely a breath, he nods below: ‘Shall we go for a wander?’
I follow him down the stairs and we join the hordes of people who are ambling along the aisles. I never realised quite how much there was to collect. So much of what is on display looks as if it came straight from the landfill. There’s a stall where someone is offloading rack upon rack of metal signs. It looks like they’re from the fifties and sixties, with many advertising cigarettes in a way that seems so strange nowadays. I can understand collecting something like records – they can be listened to and there’s something artistic about the sleeves. I can’t see the point in anyone amassing signs.
David notices me staring and clamps a hand on my shoulder as he laughs. ‘It’s not whatyou’dbuy – it’s whatsomeone elsewill buy.’
We continue on, looping around to another aisle where there are rows of stalls selling toys. There are walls of action figures that I remember from my youth. Star Wars, Thundercats, He-Man and She-Ra, and Ninja Turtles are the ones I spot first – but there are many more. I was never that interested in anything specifically marketed for girls, which is perhaps why it’s a surprise to see the sheer breadth of colourful My Little Ponies on the next stall.
‘Takes you back, doesn’t it?’ David says.
The final stall has mainly Disney plushes. I step inside, partly to get away from the masses, and instantly baulk at the prices. There’s a palm-sized Mickey Mouse soft toy for which the seller is asking £300. David flits through the price labels and seems unsurprised by it all.
‘Do you sell soft toys?’ I ask.
‘Not regularly. They sometimes show up in a bulk buy.’
‘I can’t believe this costs £300.’
David points to the £450 tag attached to a Pooh Bear.
‘Do people pay that?’ I ask.
‘How do you think people like me make money? You can buy a hundred things in a job lot and it only takes one sale to cover the cost. Anything else is profit.’
He has explained this before, but it’s now I see it myself that it feels like something that can – and does – make money.
We’re about to leave the stall when I spot a small, clay Tigger pot next to the counter. It’s the odd item out in a stall of soft toys. When I was a girl, I read the Winnie The Pooh books and Tigger was always my favourite. Pooh always seemed to be so depressed and then Tigger would bounce around and make things better. That’s how I remember it, anyway.
‘Do you like it?’ David asks.
‘I think my mum used to have one. I might’ve played with it when I was a kid. I remember filling it with buttons.’ I swirl a hand, trying to find the recollection. ‘I sort of remember it, but I don’t. I must’ve been really young.
David turns to the girl behind the counter: ‘How much?’ he asks.
She spies the pot in my hand and pouts a lip. ‘Twenty?’
‘There’s a chip at the bottom. How about five for cash?’
The girl doesn’t bother to check the damage, which I hadn’t noticed. She mutters, ‘OK’ and then I hand her a note.
