And he, his head nodding almost imperceptibly onto his chest, averted his eyes and would not look at them. As the people passed to and fro, exercising their new imaginations, he began to feel drowsy. He found himself longing for the end of his shift so that he could go home, walk to the station and travel the three stops to his village and go into the house where his fat middle-aged wife would be making soup.
The shadows lengthened, but still the crowds came, ignoring him as he now ignored them. And a new thought came to him, but he considered it without panic, almost with resignation, as if it were only natural to consider such a possibility on a day like this. Something that would once have been an impossibility was now a distinct likelihood but it didn’t bother him particularly. He had done his duty. He was entitled to go home.
What he was wondering was what he would do if no one came to relieve him.
But he remembered the supervisor, all those years ago, telling him that if something went wrong it was not his problem. And he had been right. For twenty-five years the supervisor’s words had held true.
He thought of the slow, swaying train that he would catch, that left at exactly eleven minutes past five and arrived at his village at exactly ten minutes to six. And the ten-minute walk that he would make to his house where his wife would be in the kitchen. The smell of soup. Always the same smell, always the same soup. And he thought of staring out of the window of the train as it clattered through each tiny station, and how at the stations the stationmasters would be standing at attention, like toys in their sky blue shirts and red peaked caps, with their green and red batons under their arms, as if unwilling or unable to relax; as if they thought the train had eyes and might report them if they slouched; as if they did not know how else to stand in a world that was no longer real.
Don’t Start Me Talkin’ (I’ll Tell Everything I Know)
The woman looked to be in her fifties. On her head was a grey helmet of tight curls. She had the face of a smoker who has been giving up for decades. It seemed to take her an age to shuffle up to the sales counter.
The shop was quiet; in fact, apart from the two of them it was completely empty.
George Johnstone had heard her shoes on the steps outside, and had come out from behind the counter and moved over to the jazz section. He sorted a few CD cases into alphabetical order with a practised air and walked over to her.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
She looked at him hopelessly.
‘I’ll tell you what it is, son. I’ve been having a terrible time lately and I just thought if I could get some new music into my life it would help. I want something … well, I just want something with feeling.’
‘With feeling,’ said George.
‘Aye. Somehow all my old records aren’t having the right effect. And I thought I’d come in and spend a few bob on something with a bit of feeling.’
‘A few bob.’
‘Aye, in a manner of speaking.’
George considered her face. On the one hand, he really did not have time for this. On the other, he had all the time in the world. He saw such despair in the lines around her eyes that he feared she might burst into tears.
‘What kind of music do you like?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘That’s what I want to know. That’s where I thought someone like you could help me.’
‘You want me to tell you what kind of music you like?’
She looked more optimistic. ‘Aye, could you?’ She looked at him directly for the first time and he half-turned away. ‘Are you all right, son?’
‘Aye,’ he said, managing a smile.
‘You’re shaking,’ she said.
‘Touch of the flu,’ he muttered. He held out his right hand, palm outwards, fingers extended, and looked at its trembling. He remembered learning that men and women inspected their fingernails differently. He’d read it in some detective novel when he was about thirteen and going through puberty. He’d learnt then that he did it the female way. He still did, although he’d tried to change. Now he turned the hand round, closed the fingers into the palm and the trembling stopped.
‘That’s better,’ he said.
‘You should be in your bed,’ said the woman.
‘Aye, well.’ He shrugged. ‘Tell me, then, what don’t you like?’
The woman thought about it.
‘This weather,’ she said. ‘It gets you down. And Christmas – that did my head in. I don’t like Christmas.’
‘I meant musically,’ said George. ‘Anyway, Christmas was weeks ago. It’ll be spring any day.’
‘Aye, but what difference does that make? You’ve still to pay for it, don’t you? From before. I’ve not finished yet and now there’s all the birthdays. It’s never-ending, just one thing after another.’
‘Look,’ said George, ‘forget about all that. It’s only money. Tell me about music. Musically, what do you want? Something to make you feel happy?’
‘Not necessarily. I wouldn’t want to buy a record just to make myself happy, it might not work, and then where would I be? I don’t care what kind of mood it puts me in, I just want something with feeling.’
‘What about the blues? That’s mostly what’s here.’
She looked at him uncomprehendingly.
‘The blues. Blues music.’
‘What’s that then? Has it got feeling?’
He decided to play some blues for her. There was still nobody else in the shop and although he knew he should get her out and get going, he felt like listening to some blues himself. The shop keys were on a ring in his pocket. He went and locked the door. ‘We’re closed,’ he said to her with a smile. ‘I’ll take you on a wee guided tour of the blues.’
He was a bit concerned that she’d used the word ‘record’ when there was nothing but compact discs on the racks, but he didn’t want to worry her about that straightaway. He felt it would humiliate her.
He selected some CD cases and went to the shelves behind the counter to find the discs. It was a good cataloguing system, it didn’t take him long. Then he started putting music through the speakers – some harp, some guitar, some Delta, some Chicago, some folk blues, some electric. He played some Muddy Waters and some Lightnin’ Hopkins, some Freddie King and some Sonny Boy Williamson. He played ‘Black Cadillac’ and ‘Don’t Start Me Talkin’’ and ‘Sad Letter Blues’. He pulled up a moulded plastic chair for the woman, and gave her a blast of Howlin’ Wolf and a sample of Willie Dixon, some Blind Lemon Jefferson and Son House, some Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton and Etta James. Hell, after a while he hardly needed to play the songs, he just said the names, while the woman sat and nodded, rocking against the give in the chairback, and blew long streams of smoke from her nostrils. John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly. The names crowded into the atmosphere and hung there. George and the woman talked a little, and he gently explained that it was very difficult to buy records anymore, most of the music companies had simply stopped making them. He thought about trying to tell her that CDs were themselves becoming outdated, but decided against it. While he talked and they listened to the music, her cigarette filters gathered in an old polystyrene cup he’d found under the counter. Outside, the world grew dark.
Then it was time to go.
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I’ll need to get back and put their tea on. I’m sorry I can’t buy anything, after all that. I’m so out of touch. I feel like I’ve wasted your afternoon.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it was important to do this. It’s good to slow down sometimes. And I’m sorry they don’t make records anymore. There’s something about vinyl you just can’t beat.’ He was putting all the CDs away carefully and returning the empty cases to the racks.
‘Aye, you’re right there,’ she said. ‘These new things are all right, I suppose, they’re unbreakable and that, but they sound just as scratchy to me.’
‘That’s the recordings,’ he said. ‘Some of these are sixty years old, maybe more.’
‘Tell me about it,’ she said. She began her painful shuffle towards the door. By the time she got there he’d tidied everything away, put the keys back in the till drawer. ‘I’m coming out with you,’ he said. He held the door for her. ‘Mind on your way up, there’s a loose step.’
‘Thanks for being so patient,’ she said, buttoning her shapeless coat against the chill wind. ‘It must be nice, having your own record shop.’
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I suppose so.’ He pulled the door behind him, made sure it was properly shut, the way it had been when he came in. Only then did he realise he’d forgotten to take the CD he’d put aside. But it was too late. The spell was broken. He wouldn’t go back in there alone.
The woman was halfway to the pavement. He waited till she’d got there, then went briskly up the steps and hurried off in the opposite direction.
He’d never noticed the shop before, although he must have walked along the street dozens of times. The sign, BASEMENT BEAT, was obscure and dirty. He’d only spotted it because it was a day when he was looking at everything. Details. This was a way of asking himself what he was doing there, if not being there would make any difference. One of the stone steps shoogled when he descended. He turned the handle of the door.
It was after three o’clock now, the day was starting to fade. For a place that didn’t appear to be doing much business it was surprisingly well stocked. Maybe that was why. He wondered how much money you’d need to take in a day just to stay afloat. Two, three hundred, if you ran it single-handed? Maybe more.
George quickly understood that it was a specialist shop. Jazz, blues, R&B, soul. He didn’t know much about jazz, but blues, that was his thing, and there were stacks of it. Nothing much from the ‘Hit Parade’. He almost said it out loud. The place had a gloomy, old-fashioned atmosphere that made a phrase like that seem appropriate. And the oddest thing, for a music shop – it was in absolute silence. He looked around. No customers. No staff either. It was as if everybody had gone out for a tea break and forgotten to lock the door.
He flicked through a few CDs. They made a slapping sound against one another, advertising his presence. But no one came through the doorway behind the counter. He began to feel the need for something on the sound-system. The speakers stared down at him like security cameras.
He saw a Johnny Shines album he’d been wanting for years. The sticker said £12. 99. He couldn’t really afford it but he’d probably never see it again. He carried the empty CD case up to the counter and coughed.
After a minute he said, ‘Hello? Anybody in?’ His voice was startling in the silence. He felt like he shouldn’t be there. He stepped around the counter and leaned through the doorway into the back room.
There was a man in there. He was maybe in his sixties. He had thick black-framed spectacles and strands of sandy hair plastered over his bald head. One strand had come loose and hung like a bell-pull over his right eye, brushing the lens of his glasses. He wore an open-necked shirt and the waistcoat from a pinstripe suit. He was slumped in a chair behind a desk and the desk prevented George from seeing if he wore pinstripe trousers as well.
‘Hello?’ said George. But he realised that the man was not sleeping but dead.
His arms hung at his sides, his chin was resting on his chest, framed by the V of his shirt. In front of him was an opened can of cola and a half-eaten sandwich resting on a baker’s paper poke.
George felt a curious calm wash through him. He crossed the floor of the room knowing that there was no urgency, no need to panic. He touched the man’s cheek with the back of his hand. The skin had a cool clammy feel. He picked up the can and felt from its weight that it was about half-full. When he held it to his ear he could hear the faint ping of almost expired fizz.
Heart attack, he thought. Maybe. He wasn’t a doctor. There was no sign of violence or disturbance. It looked like the shop owner – if that’s who he was – had just died sitting there eating his piece. George glanced at the sandwich. He could see the ragged curve of the man’s toothmarks where he had bitten through grated cheese and pickle.
He went back into the shop. From behind the counter it seemed even emptier. He himself had been the sole customer, now he was gone. He realised that he was still clutching the Johnny Shines case. He laid it down on the counter.
The cash register was switched on, the green display reading 0. 00. George pressed the no sale button but the machine started whining. He pressed the cancel button. He tapped in 12. 99, rang it up as a sale, then tapped in the same figures as cash tendered and pressed the sale button. The till drawer sprang open and a receipt was printed.
There wasn’t much money in there. Two ten-pound notes, a fiver, nine pound coins and some other change. George lifted the tray out and looked in the drawer. There was a little pile of notes and cheques at the back. He counted five twenties and seven tens and put them in his pocket. He put the cheques back and replaced the tray. He took the thirty-four pounds from the plastic compartments, then put back the fiver and eight pounds. He took a penny in change and put it with the other money in his pocket. In one of the compartments was a bunch of keys. He took it out and closed the till. He tore off the receipt and dropped it on the floor.
He thought about walking home. But he didn’t want to go home. He shared a flat with two other people. Whether he went back there or not he would be neither missed nor noticed. Sometimes several days would pass when he wouldn’t see one or the other of his flatmates. Sometimes he wouldn’t see either of them. He never wondered where they were, if they were safe or in trouble. He knew that, for them, the same applied to himself. If he closed the door of his room and stayed in there for a week they wouldn’t know or care. This was supposed to make him feel free.
He was ten minutes’ brisk walk to the train station. And the bus station. He thought of cities in England he could go to. Places he’d never been before. Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol. Beautifully anonymous-sounding places. He wanted to walk through a crowd on an unfamiliar street.
He went back through to the office. The body hadn’t moved. He remembered reading a Western when he was a boy, in which a corpse had suddenly sat up and groaned, terrifying everybody except the hero, who knew that this was what corpses sometimes did.
He tried to imagine what it was like to be alone in a room with a dead man. He tried to see himself in a book or a movie. Outside there were the sounds of cars and buses rolling by, the tapping of women’s brisk heels and, in the distance, the cry of a siren. Inside there was the desk, some shelves loaded with files and catalogues, a stack of mail-order forms. There was another table on which sat an electric kettle, a couple of mugs, a spoon with a brown tidemark, an assortment of tea bags, sugar, milk. George lifted the can of cola and drank from it, feeling its warm flat sweetness against his throat.
He felt as if he and the shop owner were special, as if they shared something denied to everybody else. He wondered what the man’s last thoughts had been.
He wondered what was the last ever piece of music the man had heard. He went to check the sound-system, but there wasn’t a CD in it. He thought again how strange that was, for a music shop. Just then he heard someone coming down the steps.
The woman trailed her way back across the city. She had been out all day. She didn’t want to go home but she knew she would. Somebody had to feed them. She would need to stop in the Co-op on the way for some messages: beans, tatties, chops. She could hear the grill spitting and hissing at her as she cooked them.
She crossed the river by the pedestrian bridge. If you were on it and somebody else was coming from the other side it bounced you, made you feel like you had new energy in your soles. She liked the feel of it. Sometimes she’d stop halfway across and let the energy of other folk throb into her.
It was almost night. The lights of the city gleamed like amber fish in the black water. The clouds overhead threatened more rain, more cold. She hated this time of year. It clenched you up, turned you grey ins
ide. There was no mercy in it.
The river was full, it rushed beneath her towards the sea. She watched a ripple in it that caught the reflection of the lamp behind her. The ripple was constantly turning like a rope; always new water, always the same shape. She could feel people passing behind her, the bridge going up and down.
She felt utterly alone.
The music had been unlike anything she’d ever heard, and yet she felt she recognised it. She’d not understood the rhythms of some of it, hadn’t been able to pick out all the words that were moaned, wailed, screamed, muttered. Some of it had sounded like ghosts coming from a long time ago. But one thing she knew: it had feeling. Oh aye, the young fellow had been right about that. Songs like that made you want to start walking and never stop. They made you want to lie down and sleep. They made you want a drink, a greet, a laugh. The people who made those songs, she thought, they didn’t wake up in the morning and wonder what to sing about. The stuff was in them, was them. It just came pouring out.
She was going back there, definitely. Tomorrow, or if not tomorrow the next day. She wanted to get a CD player so she could take some of the music home with her. Or one with headphones, so you could sit on a bus and travel with it in your ears. She wanted to ask the guy in the shop where to start, who to listen to first.
She looked down into the black swirling water and felt she was on the edge of discovering something.
Willie Masson’s Miracle
Mrs Bovie appeared in the doorway, and Willie Masson made the noise that was his laugh now. He couldn’t help himself.
‘That’s him angry,’ said Mrs Bovie. She was his neighbour. ‘The one that always keeps you right,’ was how Kathleen used to describe her. ‘There’s one on every stair.’ Willie ran through the names Kathleen had had for her: Mrs Bovine, Madam Ovary, Mrs Hoovery, The Rovin’ Stovie. (Mr Bovie was long gone – dead or run away to sea or vacuumed into oblivion.) Ach, she wasn’t all bad, she just liked to dip her spoon in other folk’s broth. And she was wrong about everything. Apart from that she was fine. But he still didn’t like her.
Republics of the Mind Page 16
