The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce

Author:Rachel Joyce
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2017-07-12T23:00:00+00:00

26

I Say a Little Prayer

ONCE UPON A time there were two people who were in love. She was married. He was a priest. The end.

Inside his shop, Father Anthony read the letter from Fort Development again. ‘We would like to take this opportunity to repeat our offer to buy your property, and to introduce you to a new set of apartments that will soon be undergoing construction in the docklands area. We are also in a position to offer highly competitive rates on endowment policies. Please accept our invitation to speak with one of our consultants at your earliest convenience.’

He gazed at the shop he had run for twenty years, and saw it as a stranger might. The carpet was so thin, you could see straight through to the floorboards. He hadn’t sold a bookmark in weeks, let alone a statue; he slept at night in his hat with earflaps, just to keep warm, and he survived pretty much on a diet of water and baked potatoes. And now here was a development company offering him decent money to sell up. He thought of the love he had left behind long ago, and the drink that had replaced it until Frank turned up and found him jazz. Abandoning Frank would be like walking away from your own son. He would miss him as much as the air itself. But he had no idea any more how he could keep going; and now there was the graffiti.

It was too cold to go upstairs. He sat at the counter, watching the messed-up window, then he tried to close his eyes. ‘Give me a sign, Lord,’ he said. ‘It can be very small. I don’t mind. Just tell me it’s time to sell up.’ He stayed very still, waiting.

Outside someone began trying to start a car, turning the engine over and over. Chug chug chug. It was all he could think about. When he looked again at the window he almost yelped: two teenage boys were peering straight back at him, one big, one small. Before he could reach for the telephone to call Frank, they had shoved open his door.

‘But I’m closed,’ he said.

‘Your door’s open,’ a female voice said back.

So one was a girl. The one who most resembled a big teenage boy was a big teenage girl.

Father Anthony’s heart began to flutter like a bird in a cage. They were dressed in coats and boots; the boy had a weaselly face, and the girl wore a football scarf. They stood side by side, barricading his path. He had no more than a few coins in the till, and there was barely anything of value upstairs, unless they were interested in poetry, and the odd cut-glass fruit bowl.

They didn’t move, they just remained in his way, casting an occasional glance over at the shelves. They seemed to know what they were up to and were simply biding their time. It occurred to Father Anthony there were probably more of them outside; the light was going, he could only see the dark, the cold.

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