Three Things About Elsie(58)

‘I’ve never been on the internet before,’ I told him.

‘You could soon learn, Flo. I could teach you. We could set up a little class.’

‘Sign me up,’ shouted Jack from behind one of the magazines.

Simon pressed some buttons and then he turned the screen so we could see properly.

‘It’s a music shop,’ he said.

‘A music shop?’ I said.

We peered into the computer.

‘In Whitby,’ he said.

‘Are you certain?’ Elsie moved forward until her face was right in front of the picture.

Simon enlarged the image on the screen. The outside of the music shop was painted shiny black, and its name was written in gold lettering. It was the kind of font you never seemed to see any more, swirled and decorated with the past. The more Simon enlarged the photograph, the more blurred it became, but you could still see instruments in the window. Saxophones and trombones with their Glenn Miller curves, and violins watching from the back, straight and serious, like a row of old ladies. There were lines of silvered flutes and guitars with hourglass figures, and a washing line of sheet music, pegged across the top.

‘George Gibson & Son.’ I read out the name. ‘I’ve never heard of them before.’

Simon took his hands from the keyboard. ‘I thought you said the number was in the back of your address book?’

‘It was. I just can’t remember why.’

I could tell Simon was suspicious, but I decided if I didn’t look at him, it might go away.

Simon wrote the address down for us, on a sticky piece of yellow paper. As he was doing it, Cheryl from the salon walked in. She looked her usual self. Bleached pale and filled up with thinking.

‘Hello, Miss Claybourne.’ If she was surprised to see us in the staff room, she didn’t let on.

‘Hello, Cheryl. How are you?’

Cheryl just mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

‘I’m glad we’ve seen each other,’ I said. ‘Because I have something for you. Well, not for you exactly, for your …’ I struggled to find the word. ‘… your assistant.’

I pulled a piece of paper out from my handbag.

‘It’s about tracing your family tree. I found it. In a magazine. I thought it might help her find the great-grandma from Prestatyn.’

Cheryl took it from me and mumbled something else. ‘And how is little Alice?’ I nodded at her wrist.

She came out with the strangest jumble of words, and Simon looked up from his writing.

‘I met some children recently,’ I said. I think she expected me to add something else, but that was really all there was to it, so I asked her how old Alice was instead.

‘She …’ Cheryl hesitated. I thought it was strange how a mother had to think of her own daughter’s age, but people have never stopped surprising me. ‘She was born three years ago,’ she said, finally.

‘And is she a good little girl?’ I said.

‘The best, Miss Claybourne. The very best. Beautiful blonde curls. The biggest blue eyes you’ve ever seen. Always smiling.’

She didn’t have a photograph with her, but she promised she’d bring one in for me.

‘I’d like that,’ I said. ‘I’d like to see Alice.’

Cheryl went to the sink and started clattering pots around, so I couldn’t hear all her words, but she did say, ‘Thank you so much for bothering to ask.’

When Simon handed Jack the piece of paper, he gave my shoulder a little squeeze and said, ‘You are lovely, Florence, you know,’ which I thought was rather nice, when the only thing I’d really done was make conversation.





9.02 p.m.


Elsie and I used to complain about how small these rooms are, but right now everything feels very far away. I thought I might be able to reach some of that nonsense under the sideboard. A coin, or whatever’s dropped there. Throw it at the window. Get someone’s attention, although I don’t really know whose. They’ll tell me off when they find me, because I should be wearing my medallion. That’s what Elsie and I call them, because they’re so big. ‘I need help’ it says on the front. It kept banging on things and getting in the way, and once, I knocked it on the back of the Radio Times and Simon barged into the flat with grated cheese all over his chin. I took it off after that. I hung it on the back of the bathroom door.

It’s still there now.

I can’t even see the bathroom from where I’m lying. I wish that big lamp was on. The dark shrinks your common sense, doesn’t it? There’s a bulb lit in the hall, but it’s one of those energy-saving ones, and you might as well not bother and strike a match instead. It must be getting on for seven, now. The little shop will be closing soon. The man behind the counter will be taking out his earphones and emptying the till. Perhaps he’ll think about me as he’s counting the coins. Perhaps he’ll remember me offering to clean the shelves, and he’ll have a bit of a reconsider. He’ll lock up and check the door a few times, then he’ll wander across and look up at my flat. When he knocks, he’ll call out, ‘It’s only me, Miss Claybourne,’ and I’ll call back, ‘You’ll have to let yourself in, I’m afraid.’ I’ll keep the tone light-hearted. I don’t want to alarm him.