The Music Shop Read online

  About the Book

  1988. Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk – as long as it’s vinyl, he sells it. Day after day, Frank finds his customers the music they need.

  Then into his life walks Ilse Brauchmann.

  Ilse asks Frank to teach her about music. His instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with her pea-green coat and her eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems. And Frank has old wounds that threaten to re-open and a past he will never leave behind.

  The Music Shop is about learning how to listen and how to feel; it’s about second chances and choosing to be brave despite the odds. Because in the end, music can save us all.

  Listen to The Music Shop playlist at: bit.ly/TheMusicShopPlaylist

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Side A: January 1988

  1 The Man Who Only Liked Chopin

  2 Oh No Not My Baby

  3 It’s a Kind of Magic

  4 The Shop on Unity Street

  5 The Woman Who Fell to Earth

  6 The Magic of Silence

  7 The Four Seasons

  8 The Red Priest

  9 The Problem of the Green Handbag

  10 Adagio for Strings

  11 A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

  12 So Long, Farewell

  13 Bach’s Eyes

  14 Bye, Bye, Baker (Baker Goodbye)

  15 I Will Survive

  16 The Boots of Miles

  17 Let’s Get It On

  18 The Messiah

  Side B: February 1988

  19 Help!

  20 Moonlight Sonata

  21 A Beautiful Pea-Green Coat

  22 A Night to Remember

  23 Silver Machine

  24 Beata Viscera

  25 Ain’t It Funky Now

  26 I Say a Little Prayer

  27 Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now

  28 A Dress for Berlioz

  29 Two Queens and a Duke

  Side C: Spring 1988

  30 I’m Not in Love

  31 Theme from Shaft

  32 Raindrop

  33 Get Up, Stand Up

  34 Protest Song

  35 Don’t Believe a Word

  36 Requiem

  37 The True Story of Ilse Brauchmann

  38 Hallelujah

  39 Two Swans

  Side D: 2009

  40 The Four Seasons

  41 Unity Street

  42 Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

  43 Hallelujah!

  44 Flash!

  Hidden Track

  Personal Note

  About the Author

  Also by Rachel Joyce

  Copyright

  For Hope

  Time has told me

  You’re a rare, rare find

  A troubled cure

  For a troubled mind.

  Nick Drake, ‘Time Has Told Me’

  It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found.

  Donald Winnicott

  THERE WAS ONCE a music shop.

  From the outside it looked like any shop, in any backstreet. It had no name above the door. No record display in the window. There was just a homemade poster stuck to the glass. For the music you need!!! Everyone welcome!! We only sell VINYL! If closed, please telephone – though after that it was anyone’s guess because, along with more happy exclamation marks, the only legible numbers were an 8 that could well be a 3, and two other things that might be triangles.

  Inside, the shop was cram-packed. Boxes everywhere, stocked with every kind of record in every speed, size and colour, and not one of them classified. An old counter stood to the right of the door and, at the back, two listening booths towered either side of a turntable; more like bedroom furniture than regular booths. Behind the turntable sat the owner, Frank, a gentle bear of a man, smoking and playing records. His shop was often open into the night – just as it was often closed into the morning – music playing, coloured lamps waltzing, all sorts of people searching for records.

  Classical, rock, jazz, blues, heavy metal, punk … As long as it was on vinyl, there were no taboos. And if you told Frank the kind of thing you wanted, or simply how you felt that day, he had the right track in minutes. It was a knack he had. A gift. He knew what people needed even when they didn’t know it themselves.

  ‘Now why not give this a try?’ he’d say, shoving back his wild brown hair. ‘I’ve got a feeling. I just think it will work—’

  There was a music shop.

  SIDE A: JANUARY 1988

  1

  The Man Who Only Liked Chopin

  FRANK SAT SMOKING behind his turntable, same as always, watching the window. Mid-afternoon, and it was almost dark out there. The day had hardly been a day at all. A drop in temperature had brought the beginnings of a frost and Unity Street glittered beneath the street lights. The air had a kind of blue feel.

  The other four shops on the parade were already closed but he had put on the lava lamps and the electric fire. The music shop was warm and colourfully lit. At the counter, Maud the tattooist stood flicking through fanzines while Father Anthony made an origami flower. Saturday Kit had collected all the Emmylou Harris and was trying to arrange them in alphabetical order without Frank noticing.

  ‘I had no customers again,’ said Maud, very loud. Even though Frank was at the back of the shop and she was at the front, there was technically no need to shout. The shops on Unity Street were only the size of a front room. ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘You don’t look like you’re listening.’

  Frank took off his headphones. Smiled. He felt laugh lines spring all over his face and his eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘See? I’m always listening.’

  Maud made a noise like ‘Ham.’ Then she said, ‘One man called in, but it wasn’t for a tattoo. He just wanted directions to the new precinct.’

  Father Anthony said he’d sold a paperweight in his gift shop. Also, a leather bookmark with the Lord’s Prayer stamped on it. He seemed more than happy about that.

  ‘If it stays like this, I’ll be closed by summer.’

  ‘You won’t, Maud. You’ll be fine.’ They had this conversation all the time. She said how awful things were, and Frank said they weren’t, Maud, they weren’t. You two are like a stuck record, Kit told them, which might have been funny except that he said it every night, and besides, they weren’t a couple. Frank was very much a single man.

  ‘Do you know how many funerals the undertakers have had?’

  ‘No, Maud.’

  ‘Two. Two since Christmas. What’s wrong with people?’

  ‘Maybe they’re not dying,’ suggested Kit.

  ‘Of course they’re dying. People don’t come here any more. All they want is that crap on the high street.’

  Only last month the florist had gone. Her empty shop stood on one end of the parade like a bad tooth, and a few nights ago the baker’s window – he was at the other end – had been defaced with slogans. Frank had fetched a bucket of soapy water but it took all morning to wash them off.

  ‘There have always been shops on Unity Street,’ said Father Anthony. ‘We’re a community. We belong here.’

  Saturday Kit passed with a box of new 12-inch singles, narrowly missing a lava lamp. He seemed to have abandoned Emmylou Harris. ‘We had another shoplifter today,’ he said, apropos of not very much at all. ‘First he flipped because we had no CDs. Then he asked to look at a record and made a run for it.’

  ‘What was it this ti
me?’

  ‘Genesis. Invisible Touch.’

  ‘What did you do, Frank?’

  ‘Oh, he did the usual,’ said Kit.

  Yes, Frank had done the sort of thing he always did. He’d grabbed his old suede jacket and loped after the young man until he caught him at the bus stop. (What kind of thief waited for the number 11?) He’d said, between deep breaths, that he would call the police unless the lad came back and tried something new in the listening booth. He could keep the Genesis record if he wanted the thing so much, though it broke Frank’s heart that he was nicking the wrong one – their early stuff was tons better. He could have the album for nothing, and even the sleeve; ‘so long as you try “Fingal’s Cave”. If you like Genesis, trust me. You’ll love Mendelssohn.’

  ‘I wish you’d think about selling the new CDs,’ said Father Anthony.

  ‘Are you joking?’ laughed Kit. ‘He’d rather die than sell CDs.’

  Then the door opened and ding-dong; a new customer. Frank felt a ping of excitement.

  A tidy, middle-aged man followed the Persian runner that led all the way to the turntable. Everything about this man seemed ordinary – his coat, his hair, even his ears – as if he had been deliberately assembled so that no one would look at him twice. Head bowed, he crept past the counter to his right, where Maud stood with Father Anthony and Kit, and behind them all the records stored in cardboard master bags. He passed the old wooden shelving to his left, the door that led up to Frank’s flat, the central table, and all the plastic crates piled with surplus stock. Not even a sideways glance at the patchwork of album sleeves and homemade posters thumbtacked by Kit all over the walls. At the turntable, he stopped and pulled out a handkerchief. His eyes were red dots.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Frank asked, in his boom of a voice. ‘How can I help you today?’

  ‘The thing is, you see, I only like Chopin.’

  Frank remembered now. This man had come in a few months ago. He had been looking for something to calm his nerves before his wedding.

  ‘You bought the Nocturnes,’ he said.

  The man wriggled his mouth. He didn’t seem used to the idea that anyone would remember him. ‘I’ve got myself in another spot of difficulty. I wondered if you might – find something else for me?’ He had missed a patch on his chin when he was shaving. There was something lonesome about it, that scratchy patch of stubble, all on its own.

  So Frank smiled because he always smiled when a customer asked for help. He asked the same questions he always asked. Did the man know what he was looking for? (Yes. Chopin.) Had he heard anything else that he liked? (Yes. Chopin.) Could he hum it? (No. He didn’t think he could.)

  The man shot a look over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening but they weren’t. Over the years, they’d seen everything in the music shop. There were the regular customers, of course, who came to find new records, but often people wanted something more. Frank had helped them through illness, grief, loss of confidence and jobs, as well as the more everyday things like football results and the weather. Not that he knew about all those things but really it was a matter of listening, and he had endless patience. As a boy, he could stand for hours with a piece of bread in his hand, hoping for a bird.

  But the man was gazing at Frank. He was waiting.

  ‘You just want me to find you the right record? You don’t know what, but so long as it’s Chopin, you’ll be OK?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the man. That was it exactly.

  So what did he need? Frank pushed away his fringe – it flopped straight back, but there it was, the thing had a life of its own – he cupped his chin in his hands and he listened as if he were trying to find a radio signal in the ether. Something beautiful? Something slow? He barely moved, he just listened.

  But when it came, it was such a blast, it took Frank’s breath away. Of course. What this man needed wasn’t Chopin. It wasn’t even a nocturne. What he needed was—

  ‘Wait!’ Frank was already on his feet.

  He lumbered around the shop, tugging out album sleeves, skirting past Kit, and ducking his head to dodge a light fitting. He needed to find the right match for the music he had heard from the man who only liked Chopin. Piano, yes. He could hear piano. But the man needed something else as well. Something that was both tender and huge. Where would Frank find that? Beethoven? No, that would be too much. Beethoven might just floor a man like this one. What he needed was a good friend.

  ‘Can I help you, Frank?’ asked Kit. Actually he said ‘Ca’ I hel’?’ because his eighteen-year-old mouth was full of chocolate biscuit. Kit wasn’t simple or even backward, as people sometimes suggested, he was just gauche and wildly overenthusiastic, raised in a small suburban house by a mother with dementia and a father who mainly watched television. Frank had grown fond of Kit in the last few years, in the way that he had once cared for his broken van and his mother’s record player. He found that if you treated him like a young terrier, sending him out for regular walks and occupying him with easy tasks, he was less liable to cause serious damage.

  But what was the music he was looking for? What was it?

  Frank wanted a song that would arrive like a little raft and carry this man safely home.

  Piano. Yes. Brass? That could work. A voice? Maybe. Something powerful and passionate that could sound both complicated and yet so simple it was obvious—

  That was it. He got it. He knew what the man needed. He swung behind the counter and pulled out the right record. But when he rushed back to his turntable, mumbling, ‘Side two, track five. This is it. Yes, this is the one!’ the man gave a sigh that was almost a sob it was so desperate.

  ‘No, no. Who’s this? Aretha Franklin?’

  ‘“Oh No Not My Baby”. This is it. This is the song.’

  ‘But I told you. I want Chopin. Pop isn’t going to help.’

  ‘Aretha is soul. You can’t argue with Aretha.’

  ‘Spirit in the Dark? No, no. I don’t want this record. It’s not what I came for.’

  Frank looked down from his great height, while the man twisted and twisted his handkerchief. ‘I know it’s not what you want, but trust me, today it’s what you need. What have you got to lose?’

  The man sent one last look in the direction of the door. Father Anthony gave a sympathetic shrug, as if to say, Why not? We’ve all been there. ‘Go on, then,’ said the man who only liked Chopin.

  Kit sprang forward and led him to a listening booth, not exactly holding his hand, but leading the way with outstretched arms as if parts of the man were in danger of dropping off at any moment. Light bloomed from the lava lamps in shifting patterns of pink and apple-green and gold. The booths were nothing like the ones in Woolworths – those were more like standing up in a hairdryer. Their headphones were so greasy, Maud said, you had to shower afterwards. No, these booths Frank had made himself from a pair of matching Victorian wardrobes of incredible magnitude he had spotted in a skip. He had sawn off the feet, removed the hanging rails and sets of drawers, and drilled small holes to connect each one with cable to his turntable. Frank had found two armchairs, small enough to fit inside, but comfortable. He had even polished the wood until it gleamed like black gloss paint, revealing a delicate inlay in the doors of mother-of-pearl birds and flowers. The booths were beautiful when you really looked.

  The man stepped in and made a sideways shuffle – there was very little space; he was being asked to sit in a piece of bedroom furniture, after all – and took his place. Frank helped with the headphones and shut the door.

  ‘Are you all right in there?’

  ‘This won’t work,’ the man called back. ‘I only like Chopin.’

  At his turntable, Frank eased the record from its sleeve and lifted the stylus. Tick, tick went the needle, riding the grooves. He flicked the speaker switch so that it would play through the whole shop. Tick, tick—

  Vinyl had a life of its own. All you could do was wait.

  2

  Oh
No Not My Baby

  TICK, TICK. IT was dark inside the booth, with a hushed feeling, like hiding in a cupboard. The silence fizzed.

  Everyone had warned him. Be careful, they’d said. He just wouldn’t listen. So he asked her to marry him and he couldn’t believe his luck when she said yes – her so beautiful, him so ordinary. Then he took her a bottle of champagne after the wedding breakfast, and there she was, upside down in the honeymoon suite. At first he couldn’t work it out. He had to take a really good look. He saw a dress like a sticky meringue with four legs poking out, two with black socks, one with a garter. And then he realized. It was his new wife and his best man. He left the bottle on the floor, along with two glasses, and shut the door.

  He couldn’t get that picture out of his head. He played Chopin, he took pills from the doctor, and none of it made a difference. He stopped going out; he cried at the drop of a hat. He felt so bad he called in sick at work.

  Tick, tick—

  The song started. A twang of guitar, a blast of horns, a chirruping ‘sweet-sweet-ba-by’ and then a bam-bam-bam-bam from percussion.

  What was Frank thinking? This wasn’t the music he needed. He went to pull off the headphones—

  ‘When ma friends tol’ me you had someone noo,’ began the singer, this Aretha, her voice clear and steady, ‘I didn’ believe a single word was true.’

  It was like meeting a stranger in the dark, saying to them, ‘You’ll never guess what?’ and the stranger saying, ‘Hey, but that’s exactly how it is for me.’

  He stopped thinking about his wife and his sadness and he listened to Aretha as if she were a voice inside his head.

  She told him her story – something like this. Everyone said her man was a cheat; even her own mother said it. But Aretha wouldn’t believe them. He was not like those other BOYS who lead you ON. Who tell you LIES. She started the song calmly enough but by the time she got to the chorus she was practically screaming the words. Her voice was a little boat and the music was a Japanese wave, but Aretha kept riding it, up and down. It was downright pig-headed, the way she kept believing in him. There were strings, the bobble of the guitar, a horn riff, percussion, all telling her she was wrong – ‘Wohhh!’ shrilled the backing vocals, like a Greek chorus of girlfriends – but no, she hung on tight. Her voice pulled the words this way and that, soaring up over the top and then scooping right down low. Aretha knew. She knew how desperate it felt, to love a cheat. How lonely.