Every morning at ten o’clock Roger rolls up his corrugated metal shutters and sets his paste tables, bargain bins, and rusty clothes rails out on the pavement in front of his shop, forcing the public to either negotiate his maze of wares or step into the road to avoid them. A bulky man approaching sixty, his navy pullover creased and shiny from the excessive heat of launderette tumble-driers, Roger belongs to an age when all shopkeepers regarded the street as a natural extension of their premises, theirs by right to fill with obstructions to ensnare the passing shoppers, to catch their eyes and tempt them inside.

To the rest of the street, already open for business an hour or more, Roger’s Emporium is something of an embarrassment. The smartly dressed young clerks from the glass-fronted Estate Agents pick their way past his display with a flaring of the nostrils and a downward twist of the lips. None of them have ever been inside. The woman at the florist’s next door always smiles and says good morning but is careful to erect her cardboard Interflora sign as a barrier between them whenever the weather is fine enough for her to put her buckets of carnations outside. Roger’s Emporium, magnificent in its utilitarian concrete ugliness, stands amongst the shiny bars and cafes and student flats as if to spite them. The commerce of the street grudgingly tolerates in presence, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before this dirty smear of the city’s poor-cousin past is pulled down to make way for ‘executive offices’ and ‘luxury apartments’, or a Tesco Metro mini-mart Express.

The rails of ‘good’ clothes outside, items that someone might actually want to buy – men’s overcoats. Blue jeans and, once, a black leather jacket with a band logo emblazoned down the sleeves – give way inside to a forest of bent hangers displaying items of gradually deteriorating quality and desirability, terminating in a final sad rail of nylon dresses and shoulder-padded blouses in bold geometric prints. Beyond them is the furniture section with its selection of folding Formica tables, battered dining chairs, and ugly standard lamps. Then comes the area of true junk, the sideboards and shelves crammed with books and plates and trinkets, the paraphernalia of daily life spanning five decades; too old to be useful, too new to be of antiquarian value. China poodles jostle with a set of avocado-coloured plastic kitchenware. Old tins that once contained tea or peppermints sit alongside damaged doll’s house furniture and novelty paperweights. Piled on the floor in strategic corners are battered boxes of Buckaroo, Mousetrap, and Kerplunk!, all with little stickers on the front that say: “pieces missing”.

Dawn Melgrove found Roger’s Emporium by accident one day, on her way back from an interview with a company that leased vending machines further up the street. She had taken an immediate dislike to the woman interviewing her, and spent the entire interview knowing she would never work there.

She dawdled down the street, in no hurry to return to her latest temporary office job and came across the tumult of bric-a-brac that marked the boundary of Roger’s Emporium. Here were microwave cookbooks, ‘Your Stars’ for 1987, an old Beano annual. In a wire supermarket basket, she found half-empty bottles of nail varnish and used lipsticks in brash colours, all items 35p. She spent an enraptured hour wandering the musty labyrinth that was part shop, part museum. The cool air and the smell of age acted as a damper on the bright bustle of the world outside. She liked the thought that everything here had once been a part of someone else’s life; found herself contemplating the faces that might have been reflected in that mirror, or the meals that had been served on those plates.

She bought a knitting pattern for a poncho and a pair of size 3 needles, and from then on visited Roger’s once a week, usually on Thursday after work, and bought herself something cheerful and silly. The shop seemed to stay open until Roger was too drunk to continue serving. Dawn often wondered what Roger and his shop were like first thing Friday mornings. On her way home from the cinema one Thursday night the bus drove past the Emporium and saw Roger crashing about amongst his bargain bins shouting loudly, shop lights blazing onto the darkened street, and she smiled and decided she would go in there the next morning, just to see.

Roger sat bleary-eyed and unshaven behind the counter on his own, swigging tea from a mug with dark brown stains. He was having trouble focusing this morning. It was that Ken Stacey’s fault, him and his cheap whisky. Little Jim had gotten so drunk that he lost four games in a row, then fell backwards off his chair when he went to throw his hand in. Roger grinned. Old bugger could hardly stand up anyway, even after him and Ken had set him on his feet. He shook his head, causing the loose flesh of his cheeks to wobble.

Anyway. Best sharpen up. That old bag Mrs. Dulwich would be in later with a box of tat for him to look at. She’d slipped a load of old nighties in with a bunch of silk scarves last time he’d been feeling delicate. Rotten cow. They’d never sell. He put them out anyway – there was no room for them upstairs. He smiled weakly at the girl with the freckles and the long brown hair and slid her box of fuzzy felt into an old Co-op bag. She was a sweetie, that one. Normally came in on a Thursday.

It was ten past eleven, and here he was, still on his first tea. Could do with a little nip in it, he mused, take the edge off. Perhaps Bea would pop by later and bring him a drop. There were three black bins full of clothes behind him, waiting to be priced and put on the rails, but he’d no inclination to start on them right now. Beyond these, an assortment of cardboard boxes containing items he’d picked up at Wednesday’s action were still awaiting inspection. Then there was the long-term pile that stretched into the little office behind the desk, all intended for the shop floor one day, just as soon as he got around to it.

The pale lad with the dyed black hair was here again, thumbing through the records. He bought odd things like Big Band records and obscure pop songs from the seventies, not like most of the youngsters. But Roger had long since ceased to speculate why people bought the things they did, or to wonder what they did with them. The lad would be there for ages, he knew. Roger went into the office and put the kettle on again. The two white window envelopes he’d found on the mat when he’d opened up this morning, addressed to The Proprietor, were on the desk. He stuffed them behind the plastic pen holder. He found some Paracetamol in the desk and swallowed a couple. A pink bedroom rug, rolled into a cylinder and propped against the wall, caught his eye. He unrolled it and draped it over the back of the chair, appraising it while he dunked the teabag around in his mug. The tufts in one corner had been fused together with some sticky brown substance. He leaned forward to inspect the lump more closely, picking at it with clumsy fingers. He had just decided he could cut the lump out and maybe get £2 When the pale lad approached the counter with two records under his arm. Roger poured milk in his tea and fished the teabag out, leaving it steaming on the side.

‘The Eel Pie Swing Band’ and Ooh Ooh Ooh I Love You’.

Pound please. Need a bag?” Roger asked, ringing up the sale.

The boy leaned forward and frowned, then shook his head. “Nah, you’re all right,” he said.

“Cheers then,” Roger smiled.

The lad nodded and tucked the records back under his arm, walking briskly out of the shop. He never stopped to look at anything else, that one. He wasn’t a browser, or the sort to be tempted by a special offer at the front of the shop. There were a couple of people there now – an elderly woman in a green headscarf rummaged through the £1 clothes bin; a middle-aged man in a smart jacket leant over a box of paperbacks. He would walk on, Roger knew.

David Harris paused outside Roger’s Emporium, looking down the street and considering for a moment whether to go to the sandwich bar and get a baguette for lunch, but then changing his mind. He had too much to do. He wanted to get back and hear these records out loud on the desk before the neighbours got back. The shift-worker downstairs and the elderly man next door with the disgusting cough were always moaning about the noise and had already complained twice to the landlord, who’s told David he’d have to leave if he didn’t keep it down. He used the headphones mostly, now. They were good quality, but it wasn’t the same. He got one hour on weekdays, after the old man went out but before the shift worker came home.

David was twenty-one and had been DJing since he was seventeen. The specialist had told him to wear earplugs at gigs and limit the amount of time he spent with the headphones on. The tinnitus would only get worse. He would lose most of his hearing range by the time he was forty. The techie at Riverside Studios had heard his set at White Noise and promised him a job when he finished college. No-one was doing the kind of stuff he did.

He flicked the amp on and swirled the mouse around, bringing the computer screen to life. He had so much to do.

The woman with the acne-scarred face from the library was looking at the jewelry. She picked up a string of fake pearls and draped them around her neck, then put them down again. Roger had seen her at work, scowling as she stamped books and stacked up the trolleys. He went in there on his day off sometimes to read the paper while he waited for the pub to open. She had stout thighs and short cropped hair, which did nothing to soften her bad-tempered expression. She always spent good money, though. Once, she’d bought a black taffeta ball gown, a real find that had turned up with a load of old furniture and knick-knacks. Roger had sold it to the scar-faced girl for £25. Later, he thought perhaps he could have gotten more for it, if he’d had it dry-cleaned. It had made a good centrepiece in the clothing section. Perhaps he should try doing more fancy clothes? – But he couldn’t compete with those fancy ‘vintage clothing boutiques’ up town.

Roger sighed. The Paracetamol had reduced his hangover to a vague pain in the back of his head, like something unpleasant he had shut away in a cupboard. He could smell the chips frying at the takeaway across the road, getting ready for the lunchtime trade. People began to appear on the street, some of them drifting in to the shop and taking a desultory look around. After twelve it got busier and Roger no longer saw each individual that came in: they became crowds, greasy with chips and sticky with coke, schoolboys on skateboards and mothers on their way back from the Co-op, shouting and gossiping and jostling amongst his crowded aisles. He sold a casserole dish, a stuffed toy, an old cycling helmet. Odds and ends. Never enough. At one o’clock Bea came over from the café, bringing him a bacon roll and some crisps. The Paracetamol had worn off and he felt rotten again. Bea sat down behind the counter and rolled a cigarette.

“Bob Runsford was round earlier, looking for you,” she said, blowing smoke over a little boy who ran past the counter towards his mum waving a Superman kite, shouting “Can I have this? Can I?”

“Where did you get that from? Put it back right now!” came the reply.

The boy trudged down the aisle, not really looking for the space the kite occupied, reaching out to run his fingers through the fringe of an orange hand-knitted poncho as he passed.

Roger watched him. He’d have loved a kite like that when he was that age. Couldn’t sell them for a pound these days.

“He says you own him,” Bea continued.

Roger said nothing. He opened the till. From under the counter he gathered a number of bank bags and started filing them with silver, slowly stacking the coins as he counted them up, then sweeping each pile into a bag.

“When d’you see him?” Roger asked.

Bea shrugged. “This morning. He’ll be in The Barrels by now.”

Roger nodded. A woman with greasy hair parked her baby’s pushchair by the counter and shoved an armful of children’s clothes towards them. She wore a pair of combat trousers and a tight white top. Her pregnant belly bulged out from the gap between them. The little boy, still clutching the kite, skulked behind her.

“All right, love, how are you?” Bea stubbed her roll up out on the concrete floor and started sorting through the clothes.

“Don’t ask,” the woman replied. She turned and snapped at the boy, “I told you put it back!”

His face puckered. He held the kite tightly.

“Go on, let him have it. 50p to you,” said Roger.

The woman sighed impatiently. “What do you say to the man?”

“Fank you,” the boy beamed shyly.

Roger went into the office and took his donkey jacket off the back of the door.

He put the bagged coins in his pocket and left the women chatting.

Tanya had women in a good mood, even though she’d had a rotten night’s sleep. She couldn’t get used to the noise of the traffic, or the people passing beneath her window at all times of the day and night. She wished she’d never bought this flat. Five months she’d been here, and she still didn’t know anyone. The couple downstairs were never in; the family next door didn’t speak any English and just stared at her whenever she said hello.

But none of it mattered today, because she had the day off and was going to stay with her best friend Liz for the weekend. Liz’s husband was babysitting and tonight they were going to see a show, and then to a bar or a club – wherever they felt like. She imagined themselves spending the early part of the evening drinking wine and doing their hair, trying on various different outfits, like they used to back when they were at Uni. Then they would get a taxi into town and there would be the thrill of the theatre, the pleasure of watching everyone coming in and taking their seats, the expectant hush when the lights went down.

Everything was ready. She filled up the petrol on the way home last night, packed her things, and picked out her CDs for the journey. She was out the front door and halfway to her car before she realised she couldn’t see it. She stopped by the curb. She had parked here, hadn’t she? She knew she had, but she walked up and down the street anyway, just to be sure. No. She knew she’d parked here, this was her parking space.

Tanya stood on the pavement, looking at the scattered squares of glass that lay in the empty space her car should be, unable to process what she was seeing. There was a ringing in her ears, and she felt dizzy, as though the pavement she stood on had become a cliff edge and she was looking down at the road, far, far below. She must be ill, must be suffering from some kind of amnesia. Had she left her car somewhere else yesterday, at work maybe, or at the garage?

After some time – she didn’t know how long – she went indoors and phoned the police. Two disinterested officers showed up an hour later, a man and a woman, and drove her to a place a few streets away where a burnt-out wreck had been abandoned near a block of flats.

She didn’t cry. She felt as though she were standing some distance away, watching someone who looked like her, like she had when her mum had phoned her to tell her that her granddad was dead. The policewoman said that Tanya was in shock and asked if there was anyone she could call. Tanya said there was no-one. She opened the back door of the wreck, her car, her little car, the first car she’d ever bought herself after she had graduated, with money her parents could not afford to give her. The fire had been started on the back seat and had melted the blanket she kept there to cover up the marks on the upholstery. It’s the one she’d had on her bed when she was a girl. She picked up a corner of the blanket, blue tassel black with soot. Something so precious, so callously destroyed.

The police made her sign some forms and offered to take her home, but she didn’t want to be there, and she didn’t want anyone with her. She walked away from the car, the thing that had come to represent her independence, her means of escape. For a while she wandered in no particular direction, until she found herself on a busy, unfamiliar street, heading towards the park. At a corner shop she bought a magazine, then sat in a grimy café drinking coffee until she had read every word, even the adverts. Still she wasn’t ready to go home. On her way to the park she passed an enormous second-hand shop. It reminded her of the markets she’d visited in India during her gap year, where she would lose herself for hours among the winding alleys full of unfamiliar things. Grateful for the diversion, she went inside.

The Barrels had not yet been invaded by the large television screens and fridges full of alco-pops that had claimed the bulk of the pubs Roger and his associates had once frequented. It had high frosted windows and embossed wallpaper, stained nicotine yellow. It smelt of stale beer and old carpets. Behind the bar, a radio announcer read out the horse racing results.

Roger found Bob Runsford, a white-haired man with curiously smooth skin, smoking his pipe at a corner table with Little Jim. He bought them both a pint of bitter that had a sweet, slightly chemical taste, and dumped several bags of coins on the table in front of Bob, explaining that he would have the rest on Monday. “Just need a decent weekend, is all. Picked up some good stuff at the auction, should shift pretty quick.”

Bob took a gulp of beer and swilled it around in his mouth deliberately. He swallowed, set his glass down heavily, and pushed the bags across the tables.

“That’s all right, mate. You’re a good bloke, you are. I know you wouldn’t mess me about. I’n’t that right, Jim?”

Jim was engrossed in checking off his betting slip. He tipped his pint in Roger’s direction as a gesture of assent.

“Eh, I’ll tell you what though,” Bob leaned forward on his stool, lowering his voice, “Pete Turvey’s selling up!”

“Never!” Jim glanced up momentarily.

Bob leant back and nodded slowly.

Roger rubbed his chin doubtfully. “You sure?”

“Still owes me for them fridges, don’t he? Went round there yesterday, big sign outside. Reckons he was gonna pay me off when the sale went through, cheeky bastard.”

Roger took a large swig of beer, feeling his body relax, his internal organs start to settle down for the first time all day.

“Where’s he off to, then?”

“Says he’s going up North, near Sandra’s family, like.”

Roger shook his head. “Bloody hell. Never thought he’d go. Thought he was doing all right.”

Bob pulled a face. “Got an offer, didn’t he? From them Developers. I dunno,” he shrugged, nudging Jim, “not many of the old crowd left now, is there mate?” Jim put down his pen and pushed the betting slip away from him, shaking his head. “I tell you: pub’re full of kids, betting shop’s laying odds on that bloody telly programme. Can’t even park your car outside your own house without a bloody permit from the council. What’s it all about, eh?”

Roger finished his pint.

“Same again?” Bob asked and bought them another. “Ere, I tell you what, I went to get some stove paint from Murphy’s the other day – bloody gone, i’n’t it? Full of computers now. What are they up to, all these young ‘uns, with their mobile phones and their computers?” Bob was beginning to slur. He and Jim began discussing the details of recent local burglaries, including Bob’s own. Roger had heard most of these before, although Bob’s list of stolen items had grown since last time. Bob shook his head sadly. “I dunno mate. It’s no place for us lot any more. I’m thinking of shipping out, me and Maureen.”

Roger quickly finished off his second pint. As soon as Bob started talking about him and Maureen buying a houseboat and settling down in Norfolk, it was time to go.

Outside it was sunny but cold. Roger thrust his hands into his pockets and his fingers brushed against a crumpled piece of paper, thrilled for a moment that it might be a forgotten fiver. He was disappointed to discover it was a notebook page with someone’s name and phone number scribbled on it. It was that bloke from the Developers. He’d been round last week. He hadn’t told Bea about it, yet. He knew what she would say. He should be thinking about the future. You can’t go on humping all that old gear around for ever, she said. We’re none of us getting any younger. He shoved the paper back in his pocket.

Roger had lived right here in this neighbourhood all his life. He’d written off his first van reversing out of Chevvy’s Garage down there and proposed to his missus – God rest her – in that restaurant that used to be on the corner by Laurimer Street. There was a Chinese there now, that did an all-you-can-eat buffet for a fiver on Wednesdays, but there were always fights outside. Chevvy’s had been pulled down and new shops and houses had gone up. It was hard to remember exactly where the old place had been. Used to be he would recognise most every face down this street, and look it now, full of strangers with their heads down hurrying this way and that. How could the world have shifted so, without him noticing? Who were all these youngsters in their hooded tops and big shoes, walking along with their headphones on talking into their phones, never stopping, never looking you in the eye? Where were they all going?

Perhaps he ought to give that bloke a ring, after all.

Amongst the dented Matchbox Minis and fire engines with no ladders, Tanya found a little tin Cortina, exactly the same shade of blue her car had been before all the paint had been turned to silky white ash by the fire.

She had to press her lips together hard to stop herself from crying as she picked it up, a battered little toy. Had it been someone’s prize once, their ‘best’ car, or just one in a box of many? Had it raced up and down pavements and hallways, outrunning the bad guys, winning rallies, performing death-defying stunts? Here it was now, abandoned on a shelf under a piece of cardboard written with the words ‘small cars – 20p’.

She took it up to the counter, hiding her face from the old man in the donkey jacket as she handed over her money. She didn’t want to look at him. His big, tired face made her think of her granddad. If they should make eye contact then she felt that somehow, he would be able to see all the tears and hurt she was trying to keep in, just like her granddad always could. And yet some part of her wanted him to notice, was wishing that he would see. If he would suddenly come out from behind his counter and hug her up in his pudgy arms and say “there, there, love”, then she would be able to cry.

But the man only said,

“Cheers, then!”, so Tanya put the toy car in her pocket and walked out of the shop with her head held low. Her phone started ringing. She didn’t answer.

“Keep an eye for us, would you love?”

“Where you going now? I’ve gotta get back to work!”

“Left me ciggies in the pub!” Roger called to Bea as she followed the girl out of the shop. He staggered a little as he hurried through the entrance. The girl was wearing trainers and walked quickly down the street. Roger was having difficulty keeping up with her. The bags of coins were still in his pocket, and they bumped uncomfortably against his leg as he walked. There was a slight fizz in his stomach, and the taste of bitter mixed with greasy bacon in the back of his throat. He felt drunk, as if the lunchtime beer had somehow re-activated the alcohol from the night before. But he needed, to know to satisfy his curiosity. Where were they all going?

Tanya went to the park. Mums were pushing toddlers on swings, people in track suits were jogging. An old lady fed ducks on the pond. Roger hadn’t been to the park in years. He and his wife used to come here on Sundays, have ice-creams by the boat-house and watch the teenage boys and girls rowing off to some secludes spot. He chuckled. The boats were still there, moored up by the little ticket office. Were the gardens the same, he wondered? And the little arboretum, was that still there? The girl had slackened her pace and was wandering slowly past clumps of winter snowdrops that poked out through the mass of dead stems. Roger hung back. Bloody ridiculous, being out here on a freezing cold afternoon, following some young girl around like a pervert. He ought to get back to the shop. His hand closed on the piece of paper with the Developers’ phone number on it.

Tanya passed between raised beds of bare earth and lonely leaves, finding an empty bench overlooking the pond. She watched the ducks squabbling over scraps of bread. People drifted past.

She took the toy car out of her pocket and turned it over in her hands, rubbing its painted blue bonnet. Tears came to her eyes.

A little boy ran past her with a Superman kite, not catching the wind but running and skipping and trailing the line out behind him anyway so that the kite followed in his slipstream.

“Up, up, and away!” he yelled.

He was so happy she couldn’t help but smile. How silly, to get so upset over a thing. It was only a car. She would claim on her insurance and get another. And she would always have this one.

“Up, up, and away!”

The boy charged along the path, almost barging into Roger.

His mother strolled along behind him with the pushchair. The baby was holding a hunk of bread that had been partially torn up for duck food.

“Watch where you are going!” she called. “Sorry – oh, hello,” she said cheerfully, recognising him. “He’s loving the kite.”

Roger smiled. He could see the girl a few yards ahead, sitting with her feet up on a bench, knees drawn tight under her chin. She was holding the toy car between her fingers. Was she crying?

There was a bin near the bench. Roger crumpled the piece of paper in his fist and, as casually as he could, dropped it in the bin as he went past, stealing a glance at the girl. Her eyes were wet and sore, but she wasn’t crying. She was staring across the pond with a wistful smile, as though she’d discovered something there that she’d thought was lost a long time ago.

Roger left her and continued down the path, between two large conifer trees. As he emerged into the arboretum he was engulfed by the most delicious scent. In front of him was a rangy shrub peppered with odd yellow flowers, as if someone had glued little twists of tissue paper onto the bare branches. He moved in closer, breathing in a cloud of spicy almond, wondering what they could be. He’d never seen anything like them before.

Her next door at the florist’s would know.

The bagged coins weighed heavy in his pocket. He would call in there on his way back, and buy some flowers, for Bea.

Originally published in White Wall Review 32 (2008)