A Long Way Back (Unfinished Business #2) - Barbara Elsborg Page 0,37
a couple of ten pence pieces. All he had. Ink worked on the principle that money grew from money. He kept the music upbeat and cheerful and cycled through About You Now by the Sugar Babes, U2’s Beautiful Day, Happy by Pharrell Williams, Shake It Off by Taylor Swift and All Star by Smash Mouth, then started again, and the coins kept falling in front of him.
Apart from a few places, including Covent Garden, you could busk anywhere in London, but sometimes shopkeepers got pissed off, as did passers-by who felt you were in their way when you weren’t. Some didn’t see a guy down on his luck, they saw a beggar who was likely addicted to drugs or alcohol, or a scam artist whose posh car was parked around the corner. Some women flirted. Occasionally, men too. One guy had once spat at him. It had been all Ink could do not to clock him one. When tourists took photos or recorded him on their phones, he tried to keep his head down.
Ink tried not to outstay his welcome whenever he busked. Any hint of aggravation from anyone and he moved on. When a blind guy started to play his guitar several yards away, Ink packed up. He put his money in a sock he kept in his guitar bag. He had never figured out how he’d lost the other sock. He was careful with all his stuff. Over ninety minutes, he’d collected around twenty-five pounds. He dropped fifty pence onto the blind guy’s guitar case as he passed. He was good, but not as good as Ink.
He went into the first charity shop he came to. There was an elderly lady behind the counter and a younger one arranging goods on the shelves. Ink approached the younger one.
“Excuse me? Do you have any swimming trunks that would fit me?”
“If we do, they’ll be on here.” She led him to a circular display unit. “What about these?” She held up a pair of blue ones.
Ink glanced at the ticket. Three pounds. That wasn’t bad, though he’d rather pay less.
“Or these?”
Neon pink and short, but only one pound fifty. “They’ll be great. Thanks. What about a towel?”
“We don’t get too many towels because by the time people send them to us, they’re pretty ratty but there is this beach towel.”
Grey with black footprints all over it. Ink liked it.
“Two pounds.”
He sighed but he didn’t want to spend hours wandering from shop to shop to save fifty pence. He took the towel from her hand. “Thanks.”
On the way to the till, he saw a couple more things he wanted to buy and picked them up. Fifty pence for one, a pound for the other.
“Do you need a plastic bag?” the lady behind the counter asked.
Ink hesitated.
“You don’t need to buy one,” she whispered. “I’ll give you an old one that someone’s used to bring in donations.”
“Thank you.”
He pulled out his sock of money and carefully counted out the coins, using up as much small change as he could. He didn’t mind people giving him pennies and tuppences, but they were heavy to carry and hard to use a lot of at one go. Charity shops were more amenable than others to him paying in loose change.
More of his cash was used buying strings for his guitar. There weren’t that many music shops around and though he didn’t need new strings yet, it was sod’s law that when he did, he’d be nowhere near a place to buy them. He went into a discount linen store and bought a pillow. Not the cheapest because it was too bouncy, but a medium priced one. When he spotted a pack of grey sheets on offer, he hesitated, then bought them. He’d been going to manage with his sleeping bag, but the sheets would always come in useful for something. A makeshift wall in a squat. Covering a ratty floor. An extra layer of warmth in the winter. He also bought a pack of dental chews for Dog.
It had been ages since he’d spent so much in such a short time. He was relieved he didn’t need to get money out of his account, but unless Tay offered to pay, Ink would have to use his card to make a contactless payment when he and Tay used the bus that afternoon. He needed to keep enough cash for the pool. Ink really tried not to be paranoid about being traced, but he always had it