Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel

mean?”
    “I don’t see why you have to throw around words like ‘steal’,” she said.
    “Well, in any case, it’s just a lot easier to get here a bit early.”
    “An
hour
early.” There was still a certain amount of vexed nostril flaring, but she seemed to reluctantly accept my logic. She stared at the shadows moving inside the hall. “Do the Boy Scouts still exist? I thought they’d all been buggered to death by evil perverted scoutmasters who had groomed them on the Internet.”
    “You have a very dark view of humanity.”
    “I get out more than you do.”
    “Anyway, that’s the Girl Guides you’re thinking of,” I said.
    She giggled.
    Luckily the rain eased off and we were joined a few minutes later by other early birds who queued impatiently for the place to open. As soon as she saw these, Nevada realised I hadn’t been kidding. “My god, they’re arriving already,” she whispered. “I had no idea jumble sales were such a cut-throat business.”
    “Mind some granny doesn’t put an elbow in your eye fighting over a high fashion creation.”
    “Don’t be absurd,” she said. Then—“Do you think they’ll actually have some high fashion creations?”
    “I’m counting on it, to keep you off my back.”
    About ten minutes before the sale was due to start, the door opened and a middle-aged man and woman in matching brown and white checked sweaters set up a small table with a coin tray from an old-fashioned cash register on it. By now the line of waiting customers extended down the block, back into the darkness, and there was a certain amount of restlessness manifesting itself, not just from my companion.
    Nevada looked at the coin tray and said, “They charge us to get in?”
    I laughed. “I thought I was the one who didn’t get out much.”
    “Not to jumble sales,” she said, “I don’t get out much to jumble sales. Why would I?”
    When the door opened I went straight for the records.
    There were three boxes of them. Not exactly boxes, though. They were in those purpose-built carrying cases that every self-respecting 1960s record owner had once possessed, red faux leather designs with handles on the lids and cheap tin locks. This was a good sign. It meant the albums had probably come from a decent collection and been properly looked after.
    I kneeled down in front of the record cases, as though about to commence an act of worship.
    I could feel Nevada standing at my back, as if to shield me from the swarm of jumble sale enthusiasts who were now pouring through the door in a flood. I lifted the first case. It was inordinately heavy and a quick glance inside confirmed my suspicions. It was full of 78s. I shoved it to one side.
    “Aren’t you going to look through it?” asked Nevada.
    “It’s all shellac,” I said. “We’re looking for vinyl.”
    “I’ll take your word for it.”
    The hall was now packed with people, going at the goods heaped on the tables like a swarm of locusts. You could feel the heat in the place rising. The second case was stuffed with LPs, so many that I couldn’t flip through them, they were that tightly packed. I lifted out a wedge of records and set it to one side. There was now enough clearance for me to flip through the rest. “Shall I look at those?” said Nevada. She indicated the records I’d removed.
    “Help yourself.” I was already halfway through the first case. It was all classical, by the look of it, mostly Deutsche Grammophon. Nevada finished flipping through her pile and set them down beside me again. I could sense she was bored already. “Why don’t you go and check out the other merchandise?” I said. “I saw some shoes over there.”
    “Shoes?” she said. “Second-hand?”
    “Second foot,” I said.
    “Won’t they give me verrucas or planar warts or something?”
    “
Plantar
warts,” I said. “A small price to pay for a pair of Jimmy Choos, surely?”
    “Do you really suppose they’ve got…” she said, but she was