I dumped the box in the hall. The final room was tiny, and I expected it to be crammed. Instead, the metal arms of the guitar stands clutched at the air, like skeletons of Mark’s dreams. Only Shelly remained, splendid in the almost-empty room, my torchlight bouncing back brightly from her tortoiseshell inlay. Mark’s initials twined lovingly among the frets, and it seemed cruel to muffle the shining instrument in the darkness of the case.
Mark’s other guitars never had names, just Shelly. He used the others – for practice, for gigs – but he loved Shelly. She’d been handmade for him by a man in Oxfordshire, back in the days when Mark was dealing coke and rolling in money. Even to someone whose initials weren’t MGC she’d be worth more than all the others put together, and yet even with the red bills piling up he’d kept her. Perhaps in his hypothetical fire he would have found the chest wasn’t enough.
I wondered whether he’d still written songs with Shelly as he got weaker and the electricity went off. I could almost see him sitting on the bed against the wall, eyes closed and Shelly in his lap. Would he have looked like someone close to death? Had he lost weight, lost his hair, or developed skin lesions? Did he shiver as the radiators cooled?
I shook my head, trying to push the thoughts away. I picked up the guitar, slung the case over my shoulder, and lifted the box. The drifts of fallen post, crumpled against the door, showed someone had been in. Should I kick them back, try and hide my visit? maybe even clean my fingerprints from the light switch? I shrugged and walked out into the night.
The wooden chest was heavier than I’d imagined, and began to drag at my arms. I turned onto the main street, Mark’s box a deadweight echo of all the amplifiers I’d helped carry up and down this road.
I passed the bar – now decorated in chi-chi pale greens and selling overpriced cocktails – where I first heard Mark sing. It had been dark and damp, back then, but the shape of the doorway was the same.