Free The Cure of Souls by Phil Rickman Page B

instruments, so it had to be worth more than anything else in the museum. But what was it doing here – and did it have anything to do with hops?
    Lol played the opening chords of the River Frome song: B minor, F sharp. The tone was entirely distinctive: deep but sharp, a bit like the voice of the man with the long, white hair.
    He stopped playing.
No
… No, really, it couldn’t be. Because he was dead, wasn’t he? He would surely have to be dead, after all this time.
    ‘Al,’ he said, jabbing a thumb at his own chest. ‘And this is Sally, my wife.’
    They stood together in the doorway, looking strangely like a period couple from a sepia photograph. Sally’s hair was ashgrey, fine and shoulder-length. She was tall and slim and, at surely close to the same age as Al himself, still startlinglybeautiful. She wore a long, dark blue dress and half-glasses on a chain.
    But her handshake was businesslike and her accent clipped and cultured. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘you thought he was dead. Everybody thinks he’s dead. Which is absolutely no handicap at all when we have one to sell. It gives it a certain patina of antiquity.’
    ‘You like her, then?’ Al Boswell asked him. ‘You like my baby?’
    He meant the guitar.
    Al
.
    Alfonso Boswell: virtuoso blues and ragtime guitarist and perhaps the most revered, if eccentric, guitar-maker of the past half-century.
    ‘Can’t believe this,’ Lol mumbled.
    ‘He’s a little older than he looks.’ Sally Boswell flicked at her husband’s snowy hair. ‘But also he’s been making guitars and things since he was just in his teens, so that rather confuses people.’
    ‘I
wanted
to stop,’ Al Boswell said, ‘but after I finished the last one, I awoke in the night with what seemed very like the first twinges of arthritis. Well, I’m a superstitious man, from a long line of superstitious men, so I started work again the very next morning.’
    Lol thought of the gypsy caravan outside. According to the legend, Alfonso Boswell would travel the country lanes, selecting and cutting his own wood and then set up his workshop in some forest clearing – each instrument growing organically in the open air, under the sun, under the stars. There would be no more than three or four guitars a year; it was never a full-time job, and he’d also be doing seasonal work on the farms: fruit-picking and… hop-picking?
    Looked like Al Boswell had uncoupled his caravan and settled down.
    ‘And if you didn’t know already,’ Sally Boswell said drily, ‘the Rom are renowned for their outrageous lies. Proud of it, too, for reasons that still escape me after all these years.’
    ‘Non-confrontational is all we are,’ Al said. His face carried very few lines and his skin was lighter-toned than you’d imagine on a pure-bred gypsy. ‘Amazing, it is, how much conflict can be avoided by a well-timed fib. The truth can be hurtful and dangerous sometimes. Come on, lad, what do you
really
think of the instrument?’
    Lol thought this was getting increasingly unreal. He thought, Why should Alfonso Boswell care what the hell I think?
    ‘We heard your playing,’ Sally said. ‘We were listening outside the door, I’m afraid.’
    ‘So you’ll know why I’m not worthy even to tune it.’ Lol was embarrassed. He was still holding the guitar but careful to keep his fingers well away from the strings.
    ‘How long you been playing?’ Al Boswell asked him.
    ‘Oh…’ Lol blinked nervously. ‘Since I was a kid with a plastic one. Sad, isn’t it?’
    ‘It’s not the technique, lad. It’s the
heart
, the relationship. You know that.’ Al tapped the body of the guitar. ‘This one – she’s very young, you see. She’s the first this year. And she’ll probably be the last, I reckon. What she needs is a good playing-in. I never let one go until she’s been played-in. What do you think, now? Is she worth it?’
    ‘Oh, Al!’ Sally frowned. ‘You can hardly expect a snap judgement. Why don’t