Edinburgh’s cobbled streets are covered with a slick of damp as the grey wash hovers ominously above. It feels like it might rain, although the woman at the hotel said that it’s always like that.
‘Never go out without a coat,’ she said.
‘Even in July?’ I asked.
‘Especially in July.’
There was sun this morning, but the darkness and chill of the day makes that feel like something of a dream.
David grips my hand a little firmer as he leads me through an arch which brings us out onto more cobbles. We don’t speak because we don’t need to. There’s something intrinsically old-time romantic about wandering hand-in-hand through these ancient streets. This is the sort of thing I pictured about being in a relationship. I check the watch that he gave me for my birthday and it tells me that it’s almost three in the afternoon. It feels a long way from the village in which I grew up, yet there is nowhere in the world I’d rather be.
It takes us almost half an hour to walk to the exhibition centre. David seems to know what he’s doing as he leads us around to one of the doors at the side. There’s a big sign for the ‘International Collectors’ Fair’ and David flashes a pass to a man on the gate, who waves us through. Inside, it smells of crisp, frayed paper; like walking into a musty bookshop. There are long rows of stalls that stretch from one side of the hall to the other. People are crowding along the aisles, shuffling forward like penguins huddling for warmth.
We stop on a platform overlooking the scene and David leans forward on his forearms as I slot in at his side.
‘I found some gems from your mum’s friends,’ he says. ‘I’ve already got some interested buyers in Sweden. I might have to fly out there in a week or so.’
‘I’ve heard Sweden’s really expensive,’ I reply.
‘Most of Scandinavia is. They earn more, so it doesn’t matter to them. It’s only when you visit that everything seems to cost a lot.’
‘How much will you make?’
‘Enough to make it worthwhile.’
David seems to be scanning the stalls for something, so I continue waiting at his side, watching the masses below. It’s only then that I realise how few women there are. There are men of all ages, shapes and sizes – although they are almost all white. This business feels very focused.
With David saying his haul is ‘enough to make it worthwhile’, I wonder if I should finally bring up rent. He’s been living with me for three months now and I’ve never quite got around to asking him to contribute to our living arrangements. Perhaps not even rent, but food or a share of the bills – that sort of thing. On average, he’s probably gone for a day a week at various fairs, though I’m not always sure. Until he brought me here, I was beginning to think that he was, essentially, unemployed. I never brought it up, but he might have picked up on it, which is why we’re in Edinburgh – and why he has been paying for everything.
So far, we’ve spent a whole day wandering the streets, which was topped off with afternoon tea and a whisky-tasting that somehow left me both light- and heavy-headed. I slept well last night.
David is still scanning the floor, where the long rows seem to be split into sections. There are records in one area and books in another, while I can also see magazines, comics, newspapers, figurines, street signs, football programmes and toys. There is even a stall below us selling the sort of bobblehead that’s in the back of David’s car.
‘Is this the type of place you sell?’ I ask.
David hums a little, turning from side to side. ‘Not really. It’s small fry here. People come to be cheapskates. The big money is in importing. If you can get something in bulk from somewhere like Bulgaria or Romania, there might be some first editions in there.’ He licks his lips and then adds: ‘I might be on to something in Slovakia. Got a supplier who reckons he’s come across a load of records from the sixties and seventies. All smuggled stuff from back when it was behind the Iron Curtain. Perfect condition, he says. He mentioned some Bowies, but that’s probably only scratching the surface.’
I’m not sure how to reply. It’s the first he’s mentioned of it and, if it’s true that big events like this are a waste of time, then I’m not sure why we’re here.
‘The problem is having the money upfront,’ David says.
He lets it hang for a while and only continues when it’s clear I don’t know how to reply.
‘A lot of my money is tied up in stock,’ he adds.
He has mentioned this before, although I’ve never been quite clear where David’s stock actually is. He told me he’s got records and books in storage that are waiting for the right buyer. When I asked how long it might take to sell, he shrugged and said that’s the business.
‘It’s true what they say,’ he adds. ‘It takes money to make money – but the banks don’t want to know.’ With barely a breath, he nods below: ‘Shall we go for a wander?’
I follow him down the stairs and we join the hordes of people who are ambling along the aisles. I never realised quite how much there was to collect. So much of what is on display looks as if it came straight from the landfill. There’s a stall where someone is offloading rack upon rack of metal signs. It looks like they’re from the fifties and sixties, with many advertising cigarettes in a way that seems so strange nowadays. I can understand collecting something like records – they can be listened to and there’s something artistic about the sleeves. I can’t see the point in anyone amassing signs.
David notices me staring and clamps a hand on my shoulder as he laughs. ‘It’s not what you’d buy – it’s what someone else will buy.’
We continue on, looping around to another aisle where there are rows of stalls selling toys. There are walls of action figures that I remember from my youth. Star Wars, Thundercats, He-Man and She-Ra, and Ninja Turtles are the ones I spot first – but there are many more. I was never that interested in anything specifically marketed for girls, which is perhaps why it’s a surprise to see the sheer breadth of colourful My Little Ponies on the next stall.
‘Takes you back, doesn’t it?’ David says.
The final stall has mainly Disney plushes. I step inside, partly to get away from the masses, and instantly baulk at the prices. There’s a palm-sized Mickey Mouse soft toy for which the seller is asking £300. David flits through the price labels and seems unsurprised by it all.
‘Do you sell soft toys?’ I ask.
‘Not regularly. They sometimes show up in a bulk buy.’
‘I can’t believe this costs £300.’
David points to the £450 tag attached to a Pooh Bear.
‘Do people pay that?’ I ask.
‘How do you think people like me make money? You can buy a hundred things in a job lot and it only takes one sale to cover the cost. Anything else is profit.’
He has explained this before, but it’s now I see it myself that it feels like something that can – and does – make money.
We’re about to leave the stall when I spot a small, clay Tigger pot next to the counter. It’s the odd item out in a stall of soft toys. When I was a girl, I read the Winnie The Pooh books and Tigger was always my favourite. Pooh always seemed to be so depressed and then Tigger would bounce around and make things better. That’s how I remember it, anyway.
‘Do you like it?’ David asks.
‘I think my mum used to have one. I might’ve played with it when I was a kid. I remember filling it with buttons.’ I swirl a hand, trying to find the recollection. ‘I sort of remember it, but I don’t. I must’ve been really young.
David turns to the girl behind the counter: ‘How much?’ he asks.
She spies the pot in my hand and pouts a lip. ‘Twenty?’
‘There’s a chip at the bottom. How about five for cash?’
The girl doesn’t bother to check the damage, which I hadn’t noticed. She mutters, ‘OK’ and then I hand her a note.
We continue walking around the fair and David shows a little interest in one of the record stalls, though he doesn’t buy anything. It takes us around ninety minutes in total until we’re back where we started at the platform overlooking the hall. I assume we’re going to leave, but David stops and leans once more. I join him because I’m not sure what else to do.
‘Have you thought about it?’ he asks.
I stare sideways at him, wondering if I missed a sentence among the hubbub: ‘Thought about what?’
‘The seed money for the Slovakia thing…’
I don’t know how I missed it before, but it now seems obvious that he was asking for money when he brought it up earlier. I wait for him to look at me, though he is focused only on the floor below.
‘I can’t lend you what I don’t have,’ I say.
‘But you could get a loan,’ David replies. ‘Say it’s for a car, or whatever. Once I’ve got the stock, I’ll be able to get your money back straight away. Like that Pooh Bear thing down there.’ He wafts a hand in the direction of the toy stall.
‘But that Pooh hadn’t sold,’ I reply. ‘You can put a price tag on anything – but if it’s unsold, then it doesn’t matter.’
David shakes his head. ‘You’re not seeing it.’
‘I can’t go and ask for a car loan and then give the money to you instead.’
He bites his lip and nods slowly before suddenly spinning on his heels. ‘Shall we go?’ he says.
‘Are you sure that’s all right?’ I ask.
He continues nodding, too quickly. ‘Of course,’ he replies. ‘Let’s go.’