It’s an easy conclusion, a lazy judgement. The shop wasn’t busy the few times I was there, so it was therefore never busy. And maybe that was true. But it hung in for a little while before forces beyond commerce took precedence.

It was not a big shop, so not a lot of stock. Boutique, you could say. Or bespoke, whatever that means.  Whatever translates to ‘deliberately small’.

My musician son had bought me a gift voucher. It’s tricky being in a little shop and you’re the only customer. Just you and the records. And the woman in the cap at the counter looking at a laptop.

You know you’re going to spend money (well, the voucher, money that’s already been spent) but you’re still a fraction uneasy. As if you’re loitering.

I eventually chose two records, one by Gurrimul Yunupingu and, as a nod to my son’s passion for The Grateful Dead, a solo album by Bob Weir.

There was still some money left on the voucher.

“HOW ABOUT SOME MERCH?” offered the woman at the counter. “A CAP?”

She pointed to a black and red cap advertising the shop, though I could also see the one perched atop her hair.

“Maybe,” I murmur, caught out by her enthusiasm.

“OR A T-SHIRT? PLENTY OF SIZES.”

Red and white lettering against black. Three words. And the first three letters of the last word spell my name.

One can never have enough t-shirts.

At home I play the records. Bob Weir takes me back to the ‘70s. Gurrimul takes me back to, well, ancient times. Thousands of years hence.

I pass the shop now and then. It seems no busier.

Then, one day, it’s not there. It’s a pop-up clothes shop.

My son tells me the woman behind the counter is ill. Quite ill.