The Record of Her

The lot list was lying on the corner table where I'd left it, and I'd been walking the preview hall at Fitch's for about two hours by then. I'm Justin Mitchel, twenty-seven, antiques appraiser, and my knees were complaining about all the crouching.

I was halfway down the oak tables, checking a Regency mirror I suspected was a Victorian fake, when lot 88 stopped me cold.

1962 Garrard record player, walnut plinth, original stylus.

I stared at it like it owed me money. Then I laughed out loud, which got a look from the guy dusting the velvet ropes.

Because I knew that record player. Six months ago Roxy and I were at the Sunday flea market in Kirkgate, and she'd stood over a beat-up console unit for ten minutes, sighing.

"That's the one," she'd said. "That's the exact one from my gran's front room. I'd kill for a proper Garrard with the walnut plinth. Nobody ever sells them."

And now one was sitting under a halogen lamp forty feet from my desk, with a reserve I could probably talk down.

I texted her a photo with a winking emoji. Then a second text: guess who's on the lot list Thursday.

Then I crouched down and looked at it properly, because that's the job. Plinth clean, no water staining. The platter had the original mat. Somebody had oiled the bearing recently, which told me either the estate knew what they had or they'd been playing it every Sunday for sixty years.

"Please be in the buyer's budget, please be in the buyer's budget," I muttered.

It wasn't. The estimate was going to hurt, and I already knew I was going to pay it anyway, because Thursday was our anniversary. Fourteen months since I'd walked into Roxy Lane's stall at the design trade show and complimented her Eames reproduction, and she'd told me it wasn't a reproduction, it was original, and I'd argued with her for twenty minutes, and I'd been wrong, and I'd been gone for her ever since.

We moved in together last spring. She's twenty-six, freelance interior design, terrifyingly good at it, and she has never once let me win an argument about furniture.

My phone buzzed.

IS THAT THE GARRARD. The one I said I'd kill for??

Same model, walnut plinth and everything.

BUY IT. Buy it right now. Do not let anyone else near it.

That was my plan, love.

I love how humble you are about it.

I put the phone away and went back to work, smiling at lot numbers like an idiot.

***

The next morning Roxy was at the Columbian Royal Hotel for a design conference, and I got a call from her at eleven that went about like this.

"So the Wi-Fi here has died."

"Hi, Roxy. Nice to hear from you too."

"Justin. The Wi-Fi. It's dead. I'm on a call with a client in Harrogate and my screen froze mid-sentence and now she thinks I've hung up on her."

"What did you say?"

"I said hold on one moment, and then the moment lasted four minutes, so."

I could hear the lobby behind her, that hotel echo where every voice bounces off marble. "Where are you now?"

"Lobby. They've got those armchairs by the windows. I'm leeching off the conference guest network and it's garbage too."

"Go back to the room?"

"Room network is the same network, genius. It's the whole hotel."

"Right. Fair."

She went quiet for a second, and then she said, "Hang on. There's a sign going up."

"What kind of sign?"

"A hand-lettered sign. It says Lodge Escape. Justin, there's a prize table in this lobby."

"What's the prize?"

"Sounds like a weekend at somewhere called Pike Lodge. Remote, up in the hills, sleeps four, and there's a photo wall of the place and it is stunning. Wood everywhere. And there's a whole table of bonus items for the winners."

"Bonus items like what?"

She didn't answer for a second. Then, kind of carefully, "Justin. Is there a record player on that table."

"Roxy."

"There is a record player on that table. A walnut plinth. Is the universe doing this on purpose?"

"You went to the flea market."

"Six months ago! I said I'd kill for one and now it's a trivia prize at my own conference, that's insane."

"So win it."

"We have to sign up. It's tonight, teams of up to four. Please. Please, Justin, I can't design my way through a pub quiz, you do the music and history rounds, I'll do the design rounds, we'll be unstoppable."

"Okay, but how does a lodge weekend fix your Wi-Fi problem?"

"Because Pike Lodge has satellite internet, it's on the brochure, I just read it. Which means if we win, I take the client call from a lodge with actual internet next month AND my boyfriend buys me a record player. Or wins me one, even better."

"You've got this all planned out."

"Justin, our neighbor's flat has had the whole street's broadband down since Monday. I cannot work from home, the hotel is a disaster, and the lodge is sitting right there. Sign-up desk closes at six. Come straight from work."

"I'm already coming straight there. It's our anniversary dinner, remember."

"Anniversary dinner is now anniversary trivia. Wear something nice."

***

The sign-up desk was run by a woman named Beverley with a clipboard and a lanyard that said EVENT COORDINATOR in block capitals. She looked at us like we were late.

"Team name?" she said.

"Say the walnut plinth," I said.

"We are NOT calling ourselves the walnut plinth."

"Fine. The Garrards."

Roxy pointed at me. "He's an antiques man, that's our music and history rounds covered. I'm Roxy, this is Justin."

"Wrote it down wrong anyway," Beverley said, crossing something out. "You're with Delia and Xander, table four. Delia and Xander are the two from the Leeds practice, they've done every trivia night this hotel has run, so good luck with that."

"Great," said Roxy. "Love a challenge."

Table four turned out to be Delia, who was maybe forty-five and wearing a blazer with actual shoulder pads, and Xander, who was younger and had a laptop open before we'd sat down.

"You're the appraiser," Delia said, shaking my hand. "Xander says he's seen you at Fitch's."

"Probably. I'm there most days."

"Then explain to me why the Sanderson chair is worth more than the Kirkby."

"Because it's a Sanderson."

Delia nodded slowly. "I like him. He's on the team."

The host was a wiry man called Hassan who'd clearly done this at every wedding and corporate function in West Yorkshire, and he opened with the rules.

"Twenty rounds. Ten general, five music, five picture rounds. Winner takes the lodge weekend and the bonus table. And one new rule this year, because last year's contest was a walkover, so we're spicing it up." He let that hang. "Round fifteen, if the gap between first and last is more than four points, the losing team does a forfeit round."

Groans went around the room.

"Nothing horrible," Hassan said. "The winners pick clothes out of the donation bin and the losers wear them for the rest of the night. That's it. That's the forfeit. There's a bin by the stage and apparently some