Page 241 - The Midnight Library

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A New Way of Seeing

She got closer to the station, passing the garish red-and-yellow zigzags of La

Cantina, like a Mexican migraine, with a waiter inside taking chairs off
tables. And String eor y too, closed, with a handwritten notice on the
door :

Alas, String eor y is no longer able to trade in these premises. Due to
an increase in rent we simply couldn’t afford to go on. anks to all our

loyal customers. Don’t ink Twice, It’s All Right. You Can Go Your
Own Way. God Only Knows What We’ll Be Without You.

It was the exact same note she had seen with Dylan. Judging by the date,
written in small felt-tip letters from Neil’s hand, it was from nearly three
months ago.

She felt sad, because String eor y had meant a lot to people. Yet Nora
hadn’t been working at String eor y when it got into trouble.
Well. I suppose I did sell a lot of electric pianos. And some rather nice
guitars too.

Growing up, she and Joe had always joked about their hometown, the way

teenagers do, and used to say that HMP Bedford was the inner prison and
the rest of the town was just the outer prison, and any chance you had to
escape you should take it.

But the sun was out now, as she neared the station, and it seemed that she
had been looking at the place wrong all these years. As she passed the statue
of prison reformer John Howard in St Paul’s Square, with the trees all