A second-hand record store. Old French chansons played over the speakers. “Très bien,” Charlie beamed, because it made him feel at home. But this wasn’t France, it was an English suburb on a quiet Saturday afternoon. I Shazamed a song on my phone. It was Jeanne Moreau singing Les Voyages. 

Charlie rummaged through a cardboard box of old cassette tapes and I pointed out that had he found something interesting, then he wouldn’t be able to listen to it, because we didn’t have anything to play it on. 

And besides, I told him, I was surprised that he even knew what they were because they were obsolete before he’d been born. “That is not the point,” said the Millennium Child. “I have a good reason for looking.”

At last, he found something that pleased him. “This is what I want,” and he held up the soundtrack album to Betty Blue, or 37°2 le matin, if we want to give it the proper title. (I later discovered that it was released in 1986).

“But how are you going to play it?”

“I am not going to listen to it. If I wanted to do that I would listen to the music on Spotify. I have something else in mind.” With that, he borrowed a pound coin with which to buy it. 

The apartment. The office (which used to be Levi’s bedroom). The cassette tape is stood upright on a shelf alongside vintage postcards, pebbles and shells collected from beaches, and a wooden model of the Arc de Triomphe. “It is simply for show,” said Charlie.