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Mrs Jasmine McGowan
Outward appearance
Professional shoplifter? Flat tennis shoes, grubby pink trousers, puffy lime-green coat, straw-like untended broom of hair. Plump, smiling slightly, surrounded by shopping bags full of bits of metal.Inside information
Runs a shop next to Emil's Window Displays. It sells bedsteads, radios, lamps, refrigerators in need of repair, hubcaps from a range of automobiles, old magazines, clothes. It would be easy to mistake it for a junk shop. It is in fact a clinic that cures old jukeboxes and 1960s psychedelic lamps. What she is doing or thinking
Jasmine left a lamp on all night to warm. The red wax has settled into a sluggish clump at the bottom amid the oil. Sometimes prolonged heating restores its youth. The red bobbles churn once more as livid as a Yes album cover. Jasmine is also nursing a sick Rock-ola. It's an early 70s model, called Rhapsody in Colour because lights flicker within different coloured panels. Jasmine is buddies with the dealer who bought up the whole warehouse of Rock-ola spare parts when Mr Rock-ola retired.
She'll be able to keep the Rock-olas and lamps going for years yet. Like the record in the jukebox says: Won't Hang Up These Rock and Roll Shoes.
Jasmine grew up in a trailer in Canada, drifting across another continent with her hippy parents. She remembers pine trees, huge lakes surrounded with rock, flaming autumn colours and winters that left her cold six months of the year. Her Dad's still in Canada, near Vancouver, fishing. Her Mum's in a home.
She hopes the wax will have warmed.
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