Please Don't Stop The Music (13 page)

‘
Jason, people only have to ask you what time it is and you’ve
given them your life story.’

‘
I
know. I’m easily scruted, I am.’

‘
That’s not a word.’

‘
Ha.
Harry and I are gonna head up to the village for some more
paint-mix stuff. You coming?’

‘
No
thanks, I’m going back to the cottage to make sure Rosie’s having a
snooze. And I’ve got some work to do, some orders to parcel up and
stuff.’

‘
Have it ya own way. I notice you’re not losing the picture of
your boy there.’

Exaggeratedly I pressed the buttons to wipe Ben’s face from
the computer screen and hoped that Jason hadn’t noticed me
bookmarking the page.

* *
*

1st
May

Weather – Night.

It’s
like I’m feeling a chord I hit years ago. The music won’t let me
go, it’s here in the back of my head all the time, playing itself
out over and over, getting to the chorus, until I feel all I have
to do is lean in and Zafe will be there with the refrain, grinning
at me from across the stage.

Okay, yeah, before I go any further, I’m sorry I cut the
appointment. I should have called you, let you know but … I was
going to come. Was nearly at your office before I caught myself
thinking about her, standing in the shop, wondering about me. And,
for the record, I was right, she’d Googled the band. Was standing
there with the DVD screenshot from ‘All the rain is broken glass’,
staring at it like she’d never seen me before.

God,
it hurts. Seeing the website, seeing the pics, seeing how we were.
But what surprised me was that it hurt more seeing it through her
eyes, comparing what I used to be and what I am now. Like … like
when she’s not looking at me then I’m still Baz Davies, still the
guitar-king, screwing all day, playing all night and then sitting
up writing songs. Hanging off the roof of the tour bus with a
groupie astride my cock and my head full of buzz. And then her eyes
fall on me and I’m back to being Ben, back to the shop with no
business and all the music locked inside my head.

But I think … I dunno, but maybe she likes
me. The
real
me,
the me that isn’t coked-up Baz or screwed up Ben, but the me that
lies underneath it all. The one I think I can be. And, oh, I so
nearly told her. I could feel the words, taste the shape of them,
knew all I had to do was say them, put them into the air and then
she’d know me. Know me right through to my bones. Fuck, I wanted
that.

And
then I couldn’t face up to making it all real. You were right, what
you said, I do have to adjust, I’m sorry I blew you out and, no, I
was not holding her hand, it was just contact. Right then I needed
to touch something that wasn’t a part of the shit. You were facing
me down and I knew, in my blood, that you were right but I couldn’t
… I can’t make the step. I can’t stop pretending.

I’m
so scared.

Chapter Eleven

‘
Wow, Jem, you look great!’

Monday had arrived and I’d spent a lot of the day involved in
trivial things. Painting my nails, shaping my eyebrows, stuff that
I hardly ever bothered with these days, when there was only Jason
to tell me that my legs were so woolly I was in danger of being
shot as a runaway llama.

‘
Thanks.’ I pulled at my skirt. It was a little tighter and a
lot shorter than I usually wore. ‘Thank God for internet
shopping.’

Rosie came closer and sniffed. ‘Ooh, Lacoste. Yum. But hang
on a minute …’ She reached out and carefully undid the top two
buttons of my pintucked shirt. ‘That’s better.’

‘
Hey, I’m not going to a fancy dress as Little Miss Slutty you
know.’

‘
Yes, but that skirt is all daring and raunchy. Your top half
was a bit shop assistant but it looks terrific now.’ She gave me a
wink. ‘Ben’s going to love it.’

‘
I’m
not wearing it for Ben. I’m wearing it to show Saskia that I might
be down but I’m not out.’

‘
Hmmm.’ Rosie herself looked professional and cool. I looked,
I thought, a bit like a walking blowjob in comparison.

‘
Right. I’m off to Ben’s, I’ll see you at the – whatever it is
we’re calling it. The Grand Opening of Saskia?’

Rosie snorted. ‘She’s been open for
business for years, the ho. Can we pretend it’s a party? A real,
proper party, where we get to drink drinks we’d normally sneer at
and circulate with people we’ve never met before? After all, I’ve
got a girl who advertised on the village noticeboard coming in to
babysit Harry and I really don’t want to have gone to all the
trouble of squinting at those postcards just to go to the opening
of a shop!’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Some of those adverts are
really
strange
.’

‘
All
right. I’ll see you at the party.’

I
got the bus to York, which seemed ignominious. All got up like I
was I should at least have been travelling in a white stretch limo
and carrying a tiny dog in a bag. Ben’s house was impressive, a
four-storey Georgian townhouse with black-painted railings
outlining the steps up to the front door. I clopped up in my high
heels and rang the bell. As I waited I stared down; there were
windows below street level for what would have been basement
kitchens in the house’s heyday. Now they were prime sites at which
to sit and look up the skirts of passing girls. I hoped Ben wasn’t
down there gazing up at my gusset.

I
knew he wasn’t when I heard the sound of someone galloping down a
staircase and hurtling to the front door. ‘Hey.’

‘
Hello.’ I peered through the crack that he’d opened the door.
He still had the chain on, even though he must have known it was me
because the door had a spyhole. ‘Are you coming tonight
then?’

‘
Oh,
God, is it tonight?’

My
heart sank and I found that I was pulling down the hem of my skirt.
Now I was going to have to walk into Le Petit Lapin alone and
Saskia would surely notice. ‘Yes. But never mind. I’ll see you
another time.’

I’d
started to clop back down the steps to the pavement when I heard
the chain come off and the door open. ‘So, you don’t want me to
come?’

I turned. There was Ben looking
absolutely
gorgeous
in a bow-tie and dress suit. ‘You are evil,’ I
said.

‘
Yep. Come in a sec and have a drink. If even half of what
you’ve said about Saskia is true, I think we might need to prime
ourselves.’

I
followed him inside. The front door gave onto a massive hallway,
pale wooden floors and tiled walls, with a decorative
black-and-white frieze pattern. ‘Wow.’

‘
Did
you say wow?’

‘
This place. Mind you –’ I looked around. ‘It is a bit like
being in a huge gents’ toilet.’

‘
You
should see my bedroom.’

There was a moment of silence while we digested that
sentence, both realising it sounded as though he’d meant something
he clearly didn’t mean, and then another moment of flustered
consternation while Ben pretended he didn’t realise he could have
been misconstrued and I tried to over-ride my brain.

‘
Full of graffiti and smells of wee?’ I got there
first.

‘
No,
that’s my car.’

‘
You have a
car
?’ My voice went so squeaky that
Alsatians in Milan could probably hear me.

‘
Mmm-hmmm.’ Ben seemed to be enjoying my
astonishment.

‘
Are
you sure?’

In
answer he grasped me around the wrist and pulled me over to the
huge window which let daylight into the hall. It was high and
arched and almost as big as a door. ‘Does that look like something
I might be a little uncertain about?’ He pointed with his free hand
at the silver car parked on the roadside beyond the black railings.
‘Or does it look more like an Audi R8?’

‘
That is one sexy car,’ I said, a concise, if not exactly Top
Gear-level critique.

Ben
opened his mouth then obviously thought better of it and began to
lead the way down the sleek hallway. Another archway gave onto a
huge, high-ceilinged room, still with wooden floors, which
contained a few sofas clustered in a corner like furniture playing
Sardines. ‘Sit down and I’ll get you a drink. White
wine?’

He
wandered over to a cabinet while I gingerly sat on one of the
sofas. It was extremely comfortable, squashy and yet firm at the
same time. From here I could see the enormous speakers along the
walls. ‘Is this your music room then?’

He
didn’t answer, rummaging around and opening doors, then emerging
with two glasses of golden-yellow wine. ‘So, tell me about
Saskia.’

‘
Nothing to tell. She’s stopped selling my things, but she’s
got Rosie working like a demon.’

‘
Are
she and Jason …?’

‘
What is your obsession with Jason’s sex life? No, as far as I
know, Saskia is not having any kind of thing with Jase. She may be
an evil harpy with a hole where her heart should be, but she’s
happily married to Alex. Well, she’s happily married to his wallet
anyway. Mm, this wine’s nice.’

‘
I’m
still not clear why you and Rosie hang around with her. If she’s
such a witch. Don’t you have other friends?’

There was a pause. ‘She was the first person who actually
believed in my jewellery,’ I said, thinking fast. I couldn’t tell
him that it was only supplying Saskia that had kept me from having
to sleep in a box under a bridge after I’d arrived in York. ‘I met
Jason in a bar, he introduced me to Saskia when he found out what I
did, then I met Rosie and moved in.’

Ben
looked at me levelly. ‘Okay, not asking for your life story,
Jemima.’

And
you’re not going to get it. I’ve seen enough people turn away in
disgust and I couldn’t bear – I don’t want to see that look in your
eyes, that look that says ‘I pity you.’ The look that tells me,
what happened made me less than you. A no-one.

‘
No.’

‘
But
she’s not stocking you now, so surely you don’t have to feel
obliged to go to this do tonight?’

‘
I
keep hoping she’ll change her mind. And if she meets you and finds
out that you are willing to sell my buckles – well, she might be so
overwhelmed with competitive spirit that she’ll try to buy me
back.’

Ben
looked at me over his glass. ‘So, I’m coming to try to provoke her
jealousy, am I? Oh, it’s okay, I don’t mind, just as long as I
know.’

I
drained my glass quickly. The dryness of the wine made my throat
shrink. ‘We’d better go.’ I stood up and managed to get the heel of
my ridiculous shoes caught in the wiring from the speakers. As I
bent to sort myself out I could see that none of the speaker wires
were plugged in. Either to the mains or to the back of the
speakers. They were all rigged up right, just not connected. ‘Ben
–’

‘
Are
you coming then?’ He’d collected a large bunch of keys, dropped
what looked like his mobile on a table and was waiting in the
doorway. Seeing him standing there looking really quite beautiful
in his bow tie and loose jacket I completely forgot about the
wiring.

‘
I’m
ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. Are we driving?’ All right I admit
it, I’m a car slut. I could have sat in that Audi all night without
even starting the engine, just for the experience.

‘
It’s only down the road, isn’t it? Besides, now I’ve had a
glass of wine.’

‘
Oh.
Right.’ Saskia’s face, seeing me turning up in an Audi R8 was going
to have to remain a figment of my imagination.

In the event, when we reached Le Petit
Lapin, Saskia was inside, deep in the throng; she wouldn’t have
noticed if I’d arrived by donkey. The shop was
packed
. There were skinny women in
chiffon frocks everywhere, like tissue-wrapped sticks, and a clash
of perfume and aftershave strong enough to knock your nose
off-kilter for a week. Ben hesitated.

‘
Bloody hell.’ He began fidgeting with his hair. ‘There’s a
lot of people.’

I
looked up at the golden front of the shop. Even the first-floor
windows had people in them, holding glasses and trying to look
enthralled at being pressed against an unrelated armpit. ‘More than
I expected,’ I replied. ‘Maybe it was “Buy One Get One Free” down
at RentaCrowd.’

Ben
gave me a ghost of a smile. ‘I’ve just lost the knack of
circulating. Still, it’ll be nice and noisy in there, I
guess.’

I
grinned back at him. ‘Yep. You won’t have to talk to anyone and
even if you do they won’t hear what you say.’ I grabbed his elbow
and we forced our way through some of the more decorative members
of the throng into the shop.

Inside the temperature was about a hundred bodies and rising.
I found that I was clutching at Ben’s arm in order not to lose him
in the currents and eddies of moving and shaking that was going on.
Saskia had invited some of the owners of the larger (and therefore
more socially and profitably acceptable) shops which surrounded Le
Petit Lapin and everyone seemed to be discussing how well their
businesses were going at full volume. A uniformed waiter carrying a
superciliously high tray whirled past us and Ben managed to pluck
two glasses from it, handing one down to me.