Please Don't Stop The Music (25 page)

Nothing I could articulate. I looked at Harry jiggling his
legs until his bouncy chair rocked on its thin metal suspension.
‘You still being hard work for your mum?’

She
sighed. ‘He’s not so bad really. It’s just the sheer volume of work
I’ve got. Saskia seems to be cornering the market in hand-made
cards, but she pays well and I can’t turn her down. Besides, she’s
got me working so hard I’ve had to drop all my other customers and
my chances of getting them back if she dumps me are remote. I have
to keep going.’ Another sigh. ‘I wanted to start taking Harry to
the mother-and-baby group in the village, but there just isn’t
time. I feel as though I can’t enjoy him properly, can’t enjoy
being a mother.’

Half-heartedly I began collecting all my beads and crystals
and wires together. ‘It won’t go on forever,’ I said, thinking
about a bonfire behind a shop, all Rosie’s hard work going up in
flames. Ben’s shop burning. Saskia, sitting in the middle of it all
like a spider in a web. No, more like a bloated puppeteer, pulling
strings and watching us dance. ‘Something has to give.’

* *
*

22nd
May

She
looks at me now and I feel transparent, like my bones, my hair are
all invisible and she can see right inside to the fear and the
loneliness, almost like she touches me where the blackness hides
and makes it all right.

Shut
up. Not like that. You are fucking filthy, doctor, you know that?
We’re not. Not that I don’t want it, Christ, waist down I’m like
concrete, but she’s … she’s not ready. Doesn’t push me away but …
it’s almost like she’s a virgin or something. Scared of what’ll
happen if we get down to it.

I can wait. I’d wait forever if she asked
me to. I just wish she’d feel she could talk to me, wish I knew
what it was that frightens her so. Because not knowing means I
can’t help. And I want to take away that expression she gets
sometimes when she thinks I’m not looking. It’s part fear and part
… I dunno, a kind of deep sorrow, like she thinks I’m about to
chuck her onto the street or something. Like she wants to be with
me, wants it to be more than just this kind of flat-share thing
we’ve got going on. Like she’s memorising my face, my clothes, as
if Crimewatch is reconstructing me next week and I don’t know about
it yet. And yet … she makes me feel like nothing matters. I’m still
me, still Baz Davies, still the best
fucking
lyricist of the twenty-first
century (hey, that’s NME talking). She pulls me up beyond it all,
like she’s pulling me out of the shit and the dark and up, back on
top of the world, where I used to be. Okay, I don’t get what people
say – so what? I do pretty well for a guy that’s stone deaf. Hey,
look, I can say it! I am deaf. Can’t hear a note. And it doesn’t
hurt like it did.

Jemima. I’d give you this whole, messed up, planet if you
asked.

Chapter Sixteen

‘
Can
you see anything?’ Ben wiggled underneath me, shifting my weight
more evenly across his shoulders.

‘
Can’t you stand still?’

No
answer. Of course. No way even Ben could lip read when my head was
four feet above him and hanging over three strands of barbed wire.
I clung to the top of the wall which ran around the outside of the
tiny yard belonging to Le Petit Lapin, desperately trying to steady
myself against the brickwork. There was no sign of any burning,
just a couple of plastic patio chairs where presumably Mairi and
Saskia put their respective feet and hooves up during slack
spells.

I
slapped Ben’s shoulder and he lowered me to earth, sliding me down
the wall and gasping in an unflattering way.

‘
Woah! You’ve got thighs like steel, woman.’ He ruefully
rubbed the back of his neck. ‘So? Anything doing?’

‘
Not
really. I need to get inside.’

‘
Come on. It’s only in really bad films that the villain
leaves incriminating evidence lying around.’ Ben looked at my face.
‘Oh, please! Tell me you aren’t going to break in?’

‘
There’s a little window down in the back office. I reckon I
can crack it. In and out and she won’t even know.’

‘
Yeah, right. And how are you going to do that eh? Pop home
for your Girls’ Book of Breaking and Entering?’

‘
No,
I’m going to thank God for historic cities building regulations not
allowing shopowners to replace old latch windows. Bunk me
up.’

‘
Jem?’ He was staring at me now. ‘You serious?’

‘
Bunk me up,’ I repeated.

‘
Hang on. This is more than I signed up for. You said you were
just going to have a look in the yard –’

‘–
where there’s nothing to see. So now I’m going in.’ I looked
him in the eye. ‘Are you with me?’

‘
Sheesh. All right, Don Corleone. Don’t get your salami in a
twist.’ Ben bent and formed his hands into a cup. ‘But I’m not sure
I can bunk you right up there. I mean, Christ, woman, how much do
you weigh?’

‘
You’d better hope I get arrested,’ I said, putting one toe
into his palm. ‘Because if I don’t, you are going to pay for that
remark.’

I
didn’t need him to put any effort in. The action came back to me as
easily as if I’d done it yesterday. Toe in, spring off the back
foot, balance against the wall and – up. Ben straightened, looking
surprised.

‘
Jem?’

I
was already taking off my T shirt, wrapping it over the barbed
wire. ‘Have you got a credit card on you?’

Ben
was staring at my chest. At least I was wearing a half-decent bra,
although the balconette style made my boobs look fuller and more
barely-restrained than should have been the case. ‘What? You want
me to pay to cop an eyeful?’

‘
Just hand it over.’

He
raked about in pockets, eventually finding a card. ‘American
Express?’

‘
That’ll do nicely.’ I grinned down at him as he stretched up
with the card. This was feeling more and more like the old days. I
straddled the barbed wire, carefully holding the padding. ‘Okay. In
and out.’

‘
What if someone comes?’

‘
It’s three o’clock in the bloody morning. Who do you think is
going to come?’

‘
We’re here.’

‘
Well, if any burglars arrive, tell them this place is spoken
for. All right?’

I
dropped down into the yard, my hands sweaty, my heart thumping and
my chest attempting to escape. All the old feelings, all the old
thrills. ‘Jem?’ I couldn’t see him, the wall was a good nine-feet
high, so I didn’t bother responding. ‘Be careful,’ I heard him
breathe.

I
crossed the yard, pulled one of the plastic chairs up to the window
and used the credit card to slip the latch. One hop and a wriggle
and I was inside, although I left some of my skin on the frame. I
nearly called back to Ben but realised it was futile.

I’d
become an expert on sussing out a place without going any further
than point of entry, I had better eyes than most for the tell-tale
signs of advanced alarm systems. Saskia had nothing. The
cheapskate. Although, I thought as I circled the shop floor, there
was nothing here that even the most desperate of burglars could
want. The till was empty with the tray pulled out to show there was
no cash and as for the items on sale – well, I guess if you wanted
to beat someone to death they might come in handy.

Ben
was right. There was nothing here. To corroborate Jason’s story all
the boxes of Rosie’s cards that I’d seen on the night of the party
were gone. I went back into the office and noticed an appointments
diary on the desk beside the telephone. Using the tip of one finger
I flipped it open.

All right, so I’d hardly expected Saskia to
have written ‘TODAY MY PLANS COME TO FRUITION’ across the pages in
lipstick, but I was unprepared for the sheer dullness of the
entries. For example under today’s date was ‘4pm, Oscar,
Orthodontist’. The poor kid was only five and she was already
having him fixed. He hadn’t even
got
all his teeth
yet.

I
flipped back further. Three days ago. The night of Ben’s aborted
dinner party with Rosie and me. Nothing but a lightly pencilled
‘A’. And then a question mark. Further back, and all that seemed to
concern Saskia was the coming and going of Alex and Oscar’s various
appointments. All I managed to learn was that Alex was out a lot
and poor little Oscar was undergoing major restructuring work. God,
she was a boring woman. I was flicking through dates now, anything
that sprung to mind. On my birthday apparently Oscar had a music
exam, on Rosie’s a book test. On 20 February, the day Harry was
born, she’d written ‘A out’. As in he was somewhere else, or he’d
decided to confess to being gay?

I
replaced the diary and went back out through the office window,
removing any spare skin from my ribs on the way. I carefully
levered it shut with Ben’s card; although I couldn’t relatch it
from this side I could leave the arm lying along the frame so
hopefully Saskia would think that it hadn’t been properly
closed.

I
moved the chair up to the wall and used it to get enough of a boost
to climb back to the top. As I jumped I gave the chair an almighty
kick which sent it right to the far side of the yard, where it
tumbled onto its back as though a gust of wind had caught it. I
paused by the wire to untangle my shirt then dropped lightly back
into the alleyway where I landed beside Ben, who was leaning
against the wall trying to look nonchalant.

He
jumped. It was disconcerting to have him flinch every time I
arrived unexpectedly.

‘
Hey. Anything?’

‘
Apart from Saskia conducting a father-and-son time-and-motion
study, nope.’ I flicked out my T shirt. There were only a couple of
snags in it from the wire. God, I was good. I went to slip it on
but Ben put a hand on my arm.

‘
Wait.’

‘
What?’ His hand was warm, his fingers soft. Adrenaline was
still burning its way through my synapses and leaving a bitter, dry
taste in my mouth. ‘Ben?’

Pressure on my forearm until I turned, reluctantly. ‘Yeah. I
thought so.’ Then a finger ran down my spine. ‘You’ve got a gang
mark.’

How the hell did he know?
‘It’s just a tattoo,’ I said lightly. My skin
prickled around the blue stain on my shoulder blade as though it
was bursting through my flesh.

‘
What? I can’t see your face.’ Ben spun me so that my bare
back was pressed against the roughness of the wall. ‘Now. Say it
again.’

‘
It’s nothing. Just a pattern.’

‘
Bugger
that
. You’ve been in a street gang.
Where? Why didn’t you say? And what the hell
happened
to you?’

Adrenaline drained. I was flat, empty. Goosebumps broke out
across my chest and shoulders and my skinned ribcage ached. ‘I … I
don’t know … I …’

Ben
let me go and raised both hands to rumple through his hair.
‘Jemima.’

And
suddenly I wanted him to know. All of it. All of me. ‘Take me
home,’ I said. ‘And I’ll tell you.’

A
half-smile. ‘I bet you say that to all the boys.’

I
met his eye steadily. ‘Only you, Ben. Only you.’

* *
*

Ben’s house was silent and dark. As we went in he turned on
lights, flipping switches like a man possessed, room by room until
we reached a small study off the kitchen where he only turned on a
lamp. There were bookcases against all the walls, a table and sofa,
deep carpet on the floor. It was snug.

‘
Okay.’ Ben slumped onto the sofa, reaching for a whisky
bottle and glasses from the little side table. ‘Go on.’

I
hovered uncertainly, finally settled for sitting on the floor in
the corner furthest away from him. ‘First tell me how you
knew.’

‘
Hang on.
You’re
the one with the secrets
and
I’m
the one
answering the questions? What’s wrong with this picture?’ The mouth
of the bottle jigged against the glasses as he poured us both a
generous measure. ‘All right. Mark. Drummer in Willow
Down.’

I
took the glass but didn’t move closer to him. Just rested my back
against the wall. ‘He was in a gang?’

‘
No,
you plank. He’s a sociologist.’

‘
Your
drummer
is a
sociologist?’

‘
They’re not all two brain cells and seven pints of sweat.
Anyhow. These tattoos were his idea.’ Ben rolled up the sleeve of
his shirt, revealing his encircling tribal mark. ‘He took it from
the street gangs where they use them to mark their own, to
strengthen the group bond. We all had one, all four of us. Same
tatt, same spot, to remind us we were all in it together.’ He
rubbed the mark thoughtfully.

‘
So
you’re not going to believe I got drunk one night and picked it out
of a tattoo parlour window?’

He
smiled. Leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, slopping
whisky unnoticed over the couch. ‘Nice try. But I’ve seen the
textbooks.’