Please Don't Stop The Music (27 page)

‘
Oh, my God.’ Rosie’s hand shook on my arm.
‘Oh, Jem. Can we still call you Jem? Or what? I mean – oh, I don’t
know
what
I mean.
It’s awful.’

At our feet Harry sat in his new cushion
chair, chuckling and waving a well-gummed elephant rattle. I kept
my eyes on him. ‘Jem is fine. I was always called Jem anyway.
That’s one of the reasons I chose Jemima as a name.’ One of the
other reasons was that Jemima had a ginger-beer and salmon,
jolly-hockeysticks ring to it. A name close enough to my original
one, and conjuring images of the life I’d lost so
so
long ago. No more
than thirteen years in time, but thirteen lifetimes in
experience.

‘
God,’ Rosie repeated, pulling me into a
strawberry-shampoo-scented hug. ‘Jase and I thought you must have
left an abusive boyfriend, that’s why we didn’t push. We thought
you’d tell us, when the time was right.’

‘
I
am. And it is.’ I straightened away and took another sip of the
too-hot coffee. ‘And for the record, Gray wasn’t exactly going to
get “Boyfriend of the Year”, so you were pretty nearly
right.’

‘
Jase is going to be
so
smug,’ Rosie said thoughtfully.
‘Although, actually, I think his first theory was that you were on
the run from an international consortium of white-slavers, but he’d
been reading Ian Fleming novels. Well, looking at the pictures
anyway.’

I
still kept my gaze on Harry. If I had to meet Rosie’s eye, if I had
to see the sympathy there I’d collapse. ‘Shouldn’t you be –?’ I
waved at the half-filled box by the table and the stack of
cards.

‘
Sod
Saskia, she can wait. This is important.’

‘
Look.’ I took a deep breath. ‘The reason I’m telling you now
is because I’m going. I didn’t want you to feel that something
you’d done had driven me away.’ Everything here was dangerously
familiar, the smell of baby powder and last night’s dinner, the
worn edges of the sofa cushion, the pictures on the walls. It had
been the very ordinariness that had seduced me into staying as long
as I had, the way that life had gone on around me and drawn me in.
I knew I couldn’t outrun my old life, but I’d hoped that by
standing still it might have passed me by unnoticed. I should have
known that it would double back and creep up behind me.

‘
I
don’t see why you have to go!’ She was plaintive. ‘Sorry, Jem, but
it’s just stupid. You fancy Ben, he fancies you. Why can’t you just
throw yourself into it and see what happens?’

I
hid my face in my hands. Harry, thinking I was playing peek-a-boo,
chuckled even more. When I raised my head he gave a delighted whoop
of laughter. ‘Ben is – complicated. He’s going to need someone who
can give him what he needs.’

Rosie looked at me shrewdly. ‘You mean you’re
scared.’

‘
No.
Not of Ben. Maybe of the situation.’

‘
And
you can’t tell me what that is?’

I
shook my head. ‘It’s not my secret to tell. And I don’t know if
Ben’s ever going to be able to. But the fact is I’ve got nothing.
Less than nothing, now that eBay has got me under investigation.
Okay, I can take a stall at the market but that’s going to cost me
and what I make is a bit expensive for the market shoppers. I can
go down to using ordinary wire and plastic but then the techniques
are different and besides, there will always be cheaper stuff from
Korea. Basically, Rosie, I need to go. Set up somewhere else,
somewhere the shops will stock my things. I was thinking about the
South East, Canterbury way. I’ve heard it’s okay down
there.’

‘
Because you feel like a nobody.’ She was
shaking her head. ‘It’s so,
so
silly. I mean look at Harry.’ She plucked him out
of his chair and brandished him at me. ‘He loves you, he doesn’t
care what you’ve got, what you do for a living, he’ll love you
whatever. What makes you think that Ben won’t be like
that?’

‘
Because Ben isn’t three-and-a-half months old.’

Rosie gave me a friendly shove. ‘And aren’t you
glad?’

‘
Shut up. Yes, all right, I like him. There
might even be more to it than that. But. Look at it this way. If
Ben and I – started something, what happens to me when it’s over?
Who am I then, Rosie? I need to
be
someone, to have something to hold on to that’s
mine. The gang, Ran, Christian – even Gray, I defined myself
through them, I was never a person. And I can’t let it happen
again, not now.’

‘
Have you told Ben you’re going?’

I
shook my head. I’d got up mid-morning to find Ben and his keys
gone. Ashamed of myself I’d hunted round the kitchen until I’d
found a tea tin filled with pound coins and fivers and I’d taken
some. Enough for the bus fare to get me to Rosie’s. But, in my
defence, I had written an IOU and stuffed it into the tin in place
of the missing money. I’d also left the tin on the dresser so that
Ben would know what I’d done.

‘
You mean you were going to take off? How do
you think he’s going to feel when he finds out that the woman he’s
told – whatever he’s told, has run away? Don’t you think he might
be the tiniest bit
pissed
off
?’

Harry squawked, Rosie’s grip on him must have tightened. She
turned abruptly away from me to quieten him.

I
stood up and touched her shoulder. ‘Rosie. I don’t want it to be
like this, I just can’t see any other way. It’s not the easy
option, honestly.’

She whirled around so fast that Harry was
still facing the window when she started to speak. ‘Jem,
life
isn’t the easy
option! You seem to think that you’re the only person suffering,
that that makes it all right if you keep on running. Well,
sometimes you
can’t
run.’ She kissed Harry’s forehead. ‘Stay. Stay and
fight.’

‘
Fight?’

‘
For
Ben, for your work. Maybe this is the line in the sand. Maybe this
is where you say “no more”.’ She gave me a quick half-armed hug.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so bossy. It’s just that I can see
you and Ben are so right for one another and I hate to think of you
throwing away a chance of being happy because you’re worried about
what might happen.’ The hug intensified. ‘Sometimes you have to
seize the day.’

‘
Look. I never said Ben and I can’t be friends, I only said
that I don’t want to end up sleeping with him because I’m confusing
like and lust.’

Rosie stepped back, wiping her face with
the back of her hand. ‘Okay. So you don’t want to sleep with Ben.
What
do
you want?
Apart from to run away.’

‘
I
didn’t say that, I – I don’t know. What do you mean?’

‘
For the first time you’ve got control.
You’ve got a great guy who wants you, you’ve got a business –’ a
raised hand forestalled my immediate come-back on that one. ‘Yes,
at the moment it’s a bit stalled but that’s just for now. It’s
still yours, you can still make your jewellery. Don’t you see?
Everything is in your hands. You’re not dependent on the gang, or
your brothers, or anyone, to make you happy. This fear of being
with someone, it’s all in your head because of what happened to you
in the past. All you have to do now is
take
that control.’ Her earnest
green eyes looked deeply into mine. ‘So. I repeat.
What do you want
?’

‘
Daytime TV is really getting to you, isn’t it?’

She
cocked an eyebrow.

‘
All
right. What do I want? I want to find out what Saskia is up to. Who
she thinks she is, to tell me that I can’t sell my things in York
and that you – that you should be working like a slave. I want to
know whether she had anything to do with Ben’s shop burning
down.’

‘
I’d
quite like to know where she gets those little power suits she’s
always wearing,’ Rosie chimed in. ‘Is there a shop somewhere that
sells brimstone-proof clothing?’

‘
Why
is she so awful? She’s got everything: rich husband, lovely little
boy, great house. So why does she come over like a pantomime
villain in couture clothing?’

‘
Mink the Merciless,’ Rosie giggled.

‘
What does Alex see in her?’ I frowned.

‘
She’s not bad looking, I suppose.’ Rosie looked down at her
still-voluptuous figure. ‘Slim.’

‘
Her
face is entirely drawn-on. Have you looked at her? Lip liner, brow
pencil, eye liner – I bet when she takes her makeup off she’s just
completely blank skin.’

‘
And two tiny little eyes. Like a couple of
marbles on a sheet.’ Rosie grinned for a moment, then refocused on
me. ‘Hey! Nice try, sister, with the badmouthing of Saskia. But we
were talking about
you
.’

‘
I have to go, Rosie. I
have to
.’

‘
But
I thought – all that stuff about finding out what Saskia is up to?
I thought you’d changed your mind.’

I shook my head. Tears were threatening
again. Every time the curtain shifted and I thought I could see a
glimpse of how life could be on the other side, a memory or a
thought would cut in and bring me back to reality.
This
was my life.
This
was me. Saskia was
just a woman with no sensitivity. No evil agenda. The seed head I’d
picked up outside Ben’s shop was a coincidence. Ben wanted to sleep
with me because I’d listened to his problems. And I was still a
street kid loser with a prison record and visible root
regrowth.

‘
I’m
sorry,’ I sniffled, and ran out of the cottage. As an exit it
lacked a certain something and I had to wait a humiliating ten
minutes for the bus, crouched behind the bus shelter in case Rosie
decided to follow.

Chapter Eighteen

So
early the next morning that the birds had hardly cleared their
throats I sat in the elaborate guest room and stuffed my belongings
into my rucksack.

They’d get over it, they’d
all
get over it. And Ben
… Ben could look after himself. I was closing this chapter and
starting a new one. In a different book, preferably one with a
whole lot less subtext.

I
listened, but there was no sound of Ben stirring up in his attic
bedroom, all whitewashed walls and floors cluttered with sheets of
half-written music. I had to be quick.

I
yanked my last shirt from where it had fallen, shoved it all back
in. It wouldn’t matter if things were creased and unwashed where I
was going, who was there to care? I looked around at the carefully
minimalist luxury of the huge house, the sanded floors and the
painted walls. Perfect backdrops for Ben, perfect foils for his
everywhichway hair and raggy jeans. Showing he could afford better
but didn’t care.

Stop it. I didn’t want to think about him.
He was just another one of those passing elements which
periodically tried to combine with me, just another thing to be
shrugged off, to become a faint sketch in my memory. Okay, so I’d
allowed him to get closer, I’d let myself down on that one, lowered
my guard. Right, lesson learned there, don’t let
anyone
get in, even
skanky deaf musicians could worm their way past the defences. From
now on I’d keep myself to myself and this would be the experience
I’d needed to make sure it never happened again.

I
swung my bag up onto my shoulder. Ready.

Oh
no, one thing first.

I went to the kitchen and tipped out the
jar of cash, pushing fivers deep into all my pockets, filling the
pockets of the rucksack with coins until it jingled each time I
hefted it.
That would teach him. Trust
no-one, Ben Davies. The world is out to get you.

Then
without a backward glance I pulled the front door of Wilberforce
Crescent closed and stepped out into a new life. Although never
before had my throat felt so swollen, as though I was trying to
swallow all the possibilities which could have been mine or my
vision so clouded with the futures I could have had. I forced them
down. Stowed them away for discarding, just as soon as I reached my
new destination.

York
shone under the summer sun like an illuminated drawing, the Minster
on its slight hill, the pale stone buildings postcard-perfect. I
felt a tug somewhere deep inside as though I was attached
physically to those medieval streets and gatehouses by some elastic
device. I shook my head and walked on. It had been the same before
in Prague, hadn’t it? Where the bridges and walls had seemed to
conspire to hold me? But I’d walked away then and I could walk away
now.

I had a sudden image of Ben, waking up.
Walking through the house, room by room. Room by room. Searching. I
hoisted my bag higher. He’d let go of Willow Down, he could let go
of me. Let’s face it, I’d been a fleeting moment. I was a passing
phase, a
nothing
.