Please Don't Stop The Music (3 page)

‘
Good God! He looks like a junior Roman Emperor!’

‘
I’ll get them washed and back to you.’

The
scruffy, tight-trousered man eyed up the little shrouded figure and
gave a small shudder. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not sure I could
ever wipe a mug rim again without thinking about, well, you know.
Keep them.’

‘
He
is wearing a clean nappy.’ I’d replaced the pram sheet with an
extra-large towel bearing the legend ‘Glasgow, City of Culture’
which, doubled over, completely covered the mattress.

‘
Even so. Now, what can I do for you?’

I gave him the full sales pitch, a guided
tour of my portfolio and then brought out the
pièce de résistance
, beautifully
apt. It was
a belt buckle formed of
interwoven musical instruments with the central pin in the shape of
a microphone. He handled it carefully, running his fingers over the
surface without taking his eyes off my face, as I told him about
the history of the piece and how I’d made it. I described the
heating and twisting of the wire, the careful placement of the
crystals, the way each piece felt as though it had a soul and
called itself into being, with me acting only as the instrument of
creation. He did have nice hands, I had to admit, with very long
and slender fingers. But his eyes – there was something hidden deep
inside them.

‘
Ben,’ he said suddenly, as I paused for breath.

‘
What?’

‘
My
name. It’s Benedict. Benedict Arthur Zacchary Davies. I thought you
asked.’

‘
The
middle fall out of the baby name book, did it?’ This was a bit rude
of me. All very well giving him the sales pitch but I hadn’t even
told him my name, so how could he order stuff? Duh. Come on Jemima,
stop being such an amateur. ‘Jemima Hutton.’ Rather late in the day
I held out a hand to shake, which involved a bit of
Harry-juggling.

‘
Hutton? Like the place on the moors?’

‘
Er,
yeah. I guess.’ Change the subject Jemima. ‘So, would you be
interested?’

His
eyes were tracing the contours of my face. ‘Interested?’

‘
In
my stuff.’

‘
Oh.
Right. Your stuff.’

But
now I was wondering about him. About the weird way he seemed to
keep watching me. He was odd. Implacable. There was something about
Ben Davies that felt like he was layers deep, that there was more
to him than the superficially strange. ‘My stuff. Yes.’

His
hands played with the buckle, flipping it between his fingers like
a magician doing a disappearing coin trick. His body language was
confusing, at odds with his responses, as though he was saying one
thing but thinking another and letting a little of that internal
struggle seep out into the way he moved. At the moment his eyes
were still firmly on my face but he seemed to be wishing me gone.
‘I’m not sure.’

I
had
to get him to change his mind. If Saskia thought
someone else was interested in me she might decide to keep me
exclusive after all. Besides, I was bordering on the seriously
broke. Even this weird guy with his tiny business tucked away down
a back alley was better than nothing.

‘
How
about if I come back? Say tomorrow? I could bring some of my
smaller, less expensive stuff? Look, I’ll leave you that buckle, on
trust. To help you think it over?’ Every marketing book said that
you should be definite, give them no get-out, and I’d blown it, I
could tell from his face.

‘
I
haven’t got the customers. People who come here already know me,
they want the guitars, the gear, not jewellery.’

Frantically I stared around the shop. I had
to find us some common point, some mutual interest,
something,
anything
. My eye settled on a bright yellow star-shaped guitar
hanging at the back of the shop, almost inside the kitchenette
which had saved my (and Harry’s) skin. ‘Nice piece of equipment. My
… cousin is into guitars. Do you play?’

He
swallowed and put the buckle down on the counter. Rubbed his hands
over his face. ‘No,’ he said indistinctly. ‘Not any
more.’

‘
You
gave up? Why?’ He didn’t answer and when I looked at him he was
staring at the floor. A muscle trembled in his cheek and his
fingers were flexing, twitching, almost as though he was playing
out a tune on the strings of a long-gone instrument. I felt
suddenly ashamed; there was something naked on his face, something
he couldn’t conceal behind warped body-language and flippancy. A
longing and a desperation.

On
my shoulder, Harry stopped bumping his head against me and began to
whinge. I fussed him into a new position and when I looked up, the
man – Ben – was watching me again. ‘Look, tell you what. I’ll keep
this,’ and his hand closed over my sample buckle. ‘If I sell it
I’ll order some pieces from you. If I can’t, then no
go.’

Hope
flared through me. It wasn’t exactly an unqualified yes, but then
he hadn’t dismissed me either. ‘Thank you. Ben.’

A
sudden smile lifted his face into the handsome category. ‘Don’t
mention it. Jemima.’ He flicked at the business card I’d given him.
‘I’ll e-mail you if there’s any news.’

‘
Or
phone. My mobile number’s on the card.’

‘
You’d better get that young man home. He looks like he’s
working up to another eruption.’ Ben nodded towards Harry, who did
indeed have a very thoughtful expression. ‘I’ve got no tea towels
left to come to your rescue.’

As I
tucked Harry back into the pram I glanced in through the shop
doorway and saw Ben take the blazing star guitar down off the wall.
He struck a chord then played a riff, teasing his fingers up and
down the frets like a man reacquainting himself with an old lover.
He looked so poised, so natural, holding the guitar loosely with
the body resting against his thighs, I couldn’t believe that he’d
given up playing. Yet, as I began hauling the pram backwards out of
the yard, it almost looked as if Ben, with his head bent over the
strings, was crying.

* *
*

21st
April

Weather fine. Sold – two guitar strings, one poster (Iggie
Pop, reduced to £2.00). Breakfast – three Weetabix.

Is
this the kind of thing you want me to write, doctor? Is this giving
you the insight you thought it would?

Drank a bottle of wine. For lunch. Back in the day it would
have been a couple of grammes of snow and carry on playing, with
the world all feather light in my head and feeling like I owned the
universe. Now I feel like I’m dragging each day by the neck. So,
what do you want me to say? What am I supposed to write? You want
the truth, you want to know how I am? I’m scared, that’s how I am,
scared and depressed. What’s the point in any of this any
more?

So,
today was – a day. Wednesday? Maybe. Who cares? Who fucking cares?
Nothing out of the ordinary, just hours passing here inside this
box. Oh no, one thing, a girl came in with her baby, wanting me to
buy some jewellery, stuff that she makes. Felt kinda sorry for her,
she looked a bit out of her depth, bit unpractised, still she’ll
get the hang. Come to terms with it, like we all have to do. Wade
through the crap until you realise that there’s only more crap on
the other side. She was – cute, skinny. Bit scared-looking.
Something about the eyes … Told her my name but she didn’t get it,
so I guess … hey, there have to be a few, you know? Yeah, I know
what you’re thinking, but no.

I
don’t need anyone.

Chapter Three

When
I went over to the workshop the following day, Jason was finishing
off stretching a portrait of David Beckham across the front end of
a Deltic diesel.

‘
Kettle’s on.’ He didn’t even look at me, just hung from his
ladder and welded another wire through the footballer’s face. Poor
Mr Beckham now looked as though he had a case of ferrous acne, and
even the engine wasn’t coming out of it well, but this was the sort
of thing Jason did. And sold. Made you wonder about art,
sometimes.

‘
Thanks.’

‘
Oh,
and you got an e-mail. Two sugars.’

‘
I
wish you wouldn’t go through my mails, Jase. They might be
private.’

Jason hooked a leg around a strut for stability and looked
thoughtful. ‘Right. So your secret lover is going to communicate by
e-mail? Not very romantic.’

‘
Yes, Jason,’ I said pointedly. ‘And with you being such a
romantic, and all, you feel able to comment.’ I made the coffee,
but to punish him didn’t put any sugar in.

Jason gave me his best Johnny Depp look, lowering his head
and peeping out from under his eyelashes.

‘
Aw,
come on, babe.’ He slid down the ladder and landed at my feet. ‘It
was only the once!’

‘
Taking a girl to see Hot Fuzz and then dumping her by text
because she didn’t laugh? Believe me, Jase, it only needed to be
the once.’

Jason took a huge swig of his coffee then made a series of
faces which were an artwork in their own right. ‘Jem, you trying to
kill me, babe, or what?’

‘
By
text
, Jason,’ I said sternly. ‘It’s
never acceptable.’

‘
You
sold something.’

‘
It’s like being dumped by Post-It. I
…
what?
’

‘
Some guy mailed to say he’d sold your buckle? Now, presuming
that’s not kinda slang for having nailed you last night, which,
babe, ain’t happened since I’ve known ya and I’m thinking you’ve
fossilised down there …’

‘
You are
such
a pain, Jase.’ I elbowed him
out of the way and ran through to the office where we kept the
computer. Jason liked his appliances like he liked his women so it
was slim and sexy. And very, very slow. He didn’t like to be
intellectually challenged by his girlfriends, he said, but still
managed to swim in an enormous dating pool. Mind you, he normally
went out with supermodels, so, there you go. ‘It must be from Ben.
The guy I left the big buckle with yesterday? My only hope? I told
you last night, remember.’

‘
Oh, right.’ He hovered behind me as I
logged on. ‘The guy in the tiny shop, with no customers, who
sold
guitars
.
Yeah. Sounds a real possibility.’

I
ignored him and opened my in-box. There amid the offers and deals
was one from [email protected].

Dear
Jemima

I’m
glad to say that I sold your belt buckle this morning. So, if you’d
like to drop by with some more of your work I would be delighted to
stock it.

Best
regards

Benedict Davies

Davies Guitars – Bessel Street – York. For all your musical
needs

‘“
Best Regards”! Bloody Nora, Jem! ’E talks like my
dad!’

‘
It
is
meant to be a business e-mail, not like you’d
know. The only e-mails you get hold the world record for the number
of times you can mention sex in a subject line.’

‘
Jemima! Jason!’ It was Rosie calling from the front. ‘Are you
in?’

‘
Hi,
Rosie.’ I popped out of the office. ‘What’s up?’

‘
Saskia just rang.’ Rosie was slightly out of breath. She
wasn’t going to take up going to the gym again until her stomach
stopped needing its own postcode. ‘She’s doubled my
order.’

‘
Wow.’

‘
Yes. But she wants it by next weekend. So I wondered … would
you mind Harry for me? Just for today, to let me make a
start?’

And,
sure enough, parked in the doorway was the pram. ‘I assume he’s in
there.’ Jason eyed up the changing bag and advanced on the pram
with the gormless grin he always adopted when Harry was around.
Whatever his faults may be, and there were earthquake zones with
less faults than Jason, he doted on the baby. ‘You didn’t just
bring the transport to, like, ease us in gently.’

‘
I
don’t know what else to do!’ And Rosie suddenly had tears
overflowing. ‘I can’t work with him there, I can’t! He cries and I
have to hold him, it’s the only thing that stops him! And I can’t
do the cards with one hand!’

Jason was instantly all sympathy. Well, mostly sympathy, some
of him was solder and rust. ‘Course we’ll have him, won’t we, Jem?
He’s a lovely little lad, no trouble at all.’ And then, as soon as
Rosie had gone, ‘Can you take him, Jem? Only I gotta get Mr Beckham
good to go.’

‘
But
I need to get to York and drop some more pieces off!’

‘
You
took Harry with you yesterday. Mr Stick-up-his-arse didn’t complain
did he?’

‘
No,
but …’

‘
I
mean, he could stay here but, you know, the glue and everything.
Don’t want to turn out the world’s youngest solvent
addict.’

‘
All
right. The guy is weird, at least if I take Harry I could use the
pram as a weapon.’