Chapter Thirteen
The next day I left Rosie lying in, whistled a cheery ‘see ya’ through her door and hoisted my rucksack onto my shoulder. I’d written her a note of farewell and left it on the pillow of my bed, stripped the sheets and duvet and put them in the washing machine. Wiped all the surfaces clear of any trace of my occupation. She would forget me in no time as lots of people had done before her. Just because I’d felt more at home here, more settled than I ever had anywhere since I was fifteen, it gave me no rights to call the place home. I had no rights. No beliefs, nothing to pin myself to. I was a ghost, living on another plane of existence, one not even suspected by any of the people who called me their friend.
A pang of remorse shot through me so fast I had to stop and catch my breath. I was walking towards the bus stop, past the gateway to the opulence that was Saskia and Alex’s enormous converted farmhouse. Now I’d never get to show Saskia how wrong she’d been to turn me away from her shop, to carry on this stupid vendetta that she’d got going, for whatever pointless reasons. Never get to rub her nose in my future success. Another dart of loss pierced a hole in my gut, but this time I straightened up, faced forwards and ignored it. The bus was coming. The past didn’t matter — I had to keep telling myself that. Recent past, long past, it made no difference. It was all gone. I could forget.
The shop was closed. The main window was obscured by a huge metal cover locked in place and the door had bars down on the inside. It didn’t look as though Ben had been there all day.
I breathed hard, as though I’d run, and wiped my arm across my eyes. What was I doing ? I never cried, not ever. I’d shed my last tears five years ago, that had been another promise. I was tired surely, that was all. And a little disappointed to find the place locked up and silent. I’d wanted — what had I wanted? To talk? To find out what his problem was? Or just to confront him, to ask him how he dared to unsettle my well-being with his sudden insights and his equally sudden turnaround, which had allowed me inside his head while he kissed me senseless? Stupid. Stupid.
My path to the station took me past Wilberforce Crescent. The extra half-mile of walking got my feelings under control and I was well able to convince myself that I needed to let him know I was leaving. Just — and this was important — just so he could have a chance to find someone else to work in the shop.
I rang the bell. There was no response so I tiptoed down the basement steps and squinted through the blinds covering those windows which lay below street level. Between the vertical slats I could just make out a set of musical instruments laid on the floor as though a band had broken off mid-practice. A guitar rested against a keyboard, casually angled, and a drum kit had the sticks crossed over it. A bright cherry-red guitar had been dropped and lay on its face looking oddly forlorn. And everything was covered in dust.
There was something naked about those unused instruments closed away in that basement rehearsal room, something bitter in the positioning. As though Ben had been there, trying to play, trying to recreate Willow Down. Or was I reading too much into it, was it just a room that had been closed off and forgotten?
I sat on the step and chewed my lip, a tiny fantasy about breaking in quickly running to the inevitable conclusion. I’d probably end up being hauled out by six armed-response units.
A car beeped from the road. I jumped to my feet, eyes scanning for the smooth lines of the silver Audi but alighting instead on the sassy lines of Jason’s sports runabout.
‘Hoi, Jem! You’ll get piles sitting on them steps! Wotcha doin’?’
‘I thought you were in London.’ I wandered over to where he was holding up the traffic.
‘Yeah. Consortium seen. Back now. Bin looking for ya.’ Jason tweaked open the door for me to get in, pulling aside a crate containing a huge quantity of cogs and wheels plus a large square metal box. It looked like he’d dismembered Robbie the Robot. I hesitated and he raised an eyebrow. ‘You running out on us, girl?’
‘I . . .’
‘Wanna tell me about it?’
‘Nothing to tell.’ I got in the car.
Jason looked up at the house. ‘This your man’s place then? Must be loaded, thass all I’ll say.’
‘He’s not my man . And why were you looking for me?’
‘Rosie’s havin’ a bit of a moment. I figured you could help, talk her down, you know that kind of girl stuff. So I bin driving around trying to head you off at the pass.’
‘What are you talking about, you loony?’
Jason gave me a straight look. ‘I beat Rosie to it. Read your note. Then I tore it up. Thought I could get to the station before you did and thought I’d come this way. You got it bad, girl.’
‘I do not! I just wanted to . . . after the way he left last night . . . I’m concerned, that’s all.’
Jason accelerated into the stream of traffic leaving the city. ‘Yeah. So you sit on his doorstep like some kinda lost dog waiting for him to come home, just ’cos you’re concerned ? Pull the other one, darling, it goes ding-a-ling.’
‘What’s the matter with Rosie?’
‘Oho, touch a nerve, did I? Yeah, I reckon our little Jemima’s burning the hot stuff for Benny boy. An’ for the record, I seen his face, looking atcha like you’re gonna pull him from the wreckage.’
‘If you could possibly tear yourself away from your rambling imaginings about my love life, what’s the matter with Rosie?’
‘Social worker. Turned up at the cottage. I just got back from London, clapped out on the couch at the workshop and Rosie comes burstin’ in in tears ’cos some nosey old crone came round wanting to know if she’s feeding our Hazzer prop’ly. Looking in the cupboards and checking his pram an’ stuff.’
‘Bloody hell.’
It was Rosie’s greatest fear made real. That somehow, someone would begin to suspect what she suspected herself, that she couldn’t look after her baby. It was all ridiculous, of course, overwork and guilt making her feel useless; she adored Harry. A social worker on the doorstep was the last thing she needed to make her feel like a capable, coping mother.
‘You can talk her round, Jem, she’ll listen to you.’
‘But—’
Jason gave me a solemn look. ‘Luv. Whatever it is, whatever you’re running from or to, it’ll keep. Honest to God, it will still be there tomorrow. But today — today Rosie needs you. And, just maybe, your man needs you, too. Doncha want to get things sorted there before you takes off to lands unknown? Or is this how you always work, get yourself involved and then run out, so nothing can ever be your responsibility?’
‘You know nothing about it.’
He inclined his head. ‘Anyway, I reckons if I brings you back she might cook us a meal. I’m up to here wiv your fancy London restaurant mush, just give us one of Rosie’s Thai green curries an’ I’ll die a happy man.’
‘Jason!’ But I had to let out a small laugh. His heart was in the right place, even if it was firmly lodged just above a complaining stomach. ‘All right. I’ll come back, for now. But first I need some advice.’
‘Wot, from me? Wotcha want to know? Nothing I can tell you thatcha don’t already know, apart from maybe how to dance the horizontal tango.’ He circled his hips suggestively and ended up squeakily crushing himself against the steering wheel.
‘How do I go about finding him?’
‘Ah, wotcha want him for, when you can have me?’ he replied, slightly gasping, trying to rearrange his crotch.
‘Like you said, maybe I should talk to him. And don’t look at me like that, it’s not what you said. I only . . . I only want to make sure that he’s all right. He behaved like a bastard the last time I saw him and I want an explanation. Yes. To check he’s alive and to find out what the hell is wrong with him.’
Jason blew. ‘Phooooow. You reckon he’s done ’imself in?’
‘No! Why, do you?’
‘Rosie said ’e were off like a rat out a drainpipe once you got started. Bloke that sensitive, well . . . Could of done anything. Driven into a wall, hung himself.’
‘You are such a little ray of sunshine, aren’t you, Jason? Tell me then, how do I find out?’
Jason looked at me, long and hard. ‘Whatcha crying for?’
‘I’m not.’
A finger which smelled of embalming fluid brushed my cheek. ‘Then your skin’s leaking, kid.’
I gave a hiccup, a fighting attempt to keep the tears at bay. I never cried. Not ever. ‘I’m fine.’
Jason jerked the car into a bus stop and turned off the ignition. ‘Bleeding women! Come ’ere,’ and a rough arm dragged me into the surprising comfort of his fleece jacket. ‘Any more ’ormones on this coat and it’s gonna grow breasts.’
Jason’s gruff good nature was almost more than I could bear. Silent tears burned down my face as he held me tight against him. ‘I’m just . . .’ The words came out in half-sobs, further muffled by the generous amount of Jason they were pressed into. ‘Ben. He’s so . . . so scared . . . all the time. I want to know . . . what he’s . . . running from.’
‘He prob’ly wants to know the same ’bout you, Jem,’ Jason said quietly, rubbing my back as far as I could tell without lecherous intent. ‘We all knows you’re running scared too, my girl.’
I struggled upright, tidying my face with the back of my hand. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ah, come on. You comes outta nowhere, you never talks about what you’ve left behind and you’re terrified of falling in love. That’s some serious back-story you’re carting around, darling. And I wouldn’t worry ’bout him topping ’imself. Guy wiv a face that well known, we’d have heard.’ Jason gave me a bone-squeezing hug. ‘He’s gone to ground somewhere, thass all. Hiding like.’
‘Then I’ve got no idea even where to start looking.’ Ideas were slipping through my mind like shadows. Yes. I’d find Ben, find out what he was hiding. Jason couldn’t accuse me of running out on anything unfinished. My behaviour would be unimpeachable. Then I’d run.
Jason grimaced and re-started the car. ‘Sounds like what we got here, my love, is a breakdown in communication. Basic psychological problem, only way round it is for you and your man to get it all out in the open.’
I stared. ‘There’s more to you than meets the eye, isn’t there?’
Jason gave me a sleazy grin and cupped his groin. ‘Better believe it, darling.’
* * *
Rosie was scrubbing the kitchen when we arrived. A huge bucket of bleach stood in the middle of the floor and the place smelled like a swimming pool.
‘Oh, Jason, you found her!’ Rosie clambered to her feet and gave me a moist hug.
‘Steady. I can feel myself going blonder just standing here. What are you doing?’
‘Making sure that when that stupid woman comes back she can’t find anything to complain about.’ Rosie peeled off a rubber glove and rubbed a streaming eye. ‘She told me I had to clean this place from top to bottom.’
‘She what ?’
Jason, wisely, put the kettle on. Rosie slumped down on the edge of the table. ‘She looked everywhere, Jem, it was awful. Even in my wardrobe. She found some old biscuits that I’d left in the cupboard that had gone all soggy — you know I don’t like those horrible ones with the coconut in . . .and she said . . . she said . . .’
‘She said the place was unfit to house a baby.’ Jason had to finish for her.
‘Hang on. The social worker said that?’ I sat next to Rosie. ‘That the place was unfit?’
Rosie just nodded. She seemed numb but that might have been the fumes, the place smelled so strongly of chlorine that we could have used the kitchen to purify water. I put an arm around her.
Upstairs Harry let out a wail. ‘I’ll go,’ Jason said. ‘You make the tea, Jem. And there had better be biscuits, I’m warnin’ you now.’
I waited until he left then gave Rosie a squeeze. ‘Rosie, I don’t want to make you feel like an idiot but you did ask for ID, didn’t you?’
She paused half way to pushing her hair up onto her head. ‘What?’
‘I have never in my life heard of a social worker calling in like this, no prior contact or anything, and telling you to clean your house. I mean there’s no problem with Harry is there? Even the doctor said he was extraordinarily healthy—’
‘You mean, she might not have been real?’ Rosie looked around at the gently steaming bucket and the bleachy condensation running down the walls. ‘That I’ve done all this for nothing?’
‘It’s just a bit odd, that’s all. Social workers are normally pretty laid back about things unless they think a child is in actual danger, which Harry isn’t. So I take it you didn’t ask for ID?’
‘She said she was . . . oh, Jem, I’ve been a nutjob again, haven’t I?’
Jason, coming back in, met my eye over Rosie’s head and mouthed, ‘ Saskia ’. I nodded.
‘I think you’ve been deliberately fooled. Someone’s idea of a sick joke, maybe?’ Jason raised his eyebrows.
Rosie let out a huge breath. ‘God. You’re right of course. She didn’t even offer me any ID and she looked a bit — skinny for a social worker.’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t think they all look like King Kong you know.’
‘And I thought it was funny, her wanting to look through the cupboards. I — God, Jem, you’re brilliant.’
‘Just doing my job, ma’am.’ I tipped an imaginary hat.
‘And look at it this way, you won’t have to clean this place again for years .’ Jason passed Harry over to his mother. ‘Think of the time you’ve saved yourself.’
‘It doesn’t really work like that, Jason.’ Rosie cuddled Harry to her. ‘So. In recognition of my being such a total moron I suppose I ought to cook you dinner, Jem.’
Over her head Jason mouthed ‘ Thank you, God. ’ Rosie went on. ‘You are such a good friend, Jemima.’
Jason raised an eyebrow behind her back. I felt a wash of such shame that my cheeks must have coloured. How could I have thought that it would be so easy to leave? I looked at the walls, at the hallucinogenic pattern on the old lino, smelled the musty cooked-in smells underlying the bleach. Why couldn’t I just settle here?
Then Rosie’s words hit me. Good friend. Oh, my God. Of course . . .