Secrets at the Little Music Shop

Chapter Twenty

We drove back in Ben’s car. It was hard, leaving my stuff in the shops in Glasgow, but they had my mobile number and the sum total of my other belongings didn’t even occupy half of the tiny boot. Ben was incredulous.

‘You’ve been in Glasgow for three weeks, with only this ?’ he asked, when we stopped for coffee on the motorway, holding up my rucksack by one strap. ‘What did you do for clothes?’

I wrinkled my nose at him. ‘This from a bloke who smells like he’s been wearing the same jeans for a fortnight.’

‘Yeah, but you’re a woman.’

‘Thanks for noticing.’

A long, dark look. ‘Oh, I noticed.’ He gave me a glance. ‘Saskia’s offered me a place in the Shambles. Says she feels sorry for me, with the shop burning down and all. She took the lease of the place but she doesn’t know what to do with it, apparently. Thought a music shop might go well over there.’

‘Really, the Shambles? That’s tourist central, you’d make a mint.’

A pause. ‘I think she just wants to control what I stock. After all it’s her place, she has ultimate veto. She won’t want me bringing her shop into disrepute.’

‘You mean she won’t want you having my jewellery in there.’

‘Well. We’ll see about that.’

A companionable silence fell, and we got back into the car. I watched Ben drive, neat sureness of movement, long legs inching the pedals, dramatic fingers wrapped around the wheel and I felt a sudden shudder through me. It rattled my teeth and sent a scalding blast down to my thighs like a damp rush of steam. I leaned back on the leather seat and tried to make sense of it. It felt like . . . yes, it felt like physical attraction with knobs on, so to speak. I blew a breath which condensed on the window and pretended to be involved with the scenery but I didn’t miss Ben’s sidelong glance at me nor his secret half-smile. The way he ran a fingertip over the tiny head of the gear leve r might have been accidental but I didn’t think so.

Two words for this situation. Uh and oh.

It was dark when we parked outside Wilberforce Crescent. Ben stood aside to let me through the front door and I found I was relaxing ever so slightly as we went into the kitchen. As though this place was home.

He’d left the empty money jar on the table.

‘I’ll pay it back.’

‘Cool.’ He opened the fridge and took out some yoghurt, some fruit and a bottle of something cold from the bottom rack. He put it all on the table. ‘Hungry? Help yourself.’ There was something about him, something I’d never seen before. A new kind of sureness in his movements, a different confidence. He wasn’t watching my face with the same desperation that he usually had, afraid he might miss something.

‘Ben?’

No answer. He was groping in the back of the fridge and rattling drawers in and out, finally turning, juggling the makings of a salad, a loaf of bread and a knife. He began cutting slices with an easy motion.

‘Why did you come looking? Why couldn’t you just let it be?’ A sudden jolt of the memories I wouldn’t let myself have. I hadn’t seen anyone cut bread like that since I was a child.

Ben stopped. Leaned on the knife handle. ‘I thought you might want to come back but that maybe you didn’t know how to give yourself permission.’

‘You and your drummer must have done a lot of talking.’

‘Yeah, over the years we talked a lot. On a tour bus there’s not a lot else to do when you’re in transit. It’s amazing what you can pick up.’ He put two thick slices of granary bread, a bowl of salad and dressing in front of me. ‘But you’re pretty good yourself, you know. All that stuff you told me about getting in touch with Zafe? Well, you were right, he did deserve to know. I was a coward, running off without telling him anything. He was my best mate. I should have handled it better.’

I bit into the crusty bread. ‘And now? Are you and he . . . ?’

He shrugged. ‘He’s working on forgiving me. But hey, sometimes when you really care about someone you have to forgive. Do you understand that? And then we spent a lot of time talking about you.’

I nearly choked. ‘ Me? What is wrong with you two? You’ve got five years of history to catch up on and you talk about me?’

‘Just returning the favour. Apparently when you met him all you did was talk about me .’ Carefully Ben laid the knife down on the table. There was something in the way he was looking at me. Something in the air, as though it was thickening. ‘You were scared something had happened to me, Zafe said. You said I was broken.’

I swallowed. The bread was proving difficult to get down and the way Ben was looking at me wasn’t helping at all. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

He cut me off. ‘You were right. It wasn’t just me that was broken, Jem, it was my soul. When my dad died it made me different. Forced me to be someone I wasn’t even sure I liked. And the deafness made me more human, but isolated me so much that I couldn’t make contact with anyone.’ I was still sitting at the table. Ben came round it and I had to swivel on the stool to keep watching him. The look on his face was so intense I didn’t know what he had in mind. ‘And then I met you.’

I forced myself to laugh. ‘Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, eh?’

He was leaning now to look down into my eyes. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Things got very, very, very much better.’ And he was so close now that his hair flowed across my throat. ‘No pressure, Jem. No pressure.’

His lips met mine and I was astonished at the force inside me which sprang me up off the stool to rest against him, hands pushing his hair back. He tasted of honey and mint from the salad dressing he’d licked off his fingers. He leaned further forward and before I knew it I was half-sitting on the edge of the table, Ben’s mouth travelling down to my throat, my hands dragging at his shirt, trying to yank it off over his head so I could touch skin.

This was something total, something so unexplored in me that I didn’t know how to handle or channel it, all I could do was go with it and try to ride it out. It felt as if I was some kind of conduit for feelings from another, unknown universe as I met his mouth again, whispering into it. ‘ Ben . . . please . . . ’ without even knowing what I pleaded for.

He freed my lips so he could look into my eyes. ‘Are you sure? Really, really sure?’

How could I be sure? I’d never known anything like this. In lieu of an answer I slid a hand down to his belt, began working the buckle free whilst keeping my eyes on his face, slipping the keeper away from the tongue until I could pull it loose. Laid a finger on the top of his zipper, feeling how aroused he was.

Suddenly his hand came onto mine, not to help but stopping my fingers from moving any further. ‘Jem.’ His voice was steady. ‘I want to know. I need you to say it. Do you want this? ’ And I knew he didn’t just mean this, sex. He meant everything else it would bring: him, a relationship, the complications and the ties.

My breath caught in my throat. ‘I want . . .’ Desire tried to overrule and my hand moved on his fly again but his grip was firm. ‘I want to be safe .’ The words nearly choked me, but as I said them I realised they were true. I wanted safety. Security. Something that was mine after all these years of running and hiding.

Ben moved back half a step. ‘And do you think I’m safe? You feel that, with me?’

‘I can try.’

‘No. I want more than that.’ Ben took the other half-step away and straightened his T shirt, combed his hair with his fingers and took a shaky deep breath. ‘I know you think I’m in this for a fuck, Jemima, but it is so much more than that it’s almost funny. C’mere.’ Fingers closed around my wrist and I found I was being pulled out of the kitchen and along a hallway to a small door. Ben unlocked the door with a tiny key and drew me onto a narrow dark staircase. ‘This is the old servants’ quarters,’ he said conversationally, and not at all as though we’d just come within moments of ripping one another’s clothes off.

Still with his fingers cuffing my wrist he led me down the shallow steps and into the room below. It was the one I’d seen from the street, the old basement. Dust had collected into every depression and the instruments were covered in a shallow layer of it. Ben stood in the middle of it all and let go of me.

‘I haven’t been in here for years,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t. This was our practice room. The guys never tried to get their stuff back, at least, I don’t think they did. I was too busy hiding to know.’ He turned, picked up a drumstick and experimentally tapped a cymbal. ‘Mark’s kit.’ The bass guitar was leaning against a silver keyboard. Ben picked it up and strummed the strings. ‘Zafe’s.’ A small puff of dust blew out and he laid it back down again to run a finger along the black and white keys. ‘This was Si’s.’

Nothing was amped up so there were just dull, tinny notes, like ghosts of what should be. Finally Ben picked up the cherry-red guitar which had fallen face down onto the rush matting flooring. Like a man touching an old love, he reverentially stroked its back, leaving finger streaks in the dust, then turned it against his body and threw the strap over his neck. ‘This was me, Jem,’ he said softly. ‘It was fantastic.’ With the weight of the guitar pulling down his shoulder he turned to look at the collected instruments. ‘Willow Down. The most brilliant thing ever to happen to me.’

There he stood for a second as he’d once been, head back and eyes glowing. I could almost hear him addressing the crowd, almost see him posturing his way across the invisible stage. Then his shoulders dropped, he unslung the guitar and placed it carefully back on the dusty floor. ‘And now there’s you.’ I stared at him. My heart was beating so fast that I had spots in front of my eyes. ‘This was before. My old life. None of it is coming back and I’ve come to terms with that now. The good stuff, the bad stuff — and believe me there was a lot of bad stuff, whole gigs I don’t remember, coke paranoia, the works — over. I’m leaving it behind.’ He was watching me carefully, standing angled in that odd dusty room. His hair was smooth over his shoulders, his face lit by the streetlights beyond the barred window, throwing curious shadows which rippled as he moved. ‘And I want you to do the same.’

‘I have!’ The soundproofing that lined the walls made my voice sound dead, toneless. Without real meaning.

‘No, really. What nearly happened just now . . .’ Ben drew a huge breath. ‘That was wrong . Was that how Gray told you to do it?’ He put both hands on my shoulders. ‘Because that was just sex. Disposable bump and grind.’ His fingers worked on my muscles and gradually I could feel myself relaxing a little. ‘What I want is to make love with you, Jemima. Not fucking. Loving .’

I must have stared because his hands were suddenly painful, digging in to muscles hard as rock. ‘I don’t . . . I can’t . . .’

‘I love you. It’s not easy, it’s not simple and God knows, it’s far from making the world go round at the moment but, hey.’ There he was again, right in my face. ‘Now. Shall we see how it’s really meant to go?’

All I could feel was the insistent pulse in the background as though the world was breathing. ‘Yes.’

Then Ben kissed me. Properly. And I realised that all the other times he’d kissed me had been mere preparation, he’d been holding back. This kiss was dynamic. It sent all the little hairs on the back of my neck shooting straight up, made my skin wrinkle into goosepimples against his fingers. It sent the breath from my lungs and took the strength from my legs until I nearly buckled against him.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘Now you know.’

‘Ben.’ It was all I could say; a plea, a warning, a promise. My body was limp with desire for him. And for once I was surrendering control and I didn’t care .

‘Yes.’ He answered me. ‘Oh, Jem, yes.’

He kissed my mouth and my neck. Looked deep into my eyes and slowly . . . too slowly, surely . . . began to unbutton my shirt. ‘Don’t rush it,’ he whispered as I tried to move, tried to pull at his T shirt and draw it over his head. ‘We’ve got all night.’

A button at a time, with his mouth following his fingers, dipping inside the fabric as it fell away. And then he let me touch him, tracing the line of him outside his clothes and then as I grew braver, underneath to feel the tension of his muscles and the leanness of his flesh.

Slowly, still slowly, we undressed each other, pausing every other moment to kiss and wonder at the miraculousness of one another’s flesh. I tugged his shirt, inching it over his head and then stepped back to appreciate the sight of his pale skin tinted an unearthly blue by the streetlamps. ‘There’s nothing to you.’ I ran a finger over his ribcage. ‘Skin and bone.’

A wicked grin. ‘You reckon?’

And, oh, there was a good deal more to him than that. I uncovered him, inch by inch, as he drew my jeans down over my hips, until we both stood naked.

He looked me in the eyes, drew me down to the floor. ‘Okay?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes. Very, very okay.’

But he didn’t immediately enter me. Restrained and gentle, he teased me with his mouth, moving from nipple to bellybutton and then lower. I was almost exploding with heat.

‘Christ, Ben.’ I was gasping, couldn’t get enough air, enough words, enough . . . enough. A riotous shudder broke through me, a sensation of absolute rightness and I whispered his name. Too quietly to hear, but he was watching my face, saw my lips move and then with a small smile he was in me.

There was no pain, no forcing, just delicious delightful friction and wetness and the dust balling under my back as Ben moved, so, so gently at first, until he was sure. Then he finally gave it all he had and I was surprised again by the bursting feelings tearing through me, his sudden whisper of ‘Oh God,’ and then the feeling that my thighs had just exploded as he shook, holding me, eyes on mine so it felt as though he was inside my head.

We lay back on the dust-covered floor, breathing fast. Where our bodies were sticky with sweat little bunches of grey fluff collected, Ben’s shoulders were covered. I raised myself up on an elbow and looked at him. Naked he was a lot better looking, long and lean with muscles in all the right places, lightly covered in dark hair which whirled from between his nipples, swept past a below-navel-level mole to become an eyebrow-thin line down his body to his groin. He looked strong. He looked gorgeous.

He had his eyes closed, dark lashes netted on his cheeks like an image of Rock God perfection. I knew it was pointless speaking until he opened his eyes so I lay back, resting against his shoulder and breathing in the scent of sex and closed rooms. My thighs kept trembling with the aftermath of the explosions which had racked through me, feelings and sensations I’d never known existed.

‘You all right?’ Ben finally opened one eye and regarded me slightly blearily.

‘That was—’ I stopped. Couldn’t think of the words. ‘But I guess you’ve had plenty of practice, all those groupies and everything.’

His fingers played a refrain against my ribcage. ‘You’re missing the basic point of groupies, my love. There to please me, not the other way round.’

‘Chauvinist.’

‘Look. I’ve had my cock sucked seven ways to Christmas but nothing compares to what we just did. That, my dear Jemima, was making love, the way it should be.’ He slowly sat up and leaned his back against the wall. ‘You were expecting me to hurt you, weren’t you? I felt you flinch.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Ben burst out laughing. ‘ Sorry ? Jem, it’s not your fault.’ And then the laughter died and he shook his head, reaching out his arms to encompass me. ‘This is now, Jemima. For both of us. Forget what was, we make ourselves now.’

As I lay against his chest and felt his breathing slow, dropping into sleep, I wondered if it could really be that easy.

* * *

15th June

I love her. Christ, it feels like . . . I’m just totally . . .

This feeling, it’s like a brain-wipe. Like a reset button putting me back to who I was before, with this fantastic, wonderful, gorgeous babe, who wants me for what I am now, not what I used to be. And when I’m lying holding her, nothing that went before matters. Wouldn’t have it back as a gift. I never liked myself then. I only realise it now, now that Jem knows the core me, the real me, that what I was then was some kind of fake. All the posturing and the drugs, that was me trying to make myself into something I liked. With a head full of coke and E I could be anyone, anything. And that’s just what I was. Anyone.

When Dad died I felt I had to look after Mum and Emmie, had to be someone, and I had the band and they only had each other; it was all crazy stupid and I reckon I rebuilt myself into someone that could cope. Which is what Jemima did. She turned herself into something that was hard enough to take what was happening, but only on the outside. Inside, she was like me, hiding and scared. Lost.

And now we’re found. I’m found. Willow Down is going on without me and I don’t mind. Zafe will make a fine lead. I’ve got Jem and I will do anything in my power to make her happy. Because she’s saved me in some way I can’t even start to define.

I’m not saying it’s all over. Not yet. She looks at me sometimes as though she thinks I’m going to blow it all. I don’t think she knows that she’s the one with all the power, that she could destroy me, simply by leaving. I’m breathless with the thought that she might, one day, just pack and leave, even while I know I have to give her that freedom. Otherwise I’ve just caged her, haven’t I? And what kind of love would it be, that only came from inside a box?

I want to keep her, but I don’t want to tie her. I need her to be able to run, but not to want to. I need her to know that. I need her to feel safe with me. Fuck it, I just need her.

* * *

Saskia tapped her toe on the threadbare carpet. ‘I’m positive I told you I’d be here to pick up the cards today.’ She turned a little circle with an expression which made it look as though her upper lip was attached to the ceiling by invisible wires. ‘And I can’t believe you’re letting me down.’ The wires tightened and the lip curled a little more.

Rosie deftly buttoned Harry back into his rompers. ‘Honestly, Saskia. You never said anything about picking them up. I thought I had until next week.’ She lifted Harry. ‘Anyway I couldn’t have done them that fast, you must know that.’

‘Hmmm.’ Saskia tapped a nail against a tooth. There was an echo of falseness from both. ‘It may be that I have to rethink our contract, Rosie. If you’re going to do this sort of thing.’

‘ What sort of thing?’ I waded in on Rosie’s behalf. ‘Looking after her son? Doing housework? It’s not like she’s off clubbing all hours, is it? What are you trying to do, confine her to the house?’

Saskia threw me a glance I couldn’t have read with a dictionary. ‘In business, Jemima, one has to be reliable. Absolutely and without question, one has to be professional.’ Another look. ‘And, may I point out, this isn’t your problem or your concern and I would appreciate you keeping your rather pointy little nose out of things.’

Rosie and I gaped at one another. Saskia must be rattled for her insults to have become so overt.

After a moment’s consideration, Saskia looked me over again. ‘I know this is just a tiny bit personal, darling, but you’re not expecting, are you?’ My mouth fell so far open that from the side I probably looked like a basking shark. ‘You do seem to have put on some weight.’ I tried, but I couldn’t help myself and glanced down at my stomach. Saskia gave a small smile of triumph. ‘But then I shouldn’t think that darling Benedict could be responsible, he seems like a man with a rather more, how should I put it, subtle taste in women.’ Like an unconscious reflex she ran a hand through her hair. ‘And he really is the most adorable kisser.’

Did she think I didn’t know? Or was this a rather pathetic attempt to make me jealous? Or just paranoid?

‘I’m going to make some coffee.’ Rosie pressed Harry to me. ‘And possibly inhale some kind of glue. Chat amongst yourselves.’

‘Chicken,’ I hissed at her but she rolled her eyes at me and fled into the kitchen.

‘Oh, this is a shame, having to leave without the cards.’ Saskia pulled her Blackberry from her bag and consulted it. ‘Oh, well. And I find myself having to double my order, too. Rosie is certainly in for a busy weekend!’ A scythe-like nail pressed a button. ‘Please ask Rosie to excuse me, won’t you? I am rather pushed for time.’ A sideways smile. ‘Oscar has his induction today and I need to rush home for my hat.’

‘He’s five , Saskia. He’s starting school. For most mothers it’s check that his socks are level and that he’s got his lunchbox. You make it sound like the winners enclosure at Goodwood.’

This time I got a chilly stare. ‘The two have a surprising amount in common, Jemima. Although I do realise that the words “surprising amount” and “common” are used rather differently around you. Now excuse me.’ She turned around and lifted the Blackberry again, obviously using it to block me out.

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at,’ my voice was cool, my tone level. ‘But one day someone’s going to stop you, Saskia.’

‘ Playing? ’ Saskia tapped a couple of keys then snapped the lid down. ‘I wasn’t aware that life was a game, Jemima.’ She stood up, hands smoothing down the sides of her skirt where the silk had creased and ruffled deep gouges like ravines. When she spoke again, it was almost a whisper. ‘No. It most certainly is anything but.’

She swivelled so that her hair twisted a circle around her face, pulled a cutely clothes-matching purse from the table and headed for the door. I couldn’t put my finger on the emotion I felt when I realised there were tears smudging the edges of her mascara’d eyes.

After a decent interval, Rosie poked her head back through the door. ‘Thank God she’s gone.’ She flung herself down onto the sofa. ‘She’s trying to make out that I’m bonkers, what with her “I’m sure I told you”, and “but we arranged . . .”.’

Her emphasised speech was uncannily like Saskia’s. ‘Very good. Have you been practising?’

‘Yeah. I sit up at night doing Saskia impressions and feeding Harry lemons so that he’ll grow up associating her with bitterness. He’ll thank me for it when he’s eighteen and she’s trying to get into his trousers.’ Rosie took the baby from me. ‘Now. You’ve only apologised for leaving about, what, five hundred times, so I’d like at least another thousand and possibly some Hail-Mary-type penances, stat. Oh, but that’s after you tell me what’s put such a smile on your face . . . and if it’s anything Glaswegian-related then I’m afraid you can just bugger off back to Kilt-and-Haggis Land, ’cos I’ve got good money resting on you staying put back here.’

I said nothing but let my half-smile do the work for me.

‘Oh God, oh God.’ Rosie danced around the room, with Harry nearly making himself sick trying to keep focusing on her face. ‘You and Ben. Oh, this is just so fantastic !’

‘Steady on. We’re not exactly choosing curtains you know. It was only . . .’ I tailed off, realising I didn’t know what it was. ‘I’m not settling down with him. I stand by what I said, what I’ve always said; no men until I’m a person in my own right.’ But I could hear the hollowness of my words this time, and my smile had become so broad I was nearly swallowing my own ears. Ben and me. Yes.

‘But you must think you’re nearly there, otherwise you wouldn’t have done it, would you?’ Rosie twirled her son about in a makeshift waltz. ‘Years of no sex, and you broke it with Ben. That’s fantastic,’ she repeated, whilst Harry made threatening belching noises. ‘Am I allowed to tell Jason?’

‘Tell me what?’ Jason loomed over the threshold like a bad smell. Complete with a bad smell.

‘Jem had sex with Ben Davies.’

‘Rosie! I didn’t say you could tell him.’

‘Oh right, you try keeping anything from Mr MI5 here, especially if there’s sex involved.’ Her words were a little sour.

I looked from one to the other. ‘Rosie? Jase?’

They both shook heads. ‘Nothing. Honestly, Jem, nothing.’

‘Now, come on, give us the grief — did he tie you up? Gotta be a bondage kinda guy, trousers like he wears.’

‘Jason, you have to tie your women up otherwise they’d see sense and go home.’

‘Jemima, when they sees what I got in here—’ Jason clutched at his groin. ‘They don’t want to go nowhere .’

‘Shutupshutup.’ Rosie waved us both down with the hand not gripping Harry. ‘I want to know all about it. Where, how, why?’

‘And what wiv,’ Jason added, leeringly.

‘I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now.’ I wandered through to the kitchen to put the kettle on, leaving them bickering. There was a slightly pointed edge to Rosie this morning, I thought. She’d been overjoyed to see me but something wasn’t quite right with her. Or, more exactly, not right with her relationship with Jason. There were definite undercurrents, things not said. And given that Jason, Mr Verbal Diarrhoea, was involved, that was something for the Guinness Book of Records .

I shook my head and tipped some Crunch Creams onto a plate. Then thought about Jason eating them all and replaced them with rich tea biscuits and a couple of soggy digestives I found in the back of the cupboard. This wasn’t my home any more. When it had been, there would never have been a chance for digestives to go soggy at the back of the cupboard.

But if this wasn’t home, then were was?

A picture rose in my mind like yeast in a warm oven. Ben’s body, which I’d originally thought of as scrawny, now revealed in all its glory as lean and perfectly muscled. The way he wore his jeans, slung low on his hips and tight across his thighs. His long, untidy hair and his relentlessly stubbled cheeks.

My hands were shaking so much that I nearly dropped the kettle and slopped boiling water all over the draining board.

‘What’s taking so long?’ Jason appeared in the doorway, preceded only slightly by the stench of formaldehyde. ‘People dyin’ of thirst in here, girl.’ I swallowed hard and tried once more to bring the kettle into conjunction with the mugs. ‘You all right?’ His hand steadied mine, but his touch just brought more memories of Ben. ‘You’re not going to run again, are you, babe?’

‘No, Jason, I’m not. I think I’m staying around, at least for a while.’

‘Well, I don’t mind tellin’ you, I’m glad to hear it. How long has it been?’

‘Last night it averaged about eight inches,’ I said just to see his face, and to my gratification Jason actually blushed.