Please Don't Stop The Music (8 page)

‘
Is
that it then?’ I squeezed past him in the doorway, coming in as he
was going out. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me how to deal with
shoplifters or anything?’ I tried to ignore the brief moment of
contact when I’d felt the bones of his shoulder against
mine.

‘
Are
you serious?’ Ben looked around the walls at the big heavy guitars.
‘All right, if anyone comes in wearing a tent, search them before
they leave.’ And he was gone, trailing a surprisingly nice scent
for someone who didn’t date.

I
spent a pleasant half-hour searching for any clues as to where he
had gone with his newly shiny hair and his expensive aftershave.
There was a calendar hanging behind the counter but today’s date
didn’t bear anything more informative than a circle in yellow
highlighter pen. I did establish that Ben kept a spare T shirt in a
drawer in the little kitchenette and that he had 145 unread
e-mails, but I couldn’t log in to read them even if I’d wanted
to.

After that I got a bit bored. No-one came
in even to browse. I flicked through
Kerrang!
even though it was an old
copy, straightened a few instruments which had become oddly angled
under their own weight and finally started walking about reading
the posters on the walls.

‘
Zafe Rafale!’ they all screamed in various fluorescent
colours. ‘Brit DJ of 2008!’ Zafe apparently had played numerous
gigs in and around York in the last year and every single one
seemed to have been commemorated on these walls. I wondered why.
Did Ben have some connection (maybe sexual, I thought pruriently)
with Zafe? Or did he just have an affection for dayglo posters?
Maybe he was colour blind?

I
was out in the kitchenette making myself a coffee when the bell
went off with a vibration that made the walls tremble and ran down
my spine like an electric shock.

‘
Goody, a customer.’ I rubbed my hands and squeezed through
the hatch so that I could pop up from behind the till. ‘Good
morning.’

‘
You’re a woman!’ The lightly bearded young man with the
stripy hat and earrings took a step back.

‘
Well done. There are men that have got my clothes off before
they discovered that.’ I cleared my throat. ‘I mean, how may I help
you?’

‘
Is
Ben in?’

Ostentatiously I looked around the tiny shop. ‘Good Lord, he
appears to have sunk through the floor! Never mind, he might be
skinny but he’ll snag on the foundations. Try again later, we’ll
spend the rest of the morning winching him up.’

The
lad was staring at the ground as though he really did expect to see
the top of Ben’s head slowly subsiding through the planking. ‘I
just … I saw … thought he might want to know,’ he finished.
Presumably he charged by the word. ‘Will you show him?’ Almost
coyly he pushed a magazine across the counter. ‘Page forty,’ he
whispered, and by the time I’d picked it up he was gone.

The magazine, contrary to my first
impressions and beliefs, wasn’t ‘Fashion Crimes and Your Part in
Them’, but the latest edition of
Metal
Hammer
, the best-selling music rag for the
discerning heavy metal freak and indie-guitar strummer. Page forty
was full of news snippets, what’s on the grapevine. As the lack of
customers continued, I sat back to read through
it.

* *
*

When
Ben came back into the shop, carrying the jacket to reveal the
surprisingly tight white T that he’d had on underneath, I thought
I’d found it.

‘
A
lad brought this in to show you.’ I slithered down from where I’d
been sitting on the counter swinging my legs and presumably putting
off customers in their droves.

‘
Uh
huh. Did you get a name?’

‘
Metal Hammer
.’

‘
Odd
name for a lad.’ Ben hung up the jacket and opened the
till.

‘
The
magazine. And don’t worry, I haven’t stolen all your cash, in fact
I haven’t even opened the till while you’ve been away. I think he
wanted you to see this.’ I brandished the open page under his nose,
my thumb marking the relevant piece. ‘They’ve just brought out a
guitar that tunes itself. Like a robot.’

‘
Cute.’ He took the magazine from me and
handed me a twenty-pound note. ‘Here. Reckon that’s enough for an
hour and a half spent drinking my coffee and …
no. Please, no!
’ He’d looked down at
the page of print and dropped the magazine as though it was on
fire. He was shaking.

‘
Ben? Hey …’ Cautiously I touched his arm.

‘
What?’ He flinched, then his eyes searched my face, almost
panicked. ‘I’m sorry, I’m losing … I didn’t … hear you.’

‘
Are
you OK?’

He
gave a laugh as though something was very unfunny indeed, then slid
to sit with his back against the counter. ‘Someone walked over my
grave,’ he said. ‘Yes. That’s just what happened.’

He had a tattoo at the top of his arm. I
could see it where the sleeve of his T shirt had rolled back. It
was a curious Celtic design encircling his bicep and again I found
myself wondering about him. I had to close my eyes and breathe hard
to stop myself.
Don’t get
involved …

‘
I
don’t understand.’

He
looked up at me. ‘Don’t even try.’ He rested his chin on his
drawn-up knees. ‘Honestly, Jemima, don’t even try.’

‘
Is
there anything I can do?’ I was puzzled by his over-reaction. There
hadn’t been anything on that page that my skim reading had shown up
as being a volatile subject. Unless he was truly distraught that
Metallica were bringing out a new album.

Again, that laugh. ‘I’m afraid not. No.’ And now he was
staring around at the walls of his shop and I didn’t know if he was
aware of it but his fingers were moving on his thighs as though he
was strumming a tune on an invisible guitar. ‘There’s nothing
anyone can do. And that’s official.’

‘
But
…’

‘
Go
home, Jemima.’

He
looked so distraught that it cut through my usual distance.
Clenching my teeth I touched his arm again. Traced my finger across
the tattooed lines. ‘Nice tatt.’ Trying to change the subject, to
stop the obvious pain.

A
hand came up and slapped my fingers away. ‘Don’t touch me.’ It was
said wearily, heavily, as though the words were well-used. ‘I’m
sorry but I can’t …’ and then he looked at me again with such pain
in his face that I had to look away. ‘Just go home.’

I
headed for the door and the whole atmosphere was so full of his
torment that it was like walking through glass splinters. As I
started over the threshold he called me back.

He
dropped the magazine. ‘Jemima?’

I
didn’t turn round. ‘What?’

‘
Did
you ask your friend?’ He was still sitting on the floor with his
knees under his chin. His hair hung over his eyes, but I knew he
could see me. ‘About dinner?’

‘
Oh. Yes. Thursday. Is that OK?’ This was a
ridiculous conversation. Ben was sitting there looking as though he
wished the world would end, while I, feeling chastised and
decidedly shaken, was conversing over my shoulder. And we were
discussing dinner-party arrangements? What’s wrong with
this
picture?

‘
Thursday? Fine. Yeah, good.’

‘
I’ll e-mail you. With directions and
stuff,’ I added quickly. I’d rarely had such a response to someone
before. This feeling of sympathy combined with some other emotion
that I was never,
never
going to try to identify, had left me breathless.
I wanted to get out, to breathe, to reassure
myself.

‘
Thanks.’ His voice sounded a little stronger now, a little
more sure. Perhaps now he’d established that I wasn’t going to make
some kind of pass.

‘
OK.
I’ll just leave you to … stare at pictures of people wearing real
clothes or whatever it is you do.’

This
time he laughed and it was a proper laugh. ‘Great, thanks. Then
afterwards I’ll just go off and ignore some proper meals, shall
I?’

I
half-smiled at him, still over my shoulder. ‘You do that, Ben.’ And
I managed to walk out of the shop, even though every nerve wanted
to run.

* *
*

24th
April

Did
you know? DID YOU? What the FUCK did you think it would do to me,
finding out like that?

I’m

not

doing

this

any
more

* *
*

‘
Have you got a
Metal Hammer
? The newest one?’ I
flung myself into the workshop and confronted Jason, who was eating
a sandwich.

‘
Got
a mallet,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘Any good?’

‘
The
magazine.’ I hunted around the office, picking up and discarding
various glossy weekly and monthly rags which Jason picked up like
he picked up sexually transmitted diseases. ‘It’s got a picture of
a bloke with lots of hair on the cover.’

‘
Goes with the territory.’ Jason stood up and lifted the
magazine he’d been sitting on. ‘This one?’

‘
Thank you.’ I flicked through to page forty.

‘
So
then, what’s the interest? You gonna take up the axe then? Or you
looking to be a groupie?’ He licked his lips. ‘ ’Cos I might just
be able to help you there. Basic training an’ all.’

‘
Jason, I am
not
a virgin.’ I didn’t even bother
to look at him, I knew what he’d be doing.

‘
So
you say.’ Jason stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and
came to read over my shoulder. ‘So, whatcha lookin’
for?’

‘
I
don’t know.’ I was still skimming the page. ‘Anything unusual,
anything out of the ordinary.’

‘
Metallica got a new album comin’ out.’

‘
Not
that. I don’t think.’

He
blew a cheese-and-pickle scented breath. ‘Well there’s not much
else here. Usual bands split, bands reform, some dodgy old codgers
doing a come-back tour … nah.’

‘
There must be something that set him off.’

‘
Oho! You getting some action, Jemima my love?’

‘
You
sound exactly like Bill Sykes when you talk like that, do you
know?’

‘
Don’t he play bass for Radiohead?’ Jason kicked my
leg.

‘
As in
Oliver
Twist
, you illiterate.’ I finished my
third re-read. ‘Nope. I give in.’

‘
Well don’t look to me for help. I know nothing about the
British music scene these days, spent too long being cosmopolitan,
me.’

‘
Spent too long freeloading in the States you mean.’ Jason had
only recently returned to Britain after two years spent getting his
name, his face and his only other significant part known in
America. Apparently the American art world had hailed him as the
new ‘wunderkind’. I wondered if they knew what it meant.

‘
Gotta get going.’ Jason slithered away back to his studio.
‘David B won’t weld himself you know.’

I
headed out of the workshop and across the scrubby corner-plot
garden which separated the barn from the cottage. I had loads of
work to be doing, all my paperwork, and some new-build jewellery
and the website could do with a bit of attention. But I couldn’t
settle. There had been something in Ben’s face this morning,
something wounded and wary and it had caused a reaction in me, as
if I was recognising a part of myself on display in someone else.
Maybe it was time to start packing.

‘
Hi,
Jem!’

Rosie looked good this afternoon, I was glad to see. Neatly
dressed, albeit in one of her old maternity frocks, and with a
slick of make-up. Harry was kicking his legs, nappyless, on the
lawn under a sunshade while Rosie put the finishing touches to
another set of cards, working at the kitchen table she’d pulled
outside onto the rough patio which surrounded the cottage. ‘Hey,
Rosie. How’s it going?’

‘
Good thanks. Saskia’s coming over in a minute to pick these
up. Do you have time to set a tripwire round the front?’

‘
Snaring animals is illegal,’ I answered happily. It was so
good to see her back on bantering form.

‘
It’d be a kindness. Well, for us.’ She slipped the last batch
of cards into the cardboard carton at her side and taped up the
lid. ‘How was work?’

‘
Do
you mean the paid kind, or the artistically satisfying and yet
strangely unpopular kind?’

‘
In
the shop. Whichever one that is.’

‘
It was … yeah, it was okay. Um, Rosie,
listen …’ I was about to start introducing the subject of, maybe,
my needing to move on, head for pastures new,
run away
, when Rosie clutched at my
arm.

‘
It’s Saskia!’