Page 28 of Secrets at the Little Music Shop

Okay, yeah, before I go any further, I’m sorry I cut the appointment. I should have called you, let you know but . . . I was going to come. Was nearly at your office before I caught myself thinking about her, standing in the shop, wondering about me. And, for the record, I was right, she’d Googled the band. Was standing there with the DVD screenshot from ‘All the rain is broken glass’, staring at it like she’d never seen me before.

God, it hurts. Seeing the website, seeing the pics, seeing how we were. But what surprised me was that it hurt more seeing it through her eyes, comparing what I used to be and what I am now. Like . . . like when she’s not looking at me then I’m still Baz Davies, still the guitar-king, screwing all day, playing all night and then sitting up writing songs. Hanging off the roof of the tour bus with a groupie astride my cock and my head full of buzz. And then her eyes fall on me and I’m back to being Ben, back to the shop with no business and all the music locked inside my head.

But I think . . . I dunno, but maybe she likes me. The real me, the me that isn’t coked-up Baz or screwed up Ben, but the me that lies underneath it all. The one I think I can be. And, oh, I so nearly told her. I could feel the words, taste the shape of them, knew all I had to do was say them, put them into the air and then she’d know me. Know me right through to my bones. Fuck, I wanted that.

And then I couldn’t face up to making it all real. You were right, what you said, I do have to adjust, I’m sorry I blew you out and, no, I was not holding her hand, it was just contact. Right then I needed to touch something that wasn’t a part of the shit. You were facing me down and I knew, in my blood, that you were right but I couldn’t . . . I can’t make the step. I can’t stop pretending.

I’m so scared.

Chapter Eleven

‘Wow, Jem, you look great!’

Monday had arrived and I’d spent a lot of the day involved in trivial things. Painting my nails, shaping my eyebrows, stuff that I hardly ever bothered with these days, when there was only Jason to tell me that my legs were so woolly I was in danger of being shot as a runaway llama.

‘Thanks.’ I pulled at my skirt. It was a little tighter and a lot shorter than I usually wore. ‘Thank God for internet shopping.’

Rosie came closer and sniffed. ‘Ooh, Lacoste. Yum. But hang on a minute . . .’ She reached out and carefully undid the top two buttons of my pintucked shirt. ‘That’s better.’

‘Hey, I’m not going to a fancy dress as Little Miss Slutty you know.’

‘Yes, but that skirt is all daring and raunchy. Your top half was a bit shop assistant but it looks terrific now.’ She gave me a wink. ‘Ben’s going to love it.’

‘I’m not wearing it for Ben. I’m wearing it to show Saskia that I might be down but I’m not out.’

‘Hmmm.’ Rosie herself looked professional and cool. I looked, I thought, a bit like a walking blowjob in comparison.

‘Right. I’m off to Ben’s, I’ll see you at the — whatever it is we’re calling it. The Grand Opening of Saskia?’

Rosie snorted. ‘She’s been open for business for years, the ho. Can we pretend it’s a party? A real, proper party, where we get to drink drinks we’d normally sneer at and circulate with people we’ve never met before? After all, I’ve got a girl who advertised on the village noticeboard coming in to babysit Harry and I really don’t want to have gone to all the trouble of squinting at those postcards just to go to the opening of a shop!’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Some of those adverts are really strange.’

‘All right. I’ll see you at the party.’

I got the bus to York, which seemed ignominious. All got up like I was I should at least have been travelling in a white stretch limo and carrying a tiny dog in a bag. Ben’s house was impressive, a four-storey Georgian townhouse with black-painted railings outlining the steps up to the front door. I clopped up in my high heels and rang the bell. As I waited I stared down; there were windows below street level for what would have been basement kitchens in the house’s heyday. Now they were prime sites at which to sit and look up the skirts of passing girls. I hoped Ben wasn’t down there gazing up at my gusset.

I knew he wasn’t when I heard the sound of someone galloping down a staircase and hurtling to the front door. ‘Hey.’

‘Hello.’ I peered through the crack that he’d opened the door. He still had the chain on, even though he must have known it was me because the door had a spyhole. ‘Are you coming tonight then?’

‘Oh, God, is it tonight?’

My heart sank and I found that I was pulling down the hem of my skirt. Now I was going to have to walk into Le Petit Lapin alone and Saskia would surely notice. ‘Yes. But never mind. I’ll see you another time.’

I’d started to clop back down the steps to the pavement when I heard the chain come off and the door open. ‘So, you don’t want me to come?’

I turned. There was Ben looking absolutely gorgeous in a bow tie and dress suit. ‘You are evil,’ I said.

‘Yep. Come in a sec and have a drink. If even half of what you’ve said about Saskia is true, I think we might need to prime ourselves.’

I followed him inside. The front door gave onto a massive hallway, pale wooden floors and tiled walls, with a decorative black-and-white frieze pattern. ‘Wow.’

‘Did you say wow?’

‘This place. Mind you—’ I looked around. ‘It is a bit like being in a huge gents’ toilet.’

‘You should see my bedroom.’

There was a moment of silence while we digested that sentence, both realising it sounded as though he’d meant something he clearly didn’t mean, and then another moment of flustered consternation while Ben pretended he didn’t realise he could have been misconstrued and I tried to over-ride my brain.

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