Page 60 of Secrets at the Little Music Shop

I was seriously losing it.

I paid for a week’s lodging in a B&B in a road not far from the shopping streets and lay on the bed listening to the sounds of the street outside. I needed to get my things into the shops. Needed to get out there, to start selling, find myself somewhere to set up a workshop. So why was I lying here, a slow string of tears quietly renewing itself on my cheeks? Crying didn’t pay the bills. Didn’t give you freedom. All it did was tie you to the memories of something you couldn’t have. A luxury I didn’t want and couldn’t pay for.

Stop wasting time, Gemma.

And then another part of me thought, Why not? Time is one thing I’ve got plenty of. Why not waste just a little of it mourning for everything that went before?

And then I cried. Properly for the first time since Randall had died. Bringing all the misery and loneliness and fear out where I could see it, showing myself exactly what I’d lost. My parents, Christian, Gray, Randall. Anyone I had ever cared for. And Ben, whispered a little voice. Rosie, Jason, Harry. But you chose that, didn’t you? Chose to throw that affection away. And I turned into the pillow for fear that my sobs might cause my landlady to come and find out what was the cause of the strange noise in room 14.

* * *

I’d forgotten how hard it was, starting over. How had I let myself get like this, soft and unprepared? The first two rejections dug into me like fingernails and tears were never far from the surface. I found myself jerking the straps of my rucksack into my shoulders, using the pain to keep my mind from wandering. Focus. And then the third shop said they’d think about it. Took my details. The seventh shop took two buckles on approval and I found a flat to rent on a card in a newsagents. Out of the city and two bus rides from the main shops, but a roof over my head. Paid for with the last of Ben’s money, although I kept one coin in the bottom of the inside pocket of my bag, telling myself it was for absolute last-ditch emergencies. Knowing all the time that it was my final link with the world I had left, the last thing I had that Ben had touched. And sometimes, deep in the night, when I woke with my heart scratching at my chest to be released, I would hold the little bronze disc against my cheek as though I could imprint him onto me through it. Waiting for the feelings to burn down to a dull redness before I could sleep again.

And still I kept seeing him on the streets. I’d learned my lesson, though, and stopped accosting innocent strangers who just happened to bear a, sometimes quite embarrassingly slight, resemblance. After two weeks things were back to normal. I was supplying two shops on a regular basis, had made a couple of casual drinking friends and found a workshop space courtesy of the art college. My heart had stopped hurting me every time I caught a glimpse of a rangy dark-haired man and if I found myself twisting my last pound coin in the night, I assured myself it was simply my good-luck charm and nothing to do with the memories it carried.

I spent a lot of time sitting in the park near the river. Most people were afraid of this part of town, muggings were rife, but I had nothing to steal and the cool water flowing through the city reminded me harmlessly of York. There was nothing unexplored about this situation, nothing scary. A measure of control had come back to my life and I was heading for the edgy contentment which was the nearest I felt to happiness these days.

It was nearly three weeks since I’d left York. Now I could flip the pound coin between my fingers almost thoughtlessly; my default activity when my hands weren’t occupied with buckle-making. Sitting in the park, feeling the sun on my back and flipping my coin. On this particular evening I felt someone move into the space between me and the park railings and instinctively I put a foot on my rucksack to prevent a casual running theft. But the figure didn’t touch my bag. Instead he reached over the top of me and snatched the coin at the top of its arc.

‘You could have had everything.’

I turned my head. Ben was standing beside me watching my face with an almost greedy expression. He looked awful, which was how I knew he wasn’t an illusion. My illusions nowadays were better dressed. ‘Have you been following me?’ My heart began to thunder in my throat.

‘Following? Believe me, following would have been a piece of cake.’ He sounded rough, too. Like his throat was sore. ‘Why did you do it, Jem?’

I waved an arm. ‘New life.’

Ben shook his head. ‘Really? What’s so new about it? Running, tramping the streets, always moving on, in what way is this a new life? Because it looks exactly like the old one to me. Only with a distinct lack of people who care about you.’

‘Maybe that’s what I like about it.’

‘So it’s okay to destroy people’s lives then, is it? To wreck people’s emotions?’ A hand went to reach for me and then dropped, drawing my attention to the fact he was wearing one of my buckles, the one I’d seen him wearing before, in the shop. Decades ago. In another life.

‘I thought you sold that one.’ I gestured.

‘No, bought it myself. I wanted something that you’d made. Yeah, stupid, I know.’ His voice was sour. ‘To care so much for someone who wants anything but concern for her welfare. But I do.’ He coughed. ‘Bloody Zafe, he’s wrecking my throat with those fags.’

‘You went to Zafe?’

An inclination of the head. ‘I needed to find you and I needed help to do it. Someone who could hear. Jason’s got his work cut out looking after Rosie, and there was no-one else to turn to so I . . .’ A small shrug. ‘It took him hard when I explained. It was weird, you know? He said he thought that I’d . . . Christ, stupid sod . . . that I’d been diagnosed HIV positive. That I’d taken myself off somewhere to die. So at first the fact that I was as deaf as a brick was, like, a good thing. And then he realised — ’ Ben closed his eyes briefly. ‘He realised it was the death of music for me and that was almost as bad. Worse, in some ways.’ He looked me in the eye suddenly, for the first time. ‘There was a lot of hugging that day.’

My blood was settling down now, rather than heaving and retching through my veins. There was a small, slow burn in my chest that I wasn’t familiar with. ‘I’m glad.’

He shrugged. ‘Why? It’s nothing to you, is it? I’m nothing to you.’

‘Ben I . . .’ But he interrupted me.

‘Just to leave? Not a note, no explanation? Jesus, Jem, what were you trying to do? Prove something? I thought . . . I thought you cared. I saw it in your eyes and don’t tell me you were lying because I’m a bit of an expert there and no-one can lie with their eyes. Not like that.’ He slid down to lie on the crisp-packet strewn grass as though fatigue would no longer let him stand.

‘Maybe I can.’ Under the bravado my tone wavered, just a bit.

He shook his head. That was all.

‘So. How is everyone?’

A shrug. ‘Do you really want to know? Rosie is missing you. She said you told her you were going and that you argued about it when she tried to make you stay. She told me that you — never mind. And Harry cries a lot. She blames you for that, too.’ Another shrug. ‘And who knows what Jason thinks, but his message for you is — now, hang on, let me get this straight — “get your head in gear, babe.” Oh, and something about ice cubes, but I’m not sure what that was about.’

A hot blush lit my cheeks. The feeling setting itself like a crystal in my belly acquired a name. Guilt. I looked at him, digging his fingers into the soil and the feelings rushed over me like an incoming tide. I had to breathe slow and deep so as not to drown. ‘Ben. I—’

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