Page 15 of Days You Were Mine

I start to laugh, but it dies halfway through because now all I can see is him naked.

‘We’ll get you some money from the record label, of course. How much do you want? Fifty pounds? A hundred? Let’s call it a hundred.’

‘A hundred pounds is far too much.’

‘Most people would actually be quite pleased. Most people would ask for more. Stick it in the bank or something, you might need it someday.’

In my head I’m storing up these extraordinary moments to recount to Rick, but they are coming at me too fast. Me earning a hundred pounds in the course of one brief conversation? Rick sold his painting to San Lorenzo for thirty, and at the time that seemed unthinkable to us.

‘What shall we do now? We could go to a club, but there’s nothing open for an hour or so. But maybe you want to go home?’

‘I don’t want to go home.’

‘So …’ A slight hesitation. ‘I live in Soho. You could come to my flat for a bit, if you wanted? But is that what you want?’

I nod, because it’s impossible to speak.

The way we grin at each other then, a mutual smile that tips into almost-laughter, is an agreement signed.

In darkness now, we pass doorways with red lights above them, others where girls stand outside, bare legs with fur coats, the standard uniform. Sometimes Jacob says hello.

‘Hi, darling,’ he calls, and the girls always know his name.

‘Hi, Jake.’

‘Should I call you Jake?’ I ask, and he laughs.

‘I should think so. My grandparents were the only people who called me Jacob, and you wouldn’t want me to associate you with them.’

His flat is at the far end of Dean Street, three floors up, he tells me, though the moment he has opened up the front door of the thin, tall house and pulled me inside, he kisses me, both hands clasping my face, the sketchbook thudding to the floor.

‘Next time,’ he says, stooping to pick it up, ‘let’s leave the etchings behind.’

The front door of his flat opens into a large sitting room, painted wine red with purple and gold strips of fabric hanging from the ceiling like rows of hammocks. There are candles everywhere, dark red ones, stuffed into empty wine bottles with swollen bases. Beneath the window there’s a low-slung sofa made of brown corduroy, almost hidden beneath a covering of cushions, twenty or thirty of them, in orange, red and purple, each one embroidered in gold and glinting with tiny mirrors.

Jake picks up a box of matches and begins to light the candles.

There are records everywhere – in boxes on the floor, in piles stacked up against the wall – and I watch him flipping through the first pile, taking his time to select one.Exile on Main St.I’ve played it so often on the turntable in my teenage bedroom, the soundtrack will always be imbued with memories of home.

‘They wrote this album in the south of France. And we’re going to do the same thing in Italy. We’ve rented a house in Fiesole, just outside Florence, for the summer.’

Jake lights the last candle and comes to sit next to me on the sofa.

‘There’s a lot of pressure with this second album,’ he says. ‘The first one made it to number six; they’re expecting the next one to be even bigger. And it’s complicated because – well, you saw the show – our music is very varied, not one thing to define us, and that can be hard to sell.’

He leans forward to kiss me.

‘Shall we have some wine? There’s a bottle in the fridge.’

‘Wine would be good,’ I say, feeling that I need it. I’m not much of a drinker – Rick can testify to my weak head – but it’s hard to ignore the undercut of nerves, my whole body clenched with … desire? Fear at what comes next?

Jake returns with an opened bottle of Frascati and two glasses, which he places on a wooden coffee table covered in music magazines, includingSounds, with its arresting picture of him. This, more than anything, underlines the surreality of the situation. I’m about to sleep with a rock star; there on the table is the evidence.

He sits next to me and kisses me again, more insistently this time, and I close my eyes, expecting more, but he draws away.

‘I think we both want the same thing. But any time you want to stop you just have to say. OK? I’m a lot older than you and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.’

‘I want to do everything,’ I say, and Jake laughs.

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