‘I’ll show you. So, I like the phrase “perfect strangers”, it’s intriguing. Then I’d choose “confession” and “forgive” and explore how these words might connect. This song, or poem, or piece of art, or whatever, could be about strangers meeting. And maybe they have been thrown together because of a bad thing they’ve done that needsconfessingandforgiveness. Now I have a theme and if I like it, I keep going or start again with different words. There are no rules. It’s better than starting with a blank page.’
He grabbed his notebook and started scribbling. She was pleased he was responding positively to the idea.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he said after a while. ‘It’s all nonsense.’
‘Does it matter if it doesn’t make sense? Lots of Bowie lyrics don’t make sense.’
‘But what’s thepointif it doesn’t make sense?’
‘Well, it’s art, isn’t it? It provokes thought, and combined with music, it moves people. It gives them an experience and an opinion about that experience.’
His brow creased.
‘Try it by yourself for a bit. I’ll tell the boys to give you an hour.’
But when she went back later, he wasn’t at the table with the clippings. He was on the far side of the room, tinkering with his guitar.
‘How did you get on?’ she asked.
‘It was all gobbledegook.’
‘Shall I look? Fresh pair of eyes?’
‘Nah. It wasn’t working for me. Thank you, though.’
‘Do you want to try with some books? I can copy stuff out and cut it up––’
‘I can’t do it that way!’ His voice rang out in the silence that followed. He’d never raised his voice to her before. It stung.
‘You can’t fix this,’ he mumbled. ‘Ihave to.’
Chapter 55
June 1999
By Emily’s last visit, the band had been in Wales for nine long months. Horizontal driving rain hammered into the windscreen the whole journey, littering the route with accidents and leaving her stationary for long periods. With her mind free to wander, it kept returning to the same thing – the letter she’d received that morning. The one that left her stomach in knots.
By the time she reached the farm, she was exhausted and her temples throbbed. The dash from the car to the coach house left her drenched. She dumped her dripping coat and bag in the hall and found Matty in the sitting room nursing a bottle of whiskey.
‘Where is everyone?’ she asked.
‘Will’s on a call with the producer and Reu’s gone into the village. Again. He spends half his life in that dive of a pub. Here, have a drink.’ He poured whiskey into a coffee mug and shoved it in her direction.
She sank onto the sofa opposite him. It was the first time they’d been alone together since he suggested she split with Will.
‘How’s the recording going?’ she asked.
He raised the bottle as if making toast. ‘Great!’ She detected more than a hint of sarcasm. He took a long drinkstraight from the bottle and smacked his lips. ‘How’s the art going?’
‘Fine.’ She ought to leave him to it.
‘How many pictures did you sell at your exhibition, again?’
Emily lifted an eyebrow. Matty had never shown any interest in her work before. ‘Quite a few of the smaller pieces sold. There were four big ones; I think the gallery overpriced them, but one of them still sold.’
‘Was that the one Will bought? The cover art forYellow Feathers?’
She stared at him. ‘What?’