Please Don't Stop The Music (28 page)

I reached the station and collected enough
coins from the pockets of my rucksack to buy a ticket to Glasgow.
It took several handfuls and the man in the ticket office looked
pained as he bagged them all but a few minutes later I was through
and stepping onto the train. Hearing in the rhythm of the departing
locomotives the refrain
hesitationisdeath,
hesitationisdeath.
This had to be done.
Like in the prison, the smells of sweat and reluctance, of fear and
loneliness, all things which could be borne, which
had to be
borne. A time
which had to be lived through.

The
doors slid shut behind me, then there was the no-man’s-land pause,
when I belonged neither to York nor to Glasgow. Could choose
either. Inaction chose for me. The train pulled, leaned to the
slight incline and drew its way out of the station.

Nothing could touch me now.

* *
*

25th
May

I
thought it was all over, that the worst had passed. Jem and I were
… equal. Her life for mine, stories traded like dreams. And now
…

I
didn’t think there was anything left to hurt me. I thought we could
work it out. Now I see that I was just waiting for her to give,
like the walls she’d built were paper things that would fall under
the weight of … of what? My desire? Like I am all she needs? How
hypocritical, how egocentric can I be? Jesus, doc, why has no-one
told me even now, the world as I knew it is gone? No more groupies
on their knees, no more yes-men with their wraps of snow. It’s not
all about me any more.

I
let being deaf define me. In my head I’d become this genius, this
towering musical prodigy that deafness had levelled, had forced to
become human; like I should be given special treatment. But now I
know. It wasn’t deafness that made me human again, it was Jemima. I
misjudged. Screwed up. And now she’s gone.

I woke up and found she’d left as though
none of it counted. The fears and the secrets we’d exchanged
weren’t worth the air we breathed to tell them. Fake currency. But
I never meant to use those secrets to buy her, never wanted
gratitude or sympathy to be the coinage that kept us together, I
wanted her to
want
to be with me.

And
it’s all I can think. She’s gone. And the last bit of my ego is
screaming and punching the floor, because I want her so much. But
my head knows she did what she thought she had to.

And
the rest of me knows I have to find her.

Chapter Nineteen

Glasgow was a hard city, all sharp Scottish
corners and accents and from the moment I stepped from the train I
knew I’d made a mistake. Even the sunlight was gone, replaced by a
damp greyness which seeped through my clothes. The tears which had
haunted my journey threatened to reappear, making the outline of
the railway buildings blur. I sat heavily on a step.
What was I doing?

Getting old, that was what. Twenty-eight,
and the months of comfort staying put in Rosie’s little cottage had
blunted my edges. Time to get back into practice, get back on that
horse and ride. I shouldered my rucksack and leaned into the
straps, heading up the hill towards Sauchiehall Street where the
craft shops stood. I put the tears down to tiredness, to the
anxieties of relocation. It often hit me this way. Well, not
exactly
this
way
… I usually enjoyed the heart-thump of new possibilities in a new
location. Especially when scoping out the shops, looking for
possibilities. The thrill of a new chase, new
conquests.

And then on the other side of the road, I
saw a figure. Tall and skinny, in ripped black jeans. Long dark
hair tracing its way over the collar of a huge grey coat. Walking
away from me, heading down the hill. ‘
You
bastard
,’ I thought. ‘
How dare you follow me? How dare you even think
…
’ I swung myself after him, confronted
him, hand on shoulder as he was about to turn into a side
street.

‘
Awae, hen, what’s the matter?’ The broad Glaswegian vowels
spun me out of my self-delusion. Not Ben. Not even really close,
this guy was broader, had earrings in both ears and nowhere near
the cheekboned glamour of the ex guitarist. I stammered my
apologies and walked away, keen eyes watching me go amid a highly
accented attempt to get me to stay.

Stupid. Stupid.
Seeing what I wanted to see, deep deep down, hidden behind so
many layers of self-loathing and fear. As I walked I saw more faces
in the crowds that littered the streets. A guy, so much like
Randall that my heart went into free-fall, pounding the air from my
lungs. Same hair, same quick laugh, passing me by as easily as if I
didn’t exist. And over there, sitting by the river, dropping beads
of bread for uninterested ducks – Christian. Or Christian as
he
should
have
been; clean, blond.
Older.
Holding a small child by the hand, amused at her
efforts to get the bread to land in the water.

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 –’