Page 59 of Secrets at the Little Music Shop

‘I’m sorry,’ I sniffled, and ran out of the cottage. As an exit it lacked a certain something and I had to wait a humiliating ten minutes for the bus, crouched behind the bus shelter in case Rosie decided to follow.

Chapter Eighteen

So early the next morning that the birds had hardly cleared their throats I sat in the elaborate guest room and stuffed my belongings into my rucksack.

They’d get over it, they’d all get over it. And Ben . . . Ben could look after himself. I was closing this chapter and starting a new one. In a different book, preferably one with a whole lot less subtext.

I listened, but there was no sound of Ben stirring up in his attic bedroom, all whitewashed walls and floors cluttered with sheets of half-written music. I had to be quick.

I yanked my last shirt from where it had fallen, shoved it all back in. It wouldn’t matter if things were creased and unwashed where I was going, who was there to care? I looked around at the carefully minimalist luxury of the huge house, the sanded floors and the painted walls. Perfect backdrops for Ben, perfect foils for his everywhichway hair and raggy jeans. Showing he could afford better but didn’t care.

Stop it. I didn’t want to think about him. He was just another one of those passing elements which periodically tried to combine with me, just another thing to be shrugged off, to become a faint sketch in my memory. Okay, so I’d allowed him to get closer, I’d let myself down on that one, lowered my guard. Right, lesson learned there, don’t let anyone get in, even skanky deaf musicians could worm their way past the defences. From now on I’d keep myself to myself and this would be the experience I’d needed to make sure it never happened again.

I swung my bag up onto my shoulder. Ready.

Oh no, one thing first.

I went to the kitchen and tipped out the jar of cash, pushing fivers deep into all my pockets, filling the pockets of the rucksack with coins until it jingled each time I hefted it. That would teach him. Trust no-one, Ben Davies. The world is out to get you.

Then without a backward glance I pulled the front door of Wilberforce Crescent closed and stepped out into a new life. Although never before had my throat felt so swollen, as though I was trying to swallow all the possibilities which could have been mine or my vision so clouded with the futures I could have had. I forced them down. Stowed them away for discarding, just as soon as I reached my new destination.

York shone under the summer sun like an illuminated drawing, the Minster on its slight hill, the pale stone buildings postcard-perfect. I felt a tug somewhere deep inside as though I was attached physically to those medieval streets and gatehouses by some elastic device. I shook my head and walked on. It had been the same before in Prague, hadn’t it? Where the bridges and walls had seemed to conspire to hold me? But I’d walked away then and I could walk away now.

I had a sudden image of Ben, waking up. Walking through the house, room by room. Room by room. Searching. I hoisted my bag higher. He’d let go of Willow Down, he could let go of me. Let’s face it, I’d been a fleeting moment. I was a passing phase, a nothing.

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.