Please Don't Stop The Music Read Free Page B

Harry’s) skin. ‘Nice piece of equipment. My
… cousin is into guitars. Do you play?’
    He
swallowed and put the buckle down on the counter. Rubbed his hands
over his face. ‘No,’ he said indistinctly. ‘Not any
more.’
    ‘ You
gave up? Why?’ He didn’t answer and when I looked at him he was
staring at the floor. A muscle trembled in his cheek and his
fingers were flexing, twitching, almost as though he was playing
out a tune on the strings of a long-gone instrument. I felt
suddenly ashamed; there was something naked on his face, something
he couldn’t conceal behind warped body-language and flippancy. A
longing and a desperation.
    On
my shoulder, Harry stopped bumping his head against me and began to
whinge. I fussed him into a new position and when I looked up, the
man – Ben – was watching me again. ‘Look, tell you what. I’ll keep
this,’ and his hand closed over my sample buckle. ‘If I sell it
I’ll order some pieces from you. If I can’t, then no
go.’
    Hope
flared through me. It wasn’t exactly an unqualified yes, but then
he hadn’t dismissed me either. ‘Thank you. Ben.’
    A
sudden smile lifted his face into the handsome category. ‘Don’t
mention it. Jemima.’ He flicked at the business card I’d given him.
‘I’ll e-mail you if there’s any news.’
    ‘ Or
phone. My mobile number’s on the card.’
    ‘ You’d better get that young man home. He looks like he’s
working up to another eruption.’ Ben nodded towards Harry, who did
indeed have a very thoughtful expression. ‘I’ve got no tea towels
left to come to your rescue.’
    As I
tucked Harry back into the pram I glanced in through the shop
doorway and saw Ben take the blazing star guitar down off the wall.
He struck a chord then played a riff, teasing his fingers up and
down the frets like a man reacquainting himself with an old lover.
He looked so poised, so natural, holding the guitar loosely with
the body resting against his thighs, I couldn’t believe that he’d
given up playing. Yet, as I began hauling the pram backwards out of
the yard, it almost looked as if Ben, with his head bent over the
strings, was crying.
    * *
*
    21st
April
    Weather fine. Sold – two guitar strings, one poster (Iggie
Pop, reduced to £2.00). Breakfast – three Weetabix.
    Is
this the kind of thing you want me to write, doctor? Is this giving
you the insight you thought it would?
    Drank a bottle of wine. For lunch. Back in the day it would
have been a couple of grammes of snow and carry on playing, with
the world all feather light in my head and feeling like I owned the
universe. Now I feel like I’m dragging each day by the neck. So,
what do you want me to say? What am I supposed to write? You want
the truth, you want to know how I am? I’m scared, that’s how I am,
scared and depressed. What’s the point in any of this any
more?
    So,
today was – a day. Wednesday? Maybe. Who cares? Who fucking cares?
Nothing out of the ordinary, just hours passing here inside this
box. Oh no, one thing, a girl came in with her baby, wanting me to
buy some jewellery, stuff that she makes. Felt kinda sorry for her,
she looked a bit out of her depth, bit unpractised, still she’ll
get the hang. Come to terms with it, like we all have to do. Wade
through the crap until you realise that there’s only more crap on
the other side. She was – cute, skinny. Bit scared-looking.
Something about the eyes … Told her my name but she didn’t get it,
so I guess … hey, there have to be a few, you know? Yeah, I know
what you’re thinking, but no.
    I
don’t need anyone.
     
     

Chapter Three
    When
I went over to the workshop the following day, Jason was finishing
off stretching a portrait of David Beckham across the front end of
a Deltic diesel.
    ‘ Kettle’s on.’ He didn’t even look at me, just hung from his
ladder and welded another wire through the footballer’s face. Poor
Mr Beckham now looked as though he had a case of ferrous acne, and
even