For three hot, grubby, sleep-deprived and music-filled days I didn’t think of Neal, or Hayden, or paint colours, or upcoming weddings. I ate noodles and tofu burgers and cheese crackers and drank warm beer and bad coffee and danced and lay in the sun, burning my shoulders and the tip of my nose. It was summer. I was on holiday. I was going to enjoy myself.
When I got home, I felt full of new energy. I threw away almost all my clothes, and painted the wooden floor of my bedroom white, though streaks kept showing through and it didn’t look the way I’d expected. I threw away old magazines, bags I never used, shoes I didn’t wear, pens that didn’t work, music I didn’t play, food I would never cook, photos I didn’t want to look at, letters that reminded me of times I wanted to forget. I went out and bought several pots of paint. I didn’t know if the energy coursing through me was euphoria or rage. I thought of getting a tattoo done – a small one on my shoulder, maybe – but I’m scared of needles. Then the phone rang and it was Neal. He wasn’t reproachful, he simply said would I please, please come round. I imagined his handsome face: those wide-set eyes and the way he smiled when he saw me.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll come now.’
In the hallway he kissed my shoulder and my mouth. In the living room he took off my shoes, untying the laces carefully and placing them neatly side by side. On the way up the stairs, he put a warm hand on my back to guide me. In the bedroom he unbuttoned my shirt and then, holding my chin in his hand so I couldn’t look away, he said, ‘Why didn’t I see how lovely you were all those years ago?’
But as he laid me on the bed, I said, ‘Neal, there’s something.’
‘What?’
‘You mustn’t get involved with me.’ I heard Hayden’s voice as I spoke. ‘Really you mustn’t.’
‘Whatever you say.’ He thought I was joking, and I didn’t know yet whether he was right or not. My thoughts clouded under the intensity of his gaze and the heat of his touch. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between being desired and being desiring. I took his face in my hands, kissed him and heard him sigh.
When I woke at dawn, a thick golden light shining in through the open window, I turned and looked at him sleeping, his lips puffing slightly with each deep breath. I laid my hand on his hip. I told myself I would forget about Hayden, just as he had already forgotten about me. What had happened was a bizarre but meaningless slip, a wrong turn that I had quickly corrected. No one would ever have to know.
After
I woke with a start and lay, for a moment, rigid under my sheet and covered with sweat, my heart beating too fast. I tried to shake myself free of my dream, but it had been about Hayden, his face disappearing under the water, gaping head and eyes still open. I sat up and breathed deeply, in and out, shuddering, feeling the sweat dry on my forehead until I was cold and clammy. What had I done?
What had I done?
I crept out of bed in the darkness, made it to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. I washed my face and cleaned my teeth, then lay down again, waiting for dawn.
The doorbell rang and I blundered out of bed, pulled on a towelling robe over my T-shirt and knickers and ran down to the communal hall.
‘Bonnie Graham?’
‘Yes.’
‘Special delivery.’
I signed the form he held out on a clipboard and then he handed over a squashy parcel wrapped in brown paper, my name written across it in bold capitals.
I put it on the table and made myself a cup of tea, then discovered I didn’t have any milk. I sipped it anyway, and started to open the parcel. But halfway through, I stopped: what was this? I sat still, staring at the package, then took a deep breath and ripped off the last of the paper. There it was.
My satchel. The satchel I’d been searching for in Liza’s flat. The one I’d left there. I licked my dry lips and put out a hand to touch it. There was no doubt about it. This was my satchel. It had been in Liza’s flat. Someone had found it there and sent it back to me. Why? Who? Was it a message? A warning? Also, it seemed fatter than I remembered, as if it was stuffed full of things.
The buckles were securely fastened, although I knew I had left them undone. I unfastened them now, but hesitated before opening the satchel. Then I thought: What could be worse than I’ve already seen?
I opened it and just found my own belongings: the book I had been reading, a few unopened bills I had stuffed in there and forgotten about, a magazine, my small diary, a purse containing a five-pound note and a handful of coins, a few pens without their tops and a piece of sheet music. But it was odder than that, because my apron was in there too, rolled up neatly, and my cookery book, my T-shirt and flannel shorts, the shirt he’d ripped off me and I’d left lying on the floor. I lifted it out and held it up, pressing it against my face to see if I could smell him on it. Deodorant, razor, body lotion. Everything I had left behind. Also, at the bottom, a small velvet bag that contained, when I undid the drawstring around its neck and eased it open, a thin silver necklace I didn’t recognize. I slipped its cool smoothness between my fingers.
Who could have done this and what did it mean? I looked at the handwriting on the brown paper, but there was no clue in the neat block capitals. Nor was there any address written on the back. I screwed up the paper and pushed it deep into the bin, then stared at my satchel again, its scuffed brown leather and tarnished buckles. I put the necklace round my sore neck, closed my throbbing eyes and pressed the tips of my fingers against the lids.
Before
I thought I knew most of the live music venues in north London but I’d never heard of the Long Fiddler. Hayden told me it was on Kilburn High Road but I had to check online to find the exact address. When I arrived, I realized it wasn’t really a music venue at all, just a pub with a platform at one end. Hayden was already there, standing at the bar with two men. When I approached, he raised his hand in casual greeting.
‘I’ll catch you in a minute,’ he said. A few days ago we had made love and he’d wept in my arms. Now he was behaving as if I was a friendly acquaintance.
I bought myself a beer and a packet of crisps and sat at a table just far enough from the stage and off to one side that I wouldn’t be in Hayden’s direct eye line. I checked the texts on my mobile: there was one from Neal asking me to ring him, one from Joakim asking when the next rehearsal was, one from Liza yet again reminding me about her plants. I rummaged through my satchel. It was full of pieces of schoolwork but nothing to read, so I couldn’t help watching the group at the bar.
One of the men was dressed in leather boots, jeans and a sort of work jacket topped off with a black Stetson. He had a greying, straggly goatee. It was the get-up necessary either for roping a steer or playing in a bar band. The other was wearing a brown suede jacket and jeans. He seemed more tentative, slightly ill at ease. I couldn’t make out what was being said but there were raised voices. It didn’t sound as if things were going well.
Hayden wasn’t saying much but he had a hard, sarcastic expression on his face. At one point I saw him jabbing a finger at Suede Man, but Suede Man didn’t respond. He had a bottle of beer next to him on the bar and he had his fingers around it, tipping it this way and that, as if he was conducting an experiment into how far he could tip it before it toppled over.
I drank my beer, wondering why on earth I had come. I thought perhaps I’d stand up and leave, sidle out while Hayden was looking the other way. He had called me just an hour or so ago to ask if I wanted to come and I had refused.
‘Whatever,’ he had said, like a teenager in one of my classes. ‘I just thought you might like to hear the kind of music I play.’
He was right. I did want to, so I was here against all my better instincts, watching him in his world, telling myself I’d stay for a couple of songs and leave.
Finally, Suede Man took a call on his mobile and Hayden and the goatee man walked across and sat at my table. Hayden introduced him as Nat the bassist, who barely acknowledged my presence but turned instead to Hayden. ‘You could have been a bit more polite.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Hayden. ‘Have I derailed our career? Did I offend Colonel Tom Parker? Has he put his chequebook away?’
Suede Man was still talking on the phone.
‘If it’s relevant,’ I said, ‘he can probably hear what you’re saying.’
Hayden shrugged.
‘The guy has come to see us,’ said Nat. ‘They’re talking about a contract.’
‘Oh, please,’ said Hayden. ‘He’s the assistant to the assistant to the assistant.’
‘He’s here. That’s what fucking matters.’
‘They’re dicking us around.’
Nat looked at me, then at Hayden. ‘They’re talking about a record,’ he said. ‘You know, a cash advance might be useful. Especially for you.’
Hayden took a long, slow drink of his beer. ‘You’ll get your money,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to leave you to it?’
‘You know when bands break up?’ said Hayden. ‘They always talk about creative differences. What they really mean is arguments about money.’
‘By arguments,’ said Nat, ‘what Hayden means is someone taking money that’s due to the whole group and spending it.’
‘When couples break up they argue about custody of the children,’ said Hayden. ‘With bands it’s custody of the money.’
I thought of Amos. ‘Couples can argue about custody of the money as well.’
‘There’s no argument about who got custody of the money,’ said Nat.
Hayden laughed. ‘It’s not as if there was much in the first place.’
‘I came to see you guys play,’ I said.
‘We’re just warming up,’ said Hayden. ‘Getting ourselves in the mood.’
I bought a round of drinks, then Nat bought one and the room started to fill up, without ever being in danger of getting really full. The other musician, Ralph, arrived with his guitar. He was wearing a checked shirt, canvas trousers and trainers with no laces. ‘Is he here?’ he asked, as he sat down at the table with a pint.
Nat nodded at Suede Man, who was now tapping away at his BlackBerry. ‘He seemed pretty keen, but Hayden sorted him out.’
Ralph seemed gloomily unsurprised and just gulped some beer. ‘Are we ready?’ he asked.
They got up and edged their way through the tables. Most of the audience seemed to be people they knew. A couple of men stood up and said hello. A woman gave a shriek and ran across and put her arms around Hayden. I felt a sharp stab of something that felt like jealousy, but that was ridiculous. How could I be jealous? He didn’t put his arms around her, just a hand on the small of her back, as if to steady her, and for a moment it was as if his hand was on me, not her, and desire snaked through me. This was why I had come. Because even when I wasn’t thinking about Hayden, was refusing to consider him, I was conscious of him.
My body held the memory of him: the night I had spent with him returned to me in sudden flashes – I could be listening to music or eating a sandwich or standing at a bus stop and suddenly I would feel his lips pressed against my shoulder or his hands on me. Even as I acknowledged this, another text arrived and, of course, it was from Neal. It just said: ‘Thinking of you.’ He was thinking of me and I was trying not to think of Hayden and Hayden was – Well, what? He was impenetrable to me.
The three of them took to the stage without any introduction. Nat went to the side and unpacked not the bass guitar I’d been expecting but a battered old double bass. As they arranged the chairs, altered the mike stands and generally sorted themselves out, I saw a change in them. Around the table they had been edgy, scratchy, sniping, but on stage there was an easy familiarity between them. They had the intimacy that only people who have played music together have. They tuned up quickly, Hayden gave a nod and then, without any introduction, they were away.
This was what I had been waiting for. I knew Hayden. The cliché would be that I had ‘been intimate’ with him. I’d been naked with him, I knew his smell and his taste, he had been inside me, I knew the sound he made when he came. We had talked a bit. I had seen him play. And yet I didn’t really feel I knew him at all. He was a musician, but even when I’d seen him at our rehearsals he was constrained, like a huge winged seabird on land. With people like Amos and Neal, he couldn’t be much else. What I wanted was to see him in the air, flying free.
The change was immediate. They started with a country song I didn’t know, and at once I understood that I was in safe hands. They communicated with the occasional glance and nod but mainly you could see that they just trusted each other, like acrobats who know that their partner will always be there to catch them, so that they didn’t even need to look round. Nat was a real presence on the bass, slapping away, enjoying himself, grinning across at Ralph. They were definitely the support. Hayden was up at the front, slightly in a world of his own, eyes mostly half closed. But, even so, he understood that they were behind him, filling in the gaps. The first song finished and there was a burst of applause, shouts, even a few whoops. Hayden’s face relaxed into a smile. He even looked slightly shy.
I glanced at Suede Man, who was doing something with his BlackBerry, then back at the stage and my eyes briefly locked with Hayden’s. He gave me a small slow smile, which sent a peculiar sort of pubescent thrill through me. Having the lead singer in a band smile at you. Singling you out.
When the band struck up the second song I felt an odd twinge of desire for something and it took me a few moments to identify it. It was the longing for a cigarette. It felt wrong somehow to be sitting in a bar, drinking beer, and not have a cigarette between my fingers.