Making Music

by Ling, Maria

  "I'll try to remember that," he said equably.

  Sue threw them a sharp glance, as though sensing they were sharing a private joke of some kind, but tactfully let it pass.

  "Here you are, Jen," she said, handing over a mug of freshly-made tea, and seating herself at the kitchen table. "Make me some toast, Stuart, would you?"

  Silence descended again, as Jen and Sue drank their morning tea with evident relish, and Stuart surreptitiously topped up his coffee with water from the kettle. The sun was flooding in through the windows, drenching the room in lemon yellow light. Jen watched it absent-mindedly from behind her mug, and wondered vaguely why it was that morning light was always so much paler than evening light. It should not make any difference, surely. Probably it had something to do with the atmosphere. She would have to ask Peter some time. He had an explanation for everything.

  "Is Karen awake yet?" Sue asked after a while, having made short work of her toast and marmalade.

  Jen smiled, shaking her head.

  "She was -- just. I don't know if she's coming down, though. She said she would, but she didn't look to be in any great hurry. What about Rhoda?"

  "Sleeping like a log. Poor thing, she must be exhausted. I left her to it, I thought we could wake her when everyone else is up."

  Stuart nodded.

  "Good idea. I've got some things to sort out downstairs, so there's no rush. Give her another couple of hours."

  "Do you want a hand?" Sue asked.

  "No need. I'll grab Pete when he comes down, he's used to the setup. Or you could do it, Jen, you're good with technical things. Microphones, multitrackers, mixing consoles…coffee makers…"

  He threw her a wry glance, one eyebrow raised, his mouth twisting in sarcastic mockery.

  Jen gave him a quelling look in return.

  "I am," she said sweetly. "I've done quite a lot of my own mixing, actually."

  "You have?" Stuart was sceptical.

  "Yes, I have," Jen confirmed fearlessly. "It's the only way to get everything exactly the way I want it. It's interesting, too."

  She was being absolutely truthful on that point. When she was first introduced to mixing technology, it had amazed her how powerful it could be, and that sense of amazement had only grown with the years. Practically anything was possible, from shifting the pitch of the recorded voice to moving the sound of the instruments so that when played back in stereo they appeared to come from opposite corners of the room.

  Stuart gave her a long steady look, and she felt a thrill of emotion rippling through her body. She recognised that look. It was the very same as the one he had given her on the night they first met, when she said she was intrigued by what he was telling her about slide guitar.

  "Okay then," he said. "We'll do the setting up together."

  "Fine," Jen said, trying hard not to show just how pleased she was at the idea.

  He was still looking at her intently, with one corner of his mouth twisting slightly in the characteristic half-smile, and she felt a blush starting up along her cheekbones, and seeping down towards her throat.

  "We can start now, if you like," she said briskly, once again taking her cue from Karen's no-nonsense tone. "I've finished my breakfast."

  The expression on his face changed, becoming more wary, as if her sentiment-dousing note had been heard and registered.

  "Come on, then," he said abruptly.

  Jen wordlessly pushed her chair out, picked up her plate and mug and took them over to the dishwasher, stacking them neatly into the empty racks.

  "See you later," she said, as lightly as she could manage, and forcing a smile in Sue's direction. Sue waved back happily.

  Jen was annoyed with herself, as they silently turned into the hall and went down the stairs at the back of it, because she was now beginning to wish she had not quelled him so comprehensively, and that was plainly ridiculous. She could not possibly want to have a relationship with him again. Not after what had happened -- and not, emphatically not, with his new girlfriend on the premises. It was impossible. Unfortunately, she had a terrible feeling that it was true.

  The basement had been fully developed. At the bottom of the stairs was a small carpeted entrance hall, with a door on each side. Stuart pulled open the door to the left, and as they entered the room -- which, Jen reflected, must logically be directly underneath the living room -- it turned out to be an impressive expanse of space.

  It was done up very simply, indeed almost starkly. The floor was solid birchwood, the walls plain white, and concealed uplighting removed any obvious shadows, making the whole thing look rather like an art gallery. There were no pictures, though: only a collection of leggy stools and microphones from which a snake's nest of black cables slithered into a selection of amplifiers, and from there into a digital multitracker set along one wall. Past it, at the far end of the room, was a glass-fronted partition wall, showing an impressive mixing console and an isolation booth for vocalists.

  "The iso booth is all set up, you don't need to do anything to it," Stuart said. "We'll do a standard layering -- drum, guitars, backing, leads. Better have three microphones, twice over. Keep the compression down, we can always tighten it later -- or we'll do it in the mix. Can you set that up?"

  Jen nodded. Two separate lots of three microphones, set for Sue's bodhran and the guitars to begin with. Adjust the input settings to filter out extraneous sounds and cut the extreme frequencies that would make the recorded sound too jagged and raw. No problem.

  "I'll start shifting the instruments, then."

  He disappeared back up the stairs, and she heard his firm footsteps grow faint as the door to the studio closed.

  She went over to the stools, and started moving them out into the room. There were six stools, in a kind of rough half-circle. She moved four back towards the wall, leaving two alone in the middle of the room. Then six microphones. She carried them over to their respective stools, and tracked each lead back into the snake's nest and out again to the plug at the end, which she slotted into the input socket at the nearest amplifier.

  Then the multitracker. She followed the leads back from the amplifiers and plugged them into the input sockets on the machine. Great. Now set each channel to a suitable range. She knew Sue's preferred settings off by heart, so that was easy enough, it was just a matter of remembering to tell her to use the right stool. The guitar settings would have to suit Peter, and she had never done the sound engineering for him before, so she gave it her best guess and made a mental note to double check with Stuart before they made a start.

  Easy.

  She walked around the room, switching on the various pieces of equipment, and checking that the microphones were all transmitting without problems. Then, satisfied, she wandered over to the far end of the room for a closer look at the mixing console.

  It was a fine piece of equipment. She ran her hands lightly over the controls. You could do practically anything with this.

  Stuart returned down the stairs from the ground floor, handling his own two guitars comfortably, and she went over to meet him. He glanced around the room, and nodded approval.

  "All sorted?" he asked, leaning the guitars against the walls.

  "All done," Jen confirmed. "It's a nice little setup you've got here."

  "I like it." He was still wary, unsmiling, but seemed to relax at her professionally detached attitude. "I did about half of my last album right here. It works. No travelling, no hassle."

  "No trouble getting people to come out here to record with you?" Jen asked, smiling. That was a challenge he could not possibly resist.

  "None." He looked at her assessingly, judging her mood, and then suddenly grinned. "They're falling over themselves at the moment. I'm making the most of it while it lasts."

  "That sounds like a good idea," Jen agreed. She had to admit to herself that stardom still had not changed him much; he seemed refreshingly indifferent to it. If anything, he seemed to find it amusing. She looked around her ag
ain. "I'd love to have something like this at home," she said spontaneously.

  "Be my guest," he said easily. "We should record something together again."

  She stared at him, too stunned for a moment to speak at all.

  "Okay." He ran a hand through his hair in a distracted gesture. "Forget it. It was just an idea."

  "No, no." Jen found her voice with some difficulty. "No, I didn't mean -- I wasn't thinking that at all. I was just surprised. I mean -- " she frowned at him, feeling that all the apologies should not be on her side -- "you've not been exactly thrilled to meet up with me again."

  He studied her for a while.

  "Haven't I?" he asked quietly, and a thrill ran along her spine at the tone of his voice. The air in the room seemed to fall silent, and then begin to vibrate.

  "Have you?" she asked in return, turning wide clear eyes on him.

  He looked at her for another moment, and then looked away.

  "I'm not planning to screw up your relationship," he said harshly, as if forcing himself to speak. "You have this thing going with what's his name -- Dominic, is it? -- and I can accept that." He looked at her again, his eyes stormy. "I'm pleased for you," he said, in a voice only one step removed from strangulation. "But I'd like to record with you again. Okay? I happen to think that you're very talented, and that our styles suit each other. That doesn't mean I'm going to try to get you into bed." He struck her full in the face with another stare that was like summer thunder. "Okay?"

  Jen took a quick gulp of air.

  "Now listen," she said, keeping her voice calm and level with sheer effort of will. "I don't see why everyone thinks I'm in a relationship with Dominic. He's just my touring partner, all right? Nothing more. I'm not in a relationship with him. Have you got that?"

  He stood staring at her again for several seconds, while the silence between them throbbed with barely-suppressed emotion.

  "I've got it," he said at length, hoarsely. "So who's the lucky man?"

  "Nobody!" Jen heard her own voice shearing upwards into the screech zone, and recollected herself with another deep breath. "I am not in a relationship at the moment, not with anyone. I am not engaged. I am not getting married. I am not seeing anyone. All right?"

  Silence again, and this time the stormclouds in his eyes were slowly dispersing.

  "You're not?" he asked eventually.

  "No." She was calmer now, too. It helped to say it all out and get everything straight, even though it was really none of his business. "I'm not."

  He frowned slightly, puzzled.

  "So why did you tell me you were?"

  Jen stared.

  "What?" she managed after several seconds of dumb amazement. "When?"

  "Last night. When -- " he looked momentarily embarrassed -- "when I kissed you. Which, okay, was probably not a very clever thing to do. You said you were seeing someone."

  "I did not!"

  "You did. You said -- " he frowned again, trying to remember her exact words -- "you said you believed in fidelity."

  "Yes, but -- " Jen stared at him uncomprehendingly -- "that was about you and -- " she choked slightly, but made herself go on -- "about you and Cathy."

  "Cathy?"

  They were both staring at each other now, in frank uncomplicated bewilderment.

  "Jesus," Stuart said blankly, and then: "You're not serious. You're not telling me that you think I've got something going with Cath?"

  Jen licked her lips nervously.

  "Well…" she said hesitantly, "well…yes."

  He simply stood there, staring at her, and then suddenly he put one hand to his face and broke into uncontrollable laughter.

  "What?" Jen exclaimed, annoyed. "What's up with you now?"

  "Bloody hell, Jen," Stuart said, shaking his head. "You beat everything, you really do."

  "But she was here when I arrived, and I thought -- I mean I assumed -- "

  "I bet you did." He stopped laughing, and gave her a long bleak look. "You always just assume, don't you? You never stop to find out, you never listen to the other side of the story. My side of the story. You know, Jen, you're the worst person I've ever met for jumping to conclusions. And they are always the wrong ones, haven't you cottoned on to that yet?" He took a deep, rasping breath. "Look, Cath is not my girlfriend. She's a nice girl, and I like her, but come on, Jen! Do you seriously think she's my type? Even if she was available and interested, which she isn't."

  "But she was here…" Jen began, rather helplessly.

  "Yes, she was here." Stuart ran a hand through his hair again, and sighed. "She came down a day early because she'd had a row with Pete and she was upset. She's pregnant, he's not ready for that kind of commitment. It's all a nasty mess." He stopped, and frowned at her. "I thought you said Karen told you all this?"

  Jen shook her head mutely, too bewildered at the moment for words.

  "Well," he went on, "she rang Karen in tears and Karen told her to pull herself together and go off somewhere on her own. And then Karen rang me, and I rang Cath and said I wanted to talk the song over with her, maybe run it through a few times, and could she possibly make the time to come down ahead of schedule. She was here like a shot, poor girl."

  "A row with Peter?" Jen repeated, catching up slowly.

  Stuart groaned with unconcealed exasperation.

  "Wake up, Jen!" he said abruptly, and his eyes were cold now, and hostile. "Forget your bloody assumptions. Cath is Pete's girlfriend. Not mine."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "I thought I told you," Karen said, coolly unconcerned, running a comb through her hair and surveying herself in the bathroom mirror. "I'm sure I must have said."

  "No," Jen replied, exuding reproachful disapproval from every inch of her body, "no, you didn't. And I think you ought to have done."

  "Why?"

  "Because if I'd known she was Peter's girlfriend, I would never have thought she was Stuart's, that's why."

  "And that means…what?" Karen turned, smiling pleasantly, and fixed her friend with an investigative look. "Does it matter to you whether Stuart has a girlfriend or not?"

  "Of course it does!" Jen snapped.

  "Why?" Karen asked again, still smiling, letting the waspish tone pass her by unnoticed and unremarked.

  "Well…" Jen hesitated. Of course it did not exactly matter to her, not as such, but…

  "Come on, Jen." Karen was all smiling encouragement. "Out with it."

  "It would have been nice to know," Jen said frigidly.

  "Why?" Karen persisted, looking as though she found the whole conversation extremely amusing. "Do you mean you would have flung yourself into his arms and let bygones be bygones?"

  "Of course not."

  "Well, then, what difference would it have made?"

  Jen bit her lip.

  "It would have been nice to know," she repeated obstinately.

  Karen sighed theatrically.

  "You two," she said, and rolled her eyes in exaggerated frustration. "You don't know what's good for you, that's the trouble. You're just made for each other, anyone with half an eye can see it a mile off, and you do nothing but think up excuses for not getting together. Honestly! You both deserve to sit around on your own, sulking, for the rest of your lives."

  "I'm not sulking," Jen said, doing the reproachful a bit more.

  Karen gave her a hug.

  "I didn't say you were," she said lightly, and walked back out into the bedroom.

  Jen followed her.

  "All I mean is that, yes, it came as an unpleasant surprise to be suddenly face to face with -- as I thought -- his new girlfriend," she said. "I wasn't prepared for it. I wouldn't have minded if I'd had the chance to prepare. But as it was, it just came as a bit of a shock."

  "Uh-huh." Karen checked her watch. "Everyone will be ready by now, I should think, so we'd better be going."

  "And I'm saying it was mean of you to let me think that," Jen went on, still stubbornly clinging to her wounded pride.
/>   "Me?" Karen did an excellent impersonation of wide-eyed innocence. "What have I got to do with it? Is it my fault that you always leap to the first available conclusion? If you'd asked me, I'd have told you Cathy is Peter's girlfriend. You didn't ask. Is it my fault you didn't ask?"

  "You knew she'd be here."

  Karen shook her head.

  "I did not. I thought she might be, but I didn't know."

  "Well, you could have told me. About her and Peter, I mean."

  "I thought I had."

  "Anyway," Jen said, grimly determined to make the most of a bad situation, "Stuart hates me now. I know he does. I couldn't get another word out of him after he'd said his piece."

  "And you can't really blame him, Jen," Karen said reasonably. "That's twice you've jumped to the wrong conclusion about him. I think he's got a right to be angry too."

  Jen stared at her open-mouthed.

  "What do you mean?" she asked in a dazed tone of voice.

  "Just what I said," Karen said crisply. "You broke up with him because you saw him in a hotel with some girl, and jumped to the wrong conclusion. You didn't give him a chance to explain. You didn't even try to see his side of the story -- it never occurred to you that there could be another side to the story. The work I've put in to try and get him even to speak to you after that! I've told him in so many words that he was an idiot to let you go so easily. And then the first thing you do, just when he's willing to give it one more try, is jump to another wrong conclusion because a friend of his is having a tough time and comes down to stay with him for a day or two. I'm not surprised he's angry. I would be, too."

  Jen was speechless.

  "Look, Jen -- " Karen's tone softened -- "you're my dearest friend, and I love you. But you made a real mistake with Stuart, and I think you owe him an apology for that."

  Jen simply stood staring at her, like one who is seeing visions. She felt the floor heave underneath her, positively heave, as if she was on board a small ship in a gale.

  "But it will have to wait," Karen said, checking her watch again, "because right now we have a record to make." She waved a hand in front of her friend's eyes. "Jen? Hello? Are you still with us?"