The Other Side of the Door

by Nicci French

  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, shou
ts, 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.

  Song followed song and in between there were bits of banter, jokes that sounded like private ones with old friends, raising laughs from particular tables. They played a few of their own songs. I noticed that Ralph wasn’t quite as good as the other two. Did this mean that he was a stand-in? Or perhaps he was a founding member of the band, someone Hayden was never quite able to get rid of. He looked the part, though. I could imagine them on a poster.

  But mainly I just enjoyed watching Hayden. When you saw him in a normal house, he was gangly and unkempt. Here on stage he had an odd arresting grace, cradling his guitar in an embrace, his long fingers drooped over the strings. He held the audience. But then, gradually, I began to think of something else as well.

  Years and years ago when I was a teenager I had played tennis. I even had a coach – he was in his mid-twenties, more than six feet tall, and had long hair and, of course, I had a crush on him. He taught at a local club. Just occasionally when he was with us he would let go with a proper forehand and the ball would rocket past about a millimetre over the net. It was the most powerful, sexy thing I’d ever seen in my life, so when I heard he was playing in a match against another club I went to watch. Suddenly there he was, playing at full power, serving, running up to the net and he didn’t win. He wasn’t humiliated, he didn’t behave badly – he didn’t throw his racket around or argue with the umpire or refuse to shake hands at the end – but he didn’t win. I suddenly realized, aged thirteen or whatever I was, that my coach was good but he wasn’t that good, and the player who had beaten him was better but he wasn’t that good either.

  I suppose music isn’t like that entirely. But, even so, after the seventh or eighth song I had something like the same feeling. Hayden was very good. He was much better than Neal. He was much, much better than Amos. Perhaps he was even better than very good. He was an outstanding guitar player and he had a captivating voice, husky but at moments genuinely lovely. And it wasn’t that there was something you could point to that was missing. He was better as a musician than my tennis coach was as a tennis player, but still, he wasn’t going to play at Wimbledon. It wasn’t about winning – music isn’t like success – it was just the extra unpredictable element that hits you in the pit of your stomach, or makes the hairs on your neck stand up, or wherever music gets to when it bypasses your brain and gives you something you could never have imagined was missing. When music’s that special it answers a question you’ve never even thought of asking and Hayden wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t quite there. So what? He was good. Wasn’t that enough?

  They played for just over an hour and then, as an encore, did a song that several people in the crowd seemed to recognize. While they were playing it I looked across at Suede Man but he had gone. The song finished and they were done, the spell was broken and the stage wasn’t a stage any more, just a raised platform with some carpet over it. He was surrounded immediately by a group of people clapping him on the back, hugging him. A tall young woman kissed his lips.

  It took ages to get free of them but finally we were outside on Kilburn High Road, still warm, though it was after eleven and the breeze was fresh and cool. I hailed a taxi. He seemed to assume he was coming back to my place. Did he also assume we’d fall into bed, because we happened to find ourselves together at the end of the day? If so, I told myself, he was going to be surprised. I was not going to be taken for granted. However, my flat was on his way: I would just give him a cup of coffee and send him home. Definitely. Then I’d call Neal.

  On the journey he didn’t seem to want to talk much. I knew the feeling. Sometimes after performing you need to wind down and you don’t want to put everything into words. It feels like a betrayal of the experience.

  When we came into the chaos of my flat, he leaned his guitar case carefully against the sofa. He looked suddenly defenceless, like a small child. ‘I don’t know what to do with myself,’ he said, half smiling and yet serious. ‘I’m all empty inside, Bonnie.’

  A terrible tenderness for him engulfed me, leaving me breathless. I let my satchel drop to the floor. ‘Come here,’ I said.

  I pulled his jacket off. Under his shirt, his body felt warm and damp. I leaned into him. He smelled of beer, yeasty and good. His lips pressed the top of my head, his arms closed around me. I could feel his heart beating and shut my eyes. Usually a hug makes you feel safe, protected and comforted. But it wasn’t like that with Hayden – it was never like that. It felt vertiginous, as though we were clinging together at the edge of some precipice and could topple over it at any moment.

  At last we pulled apart. He sighed and rubbed his eyes as if he was coming out of a dream. ‘What did you think? Honestly.’

  ‘It was really good,’ I said. ‘Great. I loved it.’

  He frowned at me intently. ‘Come on, Bonnie.’

  ‘There were some fabulous songs,’ I said. ‘And you and Nat worked really well together.’

  ‘You didn’t like it.’

  ‘I did. I really did. I think you’re wonderful on stage.’

  ‘Don’t be a coward.’

  ‘I liked it, Hayden. A lot.’ My voice sounded thin and unconvincing.

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’

  ‘What?’

  Suddenly I felt a thump on my back as I was stopped by the wall, and at the same time I had the sensation of being inside a firework, coloured sparks flying off in different directions. I wondered what had happened, and then I realized and almost had to say it to myself: I’ve been hit.

  Hayden had hit me.

  For several seconds, we stood there in absolute silence, him with his hand still raised and me leaning against the wall. We stared at each other, and it was as if I was seeing into some deep and hidden part of him, and I couldn’t draw away or utter a word.

  Then he collapsed, like a piece of paper that’s just been set alight and is suddenly losing its shape. His face crumpled, his body folded up, and he was kneeling on the floor, beside himself.

  ‘I didn’t mean . . . Your poor face.’

  I touched my cheek, wincing. It felt pulpy and sore, and my fingers came away wet with blood. Hayden put a hand out as if to take mine and I jerked to one side violently. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’

  He scrambled to his feet. I barely recognized his face, which was wild with grief.

  ‘I warned you. Nobody should get involved with me,’ he said. ‘Nobody. I hurt what I love.’ He repeated the words with a kind of howl that sounded as though it was tearing the back of his throat. ‘I hurt what I love.’

  ‘This isn’t some crappy song,’ I said. ‘You hit me.’

  ‘You’re right to hate me.’

  ‘Hate you? Just fuck off. Now.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Now.’

  Hayden lowered himself onto the sofa and put his head in his hands, rocking backwards and forwards slightly.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said. I went over and stood beside him.

  ‘Please please please please please,’ he was whimpering.

  ‘Enough now.’

  And I laid my hand very lightly on the top of his head.

  He became abruptly silent, then leaned forward and buried his face in my stomach, putting his arms around me as he wept with renewed force. The sobs that were convulsing him shook through me as well. At last he stopped and lifted his face. It was wet, gleaming, terribly
beautiful. ‘Does it hurt much?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He touched my cheek with two fingers. ‘Christ, Bonnie.’

  He led me to the bathroom. A bruise was flowering on my left cheekbone; I could see it darkening as I watched. My nose throbbed and I could taste blood in my mouth. Hayden soaked cotton wool in warm water and dabbed at the injury very carefully, biting his lip when I gasped at the stinging pain.

  ‘Now we’ve got to put a cold compress on it,’ he said. ‘To stop the swelling.’

  ‘I can do that for myself.’

  But I let him sit me down in my dank little kitchen and rummage in the freezer compartment of the fridge. He snapped several chunks of ice from their bendy plastic tray and wrapped them in a rather grubby tea-towel, which he held to my cheek. His eyes were puffy and his face still stained with tears.

  ‘Something awful came over me,’ he said.

  ‘You felt humiliated by me,’ I said. ‘That’s what came over you. I didn’t praise you enough, or act like one of your groupies, or say that you were a genius.’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ he said. ‘It’s this horrible roaring blank and then I was standing there looking at you with your bruised cheek.’

  ‘Very convenient. It wasn’t really you.’

  ‘No. No. I know. It was me. Something in me. That’s what’s so scary.’

  If Hayden had made any excuse at all or tried to explain it, tried to convince me that there was some kind of rationality behind the burst of violence and rage, I would have pushed him out of the door and never seen him again. Or that’s what I tell myself, because I can’t bear to think it might not be true. But he didn’t. He sat beside me holding the ice cubes against my skin, looking so defeated, and it was as if I had seen someone that no one else ever had. Could it really be that this was the moment at which I properly fell for Hayden, when he had lashed out at me and then wept?