Love Song

by Sophia Bennett

‘She colours. Look at her,’ he said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me from the start. ‘She colours beautifully.’

  ‘What?’ Angus asked. ‘Like colouring in? She does pictures?’

  ‘No. Her face. She can’t help it.’

  ‘Oh, she blushes,’ Angus said. ‘I know. Watch this. Jamie Jamie Jamie Jamie.’

  It came so suddenly, I had nowhere to hide. The blush, which had started to fade, was back with a vengeance. I could feel my cheeks flaming.

  ‘Aha!’ Declan crowed. ‘I knew it!’

  They all laughed. Even Orli and Sam were smiling.

  ‘It’s not true!’ I protested. ‘How can you even say that?’

  ‘And look!’ Angus announced gleefully, leaning over and pulling the neck of my jumper down. His fingers were gentle as they brushed across the skin on my collarbone. Noticing his touch made my cheeks flush further, which infuriated me given how much I hated him right now. ‘She even has his initial on her neck, see? Proof. The rest of us don’t stand a chance, Sam.’ He put his arm around the security man sitting on his other side, and pretended to weep on his shoulder.

  ‘Haha, very funny,’ I snapped.

  ‘Wow,’ Jamie murmured, looking surprised at my tattoo. ‘You do.’

  ‘It’s not for you,’ I said crossly, flashing him a defiant glance as I pulled my collar back into place. ‘I had it done when I was fifteen. For some idiot who deserved it even less than you do.’

  ‘Oh my,’ Angus said beside me, whipping round to look at me with a wicked glint in his eye. ‘What a romantic gesture. You have secret depths, Nina Baxter.’ He took my hand in his and pretended to adjust invisible spectacles on his nose. ‘Tell Doctor Angus all about it.’

  ‘Shut up, Angus. There’s nothing to tell. I just … There was a boy. I made a mistake. End of story.’ I pulled my hand away. My eyes blazed into his. What happened with Jez wasn’t dinner-party conversation, or teasing material for a bunch of boys unwinding after a songwriting session.

  ‘Hey,’ Angus murmured, switching suddenly from theatrics to gentleness. He reached out and stroked my collarbone again with a feather-light touch. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You feel things. I get that. It’s beautiful.’

  My skin tingled. Angus might be annoying, but I wasn’t nearly as immune to him as I made out, and especially that gentle touch. I was more of a girl girl than they suspected. More even than I’d suspected, too.

  For a moment, I imagined how it would have felt if it had been Jamie’s fingers stroking my collarbone, not Angus’s. The tingle almost floored me.

  Jamie Jamie Jamie Jamie.

  Angus was right. And I was a fool.

  Rory Hippolytus Windermere (that’s the full name on his Wikipedia entry) is an idiot and a buffoon. I should have known this from the start.

  Let’s see – what did he do here? He took a seventeen-year-old girl and put her among a group of nineteen-year-old boys and expected nothing to happen.

  And it won’t. Because I refuse to get my heart broken by some stupid rock star.

  BUT IT COULD HAVE DONE, WINDY. OF COURSE IT COULD HAVE DONE. YOU MORON.

  Because it turns out that even Nina Baxter, whose heart was declared dead at the scene by Jez Rockingham two years ago, is capable of finding the official Sexiest Boy In The World attractive, especially when he writes songs inspired by her family.

  On top of which, Jamie had noticed that I – even I – was female. And single. And even though he wasn’t (single, that is, he was definitely not female; life would be so much easier for me right now if he was), he seemed to operate by rock-star love-life logic, which meant that he was allowed to like me, regardless of the whole, you know, fiancée thing. And he did.

  He just did. I’d tried pretending to myself that he didn’t, but he hadn’t tried pretending at all. He’d been giving me The Smile ever since the moment he joined Angus playing ‘Kashmir’. And before that, too, now I thought about it.

  Jamie Maldon liked me. And somehow, that made him want to play music with his band again. Which was why we were all here after all, so even though it was as weird and confused and as wrong as I could begin to imagine … it was also useful. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  The next time I took Twiggy out walking, he offered to accompany me.

  First of all, he laughed at my outfit. For once it was quite warm for Northumberland, so I was wearing the old tweed jacket over a stiff-fronted evening shirt and a taffeta puffball skirt from ‘Charity’. Jamie led me towards a spot beyond the copse of trees behind the lake that I’d never visited before.

  The land rose here, with clear views across the purple moor to the mountains. If we looked back, the Hall glistened among its backdrop of cedar trees, where a rare patch of sunlight caught its mullioned windows. Connor was sunbathing (in a heavy jumper) in a deckchair on the lawn, but there was nobody else around for miles and miles. The only sounds were sheep and birdsong, a jet flying far overhead above the clouds, and Twiggy whiffling her nose into a nearby rabbit hole.

  We sat on a grassy hillock and Jamie asked if I’d brought my camera. I always have my camera. I fished it out of the pocket of my jacket.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to take a picture of you. I want to learn how you do it.’

  I tried to help him, but didn’t get very far. Guitar, he could do; photography, not so much. It was endearing how he didn’t really have a clue. He crouched down, taking several shots of me squinting into the sunlight.

  ‘They’ll look terrible,’ I assured him.

  ‘They won’t. Trust me.’

  I laughed. Yeah, sure.

  As he fiddled with the focus, I glanced down at my bare legs and battered trainers, then across the lake to the tall house with its twisted chimneys. ‘I must look so out of place here,’ I muttered.

  ‘You don’t at all,’ he said. ‘You look perfectly at home. That’s the thing. You suit the place’s strangeness.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’

  ‘No, I mean it. It’s a good thing. On tour, you were always in Sisi’s shadow. But in the light, you’re …’

  ‘Strange.’

  ‘Unusual. Unpredictable. It’s a good thing.’

  The steadiness of his gaze made me embarrassed.

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have guessed you have a tattoo. I like it.’

  I smiled wryly. ‘You would.’

  ‘Not just because of the initial,’ he grinned. ‘Because of why you did it. I’m sorry the guy wasn’t worth it.’

  I squinted down at a wild flower in the grass. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he said, evenly. ‘You’ll find a better guy.’

  He gave me that confident smile again. I pretended to ignore it.

  ‘Sisi got a tattoo when she sold her first million DVDs,’ he added. ‘A dollar sign, on her ankle.’

  Was I supposed to be impressed by this? Surely not? Anyway, I wasn’t. But … Sigrid. Good reminder. Sigrid: the fiancée. I wondered if he was going to talk about her some more, but he didn’t. Instead, he gazed out at the scenery, and back at me. I had a sudden urge to reach out and touch those three moles on his cheek. I got the impression that if I did, he’d like it.

  Think about Sigrid. Talk about Sigrid. Say stuff about Sigrid and move on.

  ‘Why do you …?’

  I stopped. Why do you even like her? I wanted to know. But then I pictured her. The answer was obvious – it was on the cover of a dozen magazines. And she loved him. In her own self-centred way, she did.

  ‘Why do you want to settle down?’ I asked instead. ‘I mean, my mum got married when she was your age. She doesn’t regret it, exactly, but she keeps on telling me to seize the day.’

  ‘I’ve seized the day, believe me,’ he said, with feeling. ‘I’ve seized a thousand days. I seized so many they just began to bleed into each other. It’s Monday? You must be playing the O2. Tuesday? There’s an awards ceremony in Rio. Wedne
sday? You’re meeting the President. Can’t remember which country? Doesn’t matter. Can’t find a clean pair of socks? Don’t worry, we’ll get you new ones. Want a dog? Can’t have one – because you don’t have a home. I’ve got three homes, by the way. One I haven’t seen yet; the other two are very nice. My mum lives in my house in London. But I’ve never stayed in them for longer than a week. I meet these people – famous people – and sometimes all they talk about is where their dogs are, which is usually on the other side of the world. Or their kids – same story. I was sick of it all. I just wanted it to stop.’

  ‘And now?’

  He looked straight at me. ‘You played “Kashmir”. You reminded us why we started. Now I know I can’t lose the music. Everything else …’ He shrugged. ‘I’m working on it. Being here helps. Windy’s not as stupid as he looks.’

  Not about some things, I thought. Not about Heatherwick. About some others, maybe.

  Jamie put the camera down and looked thoughtful. ‘I’ve been wondering since we got here … why did you come here, Nina? After …’

  ‘… what happened on the plane?’ I suggested.

  He nodded. It was his tacit admission that his fiancée wasn’t the ideal boss. I was glad he’d noticed, because it was another sign he was human.

  I laughed. ‘My sister asked pretty much the same question.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘Well, Windy promised me Sigrid wouldn’t be here,’ I admitted.

  It was his turn to laugh.

  ‘I wanted to get away,’ I went on. ‘I wanted to explore. I always have. I thought I’d get the chance on tour, but that didn’t happen.’ I paused for a moment. ‘I had this aunt who travelled a lot and I want to see all the exotic things she saw. But actually, I think she’d have loved it here too. The lake … the mountains … those weird dolls in the Silk Room … I wouldn’t change anything. Well, maybe I’d fill the stable with horses. I’d put chickens in the walled garden, and fix the broken bits, but that’s all.’

  He held out his hand to accompany me back to the house. ‘Like I said, you look at home here. When I saw you in the room with the flapping pages that first night, and you weren’t scared … you were fascinated … That’s when I wanted to stay.’

  I held my breath. He wasn’t supposed to say that, or look at me that way. Or make me feel like this when he wrapped his fingers around mine. I was supposed to be invisible.

  I knew I’d have to be careful from now on, or something precious was likely to get broken.

  When we got back, he dropped my hand and I was relieved. Things were happening at the Hall. A large, blue truck had drawn up in the courtyard, driven by a short, well-built man with a grey-speckled beard. Ed the Engineer had finally arrived with the recording equipment.

  ‘Should have been here two days ago,’ he said, as we joined the others gathered round the truck. ‘But she had a breakdown near Birmingham.’ He tapped the side of the truck. ‘Got to be careful. She’s a grand old lady now. And what’s inside …’ He sucked his teeth. ‘Special. Ve-e-ry special. I don’t know how the boss got hold of this. Practically museum material. As far as I knew, it was in a museum.’

  ‘Can we see it, then?’ Angus asked.

  ‘Avec plaisir,’ Ed announced, with a bad French accent and a flourish.

  He opened up the back to show us the contents of his special truck. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but when he said ‘museum’, I supposed I’d pictured something like the old radios Dad worked on sometimes – all grand wooden cabinets and delicate glass valves.

  ‘Is that it?’ I asked.

  All I could see were a couple of rows of grey plastic decks, covered with hundreds of knobs and faders. They looked used and grubby, covered in peeling stickers and bits of tape. The floor was a nest of cables and wires.

  ‘That, my dear,’ Ed said proudly, ‘is the equipment the Stones used to record Exile on Main Street. At least, some of it is. It’s what Led Zep used for IV. Capish?’

  I understood. A lot of old bands recorded famous music on this equipment a long time ago. Great bands who were now – if they were still making records – presumably using newer, better kit.

  Remembering how the boys reacted to Windy’s ideas about ‘going back in time’, I thought they’d go berserk when they saw it. But I was wrong. They looked as if all their birthdays had come at once. Like the rock geeks they were, they wanted to know about every band who’d ever used it, and every track ever recorded on its equipment. Angus was soon in the back with Ed, checking out the decks. Jamie was keen to set up the electrics and get plugged in. Before long we were hauling cables around and helping Ed to set the generator up. Then they wanted to practise, to see what it could do.

  They chose the hall again, because it was the easiest place to lay cables to. This suited me perfectly, because I could listen to them down the library corridor as I sketched out a new mural in the Silk Room. I’d been working on a lake scene, but I’d changed my mind and now it was going to be about music. Four boys with iconic haircuts playing together, sharing the energy, almost like a dance. Ironically, my inspiration came from Sigrid’s favourite French artist ‘after Picasso’ – Matisse.

  A couple of days later, I was working on the mural again when I heard Angus and Jamie mucking around with a fragment of a melody that Jamie had been developing on tour. It always ended suddenly, with Jamie abandoning his guitar in frustration. This time, Angus suggested something. I couldn’t hear the words exactly from their mutterings in the hall, but then Jamie laughed and played a set of chords, adapting them until he was happy with them. They formed the bridge between the first and second parts of the song. Jamie sang along indistinctly. Angus’s voice again, suggesting something new.

  I put my charcoal down and listened to the song, as Jamie’s voice floated down the corridor.

  She wears his name upon her skin

  But now the love is wearing thin

  I’ll be there

  I’ll find you

  My pilgrim soul will guide you

  She dreams of far-off desert lands

  I’ll write her name upon the sands

  I’ll be there

  Beside you

  My pilgrim soul will take you home

  My heart pounded out a routine like one of Declan’s complicated drum solos. This was worse than the song for Ariel. It wasn’t just my sister who was inspiring him – my life was leaking into his songs. The ‘skin’ was mine. The ‘pilgrim soul’ came from a poem by Yeats that I’d pointed out to Jamie in the Fluttering Room. The ‘desert sands’ were ‘Kashmir’.

  I wandered down the corridor to the hall. Jamie saw the look on my face. This time he didn’t give me the confident rock-god grin. In fact, he looked almost embarrassed.

  ‘It’s not finished yet. Is it OK?’

  I didn’t know what to say. As a song, it was more than OK. My heart was still pounding. I got the sense that he was asking my permission to use it, though. And that felt wrong. Good, but wrong. Windy would kill me.

  But Jamie was writing songs. That was what Windy wanted. I was so confused.

  ‘I … It’s good.’

  Angus nodded, happy with my answer, but Jamie wanted more.

  ‘Do you like it? I mean … can I …?’

  Jamie Maldon, lost for words, like me. We stared at each other. Embarrassed smile met embarrassed smile.

  In the end, it was art that gave me my answer – and then it was obvious. I was painting him on the wall in the Silk Room, and I knew I’d take as many pictures and make as many sketches of him and the others as they’d let me. What they were doing here was absorbing. I wanted to explore it on paper, and in paint, because … I had to. My fingers itched to describe what my eyes could see. Jamie did it with words and music. He did it with what inspired him. If, sometimes, that was me … well …

  ‘Sure. Of course you can. As long as I can paint you.’

  This time, his smile was totally different. Relieved. H
appy.

  ‘You can paint me any time. I love to watch you paint.’ He was cocky, and irresistible, and he knew it.

  ‘Yeah. Well … thanks.’

  I walked back to the Silk Room as steadily as I could, trying to pretend that I was immune to the Jamie Effect, and that it didn’t matter he’d just written a song about me, and that I could hardly feel the floor underneath my feet.

  Jamie liked me. Oh yes. And I liked him more than I wanted to, or could admit. But I would be just a fling for him, and my heart didn’t work that way. So from a sense of self-preservation, I kept my distance. I treated him the same way I treated them all – like idiotic, occasionally adorable overgrown schoolboys. And maybe he didn’t care that much, or he had more self-control than I ever gave rock stars credit for, because he flirted, like the rest of them, but he didn’t try anything serious. Besides, he was busy: he was writing and arranging songs for the new album. Now he was back together with his best friend, they couldn’t come fast enough.

  Our days quickly fell into a pattern. The boys surfaced late, rarely emerging before midday. First, Jamie and Angus spent some time together, writing. Between them, they had so much material built up from the time on tour – scraps of melodies, riffs they’d been thinking about, rhymes and rhythms captured in late-night ramblings on their phones – that it flowed from them like a river of songs.

  Listening to them write together, I could understand why Windy was so frustrated when they wouldn’t even talk to each other. Jamie generally provided the lyrics, but Angus gave them new meaning with subtle melodies and pounding guitar riffs. If either got stuck, the other was ready with an idea. The joy on their faces when something worked was like sparks ascending to the sky. Nobody must ever stop them doing this, I thought. It was what they were made for.

  When they had something they were happy with, Connor and Declan joined them and they would all wander off to wherever they’d decided to try the acoustics today. They worked on the arrangements together, while Ed followed them with a sea of cables to connect to the monitors, amps and instruments. When they were ready, Connor anchored each track with his steady bass. Declan gave them shimmering intensity with a range of backing instruments, and a dazzling display on drums.