The New Rakes (17 page)

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, moving round to kiss her mouth. It was a long kiss, soft and deep, and Kara felt her limbs turn to water. ‘I’ve made sure he won’t be a problem any more.’

Mike’s touch was drugging her, making her slip into a warm haze of pleasure, but his words triggered a flicker of anxiety.

Kara frowned and pulled away. ‘What do you mean?’

Mike tapped on her collarbone with his fingers. For the first time ever, she noticed he was having trouble choosing his words. Brushing his hair back from his face, he sighed and moved towards the stereo.

‘Mike?’

He took his time choosing a track, waited for the chime of a solo piano to flow into the room before he turned to answer her. His arms were rigid, his hands stuffed into his pockets and Kara looked at him warily. It was the way people stood when they were delivering bad news.

‘When I said Judy had other plans tonight …’ he started, letting his words trail away. It took a moment to sink in. And then Kara remembered Tam’s face as he looked at his phone. A strange feeling buzzed over her, something like the lurch of seasickness.

‘Judy,’ she said. It almost hurt to say the name.

‘I thought it would be fitting,’ Mike said, nodding. ‘Sort of poetic.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Kara asked, crossing her arms over her body and squeezing. ‘What’s this got to do with you?’

‘When I said Judy and I had a relationship – it’s complicated.’

‘Try me,’ Kara said.

Mike threw his keys on the coffee table and leaned on the
back
of the couch. ‘We met a couple of years ago. I didn’t want to take on a student.’ He looked straight at Kara. She was fixed where she stood, still hugging herself as though the room were freezing. ‘I didn’t want a repeat of what had happened between you and me,’ he said softly. His eyes glittered. ‘But Judy insisted. You wouldn’t think she could be so persuasive to look at her. Such a sweet-looking girl.’

He shook his head, and Kara waited, digging her fingernails into the soft skin above her elbows.

‘So I took her on, and we started lessons. Part of me thought I could make up for what had happened – what didn’t happen – when I was teaching you.’

‘But you just couldn’t help yourself,’ Kara said.

Mike smiled. ‘The situation was entirely different. Judy was a private student. And besides, she made it clear she was more than willing. The whole thing was almost too easy.’

‘You got bored,’ Kara said flatly.

‘Nearly,’ Mike agreed. ‘Until I saw Judy flirting with a barman one night. I suggested she fuck him and the idea went down well.’ He looked into the ashes of the fireplace, lost in thought. ‘I find Judy is like salt.’

‘Like salt?’

‘You can’t eat it on its own, but added to other ingredients, it livens up a meal.’

‘So now you loan her out.’

‘God, no! You make me sound like her pimp. I enjoy instructing her and she enjoys receiving my instructions.’

‘And Tam is one of those … instructions.’ Kara realised she suddenly couldn’t feel the temperature any more. She could see every detail of the room very clearly; hear the recorded piano notes falling into the air one by one, faster and faster, and behind that the ticking clock shaving seconds off the hour. But she couldn’t feel her heart.

‘Just as you were the night before,’ Mike was saying. ‘Judy’s very generous. Very giving. She likes to bring pleasure and she likes to be instructed.’ He stretched out on the couch, inviting Kara to sit beside him with a wave of his hand. ‘She’ll be taking good care of Tam. And that leaves us free, my dear, to enjoy each other without distractions.’

Kara had to admit it was tidy. Flawless. She could sink onto the couch next to Mike and lose herself in his games, forget about Tam and the band and the heaving, tangled complications of the day. Nothing could be simpler.

But instead of sitting, she was pacing, rubbing her arms and walking from one side of the room to the other. The plan would be perfect, she admitted, if it wasn’t for the fact that she felt like crying.

‘Could I have a drink?’ she asked, suddenly feeling the need for a mouthful of whisky, something that would burn her throat and warm her inside.

‘It’s not a drink that you need,’ Mike said quietly.

Kara turned to him and saw how at ease he was, how certain he looked. Not a fibre of his gold, tanned body twitched, and his grey-blue eyes held hers as steady as granite. She knew how his body felt against her, how solid and unyielding he was, how firmly his arms held her as he wanted her. To be trapped underneath him, letting him manipulate her and fuck her to his own distinct rhythm seemed just the solace she needed.

At that moment, when everything around her was dark and uncertain and the night was full of lies and betrayal, Mike was a constant.

Right now, he was her only constant.

The next day, when Tam turned up at the studio with his arm round Judy, Kara managed not to scream. She went straight to
the
sanctuary of the live room, took her place at the microphone and held on tightly. All morning she kept her eyes focused on the wall in front of her and tried not to think. Mike watched everything from his position in the control booth, saying very little and only occasionally breaking in to ask them to repeat part of a song, adjust the levels or do another take.

They’d run through the eight tracks they were recording half-a-dozen times or more when Mike called a halt.

‘We need a change of scene,’ his voice instructed through the headphones. ‘Something’s not working. Everybody, break for an hour.’

Over a lunch that she didn’t eat and a bottle of wine that she downed too fast, Kara listened to Mike as he tore apart the band’s performance.

‘I’m not hearing anything good,’ he said grimly, staring down at his half-eaten plate of salad.

‘We’re missing Ruby,’ she reminded him, trying not to let the guilt surface in her mind as she thought of her flatmate. ‘Things’ll pick up when she’s here.’

‘Will they?’ Mike said. ‘I sincerely hope so.’

That afternoon, to Kara’s disgust, Lina appeared in the control room and sat with Mike. She watched the band, sometimes leaning in to Mike to murmur in his ear. Kara didn’t like her expression – serious and shrewd – and she didn’t like the way Mike seemed to be listening to her almost as much as he was listening to the music.

It bothered the others too – Jon kept messing up his part and Tam seemed to be lagging behind, tripping over himself and missing all his cues.

After they’d butchered ‘Plastic Hallway’ for the fourth time, Kara tore off the headphones. ‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked Tam and Jon, who were grimly bent over their instruments.
Jon
looked haggard, she thought. ‘And where is Ruby?’ she asked.

Jon closed his eyes as if saying a silent prayer.

‘It doesn’t matter how upset she is, she needs to be here,’ Kara went on. ‘We only get one shot at this.’

‘Wait, don’t tell me – we need to be professional about it?’ Tam asked, looking at her through narrowed eyes. ‘That’s what you were going to say, is it?’

‘You’re not helping,’ she said, a shard of bitterness breaking into her voice.

‘Neither is having your sugar daddy breathing down my neck,’ muttered Tam, shoving his hand in his hair and clutching a handful of messy brown curls.

Kara’s gaze flew nervously to the control room, but Mike was lost in a conversation with Lina, nodding as she talked.

Jon hit a low C, playing one long forlorn note. ‘It’s not working, is it?’ he said, expressing in his awkward, gentle manner exactly what Kara was too scared to think.

‘So we make it work,’ she said, gritting her teeth. ‘These are our songs. We made them. We can fucking play them, whether we’re in the mood or not.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Jon said.

Kara glared at him. She rattled the beaded bracelet on her wrist. ‘If you don’t want to be here, Jon, you’d better let me know. Just in case, you know, we find ourselves
in the middle of recording our debut album
when you decide to duck out. Christ.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Mike’s voice cut across their argument. He was broadcasting on the loudspeakers and he didn’t sound happy. ‘Kara?’

Kara tilted her chin up and shook her head.
No problem
, she mouthed, ignoring the guys sitting next to her with their faces tripping them. Mike nodded slowly, as though he was considering something. His eyes were cold and, although Kara had
grown
almost used to the way he observed her, this time she felt the chill.

They played for another hour, with an atmosphere of stewing resentment thick in the air. Kara sang as hard as she could, but her voice wasn’t mixing with Tam’s guitar and the lyrics fell into the mix like lead weights. No matter how much she tried to give it zest and spark, the words were coming out false. When Lina left the suite and Mike called an early finish, Kara felt her shoulders slump with relief.

Mike drew her aside as the others left, pulling her into one of the tiny isolation booths at the side of the live room. ‘This is not going well,’ he said, leaning back against the wall.

Kara nodded. ‘Bad day,’ she said, cursing the band and herself in her head.

‘It’s more than that,’ Mike said, pulling a sheet of paper out of his pocket. ‘Lina took some notes.’

‘Well, great. Can’t wait to hear what spiteful crap she’s come up with.’

‘Kara, whatever your personal feelings towards Lina, she is one of the best producers I’ve worked with. She knows a good thing when she sees it.’

‘Really.’

‘Yes. Really. And she is not seeing it here today.’

Kara felt her blood shrivel in her veins. Throughout it all, all the mayhem and fuck-ups and fights and confusion, she’d been clinging to the music as the one thing she knew how to do.

‘What … What did she say?’ she asked, dreading Mike’s reply.

He read over the notes, frowning. ‘She said it’s critical that the band can perform under pressure. What makes an act sink or swim is not just the music. It’s how strong they are.’

‘And?’

‘And she says The New Rakes are falling apart at the first hurdle,’ Mike said quietly. ‘You’re all over the place. Losing it.’

Kara blew out a long breath. It hurt because it was true. Lina might be a bitch, she thought, but she’s right on the money this time.

‘So what do we do?’ she asked. ‘Do we get another day to fix this?’ The band was booked for three days of studio time. Maybe with one more day, they could pull something off. If Ruby would come round. If Tam would forgive her. If miracles happened.

‘I’ll be blunt. Lina’s for cutting our losses and stopping right now,’ Mike said. He put out a hand to touch Kara’s shoulder, stroked her as if to soothe her. It didn’t help much – she felt like the ground had been pulled out from under her. The shiny, glossy, beautiful dreams that had been blossoming in her head for the past year were crumbling. Her hands were shaking.

‘But,’ Mike said, kneading Kara’s arm insistently. ‘But I might be willing to back you.’

It was a small spark of hope, enough to make Kara inhale sharply and straighten her spine. ‘Another day?’ she asked, her mind already racing through all the ass-kissing and apologising and persuading she’d have to do to make it right. There wasn’t much of a chance, but there was a glimmer and that was all that she needed. ‘Let me talk to the guys,’ she was saying already, reaching up to take Mike’s hand. It felt almost like she was begging him, but for once she really didn’t care. ‘By tomorrow morning I’ll have it fixed, Mike. We’ll be golden.’ She flashed a smile at him, willing him to soften and agree.

Only Mike wasn’t smiling back. Instead he shook his head.

‘That’s not what I meant, Kara.’ He turned her around to face him and placed both hands on her hips.

‘I meant I’d give you another chance. Only you.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Kara said, feeling her head spin.

Mike’s hands slipped round her waist and pulled her closer.
‘Your
band is falling apart,’ he said. ‘If we can’t trust these guys to show up and play well in a studio, what’ll happen when we start pulling big gigs? There’s no space for hangers-on.’

‘But – it’s our band,’ Kara said. ‘It’s ours.’

Mike trapped her hands in his. ‘It’s your band, Kara. No one doubts that you’re the engine running the machine. You’re the one everybody wants, you write the songs and you do the legwork. It’s you that keeps everything up and running.’

‘But I can’t do it on my own.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting it,’ Mike said. ‘But there are other options.’ He was rubbing each of her hands in turn, holding them tightly as though Kara might try to run if he let go.

‘I don’t want to hear them,’ Kara said, pressing her lips together tightly. She shook her head, struggled to pull away from Mike’s steady touch.

‘Calm down. Listen to what I have to say.’

‘You want to split us up.’

‘No. I want to make sure you get the chance you deserve, Kara. This band, these people. They’re not going to give you that.’

‘So I just ditch them.’

Mike shrugged. ‘You change the line-up. No big deal. Happens every fifteen minutes in this business.’

‘And fill in with what, session musicians?’ Kara’s tone was scathing.

‘Maybe,’ Mike agreed. ‘although if you want instant chemistry …’

He stroked her face with the back of his hand. His touch was so gentle, it surprised Kara. A lover’s touch, one that could turn any moment into something more intense. He fixed his eyes on hers, gazed at her with cool intent. Mike could turn her on with a glance, and he knew it.

‘… I’ll step in.’

15

KARA WALKED ALONG
the gravel path through the park. In the moonless dark it was just a paler smudge among the pools of tree shadows. During the day, the green space that bordered the river was a wide-open sanctuary. At night, the place became something different – a place of malevolent lurkers and opportunist lovers. She walked fast, trying to make her shoulders look broader and her footsteps sound surer.

It was a stupid idea to take this short cut, but nerves had made Kara reckless and she wanted – needed – to get to Tam as soon as she could. Mike had given her a couple of hours to consider his offer. His final offer.