The Candle Dancer / The Way That You Found Me by Patrick Holland Read Free Book Online Page B

goddess energy when you’re male lets you give the feminine a different expression. That’s what I do, or what I intend to do. In the band.’
    ‘What band?’
    ‘That’s one of the reasons I invited you over. I wanted to tell you in person what’s happening,’ she said.
    ‘
In person
. Sounds ominous.’
    ‘I’m the lead singer. Finally.’
    ‘Well, that’s fantastic, Doll. Congratulations!’
    ‘Kind of inspired by
The Dead Weather
.’
    ‘Oh. Really?’ I said, nodding a little too much. My throat tightened and my voicebox developed a strange itch.
    ‘We’re called
Lodestone
.’
    ‘Nice,’ I said, still nodding. I cleared my throat and tried to put aside the ungenerous thought that she’d sweetened me up by awakening my pity, before she dealt me the sour news. I considered Doll’s thin frame, her lustreless skin, the way she was hobbling around. I couldn’t imagine her on stage in her current state.
    ‘Your grandmother says you’re not eating.’
    ‘I eat. And I drink,’ she said, patting the concealed hip flask in her pocket. ‘We’ve got a gig next week at
The Horn Café
in Richmond. You’ll come, won’t you? Selima will be there. And Richard.’
    ‘That’s no inducement.’
    Doll laughed.
    ‘He’s just such—an arsewipe,’ I said, using Benjy’s expression. ‘Worse than that. I don’t know what you see in him.’
    ‘I don’t expect you to,’ she said, lightly, as if there was some secret about Richard I couldn’t possibly penetrate. Changing the subject, she added:
    ‘I’ll let Coppers know that Carl’s off the scene.’
    ‘Don’t you dare!’
    ‘Oh, I will. I’ve got his number in my phone. It’s always so amusing to see you trying to get—’
    ‘Will Benjy be there?’ I interrupted.
    Doll gave me a long, hard look out of her dark eyes. She knew that what she said next would be hurtful.
    ‘Benjy’s the drummer.’
----
    XIII.
----
    The Horn Café
was an intimate venue with a small stage, a tapas menu and Florence Broadhurst wallpaper as a backdrop to a bizarre collection of genuine rams’ horns. I didn’t want to go to the gig but Selima insisted: she picked me up.
    ‘It’s best to normalise the situation with you and Benjy,’ she said. ‘Some friends are too good to lose.’
    They were already playing when we arrived.
Lodestone
. The word sat heavily in my mouth. A great name, I thought. A magnet, a thing that attracts, a metal composition. Selima went off to get us both a drink and I sank into a red leather couch close to the stage, trying to tame my roaring jealousy enough to appreciate the music.
    Doll was beautiful, sucking up attention in a corolla of stage-light, while Benjy was a quiet presence behind her. I gazed at the droop of his sleepy, long-lashed eyes, the same light turning him into a geometric composition in gold and red: the oval of his head, the square of his shoulders, his hands flying over the immobile cylinders of his drums. The boy who could play like John Bonham at sixteen. The most talented of us all.
    Doll surprised me. Not her perfected ‘look’ so much as her stage presence. She wore a bolero of white rabbit fur, a leather pencil skirt, a crimson scarf and nothing else. The moustache was gone and she had no eyebrows whatsoever. A fan set her scarf continuously flickering, like a gymnast’s fluid ribbon. She wasn’t quite Breslin and Dylan and Mosshart rolled together; but her throaty voice was passionate enough to make up for its lack of range, her eyes meeting mine as she sang:
    I don’t know
    what way to be
,
    except the way
    of my way-worn heart
…
----
    When the gig was over I wanted to leave. I smelled Richard’s putrid presence nearby, cologne over chemical sweat. And I didn’t want to congratulate Doll or find words for Benjy.
    ‘Can’t we stay a bit longer?’ begged Selima. ‘There’s a back room here, there’s going to be a party.’
    ‘You stay,’ I said.
    ‘You can’t drive.’
    ‘I’ll get a