For a moment she felt something stir inside her, soft, almost aching, and clicked hastily on to ‘The Making of Descent’. She read that while Pete Hilton, the fair serious one, and Jago had met at public school and started writing songs together, they’d only made contact with the other members of the band, keyboard player and vocalist Tug Austin and drummer Verne Hallam when they’d all subsequently enrolled at the Capital School of Art in London.
They’d started playing gigs at schools and colleges in London, their music becoming increasingly successful, allied with a reputation for drinking and wild behaviour, and leading them to be thrown out of art college at the start of their third year.
At first they’d called themselves Scattergun, and it was only when they’d been offered their first recording contract that they changed their name to Descent, soon scoring their first huge, groundbreaking hit with Easy, Easy.
Tavy went on reading about the tours, the sell-out concerts, the awards, all accompanied by a riotous, unbridled lifestyle, fuelled by alcohol and, it was hinted, drugs, that apparently became the stuff of legends. Or horror stories.
There were more pictures too, involving girls. She recognised a lot of them—models, film and TV stars, other musicians. The kind who made the covers of celebrity magazines. But not usually half-dressed, dishevelled and hung-over. And many of them entwined with Jago.
The narrative was punctuated by scraps of Descent’s music, raw, raunchy, ferocious, and available with one click.
It was, she thought with shocked disbelief, like discovering there were actually aliens on other planets.
Making her realise just how sheltered her life in Hazelton Magna had been from the overheated world of rock music, reality television and instant celebrity. Making her see why Jago’s arrival could well be regarded locally as an unwarranted invasion. How, in spite of her regrettable incursion into his grounds, he was the real trespasser.
She wanted to stop reading, but something made her continue. Some compulsion to know everything, as if that could possibly make her understand the inexplicable.
‘Sometimes the demons you find there make the return journey with you...’
His words. And she shivered again.
The band, she read, had broken up three years earlier, citing ‘artistic differences’. But they had reunited a year later, with a UK tour planned. But this project had been cancelled following Pete Hilton’s sudden departure, caused, it was rumoured, by a fight with Jago Marsh. After which Descent had come to an abrupt end, the other band members dispersing, said the article, ‘to pursue other interests’.
Like buying neglected country houses, thought Tavy, returning dispiritedly to the computer’s home page. And her researches had done nothing to allay her fears or quell her inner disturbance over Jago Marsh. On the contrary, in fact.
Because it was obvious from the tone of the article that, to him, women were merely interchangeable commodities, a series of willing bodies to be enjoyed, then discarded, which was only serving to deepen her resentment of him and the way he’d treated her.
His arrogant assumption that she would enjoy being in his arms.
A ‘treat of the week’ for the village maiden, no doubt, she thought furiously.
What she needed now was something to take her mind off it all. She required an occupation, and in the absence of any correspondence, she decided to tidy the stationery cupboard, and check whether more letterheads, report forms and prospectuses needed to be ordered.
Demonstrate my efficiency, she thought, pulling a face.
To her surprise, the cupboard was locked, but there was a spare key in Mrs Wilding’s desk drawer, eventually locating it under a bulky folder tied up with pink tape which she lifted out and left on top of the desk.
She opened the door, and inspected and rearranged each shelf with methodical care noting down, as she’d suspected, that more uniform lists were needed, plus compliment slips and letterheads. She was kneeling, examining a box of old date stamps that had been pushed to the back of the bottom shelf and forgotten, when an icy voice behind her said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Tavy turned and saw Mrs Wilding glaring down at her.
‘Just checking the supplies.’ She got up, feeling faintly bewildered. ‘I realised it was some time since I did so.’
‘But the cupboard was locked.’
‘I got the key from your drawer.’
‘Well, in future, kindly do only what you’re asked.’
Tavy watched as Mrs Wilding relocked the cupboard, ostentatiously putting the key in her handbag, then replaced the folder in the drawer and slammed it shut.