Swan Song

by Tom Butler

  Mary blinked her eyes. ‘James, what do you mean? You’re not chicken are you? It’s only a silly little song. I didn’t mean what I said about you forgetting the words. Of course you won’t.’

  ‘There won’t be a song. The way Noah’s been, he doesn’t deserve it. I doubt I’ll even get him a card.’

  Mary gave her brother a stubborn glare. So far as she was concerned, it was a must. Her face became serious. ‘Yes you will. And you will sing for him. You simply must do it. Say you will.’

  James backtracked again. He tested her memory.

  ‘He was awful to both of us. Remember?’

  How could she forget. But it mattered not.

  ‘He’s my brother, and I love him. It’s his birthday.’ she said unperturbed.

  ‘Birthday or not, he’s been rotten to us. Why should we pretend otherwise?’

  Mary listened, but the glare was back.

  ‘Didn’t we promise each other, that no matter what, we’d stick together,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Noah broke that promise. He doesn’t care about us. It’s just pretend.’

  ‘Oh James, please. I don’t like this. It’s horrible seeing you like this.’

  He could tell how much it meant to her. She was on the verge of tears. But he wasn’t about to be swayed by emotional blackmail. Well, that’s what he thought.

  Mary, using every ounce of ingenuity at her disposal suddenly rallied to give James one last chance to change his mind.

  ‘What if I asked you to sing the song to me. After all, it is a love song. And most certainly a boy to girl song. You could dedicate another song to Noah; sing that first and then do “Let’s get close” for me. Say you’ll do it James, and I’ll love you forever. I’ll speak to Noah and convince him. It’s a great idea. I’m sure he’ll be fine about it.’

  ‘But he won’t want me taking the limelight away from him. It’s his big day. That’s why I shunned the idea in the first place. I’m sorry but—’

  ‘At least let me try talking to Noah. Please.’

  Mary was almost shouting now. James had no heart to shout back.

  ‘Alright, but we don’t have much time. The party’s in less than two weeks, and I’ll have to arrange things with Wes. He may not think your idea is any good. It was him who suggested I perform for Noah in the first place.’

  Mary was all smiles again and feeling pretty pleased with herself. She was sure Noah would be putty in her hands when she broached the subject even though it would no longer be a surprise and might not get the same reaction from the VIPs in attendance.

  James felt inept as he had been out manoeuvred by a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Deep down, he was still dead set against performing for somebody who might so easily have inflicted brain damage on him or even come close to ending his life. Drunk or not, Noah shouldn’t have let the song rights feud escalate into something far more sinister. And perhaps James should have backed off and admitted defeat.

  Secretly, he hoped Mary would fail in her mission to convince Noah it was all worthwhile, especially as she would be horrified to find out the true turn of events. Such thoughts made him feel very sad indeed. And all of a sudden he felt alone.

  ******

  Chapter Fourteen

  There were only three days to go until Noah’s birthday bash, and James didn’t seem at all keen on rehearsing. Wes had revised his plans to accommodate Mary, and being something of a perfectionist, he was feeling the heat, snapping and snarling his way through supposed practise sessions and readily showing his frustrations in the hope James took the hint.

  Complaining of a sore throat and downing too much strong cider, a habit that was becoming all too frequent, made James uncooperative, and Wes felt for the first time that the showcasing might end up unpolished and unprofessional. Other events had been planned in secret and could overshadow everything he was trying to achieve. Or so he believed.

  A serious heart-to-heart was summoned, but that only served to wind James up as he was still far from Noah Swan’s number one fan. The bottle-throwing incident, and his resulting hospitalisation came too easily to mind. He might still bear a scar to remind him of it for the rest of his life. The shock it had induced had inevitably left him traumatised inside no matter how hard he tried sweeping it aside. It felt somehow wrong that Noah had gotten away with it as it had been logged as an unfortunate accident fuelled by the silly antics of two drunken brothers. It rankled with James that he had been as sober as a judge at the time. But how could he accuse his own flesh and blood of attempted murder when he couldn’t himself be sure of Noah’s intentions.

  Wes, of course had no idea what he was up against and soldiered on. Teenage hormones were a law unto themselves, and he braced himself and crossed fingers and toes. James, he believed, would not let his kid sister down, and that was the defining thought that kept him focussed. And wife Liz too thought the same. They couldn’t both be wrong.

  Agreeing on a song to dedicate to Noah hadn’t been easy, and it was Liz who had reckoned a more up-tempo version of a number called “Keeping it in the Family” might be an ideal solution. The lyrics written by James were harmonious and meaningful, she thought, but the melody ambled along and needed livening up. So she got Wes to do what he could to transform it. But still James wasn’t sure about the sentiment. In truth, he felt anything but in harmony with his brother and thought the whole thing a sham. He was adamant he was only doing it for Mary’s sake, and the handshake with Noah at the end of the performance would be tepid, assuming he went through with it.

  The standard of his schoolwork was slipping back and becoming an issue also. Worse still, his behaviour was unacceptable. He had picked up a week’s exclusion for being caught drinking white cider from a bottle purporting to contain water and had a dressing down for blatant cheek towards his maths teacher. His G. C. S. E. expectations had been revised downward and even his music teacher had noted a sudden apathy towards his favourite subject.

  A letter sent to the Proudlock’s raised concern and talked about the importance of focus. There were too many distractions in his life, not least, the time he spent with Wes penning new lyrics in readiness for the making of demo discs though that tended to be mostly only two evenings a week on average.

  A few “new” friends had latched on to James due to the fame of his brother, and one of them, who everyone referred to as Budgie, seemed hell bent on leading James astray. It was Budgie, real name Darren Bird, who had introduced James to the perils of white cider and thought every young teenage girl was assessable. He had his head almost totally shaved and used the “F” and “C” words like they were compulsory vocabulary.

  Needless to say, Sylvia disliked the boy, or more accurately the young man, intensely but chose not to lecture James on who he should and shouldn’t see. She hoped he would see what a waste of space this Budgie was and not continue with the friendship. She also felt sure James would knuckle down and achieve his projected grades, especially once Noah’s party was over. It was only natural that his schoolwork had suffered due to past events as had Mary’s, so there was no great panic or need for parental intervention. Obviously, she did speak to him, but she kept the severity of the subject matter hovering around a level that could be deemed to be both casual and only slightly concerning hoping a softly-softly approach was more likely to pay dividends.

  On the day before the party or “rave” as Mary kept on calling it, James finally had Wes in a relaxed mood, having run through the two songs, word and note perfect. Feeling vindicated about the whole idea and choice of music, Wes even allowed James two small lemonade shandies afterwards and Liz joined them by uncorking a bottle of wine which Wes helped her finish later after James had left. Despite the smooth running last rehearsal and her husband’s apparent satisfaction, she noted an extra worry line on his brow and picked up on it.

  ‘It’s a big thing for one so young,’ she said, diplomatically. ‘But having you there with him should calm any last minute nerves.’
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  Wes agreed, but he was inwardly on edge. A lot could go wrong. The wine however helped to put him in a philosophical mood.

  ‘In theory, he won’t want to let anybody down, especially Mary. But I know how much he’s still hurting over that bloody song his brother took from him. I’m half expecting there to be some accusing looks in Noah’s direction, birthday celebration or not. But at least we can collectively keep one eye on proceedings and act accordingly if things look like taking a turn for the worse.’

  ‘Safety in numbers,’ Liz concurred, looking relaxed.

  Wes nodded. ‘Something to that effect. Hopefully it won’t come to that, and if the show runs like clockwork, we can keep them at arm’s length. Otherwise, World War Three could be on the cards.’

  They stared at each other and shrugged.

  ‘That can’t possibly happen. Can it?’ Liz pondered.

  Wes hesitated. ‘I’m sure you’re right. I shall be glad when it’s over.’

  Liz could tell the pressure was on. She was used to Wes and his sometimes deep artistic temperament and loved him for it. And she shared his belief in James who, for his age, was hugely talented and creative.

  But like Wes, she was beginning to note a change in James, and his choice of friends did not bode well. Budgie, as an example, was a person she was familiar with through her work. He was from a large, generally dysfunctional family and an undoubted troublemaker. He was well known to both the police and the probationary services and was at least four years older than most of the other lads he hung around. That in itself might ring alarm bells for some.

  He was always bothering James for freebies. Tapes of Hooded Eye, a promotional tee shirt, complimentary tickets and sometimes money. James got precious little back other than a promise from the tough-looking friend to protect him. As a sort of unofficial minder. Liz labelled him as a parasite and hoped James would wake up one morning and see him for what he really was. And have nothing more to do with him.

  It was never going to be that simple, and Darren Bird wasn’t going anywhere.

  James rather liked the idea of having him around, and it was no different to Noah being assigned an official minder to keep him safe from the mostly adoring public.

  Much to the Crowley’s chagrin, there was nothing they could do to stop the man from attending the party tomorrow. James had been allowed to invite a friend along, and Budgie Bird had talked him around to being the chosen one. What harm would it do to have him there? He was just a mate looking out for him and no doubt savouring the chance to rub shoulders with people well above his usual social set.

  In order to prime himself for the occasion, Budgie had met up with James after sending a succession of texts to make sure he didn’t miss him. They had wandered around for a bit as they often did before settling on a park bench half a mile from James’ home drinking the infamous white stuff until way past the time Sylvia had expected him back. And under orders from Budgie, he ignored her three attempts to get him on his mobile to see where he was before switching it off.

  ‘If I had foster parents, I’d tell them to fuck off,’ Budgie said cruelly, before crudely swigging from a bottle. ‘When I was fifteen, no fucker told this boy what to do. They daren’t mess with me.’

  Budgie was of mixed race and had not seen hide or hair of his Jamaican father for many years. His mother had been to prison for benefit fraud, leaving social services to look after her four children, of whom Darren was the oldest. She was now living in a council apartment, but Budgie’s two younger sisters and brother were in a council care home, and he had not seen them for over a year. It didn’t seem to bother him. Family seemed to be way down the pecking order. Friends or those he described as such were far more important.

  But James knew the importance of family. He’d had it instilled in him throughout the traumas and tribulations of his relative short life.

  ‘They’re not so bad,’ he shrugged. It was a reference to Sylvia and Phillip.

  Budgie wasn’t really listening. Family stuff was never likely to register on his limited radar.

  ‘What’s this Wes guy really like?’ he asked James suddenly, having never met him. ‘Strikes me as a bit of a fucking has been. You ain’t gonna do any good hanging around the likes of him Jimmy boy.’

  Budgie was fond of calling him that. It sounded smooth. James just sounded too formal.

  James gave Wes a lot of thought. OK, so much of the time his head was stuck back in the eighties and nineties, and he had never actually accomplished much in the way of fame. But did that really matter?

  ‘I like Wes,’ he said positively. ‘I can talk to him, and his wife’s been a help too. They push me but don’t do my head in like parents might.’

  ‘You mean they don’t fucking nag you and piss you off?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, you need someone with a bit more go in them than those two old codgers, if you ask me.’ Budgie suggested. ‘They ought to be pensioned off and put in a fucking retirement home.’

  Anyone over the age of forty were past it in his narrow-minded view.

  ‘I’m in no rush,’ James told him.

  With his hands held skyward Budgie disagreed. There was no point in letting time stand still.

  ‘Hey, you must seize the moment man. Never mind this laid-back attitude. We’re gonna be famous and the sooner, the better. We’re going all the way to the fucking top. The younger you are, the longer you stay there, looking down on those poor bastards who just wait for things to happen.’

  James raised his eyebrows at the “we” reference but didn’t want to spoil the illusion. He didn’t think Budgie was so bad to have around as a friend. People were too quick to pre-judge him.

  As the bottle was emptied, Budgie’s thoughts turned to Melissa Murray and what he would like to do to her. It made James blush but was only an echo of what he had heard all too often before.

  ‘I bet she’d be one hell of a lay,’ he fantasised. ‘And this boy has the equipment to keep the girl happy.’ He made an undignified thrusting motion with his groin.

  It made James giggle. Budgie always had the ability to do that.

  ‘I wouldn’t make it too obvious when Joe Slater’s around,’ James pre-warned him. ‘He can get pretty mean over Mel. And her dad’s a bit of a guard dog in that respect too. Tell me exactly how you propose to function minus your balls and a few fingers.’

  ‘They’ll never catch me, man. This boy can do a hundred metres in ten seconds, I kid you not.’

  Budgie mimicked a sprinter getting down on his blocks and practically fell over his own long legs.

  James laughed and shook his head which was now becoming fuzzy, courtesy of the cider.

  ‘Usain Bolt, you are not,’ he joked.

  Budgie said he knew where he could get some more cider, and when James pointed out the time, Budgie called him ‘chicken’. They went off together, and James reckoned another hour or so wouldn’t matter. He’d been late home before. Quite a few times.

  Budgie lodged with a friend of a friend to whom he paid rent in fags and cider, and it wasn’t the first time James had seen the tiny box room he called home. It had graffiti on the walls and stank of cigarettes and booze. There was no proper bed, just a dirt-ridden mattress and something crumpled at one end of it that was once a duvet, he supposed. After a frenzied search, Budgie found half a bottle of cider buried under a pile of clothes and held it aloft like it was a gift from heaven.

  ‘Man, this is the stuff. Here, lubricate your sweet vocal chords with this. I need a smoke.’

  He began searching the room again and it made James giggle again. Clothes were sent flying all over the room.

  ‘How can you lose stuff in such a small space?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s better this way. It might be small, but it suits me man. For fucks sake where did I put my ciggies?’

  The cigarettes he referred to weren’t from the corner shop or local supermarket. They were what he called his s
pecials, and for sure they weren’t legal. They were the thinnest cigarettes James had ever seen, and once lit, they didn’t last very long and gave off a pungent, but at the same time, mildly fragrant smell. Like he always did, he refused to join in and just kept swigging the cider almost until it had gone, and Budgie wrestled it off him.

  ‘Hey man, did nobody teach you to share,’ he protested, emptying the bottle.

  The room around James had started to spin, and he was forced to sit down amid the mayhem on the floor. The single light bulb above his head was also circulating around him, and he felt dizzy. Two shandies at the Crowley’s and well over half a bottle of white lightening had taken their toll. All he wanted to do was shut his eyes.

  A mile away, the Proudlock’s were now texting the Crowley’s and vice versa. Fruitless calls were made to several friends who James sometimes spent time with. It soon got to half past one, and Sylvia thought the worse. Not that James might have been abducted by aliens but waylaid by somebody she didn’t like one bit. It was the only explanation.

  But James had never told anybody where Darren ‘Budgie’ Bird lived. So they couldn’t go looking for him other than Phillip and Wes doing an organised scour of the streets between their two homes. An hour later, they gave up and went home. It was pointless doing anything else. Sylvia stayed up drinking tea until half past three before she tried to get some sleep. James had been erratic before with timekeeping but usually at weekends. She was drifting off when she sensed someone trying to get into the house. It was five thirty, and James had dragged himself back home in a kind of drink-induced coma.

  Sylvia confronted him before he got a foot on the stairs. Their eyes met, but no words were exchanged. He couldn’t hide his guilt, and she couldn’t disguise her relief. Any words were put in cold storage until the morning.

  James slept off his hangover, and Sylvia conjured a stomach bug storyline to appease his school, the school secretary sounding hugely sceptical. By midday, he was up and making toast whilst his foster mother did the weekly shop. Several texts from Budgie went unanswered as did one from Wes asking him to urgently get in touch. The toast made him feel sick and only after two glasses of water did his stomach settle. There was an animated “Sorry” from him on Sylvia’s return and no real lecture from her, but her face couldn’t hide her disappointment. She had bought him a really thoughtful card to give to Noah on his special day, and that made him feel inadequate. The sentiment said it all.