by Terry Tyler
"Nice one," said Max, "and tell James that if he pulls his finger out and stops being lazy, I might even offer him a job." He looked at Janice. "Well, we're going to need a bit of time off, in late Spring, aren't we?"
"We are?"
"Yes! Holidays, my love! Well, Harley wants to go to Disneyland, I daresay, doesn't he?"
Janice whooped, and leapt into his arms.
"Put me down!" he said, and winked at Lisa. "You've no idea what a curse it is, being so irresistible to women!"
They all beamed at each other, Max, Janice and Lisa.
Outside, the sun poked its face through the clouds.
***
Friday night. January the twenty-fourth.
Five-thirty pm in The Romany.
Ritchie said he was going to need at least a couple of pints down his neck before six o'clock, which was when they were officially allowed to start panicking about not getting The Call.
"And I don't want to hear a word about it until six, okay?" said Ritchie. "There's no point in going over and over what we might or might not have done wrong last week, 'cause it's done, now."
"You heard the man," said Boz.
Dave, Ariel and Shane went outside to smoke, large Jack Daniels in hand.
"I bet Ariel gets through and the rest of us don't," said Dave.
"Stop it," said Ariel, rather more sharply than she'd intended. "I feel sick enough as it is; that sort of pointless speculation doesn't help."
"Sorry."
As they walked back into the pub, Shane's phone rang.
"That's it!" shrieked Melodie, and clutched Boz's arm.
"Don't be an airhead all your life," said Ritchie. "It's only ten to six, and they'll be calling Dave, not Shane."
Shane went outside to take the call. When he came back he went straight to the bar, and ordered another large Jack Daniels.
"What's going on with our man?" said Boz. "He's been acting a bit weird for a week or so, now."
"Oh, he's getting a load of grief off some poor girl who believes he's in love with her," said Ariel, "can't imagine what he's done to make her think that, can you? Then there's the one he met at the audition, the Bon Jovi girl." She turned to Dave. "What's her name, again?"
"The Bon Jovi Girl," said Dave. "That's all Shane cares about!"
Shane came back with a fresh round of drinks. His usually buoyant other self was still nowhere to be seen.
"Kerry?" said Ariel.
"Yip," he said, and exhaled, loudly. His phone rang again. This time he smiled; he got up and walked over to the fruit machine, where he leant, hand in pocket and legs crossed, to take the call. He was laughing, and obviously listening most intently to whatever the caller was saying.
"I'd love to know what he's up to," said Dave. "He usually tells me all the gory details about his escapades but he's keeping schtum this time."
"I'll give you three guesses," said Ritchie, "it's got two legs, frilly drawers, and wants him, dead or alive!" He sang the last bit, and they all laughed; it relieved the tension, just a little bit.
Six-fifteen.
Dave's phone rang.
It was his Mum.
"Mum! Sorry, I can't talk, I've got to go. I'll call you back. Please. No, we haven't heard yet. I've got to go. No, I'm fine - yes, Mum, let me go. Yes, Harley's okay. Yes. Mum, please just get off the line. Now!"
"I feel sick," said Melodie. She kissed Boz on the cheek. "Sweetheart, this wine isn't hitting the spot. Will you get me a large vodka and tonic?"
"Sure, pet," he said, smiling at her, running a hand down the length of her hair, and standing up.
"Make sure the tonic's slimline!" she called, as he made his way over to the bar.
Another fifteen minutes went past, another round of drinks was bought, Ariel, Dave and Shane went out for more cigarettes.
Six thirty-five.
A few of their friends, knowing what was going on, walked past and said things like "Good luck, guys" and "We're rooting for you!"
Ariel's phone bleeped.
"Yes!" said Melodie.
Ariel looked up at her. "It's a text, Mel."
"Well, read it! You never know!"
She opened it up, a tiny little part of her daring to hope that it might be an alternative method of contact, as Melodie had suggested.
It wasn't. The text was from Will Corrigan, wanting to know if she'd heard yet.
"How come he's got your number?" asked Dave.
Ariel ignored him.
They fell silent, all of them.
"I can't stand this much longer," said Ritchie.
Six-forty.
Shane's phone rang again. He turned it off.
Dave's phone, sitting on the table, started to vibrate.
He picked it up, heart thudding, then closed his eyes.
"Fucking Vodafone," he said.
"Anyone fancy going out for another fag?" asked Shane.
Melodie's phone rang.
She picked it up. "OMG! I don't recognise the number!"
"Answer it!" said Dave and Shane, in unison.
She inhaled, deeply, and held the phone to her ear.
"Hello? Yes, this is Melodie Joy Valentine. What? What? Yes! What? Yes! Oh, my God! Thank you! Oh my God!"
She stared around the table at her friends, open-mouthed, and nodded her head.
"Yes. Sure. Wednesday. Yes, that's fine. Yes. Oh, yes, no, definitely. Thank you! Oh yes! Oh thank you so, so much! Yes! I'll see you then. That's great. Ten o'clock. That's fine. Oh no. Oh yes! Thank you! Goodbye!"
She put her phone down on the table, stood up, put her arms in the air, and shouted out, "They want ME-EEE! I'm going to be faaaay-mous!"
Most of the people in the pub laughed and clapped her, even those who didn't know what she was talking about, and those who did bounded over to her and kissed her, asking her all about it, what the TV people had said to her, when the show started.
"I've got to go down on Wednesday for a meeting with the producers, meet the singing coaches, find out where I'm going to be staying, discuss songs, everything!" she told them all, breathlessly. Every other minute she'd clutch the arm of whichever one of her friends was sitting next to her, and squeal "I can't believe it! I've got through!"
Six fifty-five.
"Our watches and phones might be fast," said Ritchie.
"What, all of them?" said Ariel.
Five past seven.
"I shouldn't think they mean exactly seven o'clock," said Dave. "I mean, they might have got chatting to some of them. It's a lot of people to have to ring, fifteen in one hour."
Twenty past seven. Melodie was at the bar, being bought drinks by most of the men in the pub.
"Suppose that's me out of the picture, then," said Boz, though he didn't look terribly upset about it.
Seven twenty-five. Seven-thirty.
"Let's stop kidding ourselves," said Ariel. "We didn't make it. Let's just be happy for Melodie, shall we?"
"Bit of a joke, though, isn't it?" Ritchie said. "I thought this bloody show was supposed to be about real musical ability - look at us, we're five proper musicians, we write our own stuff, and who gets through? Miss Tits and Arse."
Dave looked at him. That was what he had been thinking, too; they probably all had. Trust Ritchie to be the one to say it, though.
"Her voice has got a lot better since she's been taking singing lessons, to be fair," said Ariel.
"Yeah, but it's no better than yours. And some of your songs are really good. So are Dave's, even if they are rip-offs."
"Oy - "
"Only jesting, mate. That Melodie, though, she can't even read music. It ain't right."
"Aye, it's hard lines, but there's no use us whingeing about it," said Boz, patting him on the shoulder. "So, looks like it's back to the gigs, then."
"I suppose we could still put 'as seen on TV' on the MySpace page," Ritchie said. "Fuck, I must be learning all this marketing shit off our Pete without realising it."
; Dave felt like crying. He kept thinking about Glenn Hunter saying that his voice was made for rock. "You're better than you realise, mate." He didn't want to mention it, though, because he knew he'd never hear the last of it from Ritchie and Shane if he did, and he wasn't in the mood for having the piss taken out of him.
Melodie was still at the bar, laughing and shrieking, the rest of them forgotten. They sat there, the five of them, making desultory conversation, staring at their drinks.
"Who's that?" said Ariel, suddenly.
Dave looked up and saw someone approaching their table, staring around at them all, quite intently. He didn't recognise her at first; he saw a pale faced girl with light brown hair scraped back into a pony tail, chubby cheeks emphasised by enormous hoop earrings, dressed in a white crop top, black track suit bottoms and a huge parka coat. Then he remembered. She was Christmas Eve Kerry. Shane's number one fan.
"Hi," said Shane, standing up to greet her. Dave looked at him and frowned. He didn't look surprised to see her, but neither did he look particularly pleased.
"Guys, this is Kerry," he said.
"Hi," they all chorused, and she nodded back.
"What do you want to drink?" Shane asked.
"Just a diet coke," she said. "I'm not stopping long. I just wanted to check that you're coming round later, seeing as you hadn't given me a definite answer, and you've switched off your phone."
"Yeah, I said I would," said Shane. "Don't give me aggro, babe."
"Why don't you stop out with us for a bit, Kerry, pet?" said Boz. "We're all having a commiserating session, you might as well join in with it and get thoroughly pissed - we're going to!"
Kerry gave him a half smile. "I'm not in a drinking mood tonight, thanks."
She looked at Shane, who was just getting up to go to the bar. "Actually, forget the drink; I won't stay, I parked outside a trade entrance. But I'll see you later, yeah?"
"Sure thing," said Shane, and kissed her before she left. Then he slumped back down on the seat. "More large Jacks all round, then, is it?" He grinned, broadly, like he usually did, but Dave couldn't help feeling his heart wasn't in it. "I'm in the chair. What the hell, eh?"
Ariel's phone started to ring; for a moment Dave's heart leapt, but then he remembered, and told himself not to be so daft; it was eight o'clock. An hour after the deadline.
Ariel picked up her phone and went outside, towards the smoking shelter; she was gone for fifteen minutes or so.
"That Will again, was it?" said Dave, when she came back.
"No," she said, "It was Emily, one of my friends in London."
Dave felt sure she was lying.
***
The next day, when Ariel was at work at The Bandstand, she asked Shane's Uncle Vic for the following Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off.
"Yes, we can work around that," said Uncle Vic. "Trade's so bloody quiet this time of year that I won't even bother to cover you. Doing anything nice?"
"Just going down to London for a few days to see some old mates," she said.
"Yeah?" He smiled. "Well, if you're going for a job interview and don't want to tell me about it, just do me a favour, will you? Give me a bit of notice so I can find someone to take your place."
Ariel smiled back. "Of course I will, Vic. If I ever do such a thing."
***
When he was at work the following Wednesday, Dave couldn't help thinking about Melodie, who was going down to Inspire TV that day, to meet up with her fellow contestants again, and all the people who were going to make the show a hit, they hoped. It should have been me, he kept thinking. Us. Thor. Us and Ariel. If it was Thor and Ariel who'd been chosen, they'd all be happy and excited about the future, and Ariel wouldn't be drifting away from him, he was sure of it.
Meanwhile, he was standing in some mud outside a half-built house, on a freezing, bleak, rural fenland morning. If he was in a good mood he appreciated the beauty of nature, however bloody cold it was, but this morning he found it hard to appreciate anything.
Band practise was tomorrow night and they had a gig on Friday, but everything seemed so flat, now. Such an anti-climax.
He looked up at the pale, cold sky.
At some point in the future he would start wanting to write songs again, but right now all those words and melodies (ha!), the ones that used to race around his brain all day long, were silent. He didn't know if it was because of Raw Talent, or because he was scared that Ariel was going to leave him.
Who was he kidding? If he felt sure of Ariel's love, the stupid talent show wouldn't have mattered half so much.
A Viking needed his woman.
A Viking leader, as he knew he'd been in a former life, needed to have the most beautiful woman of them all, the pick of the bunch. Ariel.
He sighed, heard Jim calling to him to get his act together, and went back in. A Viking needed his dosh, too - and his heir; today was Harley's birthday, and, as soon as he'd cleaned up after work, Dave was going round to Janice's to give his son his presents - a Shrek outfit, of all things, and various other bits and bobs pertaining to his other favourite films of the moment, too, which were, apparently, Ratatouille, something about a bee, and something about surfing penguins. Janice had told him what to get, and his mother had gone out and bought it all for him.
That wasn't right, was it?
He had to be told what to buy his own son for his birthday, because he didn't spend enough time with him to know what he would like. He felt ashamed of himself. That was going to change, in the future.
Everything seemed to be moving out of his control, all of a sudden. He wasn't so involved in the lives of Harley, Janice and her family, anymore, as he'd always presumed he would be, whatever happened. The power of Thor seemed to be diminishing; he couldn't put his finger on it, but it was. Ritchie hadn't bothered to update the MySpace page for days. They hadn't accumulated any new fans for two weeks. Shane was acting as distracted as Ariel. How could everything have changed, just because of some poxy TV show?
When he got round to Janice's at six o'clock, a special birthday buffet tea was already in progress. Dave's mum Yvonne was there, and Linda, two of Harley's friends from school, and Janice's mate Carolyn, with her boys; there were balloons and a birthday cake, jellies and ice cream, bridge rolls filled with egg mayonnaise, and Harley's favourite, Ritz cheese sandwich biscuits.
Dave ate a piece of birthday cake, talked to his mother for a while, and wished he could have a drink.
"Hey," he said to Janice, "do you remember that year when you did that kids' party for adults, for my birthday? That vodka jelly was lethal, wasn't it!"
Janice laughed. She looked different, somehow; slimmer, prettier, happier, he thought. Like the old Janice, before she started moaning at him about everything. Not that she hadn't had plenty to moan about, of course -
"Yes, it was a laugh, wasn't it?" she said, and her hair, longer now, shone underneath the artificial light of the room as she moved; she'd put some sort of mauve colour on it. "And the lethal game of musical chairs - I had bruises for a week! Ah, a long time ago, now!"
"I remember Shane running his hand up my leg to make me move during a game of statues, so that he'd win," said Carolyn. "Not that I minded, of course. He's not coming along today, is he?"
"Daddy!" shouted Harley, running up to him in his Shrek outfit, "come and see what Max brought me! It's in the kitchen!"
Dave took his little hand. "Who's Max, kiddo? One of your schoolfriends?"
"No, silly! Max at Mummy's café!"
"Oh, he got you a present, did he?" said Dave. "That's nice of him. And don't call grown-ups silly, even if it is your birthday."
Harley led him out to the kitchen to show him the present - a toy dog kennel, three feet high, with a black and white toy dog sitting in the front of it.
"That's great," said Dave. "I hope you said thank you."
"Course I did!" Harley bent down and picked up the dog. "I'm going to call him Sam, like Max's dog."
"Yes! I love Sam, I play with him when we go to Max's house."
Dave looked round; Janice was watching them from the doorway, and looking decidedly edgy, he thought.
"Do you? Do you go to Max's house a lot?" He was looking at Janice as he asked this; she looked away, and pretended to be listening to something Yvonne Bentley was saying.
"I've been - " he counted on his fingers " - three times. Mummy goes there when I stay at Grandma Linda's."
"Really?" Dave stood up. He put his hand out and touched Janice's arm.
She turned round.
"You're seeing Max Stark?" he asked, trying very hard to sound reasonable rather than accusatory.
She blushed. "Yes. Do you have a problem with that?"
Dave laughed. "No, of course not. He'd a good bloke." He was lying. He had a big problem with it. Max was, indeed, a good bloke, with a successful business, too, and a pretty flash sort of car. And the worst thing was, Dave knew that he could do absolutely nothing about it. He no longer had any rights where Janice was concerned. "I'm just surprised, that's all."
Janice shrugged her shoulders. "Well, these sort of things just creep up on you sometimes, don't they."
Ah. That made him feel better. Probably Janice welcomed the attention of her nice reliable boss, who had to be at least fifteen years older than her. The father she'd never had, the nice steady bloke, the antidote to the thrills and spills of having a Viking rock and roller as a partner. It was text book stuff, really.
Harley snuggled up to his leg, and Dave picked him up.
"Are you having a good birthday, eh? Do you like the presents I got for you?"
"Yes! I love you, Daddy." Harley put his arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek, then he looked at his mother. "Mummy, is Max coming here as well today? I want to save him some birthday cake!"
"Of course he's coming," Janice said. "And he's bringing Sam, too!"