by Terry Tyler
She saw Will Corrigan watching her, waving from across the road, waiting to plunge with her into that busy world underneath the city.
Something about the set of his shoulders reminded her of Dave Bentley, for a moment, and she felt a wave of sadness. She would miss Dave; she already did, quite badly at times. But any pain she felt was bearable; there was so much ahead of her.
The wind whipped her hair from behind her ear, and she pushed it out of her eyes, waved back, and, glancing up to make sure the little green man was showing on the crossing, ran across the road to the new chapter in her life.
***
Melodie Joy was now down to the final six on Inspire TV's most successful show, Raw Talent.
Media interest had increased; never mind whether or not she won the actual thing, she'd already been featured in a couple of downmarket TV guides and celebrity magazines - along with the other contestants, admittedly, but there she was, pictured in a magazine. She'd even been quoted in one of them. "This is such an emotional journey," she'd said, apparently, though she said so many things to so many people, it was hard to remember. "It's been a real learning curve, too! Raw Talent has given me a chance to live my dream! Singing is my passion, it's all I've ever wanted to do!"
She couldn't remember saying any of that, but she supposed she had. The show's publicist had said to her, quite rudely, she thought, that if she must talk to the press, could she please not read directly from that extremely slim publication, The TV Talent Show Contestant's Phrase Book; she was supposed to be an artiste, not some dumb parrot. She'd got quite annoyed with him.
"Well, write me some words, then!" she said. "I'm a celebrity, I'm not supposed to be bloody Einstein!"
He'd raised his eyebrows at her and walked off, saying to the vocal coach, "we're going to have trouble with this one!"
Damn cheek. Well, okay, she wasn't a proper celebrity yet. But she'd read somewhere that if you kept telling yourself you were something, then eventually you became it. Clever, that. She couldn't remember who'd said it; maybe Katie Price. Or Chantelle Houghton. No, it was probably a bit deep for either of those two. Must have been Geri Halliwell.
She rarely gave Ariel Swan, or Boz, or any of the other members of Thor, either, a moment's thought.
***
Ritchie picked up his Stingray and ran up and down the blues scale in E, as if he couldn't really be bothered to do so at all.
"Ever thought of packing it all in?" he said.
"No," said Dave. "D'you want another?"
"Yeah, don't mind if I do," said Ritchie, and reached across the glass coffee table to take the can of Carlsberg Export that Dave had pushed his way. "You had anything to eat?"
"Tin of ravioli."
"That all?"
"Bit of toast."
"D'you want anything from the chippie?"
"Nah."
"Do you want to go down the pub?"
"I can't be bothered," said Dave. "Going down the pub means talking to people."
"Right. I know what you mean," said Ritchie. "It's shit, isn't it."
"Yep," said Dave, and braced himself for what was coming next.
"I mean," said Ritchie, "one minute you're in a band, having a laugh, with all your mates, playing your stuff - even if it is all ripped off from other bands, ha ha ha - you're going down London, getting on a TV show, all that applause, people telling you how great you are on your MySpace page, and the next minute - zilch. Back to the bleeding starting blocks, except it's worse, 'cause your mates have gone."
"That's about the size of it," said Dave. God, how many more times was Ritchie going to give this little speech? It was worse than the 'women are the spawn of the devil' one. More irritating still was the way his rants were always delivered in the second person - you're this, you're that - as if he was giving a lecture on a common syndrome that might affect anyone. And it made him a bit angry. He was still there, him, Dave Bentley, the person who'd actually thought of Thor in the first place. If that hadn't happened, Ritchie would still have been standing at the bar in The Romany spouting Rant Number Three, the one about the state of the music industry.
He knew how he felt, though. He missed Shane, too; the three of them together had a certain chemistry, and now one part of that trio was gone. Even though it was Dave and Shane who'd been the childhood friends, the double act, for as long as he could remember, Ritchie had been the Craig to their Luke and Matt. No, the Ronnie to their Mick and Keith. The Joey to their Steven and Joe. Boz was the icing on the cake, the other part of the jigsaw that turned them into Thor. Dave missed him, too; he'd been a laugh, Boz. Always cheerful - and he'd had that valuable insight into the industry that the others didn't have. Pity that insight had shown him where his bread was buttered. Genital Warthog. Jesus.
"Think I'll go down The Romany, anyway," said Ritchie. He stood up, put his wallet and keys in his pocket. Then he stopped. "Ain't the same when you know you're not going to see Shane there, trying to get his leg over some barmaid, though, is it?" And then he was gone.
Dave opened another can of lager and lit a cigarette, even though Ritchie didn't really like him smoking in the flat. To his credit, he'd been a bit more understanding about that sort of thing, of late. Since Shane and Boz had gone, Ritchie had even been sympathetic about Ariel. Well, he'd said, "Yeah, must be a bit of a bummer, man, the stupid bint," a couple of times, anyway. Dave hadn't reprimanded him for calling Ariel a stupid bint, because he knew he was only trying to be kind.
Spring was coming, and he thought back to this time last year. This time last year, he'd been in exactly the position he was now; except that Shane was there, Thor was yet to be born, and he was seeing a hell of a lot more of Janice and Harley.
He pictured Janice and his son, then, and it made him feel melancholy in the extreme. He was struck by a momentary, extreme urge to just go home. If Ariel hadn't come back and thrown his heart (and his cock) up in the air, he'd probably be safely back there by now. Sitting there watching the telly, putting Harley to bed, still feeling down because Thor was over - but he'd be being comforted by Janice, cuddled up with his wife and son (his wife!) in his own home, on his own sofa, not sitting here by himself on this expensive leather chair in Ritchie's bachelor pad, staring at a wall covered in framed photos of motorbikes and Jimi Hendrix. There were a couple of large ones of Judas Priest over there, too.
Dave's pondering stopped in its tracks.
He sat bolt upright.
Judas Priest.
Rob Halford of Judas Priest.
Dave remembered, when he first moved in, being surprised. He hadn't known Ritchie was a fan of Judas Priest, in particular. Certainly not enough to have them smouldering out of stylish chrome picture frames around his living room.
Dave glanced up at the CD shelf.
He hadn't known Ritchie was such a big Queen groupie, either.
The Queen section in his CD collection included every album they'd ever produced.
Freddie Mercury of Queen.
Rob Halford of Judas Priest.
The geezer doth protest too much. That was what he'd always thought about Ritchie, but had he got the wrong end of the stick?
Had he?
The only two openly gay guys in rock, and Ritchie appeared to be their biggest fan.
He'd never seen Ritchie with a girl - well, not for ages, anyway. He raged against them, as if he hated them, at times. You never heard him say a girl was 'fit', or anything. He'd been gutted when Shane left. Down in the mouth ever since. He had pictures of a leather clad Rob fucking Halford all over his bloody flat.
No. No. Surely not! Dave wasn't homophobic, he assured himself, not at all - because anyone who was, these days, was some sort of twat, weren't they - but, all the same, surely not Ritchie -
No, no, no. Not Ritchie. Any guy who loved rock music might have a picture of metal legends Judas Priest on the wall, mightn't they? And Freddie Mercury would still be a God of Rock, even if he shagged sheep.
Mustn't make assumptions. Then he corrected himself. If Ritchie was - well, like that - it didn't matter, did it? He was his mate. He probably wasn't, though. It was probably just the lager doing his thinking for him. Must've had about eight cans by now. Too much. He didn't feel any more drunk than usual (which was quite a lot these days, if he was honest), but his perception was being altered in the way that only Carlsberg Export knew how. He knew that from experience, from when he'd become a bit of a dipso after he got booted out of Critical Mass. Used to think about all kinds of weird shit.
Fuck, Ritchie had one of those black moustaches, like The Village People. No, stop it. Every third bloke who'd ever owned a bike and a guitar had a black moustache.
Shut up, Lars, he thought. You're talking silly. Ritchie's a Viking.
He sighed and got up, emptied his overflowing bladder, then went, with his ninth can of lager, to lie on his bed, where he'd lain with Ariel only a few weeks ago. No. Couldn't think about Ariel. Trying to block that off. He thought instead about Janice. If he was at home with Janice, now, she'd probably be doing the ironing, or something, and then they'd be watching a DVD. She always went and hired the ones he liked. A nice bit of blood and guts, not all that macho man Steven Segal action type garbage like Ritchie had in his collection -
Macho men like Steven Segal. In Ritchie's DVD collection -
Janice, she'd always moan about his disgusting choice of films, but she'd sit there and watch them with him, just the same, and then they'd go to bed.
Their sex life had been good, apart from that period when he was on the dole and drinking too much. But they'd always done it at least three times a week, even when she was tired, when Harley was a baby. He missed that. She was enthusiastic about it, too, not like some blokes' women. Phil and Jim at work complained that their wives would be happier if they never had to do it at all.
Him and Janice, they'd been perfect together, really, he thought. If you took away her not understanding about his music. But she was okay about it, she'd never really nagged him. Well, not much. Not like that Kerry would have done if Shane hadn't escaped when he had.
He took a large slurp from his can of lager, and some of it spilled down his chest.
If only Janice hadn't chucked him out, none of this would have happened. Why had she done it? Oh, okay, yeah, he knew why. She'd thrown him out because he'd behaved like a right pillock. And then, when they'd been thinking about getting back together, what had he done? He'd taken up with Ariel. Where had that got him? No, no, couldn't think about Ariel - it hurt too much, gave him a pain in his gut, and everywhere else, too.
Janice must have been so hurt, poor thing. No wonder she'd got together with Max Stark. But she couldn't be serious about him, could she? He was nearer her mum's age than hers. And he was sort of fat. Not fat fat, but he didn't have the body of a Viking like he, Dave Bentley, had. Most of all, he wasn't Harley's father. Didn't that count for something? It ought to count for a hell of a lot, Dave thought. He'd been round there a couple of times to find Max in situ, and they'd all been very civilised and friendly, but he hated seeing Max talking to Harley as if he was his own kid. At least Harley still ran to him and said "Daddy!" as soon as he saw him. Always. But he hated that Max was the person who took him to school in the mornings, not him. In his flash car. Hated that one day Harley might actually live with him, if things between him and Janice got more serious.
He sat up. He was putting a stop to it. She'd only been with Max - what, a few months? What was that, in comparison with all the years they'd had together?
Dave reached for his phone. He couldn't have Ariel. At that precise moment, now she was gone, it all seemed like a fantasy; deep down, he'd known he would never be able to hold her. But Janice and Harley, that was something different. That was something he could have. They were reality, his life. His family.
Contacts. All a bit blurry. Ah yes, there she was. After JJ Taxis and before two people called Jeff. Don't know anyone called Jeff, Dave thought. Wonder who they are?
Janice. What next?
Green telephone receiver bit.
Ring ring. Ring ring.
"Hello, Dave! How's things?"
"Okay - Jan, are you busy?"
"No, not particularly. Harley's just gone to bed. I'm doing the ironing, that's all."
Dave took a mouthful of lager. "Is Max there?"
"No, why? D'you want to talk to him? No, I'm on my own. Max had a meet - he's seeing some friends tonight."
"Can I come round?"
"Well - okay, I suppose so, if you want. Harley's asleep, though - "
"That's okay. It's you I want to see. I'll get a cab, be with you in fifteen, okay?"
JJ Taxis. Handy, that.
In the five minutes while he was waiting, Dave gulped down the rest of the can of lager, changed his t-shirt for a clean white one (Janice liked him in white t-shirts), brushed his teeth, threw a Bic razor around his chin - hadn't bothered much about that sort of thing for the last few weeks; he was starting to look more grunge than rocker, he thought. Slapped on a bit of Ritchie's Fahrenheit (Dior aftershave?) as the taxi pulled up outside, and he was on his way.
***
Janice knew he was quite alarmingly pissed the minute she opened the door.
He kissed her when she let him in; she drew back from him, and laughed.
"Bloody hell, you reek of drink! What's all this about?" she asked, and followed him into the living room, where he flopped down, just as he'd always done, at the end of the sofa nearest the window.
"I just wanted to see you. I want to talk to you about something."
"Okay." He looked agitated, she thought. As if he was up to something; she knew that look of old. "D'you want a beer? Another beer, I should say!"
"Yes - yes please, that'd be nice."
She went into the kitchen and poured a can of Grolsch into a pint glass; she didn't know why she still kept lager in the fridge; force of habit, she supposed. She poured a glass of white wine for herself, and went back into the living room.
"Come on, then," she said, sitting down in the armchair opposite him, "out with it."
He drank thirstily, and draped his arm across the back of the sofa. "Are you happy?" he asked.
"Yes. Very. Why?"
"Oh." He looked around the room. "I mean, really happy. Like we used to be."
Janice laughed. "I'm not the same person I was when we were happy together. It's a different sort of happiness."
He grinned at her. "What, the boring middle aged sort?"
She laughed. "No. Not that, not at all."
He frowned, then. "Jan - "
"What?"
He leant forward and rubbed his hands together, staring at them. Then he looked up at her. "Look, I've got to ask this. Have you ever thought - well, what I'm saying is, would you ever consider us getting back together again?"
Janice couldn't believe her ears.
He sat there, eagerly, as if awaiting a positive affirmation.
As if she was going to throw her arms around him and say yes, yes yes!
"What?" she said. "You ask this, now? After all I went through last year when you started seeing Alison Swan? You come here now, because she's buggered off and left you, and you think you can just walk straight back in, as if nothing's happened?"
Funny, he looked exactly like Harley did when she was telling him off.
"It's not like that. I was doing some thinking tonight. Ariel - she and I, it was never going to last. She was always going to go away again. But you and me - you and me and Harley, we're a family."
She shook her head. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. D'you know, I always wondered if you would do this, when she left you. Because that's why you're here, isn't it? You wouldn't be here if she hadn't gone! Dave, are you completely stupid? We were talking about getting back together again, we were still sleeping together, only - what, eight or ten months ago, and then suddenly that was all forgotten, all those years together, when the great Alison S
wan showed up again. Don't you know what that did to me? It was like - well, like you'd just tossed me aside as if I didn't matter at all! Look, I'm over it now, but - well, I don't mind telling you I was in a bit of a state about it, until I pulled myself together, which I did pretty sharpish. But it was bloody awful at the time."
At least he looked well and truly ashamed, she thought.
"I know," he said, "and I'm sorry, I really am. I just had my head turned, you know, it was all the stuff with Thor, and everything - "
"Yes, exactly, all that band stuff again." She took a large gulp of wine. "It's always like that when you're doing something musically, isn't it? You think you're destined for higher things, and you forget all about Harley and me. Oh, I know exactly what happened. I know you, Dave. You started having all your rock and roll dreams again, and you wanted a rock and roll girlfriend to complete the picture. Now the band's gone, and she's gone, and you think I'm going to be there to pick up the pieces again."
"It's not like that."
"No? What is it like, then?"
"Can I have a fag in here?"
"No."
He breathed out, long and hard. "This is real life. You and me and our son, here. It's what matters." He leant forward and touched her hand. "If the world was ending, I wouldn't care about anything else, I'd just want to be with you and H."
She hated it. Why did Dave always do this to her? She knew it was all a load of rubbish with nothing to back it up, even if he didn't. He was drunk; probably just maudlin and lonely, if only he had enough self-knowledge to realise that.
Alas, though, that didn't stop her wanting him.
Wanting him. That was all, she realised, as a massive flood of relief washed over her. She still wanted him, fancied him, but she wasn't in love with him anymore. How could she be? You couldn't love two people at once, not truly, could you? She still cared for him, loved him in a way, but it was Max with whom she was in love. Just as Dave still cared for her, but was in love with Alison Swan, whatever he said to the contrary. Funny how that didn't hurt, not anymore.