by Ed Briant
17
Saturday
I don’t go to sleep, but instead drift somewhere between being awake and dreaming, and in this state one of my last memories of Shawn comes flooding back to me.
There’s a loud rap on my bedroom door. It’s dark. The middle of the night.
“Who’s there?” I say, forcing my voice to go deep, although even like this I don’t think I sound particularly intimidating.
The door kicks open and framed against a pale light is Shawn. “What’cha, Tobias,” he hisses, pronouncing the last syllable of my name as arse. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?” There’s another loud clunk, which is followed by a rustling sound.
I push myself up onto my elbows to see better. He has a large object under his arm. “What you got there?”
Shawn puffs out his cheeks, and backs into my room. Whatever it is he’s holding, it’s too wide to go through the door. “Flick your light on,” he says in a half-whisper, “and I’ll permit you to have a gander.”
I reach over to my bedside table, feel for the switch, and flood the room with light. I shield my eyes, but I can still see that he is carrying a long object wrapped in two or more black bin liners.
“Shift your plates of meat,” says Shawn. I pull my feet up under the covers to make space and he plants himself at the foot of my bed with the object across his knees. “You are not going to believe what I’ve got.” He gives off a low growl that turns into a deep rollicking laugh. Wooar-haw-haw-haw!
I push myself up into a full sitting position. “You going to show me or just leave me to guess?”
Shawn tilts his head toward me. “Sometimes, Tobias, talking to you is like talking to Mom.” He burps, then sways for a moment. “Get a load of this.” He draws off the first bag, revealing the neck of an electric bass.
My pulse quickens so fast I’m almost knocked over by the G-force. “Bloody hell, Shawn! That’s a Fender.”
He pauses with the second bag half off. “Yeah. I know what it is.”
“It’s just about the best electric bass that money can buy,” I say. Even though I don’t want to, I lean forward and reach out to touch it. The yellow-colored wood of the headstock is as smooth as a kitten’s stomach. “These are worth a fortune.”
“Keep your hair on,” says Shawn. “It’s old, for starters, plus the electrics need a bit of attention.” He finally peels off the second bag, exposing the whole instrument.
I can’t contain a gasp.
“It is a bit like seeing a bird in her birthday suit, innit?” Shawn leers at me.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I say, although the instrument really is sexy, for want of a better word. The deep oranges and reds glint, and the yellowing chrome reflects shafts like laser beams across the ceiling.
“Not that you would know, of course.” He reaches over and squeezes my knee. “Not yet, of course.” He does his growling laugh again, Wooar-haw-haw-haw! “Depends on the bird in question, I suppose.”
“I’ve seen a few,” I say.
“I meant a real one,” he says. “Not a photo.” He tilts the bass into a playing position across his knees and plucks a note, although it’s more of a flat clunk than a note. “Or am I mis-underestimating you?”
I fold my forearms across my knees as if the question is beneath me.
“Here. Have a listen.” Shawn plays. What follows is not so much a stream of booming bass notes, but more of a series of clacks and squeaks. “Recognize it?”
I have to be diplomatic here. “The Stones, right?” I tilt my head as if I’m concentrating. “I think it’s one I don’t know.”
“Close,” he says. “Beatles.”
“Oh. Right,” I say. “Umm … ”
“‘Nowhere Man,’” says Shawn.
“I was just about to say that.”
“Here,” he says. “Show us how it’s done.” He balances it across his palms and places it in my lap.
“What do you want me to play?” I say.
Shawn pushes his hands together into a prayer position. “Play something you learned in your guitar lessons.”
“I’m working on a Bach piece. He didn’t write a lot of material for electric bass.”
I could explain to him that this instrument is not really a guitar, but Shawn would just view this as a feeble excuse. I shift the bass. It’s a lot heavier than I expected, about as heavy as a three-and-a-half-foot-long piece of lumber. I lay my fingers on the strings and push down. The fat strings are much harder to push down than the strings on my classical guitar. I play a scale, and then go into a movement from Bach’s Canticle in E minor. It actually sounds pretty good on the bass.
“There you go,” says Shawn. “‘Nowhere Man.’ Sounds like you’ve been playing it for years.”
“‘Nowhere Man’?” I say. “It’s Bach.”
“Hah,” says Shawn. “Sounds exactly like Paul McCartney’s bass line to me. That Bach bloke ought to sue him.”
“Well…” I go back to the start and play the figure again. “He’s been pushing up the daisies for about four hundred years.” Not only am I getting used to the thick strings, I’m actually beginning to like this instrument.
“You know, if I was going to give up playing classical and make the switch to pop music,” I say, “which I’m not,” I slide my fingers up the neck, which makes a sort of whooping sound, “this is what I’d play.”
Shawn is still bobbing his head to the rhythm of the tune I stopped playing a couple of minutes ago. “You’re a natural.”
I noodle some random notes. “So where did you get it?”
Shawn lets out a long sigh. “I paid for it, if that’s what your asking,” he says. “It’s mine.”
He nods as if I’ve said something to cast doubt, which I haven’t.
“Did you buy it from a shop?” I say.
Shawn does his rollicking laugh, Wooar-haw-haw-haw! and shakes his head. “I bought it off some plonker in Brunswick.” He reaches over and retrieves the bass.
I don’t really want to give it back, but then, as he says, it is his.
“I’ve got to tell you,” he says. He starts noodling random notes up and down the strings. “The moment I handed over the cash I had second thoughts.” Noodle, noodle. “But the bloke I bought it off? He was a scary-looking bastard. Not a big bloke. But still scary, if you know what I mean. Once I’d given him the money, that was it. A done deal. No going back.”
I nod as if I know exactly what he means, but I don’t really. Shawn is big and handy. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him say he was scared of someone. “How much did you pay for it?” I say.
Shawn stops playing and props the bass on the floor. “Five hundred,” he says.
“Five hundred pounds?” I say.
“No, five hundred Tiddly Winks,” he says. “Keep your voice down. I don’t want to wake Mom.”
“Where did you get five hundred pounds?” I whisper.
“I’ve been doing a lot of overtime at the chip shop,” he says.
“That’s a heck of a lot of overtime,” I say. “I thought you only got ten pounds an hour.”
“You get double after six,” he says. “Triple after ten.” He nods. “It adds up fast.”
“Can I work there?” I say. “I wouldn’t mind making thirty quid an hour.”
Shawn squeezes my knee again. “I’ll ask,” he says. “I’ll put a word in for you.” He gathers up the bags and wraps them around the bass.
“Can I borrow it?” I say.
Shawn does his laugh. “Use it all you want,” he says. “But I have one stipulation.”
“I’ll take really good care of it,” I say.
“I’m not worried about that,” he says. “My stipulation is that you don’t take it to schoo
l, and you don’t brag about it.”
“Is that all?” I say.
“I’m serious, Toby,” he says. He only calls me Toby when he’s serious. “I don’t really want you shooting your mouth off about it.”
“Why?” I say.
Shawn looks down at the floor. “It’s valuable. I don’t want to risk someone coming in and stealing it.”
“We can insure it, right?” I say.
Shawn looks over at the door. “I have to find out,” he says. “I think there might be a problem with the serial number.”
With that he rolls back up to his feet and moves toward the door. “Hit the light,” he says. “Go to sleep. You can play with it in the morning.”
18
Saturday
“Toby! My man!”
I open my eyes to find Zack standing over me with his wet hair plastered to his head. He’s in the middle of unbuttoning his blue denim jacket, which is so wet that it’s almost black. He slides it off, holds it up for a second as if he’s looking for a hanger, then lets it thump to the floor.
“Hey,” I say. “My man.” I try to sit up, but I can’t. Then I realize I have the bass on my chest. For a second I’m happy, thinking Shawn is still here, then the memory of the last hour trickles back into my head.
“Come on. Time is money. Last rehearsal.” Zack steps across to the bed and lifts the bass off my chest. He spins it around and strums it as if it’s a guitar, which sounds awful, and about as sad as I feel. He slides his fingers right up the fretboard, then strums it as if it’s a banjo. He croons his version of the old Rod Stewart song. “Wake up, Toby, I really should be getting back to school …”
I groan.
“What’s up with you then?” Zack props the bass up in the corner. “You’re looking more-than-usually bummed out.”
I think about everything I want to tell him. This isn’t going to be easy. Maybe it’s best to leave it for now.
“Come on, let’s play.” I push myself off the bed and fetch the bass from the corner. “Let’s run through the set.”
What follows is the usual setting-up routine, and a minute later we’re standing there with our guitars. Zack counts us in, but before I even play the first note of “Ticket to Ride” I flop back down onto the bed.
“Listen, mate.” I pluck a string then slide my finger down the fret board, making a sinking sound. “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” Zack strums a soft E minor chord. “Can’t do the gig? Can’t rehearse?”
“There’s some shit I have to tell you.” I lay the bass flat on my knees and rest my elbows on the body. “I can’t avoid telling you.”
“Okay. What’s eating you, mate?” Zack puts the guitar back in its case, stumbles over to the bed, then flops back against the wall next to me. “Something happened, right? Wait. You didn’t do anything stupid like phone that dingbat in Brunswick again?”
“He rang back, actually, but I’d ring my dad before I ring him again.” There’s no way to lead into this so I just come right out with it. “It’s not about the bloke in Brunswick, it’s about Shawn. He’s in the Glasshouse,” I say.
“Bloody hell. The Glasshouse!” Zack leaps away from the wall, then freezes. “Wait a minute. What’s the Glasshouse?”
“It’s the Navy prison.” I twiddle the controls on the bass. “It’s in Colchester, just outside London.”
“Bloody heck!” Zack sweeps his hair behind his ears. “How long is he in for?” He leans sideways on the wall, then turns and leans flat again. “I mean, what did he do?”
“I don’t know what he did.” I stand up and prop the bass against the amp. “Well, actually, he stole something, but I don’t know what it was.” I flop back on the bed. “He has to have a court-martial, but that’s not the most important point.” I lean back against the wall and pull my knees into my chest. “The important thing is that Mom wants to go back to London now.”
“Holy crap.” Zack jumps off the bed and walks around the room with his hands in his pockets. “Oh, Toby. Man. That’s absolute pants,” he says. “Why?”
I take a long breath. “Shawn’s going to have the court-martial there,” I say. “They tend to give long sentences. It might be our last chance to see him for a while.”
Zack pulls his John Lennon glasses out of his pocket and puts them on. “I thought you couldn’t afford to go back.”
“We can’t,” I say. “We’ll have to go into debt, but hopefully Mom will make some money fairly quickly when we get there so we can pay it off.”
“So, you’re not coming back here again?” he says.
I shake my head.
“When are you going?” Zack folds his arms and rocks back and forth.
“Next Wednesday,” I say.
“Bloody nora,” says Zack. “But wait.” He takes the guitar out of its case, props it upright on the floor, and leans on it. “It’s not the end of the world. We could still keep the band going. London’s not that far.”
“It’s a nice idea,” I say. “I did actually think about it, but how would we make it work? We don’t have cars, and we can’t afford the train.”
“It’s not long till you can get your license.” Zack puts the guitar strap over his shoulder, and takes the pick out from between the strings. “You could borrow your mum’s Toyota.”
“It’s still a while till I can drive,” I say.
Zack snaps his fingers. “Bicycles,” he says. “You ride north. I ride south. We meet in the middle.”
“We could practice over the phone,” I say. “Just put the receiver on a table and play into it.”
“Brilliant.” Zack softly strums the descending chords sequence to “Michelle,” of all songs. “We could play after six o’clock when the rates go down.”
“It’s barely going to be a problem at all,” I say. “We could even do gigs by phone.”
“Yeah. Pipe dreams.” Zack puts his foot up on the bed and strums “Yesterday.” “We’ll do this one gig. Maybe we can get another one the next day and make it two gigs before we break up.”
“Please.” I point to Zack’s strumming fingers. “Would you mind not playing that one. It’s just too depressing right now.”
“Sorry. I know. It’s depressing at almost any time.” Zack switches and plinks out the melody to “Penny Lane.” “Maybe we could practice once a month or something.”
“Unfortunately I’m not going to have this anymore.” I slap the body of the bass like it’s a bongo drum in time to what Zack’s playing.
“Wait.” Zack stops playing in the middle of a bar. “I thought we went through all that and you were going to keep it.”
“Yeah. I know.” I flip the bass into playing position and absent-mindedly noodle some scales. “But I had a change of heart.”
“What brought that on?” says Zack.
“Well, there’s this girl,” I say.
“Blimey O’Reilly.” Zack cranks out a spooky power chord. “How many wars have started with the phrase, There’s this girl?” he says. “When did this happen?”
“Her name’s Michelle,” I say. “I met her at the Aquarium.”
“Michelle? Bloody heck,” says Zack. “I always knew you were a dark horse, but I didn’t realize you were that dark.” He goes back to strumming “Michelle.” “So what happened? You going to run off to London with her?” He switches to “The Long and Winding Road.” “Is all this stuff about Shawn just a cock-and-bull story?”
“I wish,” I say. “I mean I wish it wasn’t true that Shawn was in the slammer.” I play the bass along with what Zack’s playing. “I don’t really want to run off to London with this girl. I mean she’s nice and all. Actually, I don’t even know that she is nice, really. She’s alright I suppose. She just has a bit of attitude.”
<
br /> “Wait a minute.” Zack stops playing. “This is bringing on a touch of the old déjà vu. She’s not the vertically challenged one from Portland Road, is she?”
“I suppose you could say that.” I play the verse to “Blackbird.”
“So she was the one who tracked you down, then.” Zack joins in quietly with the chords. “Bloody nora. Did she just breathe down the front of your shirt and say, ‘Oh, Toby, if you give back the bass I will make you a very happy young man’?”
“Not in so many words,” I say. “No.”
“Did she change your mind with her mind-numbing power of rhetoric?” he says. “Or did she pour you a drink and slip into something more comfortable?”
“Um … ” I say. “It was closer to the first thing you said.”
“The rhetoric?” says Zack.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was mostly rhetoric.”
“She didn’t promise you a little tussle under the jellyfish tank?” says Zack.
“We didn’t even look at the jellyfish.” I play the chorus of “Blackbird.” “Actually she was up here, sitting more or less exactly where your foot is right now.”
“Whoa!” Zack leaps away from the bed, then turns around and examines the spot in question. “I thought I noticed an unfamiliar bum imprint.”
“Look,” I say. “The phone number was useless, so I’m going to take the bus to Brunswick tomorrow. See if I can find Julie McGuire that way. If she deserves to get the bass back, then I’ll keep it to play the gig on Monday, and I’ll take it back on Tuesday.”
“I didn’t mean to be a wet rag,” says Zack. “Seriously, if you want my help, then let me know. I’ll go to Brunswick with you. We can track this Julie down together.”
“I appreciate it,” I say, “but I think Michelle’s going to go with me. She lives in Brunswick.”
“Woo-hoo,” says Zack. “Fancy that. Port Jackson girls aren’t good enough for you anymore?”