Mix Tape

by Jane Sanderson

  ‘Well, sure,’ Sheila said. ‘I mean, she would’ve been cross as a frog in a sock. Those Adelaide matriarchs are something else.’

  ‘What was the rush?’ Dora said.

  Ali shrugged. ‘No rush at all. But he liked the big romantic gesture, and I guess I was up for a new start.’ She smiled at Stella and said, ‘Grandma McCormack thought I was after the family fortune.’

  Stella said, ‘Well, big shame she’s not still alive because you’re way richer than Dad now.’

  ‘Oh, Stella!’ Ali said. ‘What a load of nonsense.’

  ‘And your book’s going to be a film.’

  ‘Yes!’ Sheila said. ‘I read about that. All that music brought to life. I love Baz Luhrmann. Has he cast it yet?’

  ‘I heard there was to be open casting for the indigenous kids,’ Dora said.

  Ali said, ‘Look, for all we know, it might never get made. Can we talk about something else?’

  ‘But, Alison,’ Sheila said, ‘you’re a raging success, darling. A working-class lass with the world at her feet.’

  ‘Hardly. I’m a cog in the machine.’

  ‘What will you do with all your riches?’ This was Dora, half-cut now, and oblivious to Ali’s discomfort. ‘Will you buy a racehorse? A Maserati? A huge place by the sea at Port Willunga?’

  ‘Ooh yes, Mum, do that,’ Stella said.

  ‘No,’ Ali said slowly, allowing an idea to take shape. ‘I’m going to give the money away.’

  Sheila laughed heartily, certain this was only a line to silence them all. ‘Don’t do that, sweetheart. Just look at Stella’s face, look how much she wants the beach house.’

  ‘No, I’m serious,’ Ali said. ‘I’m having a eureka moment here.’

  The McCormack coffers needed no help from Ali Connor. But if she was making a fortune from the musicians she’d invented, why not use it to fund some real ones? She remembered a night, a long time ago now, out with Cass at a gig in Port Adelaide: a Pitjantjatjara girl on stage, intense, absorbed, a singer-songwriter with lyrics, some in her own language, that pulsed with a kind of poetic fury, a performer evidently blessed with such astounding musicality that Cass, when the girl ended her set, had started a standing ovation, whipping the small crowd into communal rapture. Ali had seen her perform many times since then, but it was that first night, that girl, her music: they had planted the seeds, perhaps ten years before Ali wrote it, of Tell the Story, Sing the Song. And now, here she was, with the power to bring about a perfect ending in the real world. She felt a sudden and wonderful lightness of spirit, a sort of resolute optimism, as if nothing was beyond her. She smiled at her daughter, lovely Stella, who wouldn’t smile back, not yet, not while her mother was being so weird.

  ‘It’s all going to be fine, darling,’ Ali said. ‘It’s all going to be great.’

  Later, as they began to gather themselves for the journey home, Ali switched her phone on for the first time that day, and saw at once, among the notifications, the only one she was looking for. Dan Lawrence sent you a link. She slipped out from behind the table and headed for the ladies’, where she shut herself in a cubicle and stood with her back to the locked door, and for a while simply closed her eyes and conjured his image and tried – though failed – to hear his voice. She set her mind loose, let it roam where it wanted to go, and she found (and this was extraordinary to her) that she wanted to tell him about her big idea: talk it all through with him, hear his thoughts on her thoughts, make him real.

  But she didn’t have his number and it was pre-dawn in the UK, and anyway, whatever would he think if she should call him out of the blue, a long-lost girlfriend with an Aussie accent? Hey, Dan, this is Alison, how you going?

  No. No. She must just look at the link, that’s all: listen to the song as he’d intended. So she opened her eyes and found her way there, and saw ‘Thinkin Bout You’ by Frank Ocean – a song and a singer she didn’t know, and this not knowing made her shiver with anticipated pleasure of the new, the undiscovered.

  Her earphones were in her bag, which was still at the table, so she just pressed play and immediately something brilliant and beguiling filled the space around her, and she leaned on the door and let it happen, hearing lyrics that made her remember how much she’d allowed herself to forget. They spoke of first love, uncertainty, a relationship that lay just out of reach, and beneath the words ran a gorgeous, ethereal backing track, meltingly, achingly beautiful. Daniel Lawrence, she thought, you were, and are, my perfect music match. Then she felt the door rattling behind her, an insistent knocking, and Stella’s voice, on a rising note of bewilderment.

  ‘Mum? Is that you?’

  At once, Ali stopped the song. ‘Hi, darling,’ she said. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Mum? What are you doing?’

  Ali unlocked the door and came out. ‘Listening to a song,’ she said.

  Stella looked at her, her face stern with uncertainty. ‘Why?’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’ Ali smiled, and ruffled Stella’s hair. ‘Is everything OK out there?’

  ‘They’re so drunk,’ Stella said. ‘They’re holding hands across the table and they didn’t even notice me leave.’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Ali said. ‘Better get ’em home.’ She slipped the phone into the pocket of her jeans, then ran her hands under the hot tap, flapping them about to dry them off. ‘You need the loo?’ she said.

  ‘No. I just came to find you.’

  ‘Right then, let’s get those old reprobates out of here.’

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yep?’

  Stella, about to speak, hesitated instead.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  Back in Quorn, in the silence left behind when Dora and Sheila crashed out in bed to sleep off the booze and Stella went out with the camera again, to catch the golden early-evening light, Ali selected a song for Dan, taking him back in time to Carole King. ‘So Far Away’. Love, loss, longing, regret, and a compelling connection, crossing continents.

  Yeah. His face, at her door. That would be fine. Really, very fine indeed. She lay down on the old sofa and listened to Tapestry, the whole album, beginning to end. They hadn’t ever listened to this together when they were kids, it wasn’t their thing then, but hey, she thought, if Dan Lawrence didn’t love it now, it was all off. Whatever ‘it’ was.

  Stella came back as the day was losing its light.

  ‘Mum,’ she said, and Ali sat up, alert to the seriousness in her daughter’s voice.

  ‘What is it, sweetheart?’

  ‘I really, badly, don’t want to have a baby,’ Stella said, and then she started to cry.

  13

  SHEFFIELD,

  27 JULY 1979

  There was a local band Daniel sometimes roadied for, three lads from Sheffield and another from Rotherham. Steve Levitt, Mark Vernon, John Spencer and a guy they all called Dooley. They used to be called the National Union; now they were just the Union. A talented, moody, post-punk outfit, with a part-time manager and their eyes on a glimmer of light that might just be a rock-and-roll future. Steve, older than the others by a good eight years, was founder of the band, unchallenged boss, architect of their immediate future. Charismatic, confident, ambitious, a bit of a bad lot: petty larceny, minor assault – a few years ago now, but that was only to be expected round here, and anyway such a reputation didn’t hurt, to be honest, in a band like theirs. John Spencer did pot, or speed, he was never without one or the other, and their manager – a sponsor, really; a local businessman with a Malcolm McLaren delusion – had considered shopping him to the police, just for the publicity.

  Anyway, the Union were better than most of the bands currently jostling for attention in Sheffield, and they were getting gigs in cities other than their own – small venues, thin crowds, but the buzz was growing by the week, and then they were offered a slot in Manchester at the Mayflower Club, way down the pecking order, but with serious punk and new wave bands that were making it: Joy Division, the Fall, the Distractions,
the Frantic Elevators. It was billed as a ‘Stuff the Superstars Special’ and it felt like a big break, but two days before the gig, Mark Vernon was killed in a hit-and-run on Arundel Gate in the city centre, and Steve told Daniel he’d have to step in. There was no emotion, no question of bailing on the gig and Steve brooked no objections; he said Daniel knew the set list, knew the sound, he’d got the look. But his guitar was crap, Daniel told Steve; and he’d never played it anywhere except his own fucking bedroom.

  ‘Vernon’s dead, but his guitar int,’ Steve said. ‘Have it.’

  So Daniel took Mark’s sleek black Gibson from the back of the van and had one night to rehearse with the band, an emergency session in a back room at the miners’ welfare in High Green, where John Spencer’s dad was barman. Daniel felt like an imposter, stepping into a dead man’s shoes, but the guitar felt good, looked great, sounded better than he dared hope.

  Alison came along to listen. She put herself way back from the mighty amps, standing in the lee of a hundred stacked metal chairs, and watched the band with a sort of fierce, assessing concentration. They were good together. Steve was better than good. He was brilliant, a proper frontman: hypnotic vocals, and a look all his own, a sort of blue-collar dandy. Daniel was talented enough to appear more talented than he was. Dooley, on bass, was solid, dependable, and John played the drums like a maestro when necessary, like a maniac when he could.

  Steve sang every number looking directly, intently, at Alison. Afterwards he stalked across the dusty wooden floor to where she was standing and asked her if she could sing. Steve was tall – well over six feet – and he wore a pristine pair of steelworker’s boots, desert camouflage combat trousers, a canary-yellow T-shirt and a brown twill overcoat. Daniel watched from a distance, Mark Vernon’s classic Gibson still slung across his body. He felt about twelve years old.

  ‘Y’what?’ Alison said. She screwed up her face, looked sceptical. She hadn’t fallen under Steve’s spell, but he didn’t know it.

  ‘You look good enough to eat,’ Steve said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Alison Connor,’ she said, and she pointed at Daniel, across the room. ‘I’m with him.’

  Steve cast a look over his shoulder at Daniel and widened his eyes, as if recalibrating his opinion of him, then he looked back at Alison. ‘I might want a female vocalist, and I definitely want her to look like you,’ he said. ‘Backing singer, two or three songs. Can you sing?’

  ‘Which songs?’ Alison said.

  He gave a small laugh and said – patiently, as if he was humouring her – ‘“Juliet”. “No Safe Place”. Maybe “Evermore”.’

  She nodded. ‘Right.’

  He stared at her for a moment. Cocked his head. Weighed her up. ‘You’re fuckin’ gorgeous, Alison Connor. But can you sing?’

  Alison met Steve’s calculating eyes with cool control. ‘Yeah, I can sing,’ she said. ‘But you’ll have to say please.’

  Daniel thought, Jesus, she’s fearless. It was news to him that Steve wanted a female vocalist; news to Dooley and John too, by the looks on their faces. They’d already got their sodding roadie on lead guitar – why would they shove in an untried new vocalist too? Only Daniel had heard Alison sing, in his bedroom, unselfconsciously accompanying Debbie Harry and Marc Bolan and Elvis Costello and Bowie. He knew how good she was. He wondered, should he go over? Wander across the room, nonchalantly, just to emphasise her unavailability? But he didn’t, and instead hung back with the band, watching his girlfriend give the local legend a mildly hard time.

  ‘Alison Connor,’ Steve said, ‘will you have a go at singing backing vocals for me, please?’

  ‘OK,’ she said. She was familiar with the songs; she’d heard the band play their full set tonight, and on previous nights too, and lyrics that she liked tended to penetrate her mind like a kind of gospel: the way, the truth, the life. She walked around Steve, across the room to the rest of the band, and stood in front of Daniel. With her back to Steve she rolled her eyes, and Daniel grinned at her.

  ‘You were good,’ she said.

  He nodded, accepting the compliment. ‘But you’ll be better,’ he said.

  ‘Right,’ Steve said, back at the mic. ‘“Juliet”. Dooley, get Alison a mic. Alison, I want you to come in on the back of me, at the last line of the first verse, just, like, repeat it, twice maybe, see what works, we’ll muck about with it. Then chime in at the middle eight, whatever sounds right. We’ll suck it and see.’

  Dooley passed her a mic, plugged her in.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said to him. Then, to Steve, ‘I’ll give it a go.’

  ‘Ah shit, you’ll need the words. Dooley, find some fuckin’ words, fuck’s sake.’

  Dooley, hunched once again over his guitar waiting for the off, looked injured. ‘Wha’?’ he said.

  ‘The fuckin’ words!’ Steve said, like he was talking to a moron. ‘Get ’em, for Alison.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, Dooley,’ Alison said. ‘I know them already.’

  Steve looked upwards, to where the gods of rock were watching and waiting. ‘She knows them already,’ he said. ‘Halle-fuckin’-lujah.’

  Three or four run-throughs and Alison nailed it, her voice honey to Steve’s sulky gravel. She knew his lyrics like he knew them himself and she had all the right instincts: sang without ego, heard the spaces that waited for her in the music, used her voice to complement Steve’s with another layer of sound, light and lovely. Only in ‘Juliet’ did she play about with the words, adding a kind of sweet, insolent comeback to his macho, half-hearted apology to a girl he left behind. Dooley looked at Daniel and mugged an expression of awed astonishment, and Daniel, equally impressed, only shrugged.

  Afterwards, Steve was intent on pinning her down to dates and times – gigs, rehearsals – and he hovered about, badgering her with questions, as she came and went from the welfare hall into the muggy summer night, helping pack the equipment back into the van. John’s dad watched at the open door, his arms folded across his beer belly, a bunch of keys bristling from his fat fist.

  ‘I said till ten,’ he kept saying when anyone passed him. ‘Ten o’clock, I said. Not twenty past eleven. Ten.’

  Alison stopped and smiled regretfully at him. ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Spencer,’ she said. ‘It’s because they wanted me to sing.’

  He looked at her askance, noticing her properly for the first time. ‘You’re never involved with this shower, are you?’ he said. He had a florid face, a swollen nose, the curse of a landlord too keen on beer and too free with the optics. ‘What a bloody racket.’

  She laughed. ‘I suppose if you liked it, we’d be doing it wrong,’ she said, but so reasonably, and with such a friendly smile, that he took it as a compliment to his own good taste.

  ‘Aye, right enough, lass,’ he said. ‘Right enough.’ And he whistled and waited almost good-naturedly as they hauled their trappings into Steve’s Transit. Then they clambered in themselves, Dooley and John slammed behind the doors of the windowless back like hostages, Alison and Daniel up front on the seats with Steve. When he turned the key in the ignition the Buzzcocks bounced violently out of the speakers, and Steve turned them up further still, loud enough that people on the pavements turned to look, and shook their heads. He lit a cigarette, took a hungry drag, then held it in a pinch between right thumb and forefinger and drove left-handed with a sort of reckless, casual skill, letting go of the wheel altogether to change gear. He was going to drop Alison last – it made perfect sense – but she hopped out with Daniel at Nether Edge and wouldn’t get back in.

  ‘C’mon,’ Steve said, leaning right across the passenger seats to talk to her through the open window. ‘Dunt be daft, I’ll keep me hands to meself.’

  Daniel said, ‘Bloody right, you will,’ but Alison ignored them both and walked away, so he jogged after her. ‘Do you want a lift home?’ he said. ‘Because I can ride with you to Attercliffe, sit between you and him. It’d save you waiting for a bus?’ She shook her head. It
was late, but she didn’t want to go back home yet, and most certainly didn’t want to be driven all the way to her door. Anyway, Steve was already swinging the Transit in a U-turn in the street and screaming away towards the main road, so they went to Daniel’s house and found Claire there, and Joe, Daniel’s brother, who only turned up once in a blue moon. Both were in the front room, which was softly lit by a single standard lamp and the glow of the television. There was something so peaceful, even beautiful, in the mundane scene, and Alison reached for Daniel’s hand, laced her fingers through his, the better to belong here.

  ‘Evening, you two,’ Joe said, without taking his eyes off the screen. ‘It’s the late film, only just starting.’

  ‘Hiya, Alison,’ Claire sang, and her voice and smile registered sheer delight. She patted the sofa. ‘Sit down next to me while our Daniel puts the kettle on.’ She had her bare feet planted in a washing-up bowl of soapy water. ‘Foot bath,’ she said before Alison asked. ‘It’s right good when you’ve been on your feet all day.’ She wiggled her toes, and splashed, and Alison laughed. Claire, softly pink and pampered, was wrapped in a pale blue quilted dressing gown; she looked cherished. Her hands, folded demurely in her lap, were creamy white, tipped with raspberry-red oval nails. Alison sat down beside her. Daniel had gone into the kitchen.

  ‘You smell nice,’ Alison said.

  ‘I had a bath earlier, and put some Radox in,’ Claire said. She bared a tender forearm and offered it for Alison to sniff, which she did.

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Sea minerals, or something,’ Claire said. ‘Feel how soft it makes my skin.’

  Joe glanced across. ‘Claire, shut up,’ he said. ‘I’m watching this.’