Dead Girl Walking

by Christopher Brookmyre

Heike was sitting on her own too, thumbing through a book, though not really reading it. She kept looking at the clock.

  I had spoken to her, but only when she asked if I was okay and I answered yes. She seemed distant yet focused; just not focused on the here and now.

  Nobody was saying much, in fact. Rory was silently nodding his head to whatever was playing in his headphones. Damien was normally the one geeing everybody up, but even he was quiet.

  Scott came back in for the third or fourth time. I wondered whether he had a nervous bladder, as it was a worry of mine to find myself mid-performance and in dire need. Heike looked at him harshly.

  ‘Just a fag, I swear,’ he replied with a chuckle, as though amused by whatever was in this unspoken accusation. She gave him a sour look, but I couldn’t suss why.

  Every time he opened the door I could hear the support band on stage. I felt I ought to go and watch them, as a distraction or maybe out of politeness and for the sake of future relations, but I didn’t want to catch a glimpse of the hall yet, either from the stage or the floor. I knew it would make me worse, and quite possibly make me puke.

  That was when I realised everybody else was just as on edge as me.

  Nobody was on solid ground here. This was a bigger venue than they had ever played, and was not even the biggest on the UK schedule. This tour was a major step for the band. It was nights like this that would make people fans for life, or go home thinking, Yeah The Venal Tribe is a decent album, but they’re shite live.

  I was suddenly all the more conscious of what the others had already put into this, while I had been dropped in at the last minute. Sure, I had played on every track on the new album, but nobody was coming tonight because of that. It made it all the more crucial that I did nothing to jeopardise their success. I had to play well, and I had to look like I belonged. I knew I was capable of the first. Right then the second felt more of a stretch.

  Finally, after that endless wait in the dressing room, we got our cue, almost running on to the stage, where suddenly time accelerated.

  I have literally no memory of the first three, maybe four numbers. Nothing. It’s like someone wiped the tape, seriously. First thing I recall from the set was realising that my eyes were closed. I mean, yes, sometimes I do play with my eyes closed, but it seemed I had them shut tight for most of those opening songs. I only became aware of this during ‘Zoo Child’, when I sensed someone shoot past me and blinked them open in surprise. It was like I had been practising alone and then suddenly found myself transported on to that stage in front of a packed hall.

  It was Scott who had almost bumped into me. He gave me a funny grin of acknowledgement, opening his eyes comically wide to make the point. I guessed then that it was actually me who had almost bumped into Scott, so I must have been moving around more than I realised.

  With my eyes open, I stayed relatively still for the next few songs, hiding from the spotlights by keeping closer to the wings stage right. But then it was time for ‘Dark Station’, when there was no hiding place. It was just me and Heike on stage, fiddle and acoustic guitar, a stripped-back sound for a haunting, desolate song, rallying at the end with a defiant cry of hope.

  During the intro, without the thunder of drums at my back and with nothing else coming through the monitors in front, I could hear not just the murmur of the crowd, but could make out individual voices. Then when Heike opened her mouth, her lips almost kissing the microphone, I could hear hundreds of other voices sing along. She let them take a final repeat of the chorus, dropping out her guitar so that I was the only accompaniment to the crowd. It was literally spine-tingling: I felt like there was static thrilling through me; that if anyone touched me we would both be electrocuted.

  I was supposed to segue into ‘A Square of Captured Light’, but completely forgot. I think it was for the best: Heike looked quite shaken to hear her words sung back to her by so many people, and she needed the moment that was given her by the cheers and applause. There were tears in her eyes, though only I was close enough to see them.

  Something passed between us right then: an understanding, a responsibility, a trust. I might have seen something I wasn’t supposed to, but she expected me to keep it to myself.

  The applause began to die, and I launched us into the more upbeat ‘Smuggler’s Soul’. That’s when things really got strange.

  As per the album version, it starts with guitar and violin beneath Heike’s vocal on the first verse, while the rest of the band quietly file back into position, exploding as one into the chorus.

  We were five on stage again, but it was like Heike and I were still a separate unit in the midst of the others. I stayed next to her centre stage, and as the song built towards its long outro, we started dancing around each other.

  Most of the time, I sit down to play, as that’s how I’ll be throughout an orchestral performance. Sometimes when I’m playing alone I’ll stand, but it’s like I’m in the naughty corner. I retreat inside myself, and anyway there’s never much space on the stages I’m used to.

  But on that night I found myself birling about like I was possessed. The others gave us space as Heike and I spun around each other, approaching and retreating, then dancing back-to-back while below us the audience were screaming in approval.

  Suddenly we flew apart on the first beat of a new bar, Heike skipping to the front and thrashing away at her strings before a swell of bodies rushing to be near her.

  I found myself heading in the opposite direction, towards the back, and I leaped onto the drum riser, facing Rory. It was a surge of energy, I guess.

  He looked astonished, then reacted with aggression on the drums, as if I had invaded his turf and he was trying to drive me out. I came back at him, looking him in the eye as I worked the bow furiously. It was like we were in combat, feeding off each other’s energy and fuelling an ever rising level of performance.

  He went to the floor tom to start a roll, swinging around as if he was about to throw the thing, then whiplashed back for a cymbal crash. His taut muscle drove wood against the brass like it was meant to kill, and sweat flew from his arms. It sprayed against my face, and instead of grossing me out, well … I’m embarrassed to write it even for myself.

  We locked into each other’s stares again and I felt this surge of aggression that shocked me. I don’t know where it came from and I don’t even know if I wanted him sexually or I wanted to hurt him. What’s for certain is that if someone had teleported us away somewhere in that moment, I’d have launched myself at him, tearing clothes, scratching, biting, like an animal, primal.

  I have never felt so alive, and I’ve never felt so afraid. It was one of the most disturbing and exhilarating experiences I have ever had: to be frightened of myself.

  Just as suddenly as it began, the show was over. I remember the journey back to the dressing room as though it was a tunnel with a moving walkway. I was aware of voices, laughter, arms around shoulders. I had never felt so close to a group of people, so much a part of something amazing, and yet another side of me wanted to be alone, given space to deal with my emotions.

  I think I must have been standing there looking a little dazed, because Damien was so soft-spoken and delicate with me. He gave me a bottle of beer and said nothing for a while as we both drank. Saying nothing seemed like the best way of expressing what we had just experienced.

  Then finally he spoke.

  ‘You felt it, didn’t you?’ he asked. He didn’t wait for my reply. ‘That’s why we do this. That’s why we put in the hours we do and why we put up with all each other’s shite. Because only together can we make that happen. Hold on to the feeling, because it’s the thought of having it again that’s going to pull you through when the going gets rough. And believe me, you’ve no idea how rough it can get.’

  Heike stopped talking to Scott and came over and hugged me. She was drenched in sweat, which was when I realised I was too. Heike’s sweat smelled fresh, like she had been out running. There were other
smells in there too: body spray and shampoo. I breathed them in and didn’t want her to let go.

  When she did she told me: ‘You were amazing.’

  I wanted to say ‘you were too’ but was tongue-tied.

  Over her shoulder I saw Rory, leaning against the wall. He glanced back, raising his bottle in salute. He had a smile on his face, calm and unreadable; not that it would stop me from reading things into it. I had the most vivid fear that he knew what had gone through my mind. I knew this was daft, but the moment had been intense enough to make me believe some very strange things were possible.

  A voice in my head told me to phone Keith. I needed to centre myself, or maybe ground myself was more like it, given the electrified sensations I had experienced on the stage.

  I reached inside my jacket for my phone, but something stopped me as I swiped the handset awake. When I’d called after orchestra shows, I’d wanted to tell Keith all about it, to share my experience. This time I had been driven by a fearful instinct to place myself back outside of this.

  Holding the phone in my hand, I realised I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to share it with him. He wasn’t part of this, and nobody who wasn’t part of this could understand it.

  I put the phone back in my pocket, downed what remained in my bottle and picked up another, clinking it against one Scott was holding up.

  Loyalty

  As he walked towards his car, Parlabane heard a voice call for him to wait. He turned to see Damien striding across from a huddle of musicians who had gathered outside for a smoke.

  If he hadn’t looked up his details online, Parlabane wouldn’t have guessed him even close to his late thirties. It wasn’t just how he dressed, but something about his manner that seemed buoyant, optimistic. Maybe that was how he’d managed to carve out one more chance at the big time after already having had a couple of near misses.

  He looked rather serious right now, though.

  ‘I just wanted to check,’ Damien said. ‘Did I hear you say you were interviewing Heike for this piece as well?’

  He was looking Parlabane in the eye, crows’ feet around the edges of an intense gaze that betrayed his true years. They also betrayed that Parlabane was being closely scrutinised.

  ‘That’s right. Monica as well, though I gather she’s maybe not the best disposed towards my profession.’

  Damien ignored this attempt to divert the focus.

  ‘When you meeting Heike?’

  Interesting.

  ‘Mairi’s still working out the fine details, to be honest. I need to file before you guys head to the US, so it’s not urgent, but sooner would be better. Maybe you could put a word in, say I don’t bite. When are you seeing her?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he replied, poker-faced.

  Damien knew something was up, and was curious as to what Parlabane might know, but couldn’t probe for fear of giving anything away.

  Parlabane had been looking for a weak spot in the façade Damien was shoring up, and he was pretty sure he’d just found it.

  ‘You used to be in Discolite, didn’t you?’ Parlabane asked, pretending this had spontaneously occurred to him.

  Damien nodded.

  ‘The whole time in there, I was trying to work out why I knew your face. I saw you guys play the Kelvin University Union.’

  The guitarist couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘We were practically the house band for a while. Never quite found an audience beyond Glasgow, unfortunately. It might well have been our final gig that you saw.’

  ‘Well, I liked you, for what it’s worth.’

  Damien’s gaze remained intent, perhaps asking himself what a guy Parlabane’s age had been doing at the student union back then, and coming upon a genuine recognition of his own.

  ‘Hang on, you were … We played the inauguration ball – were you not the rector or something?’

  ‘In another life. And I only won the election by default. I’m nobody’s idea of a figurehead.’

  ‘You were an investigative reporter, though, were you not? As opposed to a music journalist.’

  He said it with just an edge of accusation. That’s right, pal: follow the breadcrumbs.

  ‘I go where the work is,’ Parlabane replied, choosing his words with precise ambiguity.

  Damien reflected on this, then glanced towards the rehearsal suite.

  ‘How do you know Mairi?’

  ‘We go way back. Known her since my teens.’

  Damien nodded, getting the picture.

  Parlabane knew he could take a risk here. This was the experienced head Mairi described as the glue that held the band together, but Parlabane also recognised that Damien was the one he could most trust to keep quiet about his suspicions. This band was the ship Damien must have thought had long since sailed without him, so he was going to do nothing that would take her into choppy waters.

  ‘Mairi’s having trouble getting hold of Heike,’ Parlabane said, dropping his voice a fraction. ‘She’s starting to get a wee bit worried, just between you and me.’

  Damien’s silence said plenty, his lack of surprise blethering unguardedly too.

  ‘When did you last speak to her? Berlin maybe?’

  Still he said nothing, and still his silence spoke volumes.

  ‘I’m wondering if there was something on her mind. New album due out, this huge US tour coming up … That’s a lot of pressure. How did she seem when you last saw her?’

  ‘She was fine. Normal.’

  Parlabane nodded, like he understood.

  ‘You know, loyalty isn’t always what you think,’ he said. ‘Telling me the truth doesn’t make you a grass.’

  Damien’s cheeks flushed a little as he weighed this up. They both knew he was lying now; all that remained was whether he would keep up the charade.

  ‘She was pretty withdrawn,’ he admitted.

  ‘In Berlin?’

  ‘Before that. After Rostock. I’ve never seen her like it: so distant, her mind somewhere else – away from the music, I mean. Normally, no matter what else is going down, Heike’s still a pro. I’ve never seen her so disengaged. I put it down to running out of steam towards the end of the tour. Things were pretty fraught after the photos.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘I tried to engineer a bit of a clear-the-air tête-à-tête between the girls in Rostock, but I guess it backfired. Heike was dealing with it better than Monica at that point, which is what you’d expect, but after that it was the other way around.’

  ‘It seems disproportionate from the outside, but I suppose when you’re on tour and living on top of each other, you can start to feel besieged.’

  Parlabane was trying to seem sympathetic, but really he was fishing. He just wanted to keep the conversation going, to see where Damien might take it. He was looking for what he called a satellite: a significant outlier that had stuck in the guitarist’s mind for reasons not immediately obvious even to himself.

  He listened to Damien talk about the pressures of life on tour, and the stresses Heike in particular had to endure, not merely of being the main attraction, but from being one of only two women in the party. That was when he spotted it.

  ‘I suppose in terms of other women there were also the merch girls: they were on the bus a couple of times, though that wasn’t exactly all sisters together. Heike had a problem with them being there, in fact, but that was way before we got to Germany.’

  ‘Merch girls?’

  ‘Merchandising staff. I think they worked for Bad Candy.’

  Pen Portraits

  I could hear raised voices as soon as I opened the door. I was returning from a café on Westgate Road with two heaving cardboard trays, having volunteered to get us all something a bit more appetising than yet another round of instant coffees before we started the soundcheck. All had been calm when I left, although everybody was a little stiff and cranky after getting stuck in a motorway tailback for an hour en route to Newcastle.

 
I say voices plural, but mostly it was Heike’s that was carrying; the responses low male mumbling. Heike had quite a register. She didn’t have to shout for it to be loud and forceful, the kind of tone you could feel vibrating your chest.

  ‘We haven’t even soundchecked yet,’ she was blasting. ‘We’ve barely set up. There’s two miles of cable still rolled up and guitars sitting there needing strings.’

  ‘Christ’s sake, it’s only a wee bit of ching,’ came the response. Sounded like Scott. ‘Need something to perk us up after that fucking bus journey.’

  I approached, feeling like I used to when my parents were arguing and they’d seen me in the doorway, so there was no option to sneak away and pretend I hadn’t heard.

  Heike was facing down Scott, the bass player, and Angus, the guitar tech, both of whom were stood with their heads bowed like guilty schoolboys. The others were waiting awkwardly, wishing they could be somewhere else until the aggro was over. Rory looked even more uncomfortable than the rest, which made me wonder whether he had been about to join in before teacher arrived and caught them at it.

  The scene was one we had seen before: Heike overreacting to something she couldn’t control and which, as far as everybody else was concerned, didn’t matter.

  ‘Only,’ she stressed. ‘Only. Does that word not ring any alarm bells about your perspective? It’s a class-A drug. Enough to get you a night in the cells if someone wanted to throw a spanner in our works. And where did you get it?’

  She rounded on Dean, the head of the road crew, and the one I had heard mouthing off about her to the support act in Bristol.

  ‘Did you sell them it? Is dealing your sideline this tour, or do you only specialise in flesh?’

  ‘We’re all fucking adults here,’ he said. ‘You’re their lead singer, not their fucking mother.’

  He walked away, not staying for the scolding like the others.

  ‘I know they’re adults,’ Heike said to his retreating back before directing her next words at Scott and Angus. ‘I just thought you were professionals too. You need something to get you through a soundcheck? Are you kidding me?’