by Martinis
I collapsed next to him, crossing my legs and pulling my hoodie around myself before taking the can and sipping. ‘So, it didn’t go well?’
He shook his head, lips pressed together.
‘Did you get feedback?’
‘Feedback? This isn’t dance, darlin’, this is music. There’s no feedback and criticism – there’s yes or no.’ Brodie took the can back and gulped at it. ‘And this was a big fat no.’
‘You know why,’ I had said, trying to make him meet my eyes. He kept looking past me, out to the dark sea, the waves crashing against each other in the blackness. I could hear them, but could barely see them any more, the sky meeting sea without a seam.
‘Because I suck?’
I fought a smile, nudging him with my elbow. ‘You don’t suck, idiot. You need to make your music more of you. It’s your voice, it’s your story. You can’t keep separating yourself from it.’
‘Well okay, that makes absolutely no sense.’
I huffed. ‘I get you’re disappointed and this whole angry boy thing is how you’re dealing, but I had to sneak out to get here, and I’m gonna get a bollocking for it in the morning when I wake up at 4.30 a.m. to practise so… maybe stop being a dick, yeah?’
Brodie’s eyes had turned to saucers as he moved to face me. I wasn’t sure whether he was going to walk away or yell or cry. Instead, he laughed.
‘Fair enough. So how do I make my music more of me?’
I shrugged. ‘You open up. That song about Ireland.’ I pointed at him. ‘That’s real.’
‘The one about my da? I just showed you that because… well, because we’re friends and you know me. I can’t sing a song about my bastard dad fucking off and leaving me in charge in front of strangers. I’d feel naked.’
‘That’s the point.’ I rolled my eyes.
‘That good things happen when you’re naked?’ His grin quirked, cat-like and cheeky.
‘No. I mean, yeah, maybe.’ I felt a blush start at the base of my neck, and pulled my sleeves over my fingertips. ‘What I mean is that you’ve got to be real with people… you’ve got to take the thing you love and make it everything you are. You’ve got to be…’ I clicked my fingers, trying to find that word that the judges and reviewers and critics never stopped throwing at me. ‘Vulnerable. You’ve got to be vulnerable.’
‘Is that what you are? When you dance?’
I shook my head, pressing my lips together. ‘That’s what I’d need to be great, though. And it’s what you need to be great. Tell the truth on the stage and they’ll love you.’
Brodie’s light eyes were framed by dark lashes, and crinkled as he smiled. He reached for my hand, squeezing it. ‘How’d you get so smart for a bratty teenager?’
‘Not an ordinary teenager, am I?’
‘You, sweetheart, are not an ordinary anything.’ He roughly pulled my hand to him and kissed it, a quick peck, before releasing me. ‘Want me to walk you home and protect you from the dragon?’
‘She won’t be awake.’
Brodie made a face, over-the-top fearful as he gritted his teeth. ‘But we can’t be sure, can we?’
We walked along the beach for a while, not talking, just listening to the sound of the waves. Brodie finished his can of cider and kicked it about a bit before picking it up and putting it in the bin. It was always stuff like that that made him seem older. He held doors open for people and helped ladies with their prams going down steps. Things most boys were too awkward to do, even if they had good intentions. He’d introduced me to a couple of the guys who played in his band with him, and they were about my age, silly and uncomplicated. His bassist, a guy named Euan, kept trying to make me laugh, always joking around and playing the fool whenever I was there. But I didn’t care about boys my age. I didn’t care about boys in general.
I just cared about Brodie. Brodie, who was complicated enough to understand the weirdo ballerina with the crazy mum and no friends. Brodie, who worked all hours and made his mum smile and had this permanent crease above his left eyebrow where he carried all his worries.
‘Thanks for coming out to pick me up when I was feeling sorry for myself,’ Brodie said to the ground, looking up, then back at the floor. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘Fall into a pit of self pity and become a grouchy old man?’ I’d grinned at him, leaning in, pushing him with my shoulder a little.
‘Definitely, you’re saving me, Bel.’
‘You gonna go try again with that agent person?’ I asked him, desperate to make conversation so I stopped thinking about how the backs of his fingers kept scraping past mine as we walked.
‘What, be vulnerable? Maybe.’ He slung a comfortable arm round me, pulling me close. ‘And what about you, little Belladonna? Are you going to be vulnerable in your dance?’
I shook my head, leaning against him and smelling soap and apples. ‘Want to know a secret?’
‘Always.’
‘I don’t want to dance any more. I haven’t loved it for a long time. I don’t think you can be vulnerable if you don’t love it.’ I sighed, enjoying the feel of his arm around me, knowing that I shouldn’t. ‘Everyone keeps asking me to show how I feel, show emotion, and I just don’t have it any more. She’s sucked the joy out of it for me.’
‘How d’you think she’ll take it, you quitting?’
I made a face, turning to him. ‘Think your mum would take me in if she kicks me out?’
‘Sure, but you’ll have to deal with my snoring.’
‘Well, I’ve put up with your terrible sense of humour and awful taste in clothes, so I can probably deal with snoring,’ I said, and watched as he clutched his chest in faux pain.
The silence was comfortable as we moseyed along, eventually reaching the side of the house. Brodie gave me a boost up onto the garage roof, then waited until he saw me slip in through my window. He held up a hand in goodbye, adjusted his guitar over his shoulder, and smiled.
For some reason, that moment stayed in perfect colour, like a photograph in my mind. I could gather it up whenever I felt lonely, Brodie standing in the dark avenue, the street light catching in his hair as he smiled up at me like I was something special. Something magic. Whenever a business associate asked if I was married, or I lost one of the girls at the club because they were going to have a baby, that vibrant light in their eyes because their future was finally here – that was when I thought of that moment, that one harmless, pointless moment where a gorgeous, kind boy looked at me like I made miracles.
* * *
When I woke up the next morning, I had a smile on my face that tasted like promise. The hangover hovered sweetly at the corners of my brain, barely there and the sunshine striped through the tiny gap in the curtains. I blinked a couple of times and licked my lips before sitting up gently. Placing my bare feet on the wooden floors, I reached for the glass of water by my bedside and downed it.
I knew what I had to do. I had to put me back into the work. I had to put the heart and soul back into the Martini Club. There had to be more of me in what I loved.
I didn’t know how to do it just yet, but I was Arabella Hailstone, business owner and wonder woman. I’d make myself a cup of coffee and fake it. You only ever had to convince other people you knew what you were doing at the beginning. The rest was glitter and confidence.
* * *
I had been ready to text the staff about an emergency team meeting that morning, but was beaten to it by Jacques, who called me explaining it was all arranged, and he expected me there at ten a.m. I had a pang of guilt – he was doing a better job of saving my club than I was. I’d been too distracted by Euan and Mum and now Brodie. All those years of not having a personal life because I had the club, and now the club was teetering and life decided to get interesting.
Then I put on the coffee, stretching up onto my tiptoes as I waited for the timer to count down so I could press the plunger on the cafetière.
‘So you’ve still got the moves
then,’ my mother said softly from behind me. I lowered myself from my stance and turned around.
She looked tiny, swaddled in a dressing gown, with no make-up and dark circles under her eyes. Her smile was tender, delicate. We knew this was a truce, and that either one of us could break it just by breathing.
‘I don’t think I could ever forget. I knew how to dance before I knew how to speak.’ I left it at that, unsure of what to say. Dance was the only thing we ever talked about, but it was always her love more than mine. I’d just been trained to want it, but had never wanted it badly enough for her. ‘Coffee?’
My mother nodded, sliding onto one of the stools by the bar. I busied myself with mugs and milk, trying to ignore the feel of her eyes on me. I was too old to dance now, she’d lost her dreams for me, I’d taken away the one good thing about having a daughter for her. I wondered if she’d ever be able to forgive that. Running away and abandoning her was secondary only to running away and destroying all that she’d invested in me. She wanted to be a champion, and if she couldn’t be one, she needed to make one.
The memory of that honesty and closeness hovered nearby, taunting me with how decent it had been. I wanted to get back to that. A normal conversation between mother and daughter.
‘How was last night?’ I asked. ‘Sam look after you?’
She blushed a little, her eyes tracing the corners of the room. ‘He did, we had fun. He has loads of great stories from being on the road.’
‘Mum…’ I tried to find the right words. ‘Please don’t mess with him. I know he’s kind and lovely, and you’re here and you’re a bit bored and lost, but… he’s not as strong as he looks.’
My mother’s eyes rounded in disappointment. ‘I know, in fact I probably know that in ways you couldn’t. The things he’s talked about, as a parent… they’re the things I’m struggling with too. I’m not bored; I’m finally talking to someone who knows how to talk to me.’
‘Well, maybe he could make a How To guide.’ I snorted, putting the cup in front of her, along with a pack of biscuits I’d had in the back of the cupboard. I even put them out on a little china plate, the way she liked. Not that we ever used to actually eat the biscuits – they were just for show, for guests. There was a certain awful willpower in not taking one even when you wanted one.
Mum immediately took one and dipped it daintily into her cup, wiping it on the edge before putting the whole thing into her mouth with a flourish. She laughed at what must have been a look of shock on my face.
‘Sam is a good man, Bel. You know how rare it is to meet someone who can tell me to shut the hell up and stop being silly? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who’s done that. Seen through me like that.’ My mother smiled into her cup. ‘I don’t have to tell you that I’m a difficult woman. It’s not often people put up with me, not long term anyway. I get rid of them long before they can get bored of me. But Sam makes me feel like it’s okay to stop pretending. And that’s incredibly freeing.’
Oh God, that sounded serious. Half of me suddenly visualized my mother moving in upstairs and me having to hear the thump of the bed against the wall from my flat for the rest of my days. It turned my stomach just a little.
The other, more rational half of me knew what she meant. To be able to talk and be yourself, without censoring, without fear making you play a part… it was a relief, like the weight of a tonne of bricks crumbling into dust and floating away on a breeze.
‘Just… be gentle with him, okay?’
She patted my hand briefly. ‘Okay. And now your turn. How was the brooding musician? Not still wearing that little hat that hid his handsome face, is he?’
I pressed my lips together and tried not to laugh. ‘Nothing is hiding his handsome face, unfortunately.’
‘Doesn’t sound unfortunate.’ She winked, and I wondered if she found this as weird as I did. Us two, talking about boys like we were normal. Like we were getting a do-over at me being a teenager.
‘We… it’s complicated.’
‘Nostalgia always is,’ she sighed, resting her chin on her hand. Everyone seemed to have a story, to have someone who had touched their past and stayed as a ghost alongside them, leaving them to think about might-have-beens.
I briefly wondered if she was thinking of my father, but that was a conversation that I couldn’t quite face again. There had been enough attempts over the years, all ending in tears and screaming matches. She was always so insistent that I didn’t have a father, as if she’d made me through some cloning process – no one else got to have a look in. That was okay, I didn’t need anyone else. I’d learnt well enough through being with Euan that someone could be okay, but that didn’t mean you should keep them in your life. Certain people caused more damage than good, no matter how hard they tried.
Either my father was bad news or, as I’d come to suspect long ago, Mum simply didn’t know who he was.
‘So was there still a spark, or was it a little dull?’ Mum continued, seeming to love this girly chat she had so long been denied.
‘It was…’ Fireworks, stomach-flipping awkwardness, but only for me. ‘Sparky, definitely sparky. But we don’t really know each other any more.’
‘Are you going to get to know him?’
I shrugged, and watched as emotions fought for dominance on my mother’s face. She was conflicted. She wanted to say something, and she knew she shouldn’t.
‘Go on.’ I sat back, arms crossed, typical teenage stance as I sank into the chair.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got that look you had on my tenth birthday when you wanted to tell me to change my dress and you couldn’t figure out if you should.’
Her shoulders dropped.
‘It’s okay, I’m asking. What are you so concerned about?’
My mother took a breath, holding her hands up to try to explain. ‘You know how much time I spend worrying about how people see me? If they think I’m beautiful, or young, or successful? I spend so much money on clothes and tonics and massages and facials. I talk with authority about things I have no idea about. I lie to make everything sound more interesting because I feel boring.’
‘That’s okay.’ I shrugged. ‘Everyone does that.’
She shook her head. ‘They don’t! Some people are happy, just how they are. I was talking to Sam yesterday, and look at him! Successful and comfortable with who he is. Doesn’t try to impress anyone, doesn’t need anything at all!’
‘So this is about Sam?’
She shook her head. ‘No, this is about me. And I’m trying to tell you that if you’re not careful, you’ll turn into me. You have your staff, and you think they’re your tribe, your people. Just like I had my little ballerinas, those bloodthirsty little girls desperate for success, wanting everything I could teach them about perfection. They were my people, weren’t they? But it’s not real, Bel. They’re your employees, the way that mine were my clients.’
‘I get that, but I can like the people I choose to work for me. I can reward their loyalty, and care about their happiness. That makes me a good boss.’
‘A good boss and a lonely person.’
My mother grasped her cup with both hands and peered over it at me. ‘You have a life you’ve built, that’s true, sweetheart. You have your club, and your employees, and your London flat and your sparkly outfits. You have your nice wine in the fridge, and you get to feel important when you strut into that place every night. But where’s the people to share it with? Where’s the friends, the loved ones? Where’s a single relationship that exists outside of the club or Sam?’
‘I don’t need a relationship to be happy with my life. I did that and I settled, and I deserve more.’
‘You do!’ Mum smiled, suddenly energized. ‘You absolutely do! But you have to let someone in to see if they have anything to offer. And I’m not just talking about a partner. I’m talking about friends.’
I suddenly felt a dull aching in my chest. ‘You and Sam have been talking abou
t me, haven’t you? He’s told you I’m alone, and that he’s worried about me.’
My skin flushed at the embarrassment of it, the idea of them talking about me, Sam giving away secrets about my life, letting my mother know the holes in the perfect picture I’d sold her.
My mother held up her hands. ‘Bel, I look at you and I see that I made you this way. All that dedication, the drive, the need to be the best, to be achieving and conquering – I didn’t teach you to leave space for friends and people to love you. You have a bunch of people you’re in charge of and you all pretend because it’s easier that way.’
‘That’s not fair, I…’ I couldn’t think of an excuse, I couldn’t think of anything to say. She’d come in and destroyed my little perfect space in the world, identified my weakness and left me naked. Be more vulnerable, they’d always said. You couldn’t be vulnerable with Annabelle Stone around; she’d find that bruise and press her finger to it to check how strong your resolve was. Here she was again, pressing my bruises and pushing my boundaries to see if I’d break, even if this time it was done with love.
‘I’m telling you to take a chance on someone. Someone who really knows you.’ Mum smiled, reaching out a delicate hand to place on mine. ‘Let this boy in. He might be the wrong choice, but it might be something, you know? And you deserve something.’
The idea made me want to keel over. That fluttery mess beating about in my ribcage, laid bare yet again over a decade later, and Brodie Porter still had the option to stamp all over it with his Doc Martens. It made me feel out of control.
‘I agree, I deserve all the most wonderful things.’ I gave her a cheeky grin and a wink, signalling the end of our serious conversation. ‘But for now I think I should probably focus on keeping my business afloat and a roof over my head.’ Especially as my mum seems to be living with me for the foreseeable future.
'Okay, but just think about what I said, about giving things a chance? If I can’t be a good example, I can at least be a terrible warning.’ She snorted and I recognized how I made that exact noise when I was being self-effacing. Some things surpassed blood, or intention, or even how you felt about the other person. They were just in your bones.