by Helen Juliet
“Second floor,” Nicholas muttered as a reminder of his previous instruction, and headed off at a brisk walk. Rather than risk making a further mockery of himself by chancing being unable to operate the elevator, he jogged up the stairs instead. Eventually, after what felt like half an hour since he had arrived at the destination on the map, he found himself standing outside flat twenty-three. His fist hovered an inch away from the pale wood finish of the door. “Just knock,” he hissed to himself as his knuckles failed to make contact.
Before he could muster his courage though, the door swung inwards, and he jerked his arm back in surprise.
A woman a foot taller than him stood over the threshold. She had skin a shade or two darker than he remembered Fynn’s being, and was dressed in a bright red shirt with flowing, cream trousers. She wore chunky gold jewellery in bold, angular shapes on her fingers, neck and lobes, and had a Bluetooth headset nestled in her left ear. Her hair was closely cropped, leaving barely a centimetre of dark curls. The lines around her eyes gave the impression she might be in her late forties, but her trim figure made Nicholas question that assumption.
“Yes,” she said, and Nicholas opened his mouth to reply, guessing she was the one who had answered the intercom. “No, no, I’m not sure that’s wise.” She pointed to her headset, then waved her hand twice to encourage Nicholas to come inside. “Well, I don’t know if there’s the funding for that.” She had a well-spoken English accent that he typically associated with the home counties.
Nicholas offered her a tentative smile, then gave the brolly one last shake onto the navy blue carpet in the corridor. When she turned her back to retreat into the flat, Nicholas followed, listening to the clack-clack of her heels on the dull wooden floor as she hummed at what the person on the other end of the line had said.
Good. Hopefully, she hadn’t responded to his second buzz through on the intercom because she’d been on the phone. Not because she thought he was a moron who wasn’t worth wasting even a word of further dialogue on. In fact, she turned and gave him a smile and pointed down the end of the hall.
Presumably, that was where Fynn was.
The woman, who Nicholas took to be his mum, wandered back into a living room area, nodding her head and folding her arms across her chest. The place was a bit of a state if he was honest, with stacks of paper and magazines and newspaper clippings everywhere. Dirty dishes balanced on several different surfaces, and boxes, bags and even a suitcase by the window spilled their assorted contents onto the floor. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and Nicholas thought he might have even spied some Christmas decorations poking out from under the dining table, practically groaning from the weight of all the manila folders and loose sheets of paper that were piled up on top of it. The only things that looked clean were the two laptops open on the coffee table.
Nicholas toed off his soggy trainers, feeling it was best to leave them by the front door. The temperature in the flat was warm, which he was grateful for seeing as he was now stuck with dank jeans and half-sodden socks. But it meant his glasses had fogged up, so before he could go anywhere, he had to wipe them off.
Awkwardly, aware that the woman was still slowly pacing the living room while talking to the person – or persons – on the other end of the phone, he juggled the umbrella and ties until he could yank his specs off his face, and then hastily use a couple of fingers to pull out some material from his jumper, and clean the condensation off the lenses.
He felt it would be rude to linger any longer, so he once they were dry he jammed them back on his face and headed down the corridor the way the woman he indicated. He passed a long, narrow kitchen, which was an equal state of disarray as the living room, a bathroom, and what he thought might have been a bedroom, but the door was only open a crack. Along the wall hung various framed posters of different species of butterflies, labelled like you might expect to find in a textbook.
He reached the end of the corridor, and found himself facing a closed door. This must be where Fynn was.
He only hesitated a moment before knocking this time. “Hello?” He frowned at the way his voice wavered, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Hello? Fynn?” There was no answer after a good minute had passed, and Nicholas figured he could only knock and wait so many times. So, taking a deep breath, he placed his hand on the round handle, and gave it a slow turn.
The door wasn’t locked, and it swung away from him easily to reveal a painfully neat and tidy bedroom. Nicholas didn’t take much in at first glance, as his instinct was to look back over his shoulder and check he was still in the same flat. Which was stupid, of course he was, so he pushed the door open a little wider, and stepped inside the room. He realised he recognised it from the YouTube videos. It felt strange now seeing it in person.
Fynn was sat on his bed wearing a vest and three-quarter-length trousers. He was barefoot and had his head bent over a notepad as his whole body bounced subtly to the beat presumably coming through the large, wireless headphones resting completely over his ears. His bedspread was dove grey (much like his eyes, Nicholas’s brain helpfully reminded him) and was made with a crisp, white sheet folded over the top lip. Most days, Nicholas was lucky if he managed to pull the duvet straight once he’d toppled out of bed, let alone manage a flat sheet as well.
The floor was clear of any debris, although there was a full looking clothes hamper by the door that meant the overall impression Nicholas got wasn’t totally pristine. It was oddly reassuring. If there hadn’t been any socks poking out, the room might have felt too cold and distant.
The walls did give it character though. There were several posters of musicians that were framed, and not just with the simple Perspex clip-frames you got from Ikea. They had crafted wooden edges that gave the pictures contained within them more gravitas, and Nicholas was drawn to them immediately. He didn’t get a chance to inspect the artists contained with them any closer though, as Fynn glanced up from his notes, and spotted he was no longer alone.
His lips curled into the half smile Nicholas remembered from Saturday, and he couldn’t deny his stomach did a little panicky flip.
“Hey,” said Fynn, seemingly completely as ease. He used both hands to remove the large headphones, then tapped on the phone by his knee to stop the music. “You made it.”
“Um, yeah, hi.” Nicholas clutched the tie package and the still-damp umbrella to his chest, and pushed the door closed again. “I’m not early, am I?” he asked, knowing full well he was bang on time. “I could come back, if you’re busy. I don’t want to intrude, I mean, I did knock.”
Fynn folded the headphones away into a case he fished out of a drawer by his bed and shook his head. “No, you’re on time. I was actually listening to some of your suggestions, working out a few chords.” He held up his notepad for Nicholas to see, but the scribbles on the page didn’t mean anything to him.
“Oh, okay,” he said. He then stood there, staring at the guy. The only sound was the crinkle of the plastic bag in his hands.
Fynn smiled again, slowly, like he was considering Nicholas, then used the notepad to point. “Why don’t you take a seat?” he suggested. He indicated a swivel chair in front of a computer desk at the foot of the bed. “I didn’t have anything particularly formal planned for today. I just figured I’d play some of the songs you wanted. Like an audition.”
“Oh,” said Nicholas. He shuffled over to the chair, and let himself drop into it. He kept the ties hugged to his chest, but he let the umbrella drop to the floor. This room though, he realised, was carpeted. It was a darker grey than the bed covers, but it would still soak up the rain water. So he chucked the tie package by the computer keyboard on the desk, and hastily snatched the offending brolly off the floor once more. “Sorry,” he blurted. “It’s tipping it down out there. I can just leave this in the hall, or—”
Fynn pointed over Nicholas’s shoulder, where there was a door he’d assumed to be a closet. “Why don’t you leave it in the en-suite?”
<
br /> Nicholas blinked. His parents had an en-suite bathroom, and he’d always been a little jealous of it. “Oh cool,” he enthused, jumping back to his feet.
He flicked the light switch on to illuminate another tidy room. The bathroom wasn’t huge, but it was clean and finished in a similar chrome to what Nicholas had seen on his way up from the lobby.
“Wow, this is sweet. Do your parents have one too, or did they let you have the best bedroom?” He laughed at himself as he opened the umbrella to stand it on the tiles in order to let it dry. “My sisters would never let me take an en-suite from them if one was on offer – do you have any siblings?”
He came back into the bedroom to find Fynn just where he’d left him; cross-legged on the bed, looking at him with faint amusement. Jesus Christ, Nicholas berated himself. He was such a child. He needed to stop saying whatever just flitted into his brain.
He rubbed his face, and sheepishly sat back down. But Fynn surprised him by answering his rambling questions.
“It’s just me and my aunt here,” he said. He jutted his chin towards the door that lead back to the hallway, and Nicholas reasoned he must be talking about the woman that let him in. “My brother and sister are a lot older than me, and my parents live abroad. But, yeah, Ellen has full use of the main bathroom. She prefers it that way.”
Nicholas studied the fabric of the chair cover for a moment, then looked back at Fynn. “Oh, cool. That’s cool then.” He wanted to ask why he was living with his aunt, but that seemed rude, so he clamped his jaw together. He didn’t resort to putting his tongue between his teeth; he’d save that for if things got worse later. “So, what song were you working on?”
Fynn reached over the side of his bed. It was a motion that made his muscles shift in a favourable way, and Nicholas frowned. He’d never been all that athletic, and even though Fynn wasn’t exactly buff, by the looks of it he’d have no trouble pinning Nicholas down. That particular image made him feel hot and uncomfortable. He crossed his legs and coughed, willing his cheeks not to redden before Fynn sat up again.
When he did, he had a familiar guitar case in his hands. He slung it over to land on the bedspread before him and clicked the clasps on the side open. “Actually, I quite like that Ella Henderson one,” he rumbled.
Nicholas wondered idly when his voice had broken. It was so low, it must have been a shock to the other boys at his school. Nicholas’s voice wasn’t exactly squeaky, but it sounded like it in comparison to Fynn’s.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, attempting to drop the pitch of his words by a decibel or two. But he sounded ridiculous, so he gave up before Fynn noticed. “That’s a great one.”
Fynn laid the guitar across his lap and strummed it a few times with a plectrum he’d fished out of the case, tweaking the knobs at the top to tune up the strings. “What’s the venue like?”
Nicholas wasn’t sure what he meant for a moment. “Oh, for the wedding. It’s the town hall, it’s really cool – have you ever been there?” Fynn shook his head and glanced back down at the strings as he carried on strumming. “Well it’s nice, all high ceilings and big windows and everything’s white, it makes me think of ancient Greece.”
“Big?” Fynn arched an eyebrow and looked up. His fingers and the pick were still wandering around the strings though in a mesmerising way.
Nicholas had to think for a second. “Oh, no, not really. There’s about seventy people coming to the dinner I think.”
Fynn considered his words. “I’m trying to work out if I can play acoustically, or if I’d need to use an amp or PA system.”
Nicholas shifted in his seat. “Err,” he uttered. “No idea. Sorry. How big would it have to be to need an amp?”
Fynn stopped playing, and drummed his fingers against the wooden body of the guitar instead. “I could go and take a look on Wednesday,” he mused. “I have a day off. It would probably be useful to see for myself.”
“Great,” spluttered Nicholas, nodding enthusiastically. “Does that gives you enough time though? If you need an amp, does that mean you’ll need to play an electric guitar – are they very different, would you need time if you were going to switch over?” He jerked his head as he glanced about the room. “Do you have an electric one?”
Fynn laughed, low and assured. “This is an electro-acoustic,” he said. He held it up so Nicholas could see the bottom, and sure enough, there was a plug jack for a cable to slot into. “So it won’t matter. It’ll just affect what equipment I bring on the day.”
“Oh, cool. That’s good then.” Nicholas pulled at a loose thread on the chair, then realised it wasn’t his chair to vandalise, and quickly sat on his hand. “Um, so, did you like the songs I sent you? I wasn’t really sure.”
Seeing as Fynn had barely replied with more than a word or two to any of the messages, if at all. Honestly – was it that hard to formulate a sentence?
Fynn nodded, and began quietly noodling around a melody that Nicholas half recognised. “Yeah, there was some nice stuff there. A couple I already knew, too.” He looked up, and stopped playing. “Can I make a few suggestions though?”
“Of course,” said Nicholas, practically leaning forwards. Suggestions meant he was interested, that he cared.
Fynn took his time answering though, walking around the same melody a couple more times. “How about something released before 2010?”
Nicholas sat back again, and rubbed at his face. Hot shame crept into his belly at the implied criticism, and he couldn’t help but rub again at his face with his thumb.
“So,” he said, willing himself not to get upset or flush red. It was too much to look up, so he concentrated on the chair thread again. “You didn’t actually like the songs.”
From the corner of his eye, he could see Fynn frown. “Sure I did,” he said. He was staring at Nicholas, so he sighed and glanced back up. Fynn rewarded him with a full smile, not just a half one, and Nicholas couldn’t help but relax a little. “I just think it might be cool to play about a bit with the set – I’m guessing you’ll have older guests there too? They’d probably appreciate some classics.”
Nicholas bit his lip, and stopped rubbing his scar. “Okay,” he conceded. “Like what? Something from the ‘90s?”
“Or ‘80s, or ‘70s,” Fynn suggested, then laughed as Nicholas grimaced. “Not a fan?”
Nicholas shrugged. He was happy Fynn didn’t want to dismiss his selection, just broaden it. But he didn’t want any naff songs being played. Danielle was probably going to be miffed enough at him for swapping a harpist for a guitarist. He was sure that playing ABBA or Donny Osmund wouldn’t earn him any favours either. “I don’t know,” he said, tugging at the thread again. “What were you thinking of?”
“Well,” said Fynn. “How about this?”
He nestled his guitar further into his lap, and started plucking out some familiar chords.
“Oh,” Nicholas couldn’t help but utter as he sat up straight.
Fynn smiled, his eyes on his hands as he coaxed the melody out. “Ohh ah ha haa ha,” he sang, in barely more than a whisper. “So true, funny how it seems. Always in time, never in line for dreams.”
Nicholas edged the chair closer. “Spandau Ballet?” he asked, even though he knew that’s who sang the original. Fynn nodded, and flashed his eyes up briefly along with a lopsided smile.
“Why do I find it hard to write the next line? Oh, I want the truth to be said.”
Nicholas was so mesmerised, he just stared for the first minute or so. But by the time the second chorus came around, he couldn’t help himself. “Ohh ah ha haa ha,” he quietly joined in. “I know this much is – truuuee.”
Nicholas forced himself to be quiet for the rest of it, sitting on his hands and clamping his jaw together. That way, he could appreciate what Fynn was doing. After another minute or so, the song was done, and Nicholas didn’t even think about whipping his hands free and applauding.
“That was lovely,” he gushed. He clasped his hands in
to his lap to stop making any more of an idiot of himself. “Okay, yes. That kind of classic I can get behind. Any others?” Fynn laughed, and shook his head. “What?” Nicholas asked, only slightly defensively.
“Yes,” said Fynn, almost entirely deadpan. “I have a few other songs from the last three decades.”
Nicholas stuck his middle finger up at him, then laughed too. “Oh shut up. Well, go on then.” He waved at Fynn imperiously.
He obediently launched into a very nice song which Nicholas later identified to be by Eurythmics. Then another by Michael Jackson, then one he recognised but couldn’t name, then Bob Marley. Nicholas couldn’t say that he felt reggae would be all that well received by the guests he knew were coming along, but he enjoyed listening to it all the same.
He didn’t like a couple of sappy seventies ones, which he could tell irritated Fynn. He wasn’t going to have songs played at his sister’s wedding that he knew she wouldn’t like. Even if it did pain him to see that frown on Fynn’s face after the third rejection. So he frantically cast his thoughts open to suggest an alternative.
“What about something modern, but like—” He rubbed the back of his neck and picked the right words. “Unusual? Something most people wouldn’t know?”
He was rewarded by Fynn’s light eyes opening wide, and that half grin tweaking at the corner of his mouth. “Oh yeah, I’ve got a tonne of stuff you’ve probably never heard of. If you’re sure?” Nicholas nodded, pleased again to have drawn out such enthusiasm.
“Go for it.”
Fynn adjusted the small triangular plectrum in his fingers, then began the new song. It immediately sounded very sweet to Nicholas’s ears, a clear line of melody floating above the slower chords. Fynn made some of his beautiful ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ noises that Nicholas was becoming accustomed to, rambling over the notes like a breeze drifting over a hill.
His voice came out in little more than a murmur. “I was falling apart, I was lost and astray. I was a ship, drifting on the waves.” The words were wholly unfamiliar to Nicholas, but he absorbed them, finding himself nodding as Fynn carried on. “I was looking for love, I was out in the cold. But then you came, and melted all the snow.”