Songs About a Girl

by Chris Russell

  “Um … yeah. Sort of.”

  He went quiet for a second, and I wondered if he knew who I’d been with. Then, suddenly, he drummed the steering wheel.

  “You coming, then?” he said.

  I peered into the car and laughed at him.

  “Coming where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I glanced back inside the hotel.

  “But we can’t just … leave … can we?”

  “Course we can—get in.”

  I faltered, but he opened the passenger door and held out his hand.

  “I’m not going without you,” he said, and as I walked tentatively toward the car, he took my hand and guided me inside.

  “We need to move quick,” he said, yanking the car into gear and reversing round the driveway’s mini roundabout, one arm stretched out behind my seat. His skin was brushing the back of my neck. “Because when my security guards realize I’ve gone out without them, they … are … gonna … go … ballistic.”

  And with the engine purring in the crisp November air, we sped away from the hotel and onto the open road.

  * * *

  It was the first sunny day I could remember since Brighton, but it was nervous sunlight, the kind that can turn to rain in seconds. The sky stretched out above a rolling gray ocean, and in the distance a handful of tiny houses dotted the cliff side. Salt air clung to my skin.

  “So, come on,” I said, as the craggy coast flew by, “where are we going?”

  Gabriel had one hand on the wheel, the other in his hair.

  “You know your problem, Charlie Brown?” he said from behind his shades. He was looking at me instead of the road. “You don’t trust me.”

  No, I thought. I don’t. And I remembered Olly, sitting on the beach, carefully tuning his guitar. The sound of his song above the crashing waves.

  “You’re a rock star. Why would anyone trust you?”

  Gabriel laughed at this but didn’t answer. I stole a look at my camera bag, nestled at my feet. Mum’s notebook was in there, hidden in the inside pocket. I still wasn’t sure if I’d have the guts to show it to him.

  “If you won’t tell me where we’re going,” I said after a while, “at least tell me where you got the car.”

  The car we were traveling in was a bloodred, bullet-shaped convertible with a winged Aston Martin logo on the steering wheel. I didn’t know much about cars, but it had to be worth more than my dad earned in a year.

  Gabriel was gazing into the rearview mirror, curling a strand of hair round his finger.

  “I bought it.”

  “You what?”

  “I bought it. Where else do you get a car from?”

  “Well, anywhere,” I spluttered back, astonished. “You could have hired it, or borrowed it. I mean … Jesus, how much did it cost?”

  “I dunno, a hundred … and something. I can’t remember.”

  “A hundred grand?”

  It was at times like these when I remembered that Gabriel and I lived in completely different worlds.

  “That’s crazy,” I said, shaking my head, but Gabriel’s lack of response suggested he wasn’t interested in talking about money. I sat back in my seat.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Can I dodge the question?” replied Gabriel with a smirk, and I gave him a look. He shifted up a gear.

  “Why don’t you hang out with the others on show days?”

  Gabriel’s smirk vanished, and he took a small, sharp breath. For several moments, he said nothing.

  “You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you,” he said finally.

  I kept my eyes on the road. “Try me.”

  A bright blue camper van whizzed by us. Gabriel let out a long sigh.

  “Stage fright.”

  I laughed, involuntarily.

  “You’re not serious?” I said, my voice climbing several pitches. Gabriel cleared his throat and picked at the steering wheel.

  “Yep.”

  “You … get stage fright?”

  No wonder Yuki and Aiden were so secretive when I asked them about it. They were protecting him.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I thought back to our time on the empty stage in Brighton, and something Gabriel had said that day suddenly made so much more sense.

  What are you doing up here on your own?

  I like it … calms me down.

  “But … you’re—”

  “Gabriel West from Fire&Lights? Yeah, that’s what everyone thinks.” His eyes dropped. “I’m not indestructible, you know.”

  I scanned the dashboard, trying to square this new information with the way the world saw him. The flawless teen idol, super-real, untouchable.

  “I just never would have guessed.”

  “People have no idea what it’s like. They look at us performing and they think it’s easy, they think we just roll out of bed and onto the stage. But sometimes … it’s terrifying up there.”

  All this time, the way he’d kept to himself, hiding backstage, it wasn’t arrogance at all. It was fear.

  “Embarrassing, right?” he said.

  “No, not at all. It’s just—”

  We were interrupted by the ringing of Gabriel’s phone. He pulled it from his pocket and cursed.

  “Who is it?”

  “My bodyguards.”

  “Shouldn’t you answer?”

  He looked at the screen, clicked his tongue, and then, without warning, lobbed the phone from the car. It spun into the undergrowth at the side of the road and vanished behind us.

  “Oh my God, Gabe…!”

  He turned to me.

  “Now we’ll have peace.”

  “But … won’t you get in trouble for driving off like this?”

  “Oh, definitely. My security team think if I spend more than five minutes in the daylight I’ll burst into flames.”

  “So you are a vampire…” I whispered, and Gabriel smiled, apparently pleased that I’d remembered his joke.

  “Anyway, turns out I’m supposed to be doing some crappy magazine interview this afternoon, but why would I do that when I can run away with you? Plus, everyone knows you can’t do press interviews when you’re traveling at ninety miles an hour.”

  I clocked the speedometer.

  “We’re not traveling at ninety miles an hour.”

  “Not yet,” he said, flooring the accelerator.

  My stomach leaped into my mouth as the car sped up dramatically, growling like a tiger. We were approaching the crest of a hill, and our speed was climbing, and climbing fast. My hat threatened to blow off into the road, and I had to pull it down hard to keep it in place.

  “What are you doing?” I said, checking my seat belt. It was at this point I noticed Gabriel wasn’t wearing one.

  “Taking a ride,” he replied, both hands on the wheel. The quivering dial on the speedometer crept up toward ninety, and then past ninety, to ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven.

  If this was how he planned to distract me from the stage fright conversation, it was definitely working.

  “This is too fast,” I said, above the throaty snarl of the engine. Gabriel slid his glasses back into his hair.

  “Trust me.”

  There it was again. That word.

  We powered over the lip of the hill, our tires almost leaving the tarmac, and emerged onto an open stretch of road. The dial told me we were traveling at over a hundred miles an hour.

  I pulled my hat off and shoved it into my lap.

  “Gabe…?”

  The road was thundering underneath us like a turbo-charged conveyor belt, trees and rocks and road signs hurtling past on either side. I had my hands clamped tight to the seat edge, knuckles turning white, when beneath the roaring engine, I heard Gabriel say something that sounded like: “I’ve got you.”

  I shut my eyes tight, and his hand closed over mine.

  As his touch warmed my skin, I relaxed my grip, and a strange calm sank into me. I felt like I
was watching us from above, as if in a music video, the camera swooping, an epic soundtrack booming in my ears. I opened my eyes again, the wind lashing at my face, hair whipping in every direction, and the world in front of me was beautiful, frightening, and moving at breakneck speed. Gabriel was there, and everything was connected; everything was shadows. Everything was alive.

  I knew it was reckless, and my dad would have had a heart attack, but I didn’t care. I sank back in my seat, elated, blood pulsing through my body, ocean spray coating my bare arms. Above us, the sky rolled out for miles.

  Eventually, as we approached a shallow bend in the road, Gabriel eased off the pedal. The speedometer dial sighed its way back down to forty, and we passed a few seconds in silence, dots of cold rain landing on our cheeks. Gabriel’s fingers rose gently off mine.

  “Nice one, boy racer,” I said, my heart still thumping. Gabriel dropped down a gear, and the car’s husky groan slowed to a comforting purr.

  “That was fun though, right?”

  I swallowed a smile.

  “No comment.”

  Gabriel glanced in the rearview mirror and turned the steering wheel.

  “We’re here.”

  He pulled into a small parking area on the cliff side and rolled to a stop opposite a weather-beaten picnic bench. The car drifted to sleep, engine ticking as it cooled.

  “Where’s here?” I asked, sliding my hat on again over my tangled hair. Gabriel tipped his glasses back in front of his eyes and smiled.

  “Paradise.”

  * * *

  Gabriel was leading me along a short, narrow path that snaked from the car park down to the cliff edge. The weather was beginning to turn, and the sun had retreated behind a bank of angry clouds. There were maybe twenty minutes of decent light left in the day.

  Ahead of us, stretching out toward the horizon, was mile after mile of open ocean, impossibly endless, a churning black landscape. We were just a couple of meters from the precipice, and all that stood between us and the sheer drop was an old wooden sign that read, “Beware, Danger of Death.”

  “Come on,” said Gabriel, steering me past the sign. My feet started to protest.

  “But we might fall—”

  “We won’t,” interrupted Gabriel, taking my hand. His was warm, and strong, and enveloped my small, freezing fingers. As he guided me to the edge of the cliff, I braved a downward glance and my head swam at the sight. A hundred meters below, maybe more, the sea thundered and smashed against the rocks.

  “It’s almost like you’re trying to freak me out,” I said, peering over the verge.

  “As if I would do something like that,” said Gabriel, with a smile.

  “So what are we doing all the way out here, then?”

  He looked out to sea, hair whipping against his forehead.

  “Do we really need a reason?”

  “No, it’s beautiful … it is. But…”

  He turned to face me.

  “Truth is, I wanted to spend some time with you that wouldn’t be interrupted by journalists or security guards. Or fans. And I don’t get to do that without running away.”

  Running away, I thought. It was almost funny. Gabriel was rich, famous, and adored, but he couldn’t leave his hotel without asking someone’s permission. It was as if he’d never left school.

  “You live a strange life,” I said with a smile.

  “Yeah. We do.”

  I took in the view again, sucking in the sea air. A long, industrial tanker came into sight on the horizon, then disappeared again.

  “Actually … I’m kind of worried about you guys,” I said. Gabriel smirked at me.

  “Fire&Lights?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why?”

  Olly’s song from the beach was still reverberating in my mind. The ringing of guitar strings, his voice, strong and pure, soaring out over the waves.

  “You and Olly, the fights. The arguments. It’s getting worse.”

  Gabriel buried his hands in his pockets.

  “He doesn’t trust me, that’s what it is. He blames me for Jake.”

  “That wasn’t your fault, though.”

  “Maybe not, but Olly doesn’t see it that way, and I can’t talk him round. They were really close friends.” He picked at a fingernail. “Still are.”

  “What you boys have, though, it’s really special. And I don’t mean the fans and the money. I mean the four of you, together. It’s magical. I see it every weekend.”

  Gabriel considered me for a while, through the gentle curve of his sunglasses. I couldn’t see his eyes, only my own reflection, distorted in the lens.

  “You’re like no one else I’ve ever met, Charlie Brown. You know that?”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  Gabriel removed his glasses and hung them on the neck of his T-shirt. Over his shoulder, birds wheeled above the trees, calling to each other across the sky.

  “Course it is.”

  I took several deep breaths. We were alone out here, miles from anywhere. I had Mum’s notebook in my bag. If I didn’t tell him now, I never would.

  “If I tell you something, and it sounds crazy … will you promise not to laugh at me?”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  The wind picked up around us, whistling in our ears. I tugged at the edge of my hat.

  “My mum died when I was three.”

  Sadness softened Gabriel’s face. He started to reply.

  “It was a car accident,” I continued, cutting him off. “I was too young to remember anything, really. My dad brought me up on his own.”

  I avoided Gabriel’s gaze. I could hear him breathing beneath the restless churn of the ocean.

  “God, Charlie … that’s awful. But why would I lau—”

  “That’s not it,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “There’s something else.”

  I unclipped the lid of my camera bag and slid out the notebook. When I passed it to Gabriel, his brow furrowed.

  “What’s this?”

  “Take it,” I said, guiding it into his hand. He took it, mystified.

  “Before she died, Mum kept this book. It’s a scrapbook, I guess, for writing down all her ideas—bits of poetry and stuff. I keep it under my bed.”

  Gabriel glanced at me fleetingly, then returned to the notebook. He ran a single finger along the outside edge of the old, crinkled pages.

  “I’ve turned a page down. Look.”

  I pointed to the folded page, and Gabriel slid in his thumb. The moment he lifted the cover, I saw the words. She lives her life in pictures … she keeps secrets in her heart. For a few seconds, Gabriel just read, in silence, but when he reached those familiar lines, his face shifted, then hardened, like it was turning to stone. He looked surprised, almost afraid.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?”

  For a long time, he didn’t reply. I could see his mind turning over, thoughts racing.

  “Gabriel, those are lyrics from your…”

  The sentence died in my mouth as Gabriel closed the notebook and fixed his eyes on mine. The air was cold now, bitter on our skin.

  “Can you keep a secret?” he said.

  “A secret?”

  “If I tell you something no one else knows … can I trust you?”

  I tugged a damp strand of hair from my face.

  “Of course … but what’s this got to do with—”

  “Just give me a chance to explain, OK?” he said, gritting his teeth. “I’m not really sure how to say this.”

  23

  The wind whipped at our faces, cold and sharp. Gabriel’s eyes were focused on a point somewhere in the distance.

  “I’ve been lying, Charlie. To everyone. The press, our fans. The rest of the band. You.”

  I tipped my head to the side.

  “Wh … Gabe, what are you talking about?”

  He tapped a fist against his lips.

  “My parents.”

  I thought back to the pap
arazzi enclosure in Brighton. The clacking of cameras, the chattering of fans, the barking voices. Gabriel’s refusal to talk about his family.

  “They’re living in the South of France … right?” I said. Gabriel shook his head.

  “I made that up. It isn’t true.”

  He paused, breathing slowly. I hugged myself against the cold and waited.

  “When I was a kid,” he continued, finally, “my dad was hardly ever around. We lived in this miserable London flat, just me and Mum, most of the time. She didn’t speak English—she’s from Brazil—and I think she was pretty lonely. She was on all these depression meds. I used to help her count out her pills for the week.

  “Anyway … I never really knew what Dad did for cash. Looking back, it was probably drugs. Sometimes, when he was away, people would knock on our door in the middle of the night, saying he owed them money, yelling at Mum when she didn’t understand. I remember Dad coming home once with a plastic bag full of banknotes and chucking them across the bed, but most of the time, we were broke. We ate noodles and watched TV until the meter ran out.” He ran a hand round the back of his neck. “One day, I woke up and found Mum in the bathroom. She’d taken an overdose.”

  His eyes dropped to the ground.

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean to do it. I mean … she couldn’t … Maybe she didn’t understand the instructions on the bottle.”

  There was the slightest quiver on his cheekbone.

  “So that just left my dad, looking after me on his own. But he couldn’t do it.” He blinked several times. “He didn’t want to be a father.”

  I curled both my hands around his.

  “I ended up in foster care, and after that, Dad left London. Went away for months. One night, my carers told me he wasn’t coming home. They said he’d killed himself.”

  Gabriel’s mouth kept moving after he spoke, almost as if he were admitting it to himself for the first time. There was an exposed look in his eyes too, a look I hadn’t seen before, and I wondered how often he’d said this out loud, if ever. He looked strangely afraid, stripped of his pop-star bravado, no longer the invincible Gabriel West.

  “Gabe … I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine…”

  “Don’t be. We were never a real family, even before Mum was gone. And you can’t miss what you never had.”

  “Why did you tell everyone they were living in France, though?”