Face the Music

by Marianne Levy

  Which was not what I meant at all, and she knew it. And I knew she knew it. And she knew that I knew she knew it.

  ‘I’d better go,’ I said. ‘Need to get my stuff sorted out so I can make a quick getaway after school.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ I said, as pointedly as I could, ‘I’ve got to go all the way to the O2 for a Karamel concert, just to do a stupid annoying interview. Total waste of an evening. Laters.’

  ‘Katie, there’s a big silver car outside. Apparently it’s for you.’

  Mum did not sound impressed.

  ‘Oh, that,’ I said, peering out the window. ‘Yes, that’s for me.’

  Which is when I remembered that I hadn’t especially told her about the whole News at Ten shebang.

  ‘You do not have my permission to go out unaccompanied on a school night. And—’

  ‘HEY! KATIE!’ It was Dad, waving both arms.

  I made for the front door, Mum just behind me.

  Dad was standing on the drive, next to a confused-looking bloke in a suit.

  ‘Sorry, what’s going on?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be driving a Katie Cox to the O2,’ said suit bloke.

  ‘Oh, are you?’ said Mum.

  ‘Er . . . yes . . . ?’

  ‘Katie, we seem to be having some fairly serious communication issues. You were out last night, fine, OK, that was a special occasion, but there is no need for you to go gallivanting off again this evening.’

  I wasn’t totally sure what ‘gallivanting’ meant, but I could tell it wasn’t good.

  ‘It’s a press thing,’ I said, trying to sound as reasonable and mature as I could. ‘For the single.’

  ‘In what way is going to the O2 related to your single?’

  ‘Well, I’m going to be interviewed while Karamel are singing and I’m going to say how I think they are destroying music. It’s going to be on the ten o’clock news!’

  Mum was getting less impressed by the second. And she hadn’t been impressed to start with. ‘If you’d told me in advance I might have said yes. But you didn’t. So the answer is no.’

  The bloke in the suit looked awkward. ‘Can’t take you without parental permission,’ he said.

  ‘That’s all right, I’m her dad. Of course she’s going!’

  ‘Benjamin . . .’

  ‘Er, Dad . . .’

  ‘What?’ Dad was practically dancing on the spot. ‘He’s chauffeuring you to a concert! Take a tip from your old dad, Katie – never turn down a freebie.’

  ‘Katie is in deep water, Benjamin; you saw what it was like last night, she needs to take a step back and—’

  ‘Last night was a huge success!’ said Dad.

  ‘Last night was terrifying,’ said Mum.

  He put his hand on her arm, and I saw her try not to flinch. ‘Zoe, love, you’re not a creative person; you can’t be expected to understand. But I’m like Katie; I get it. I’m with her on this. And I’ll look after her.’

  Mum was looking distinctly unhappy. ‘I don’t want her going off into the middle of goodness knows where all on her own . . .’

  Now, I have to say, in the interests of family harmony, I was beginning to think that I might leave it. Some things are worth a bit of screaming, but a Karamel concert isn’t exactly one of them. Plus, despite my epic sleep, I was sort of feeling a bit tired; I reckon even Beyoncé couldn’t deal with a concert followed by a full day of school. An early night and a happy mother – it was an appealing combination.

  ‘Then I’ll go with her,’ said Dad. ‘It would be nice to have a bit of time just the two of us.’

  ‘Really? Because—’

  ‘Come on, Katie,’ he said, looking up from inside the car, where he’d already sat down and – blimey – even taken off his shoes.

  I ducked my head, but Mum still managed to catch my eye, and held it, steady and unhappy, and there was that pulling sensation that I hated so much, more than anything.

  Would it never go away, that feeling, that I’d had for years and years, every time they argued, and in those still, cold hours after the shouting had finished and Dad was ‘having a lie-down’ or Mum was just ‘going for a drive’ where I was stretching in two directions at once, tighter and tighter and tighter, and I knew if I made even the smallest movement I would tear apart – would it never let me be?

  ‘You coming, princess?’

  A whole evening with Dad, though.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ I told Mum, climbing in beside him.

  Her mouth opened wide, but then we were off down the drive, leaving her, and whatever it was that she was shouting, behind.

  ‘This is fun, isn’t it?’

  I looked up to see Dad pouring himself a glass of something from a mini fridge.

  ‘Um, yeah.’

  ‘I could get used to this.’ He downed his drink and poured out another. ‘Want something?’

  I lifted up what turned out to be a bottle of pear cider.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Dad, nudging it away. ‘Hey, someone has to be responsible here.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to have any. I was just seeing what it was.’

  ‘Of course you were,’ said Dad, opening up a little bag of peanuts he’d got from somewhere. ‘How about one of these? They’re wasabi flavour!’

  I took one, before remembering that wasabi is basically mustard, which is basically disgusting.

  ‘Hey, that Tony’s not the easiest chap to get hold of, is he?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, making sure to face out the window so he couldn’t see my cheeks flame, ‘Tony’s very busy. But I’m sure he’ll come back to you. Be patient.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Dad. ‘And it’s nice to have a bit of a holiday. Spend some time with my girls.’

  Just to get it done, so that Mands would let it drop and we could all get on with our lives, I took a deep breath and then another one, and said, ‘Do you think it’s OK for you to be staying so long?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s fine! I mean, I know your mother is a bit uptight. And that Adrian, he’s, well, he’s not exactly . . . but they don’t mind really. They’d have said!’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  No, Katie, do it properly.

  ‘But, Manda, she reckons it might be good for you to . . .’ No, I couldn’t tell him to move out, I just couldn’t. In the last second, I switched the words: ‘. . . pay a bit of rent.’

  ‘Ah, Miss Sensible,’ said Dad. ‘She’ll go far.’

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

  ‘Thing is,’ said Dad, ‘I haven’t got much. In the way of money.’

  ‘I thought you were majorly busy? That everyone wanted you?’

  ‘I am,’ said Dad. ‘Just . . . not . . . currently.’

  ‘But, haven’t you got loads of savings?’

  ‘Not . . . really.’

  This didn’t seem quite right. Because the one thing we’d heard during the divorce, and after the divorce, and in the weeks leading up to the divorce, was how Dad was, in Mum’s words, ‘swanning off with half a house in his back pocket’. Mum wouldn’t lie. Surely, she wouldn’t. Only, Dad wouldn’t either.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said slowly. ‘I thought . . . the settlement . . .’

  ‘It was a great apartment,’ said Dad, and from the look on his face, part of him was still there. ‘Dolphins! From the kitchen window! And I was busy. Busy enough to justify it at the time . . . only, not quite busy enough. And Catriona needed money. For—’

  ‘Her Pilates studio,’ I finished for him. Catriona’s stupid Pilates. It had been bad enough when they were still together. Even after they’d split it was still making my life a misery. ‘Dad, you have to ask for it back again.’

  ‘That might be a bit . . .’

  ‘And then you can pay Mum some rent, and everyone will be happy.’

  ‘I’m not . . .’

  I leaned my head on his shoulder, like I used
to when I was tiny. ‘And then everything will be OK and you can stay for as long as you want. You can do it, Dad!’

  I couldn’t see his face, but I felt his voice through his chest and down my ears and into my heart. ‘For you, my princess, I’ll give it a go.’

  We sat, like that, for maybe a couple of minutes, the car going down the motorway so fast that it felt like we were flying – and I was perfectly, completely content.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Everyone at the O2 seemed to know who I was without me having to tell them. I was swept through corridors, passed from one person to another like a human relay baton, from offices to dressing rooms, then around a corner and into a tunnel, until I was standing in the hot darkness behind a curtain along the edge of the stage, with little flutters of something in my stomach.

  Nerves? Well, that made no sense, as there was nothing to be nervous about.

  Probably just leftover angst from yesterday, I told myself, feeling the heat of the many, many, many people out in the crowd. I couldn’t see them, but then, I didn’t have to. I could hear them singing and chanting; feel their happiness, their excitement and their sheer energy. And as much as I wanted to find it pathetic, there was something a tiny bit infectious about all that joy. In fact—

  ‘Katie, hi, hi.’

  ‘Hi, Chris.’ Beside me, Dad was looking expectant. ‘Dad, this is Chris. He’s a journalist. He’s going to put me on the ten o’clock news.’

  ‘Chris, hi – Benjamin Cox.’ Dad gave him his best smile, the one that’s like floodlights.

  ‘Hello, Benjamin.’

  There was an awful lot of helloing and shaking of hands. Then, finally, Chris said, ‘So, we thought we’d interview you during “Clap Your Hands”, the boys’ new single, it’s towards the end. If you just stay here and we’ll set up, and then when the song begins, I’ll start talking.’

  ‘So I have to sit through a whole entire Karamel concert?’ A guilty part of me thought how much Lacey would have loved it. In fact, I was wondering if I should ring her so she could listen in, and trying to work out whether I had enough minutes left to cover the whole thing when—

  ‘You came!’

  ‘Kurt. Hi. Um, yes, I came.’

  He was standing RIGHT NEXT TO ME.

  ‘I didn’t think you would!’

  ‘Well, I did,’ I said. And Dad said:

  ‘Benjamin Cox, musician. If you ever need someone . . .’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Cox,’ said Kurt, looking for all the world as though he was pleased to meet my dad.

  He was dressed, completely stupidly, in this billowy shirt thing, over a pair of neat, sharp jeans. And his hair – it was sticking up in about thirty-seven thousand tufts, all pointing in different directions, like a kind of human mop.

  ‘Have my card,’ said Dad.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Kurt, sticking it into his back pocket. ‘Hey, sorry, but I’ve got to go. The support finished ages ago, crowd’s getting restless. See you after?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a school night. I have homework.’

  ‘What?’ said Dad. ‘Of course we’ll stick around.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Kurt. ‘See you, then.’

  I was just breathing a sigh of relief that he was off when he turned and shot me an awkward grin. ‘Enjoy the show.’

  ‘I really won’t,’ I said, to his departing back.

  Now, the noise from the audience had gone from loud to supersonic, and around me, people with headsets and radios and things were running about, doing whatever it is that they do, which seemed mainly to be trying to change one of the light bulbs in a ten-foot-high letter ‘K’.

  ‘This is fab, isn’t it?’ said Dad. ‘Ringside seats for your favourite band.’

  ‘Where did you get that from?’ I asked him. ‘Karamel are not my favourite band. Not even close.’

  ‘Really?’ Dad sounded surprised.

  ‘Did you, um, did you not, notice, that the new song, did you not notice what it was, you know, um, about?’

  ‘The one about me? Which was brilliant, by the way. Might see if I can get Taylor to cover it.’

  ‘No, the one about boy bands. Dad, you do know why we’re here, don’t you?’

  Dad opened his mouth to reply. But then . . .

  The lights blazed.

  The crowd roared.

  And Karamel bounded on to the stage like a basket of upturned puppies.

  ‘HELLO THE O2! Are we feeling it?’

  ‘No,’ I murmured.

  Kolin and Kristian were clapping, and – of course – it was absolutely right that Kurt managed a microphone and the lead guitar.

  I sighed. ‘That guitar is beautiful.’

  ‘It’s a Gibson Les Paul,’ said Dad. ‘Very nice.’

  ‘Wasted on him.’

  Dad said something, but I never heard what, because as he began to speak, they began to play, and a wall of sound crashed against the crowd, making them scream and flash and fling their hands into the air.

  Like puppets, I thought, just as I noticed that my left foot was tapping to the beat.

  ‘I said, ARE WE FEELING IT?’

  Kurt’s supple fingers were gliding across his guitar. Exactly the sort of fingers that those idiotic girls were probably imagining brushing across their backs, or running through their hair.

  ‘Then let’s go!’

  Ugh, his confidence was revolting. He ought to have shown at least a bit of shame, if he had any self-respect whatsoever.

  ‘We are so excited to be here tonight! We’re gonna start with something new . . .’

  Streaks of yellow fire shot up from the front of the stage as they began to sing and, there was no doubt about it, Kurt really could sing – and it was sort of uplifting:

  WINGS BEAT FASTER IN MY HEART

  KISS MY LIPS BEFORE WE PART

  I found myself leaning in. Then leaning out, because, come on.

  And then leaning back in again.

  HURTS INSIDE BUT NOW I SEE

  I MUST LET THE BIRD FLY FREE

  I rubbed my finger across my wrist. Goosebumps.

  LET THE BIRD FLY FREE

  The darkness around me seemed to dissolve and now I was in a new place, where mayflies flitted above and droplets of dew shimmered in the summer light and . . . No, my ears were wrong, this was Karamel, it was hopeless and awful and . . .

  LITTLE BIRD SO FREE

  And then there was the way the chorus lifted and lingered, before collapsing into a glitter of notes that seemed to rain down over my head and . . .

  FLY HOME BIRD

  TO ME.

  The final note held, then broke, and then, before I could even catch my breath:

  ‘Now for our first ever number one. Get ready . . . for an All Night Part-aaaay!’

  I tried to imagine I was somewhere else, listening to something halfway good, not this terrible rubbish that was making me sway and then pulling me on to my very tiptoes.

  In fact, if I really concentrated, I could forget about Karamel altogether. Forget about the way that their music came at me like a sky full of doves, swooping and soaring, racing across fields, skimming the sea before hurtling up, up into the blue . . .

  No, not birds, something rich and lovely, a chocolate cake with a million layers . . .

  Forget the way Kurt’s fingers slid across his guitar like it was a part of him, like he was running fast downhill with the wind behind him . . .

  Oh my God.

  ‘Sing with me, O2!’

  My hands were in the air and my vision began to cloud with bursts of gold. The lights, maybe, or perhaps it was the chords themselves, bursting out of the air, filling my eyes with the same fire that flowed from Kurt’s fingers.

  ‘Are you OK?’ shouted Dad. ‘Katie, you’re shaking.’

  ‘Help me,’ I murmured, but my words were lost in the wonderful, awful, wonderful music.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘Katie? Katie?’

  Minutes, o
r maybe hours later, there was a tap on my shoulder.

  ‘Katie, are you ready to go?’

  ‘Whu . . . ?’

  ‘Great!’

  I just had time to realize that the person talking was Chris, that there was a TV camera pointing right into my face, when . . .

  ‘So, Katie, tell me, what is it that you so dislike about Karamel?’

  A few metres away, Kurt was bent over the microphone, eyes half closed.

  ‘I, um, I don’t like their music.’

  ‘Yes, but why?’

  ‘Because . . .’ Wow, how had he just jumped an octave? How? ‘It’s very . . . I don’t . . . it’s not . . . very . . . good.’

  ‘Twenty thousand people out there seem to disagree.’

  ‘Yes. But. Yes.’

  Chris gave me a funny look, then turned to talk into the lens. ‘While Katie Cox never actually names the subject of her new single “Can’t Stand the Boy Band”, surely, Karamel, the world’s number one boy band, must be who you’re talking about?’

  ‘Um, maybe.’

  ‘You’ve been extremely vocal in your dislike of manufactured bands, of autotuning, even their expensive merchandise came in for criticism. As you said when we first spoke, who has forty pounds to spend on a T-shirt?’

  ‘The T-shirts? Oh yeah. They’re exploiting their fans,’ I said, wondering vaguely whether Dad would lend me forty pounds.

  ‘So to conclude, Katie, why should viewers buy your single and not theirs?’

  Something about his rather narky tone pulled me out of my daze, and I managed to look into the camera and say, ‘Because they are fake, and I am the real deal. I’m Katie Cox and my music is true. That’s why.’

  ‘With the two singles now out and battling for the top spot in the charts, only time will tell. Handing back to the studio now for the news.’

  The maddest thing is that I can’t even remember the end of their set. I must have been ill or something. Certainly my head was sort of burning, although in another way I think I experienced every single moment more vividly than anything that had ever happened to me before.