‘We thought you were fucking dead,’ she said.
‘No such luck.’
‘You look like shit,’ said Danny, sticking a forkful of something in his mouth.
‘You too.’
‘We were worried sick, you stupid bastard,’ said Kate. ‘What the hell happened?’
‘I explained it all to Paul,’ said Connor, already wanting the interrogation to end. ‘I went for a wander and got lost.’
‘He said there were no roads and you were up in the hills somewhere,’ said Hannah. Christ, why wouldn’t they all just shut up about it? ‘There was a storm last night, you could’ve been killed.’
He wanted them to please just shut up about it. He saw the look in Hannah’s eyes, now wet with tears, and felt sick again.
‘It wasn’t Hurricane Hannah, was it?’ he said, and instantly regretted it. ‘Look, I’m fine now.’ He sat down in the booth and eyed up the unattended bar opposite. ‘Shouldn’t we be soundchecking?’
Paul gave Connor a look somewhere between furious and relieved. ‘We didn’t know when you’d turn up. Or if. So we soundchecked already. The man from K2 Records is in town, he’s getting here later.’
Connor should’ve said something. He wanted to explain that it didn’t matter a toss if a hundred A&R guys turned up, the band was finished. But he didn’t know how to start. He bottled it, and felt ashamed, telling himself he would break the news later, once the gig was over, or maybe tomorrow once he’d straightened out a little. Yeah, that’s what he would do.
Paul was still talking.
‘… so please just try and hold it together until then, eh?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look it.’
‘Neither would you if you’d spent all night in a snowstorm in the fucking mountains.’
‘Shit, what happened to your hand?’ said Kate, grabbing his wrist and lifting his bandaged hand to the centre of the table. He pulled it back, worried for a split second that it might lash out of its own accord. He was losing it.
‘It’s just a scrape,’ he said. ‘I caught it on a fence. The woman who found me was a nurse so she bandaged it up. It’s fine.’
‘It looks like more than a scrape,’ said Danny.
‘Well, it’s not.’ When was this conversation going to fucking end?
‘Can you still play guitar?’ said Paul.
‘As badly as ever,’ he said, trying to laugh, but a strange gurgling noise came out instead.
‘Where’s Martin?’ said Hannah, a look of steel in her eyes.
‘What?’
‘Paul said Martin was with you. Is that right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Want to explain that to me? I left him at the police station in Fort William, waiting to get picked up by his parents.’
‘He just walked out, apparently. Came back to the pub, spotted me leaving and followed me.’
‘Wait a minute, you said you got lost.’
‘I did.’ Connor didn’t have the first fucking clue how to explain everything that happened at Corrour and Loch Ossian. He didn’t want to admit that he would’ve died if it hadn’t been for Martin.
‘You didn’t see any gun-toting lunatics on your little walkabout?’ said Danny.
Connor felt queasy, and squeezed out a nervous laugh.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Two foreign guys came in the pub at one point after you’d gone and said some fucking nutter had taken one of their bikes at gunpoint outside.’
‘Really?’ So this was his new start, lying through his fucking teeth with every word that passed his lips. But what else could he do?
Danny was laughing. ‘Idiots left the key in their other bike, and when they got back outside it was gone as well. Shouldn’t laugh, but what a pair of dolts.’
‘Never saw anything like that,’ said Connor with a nonchalance he was sure sounded completely false.
‘Anyway,’ said Hannah. ‘About Martin?’
Christ, he was getting it from all sides. Why couldn’t they all just shut up?
‘What about him?’
‘If you were lost, how did he follow you?’
‘I don’t really know. He just did. I was up in the hills and he eventually caught up with me. Then, with the storm and everything, we both made for this nearby station house, where an old couple put us up for the night.’
Hannah looked far from convinced. Connor didn’t blame her one bit.
‘So where is he now?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Where is he now?’
Connor didn’t answer.
‘Connor, no. Please tell me you made sure he got together with his parents. Or at least got in contact with them.’
Connor looked down. The pain in his hand was pounding as he felt the colour rise to his cheeks.
‘Jesus Christ, Con. Do you know how dodgy this looks? A fifteen-year-old boy ran away from home and followed his female teacher round the country for a fortnight. And you knew about it all along. When I finally realised what was going on and got him to a police station, he then did another runner, and ended up on some bloody Kidnapped-style trek across the bonnie fucking moors with you in the middle of a snowstorm. Then the next day, you didn’t even make him get in touch with his parents, and let him swan off to wherever he likes.’
‘He had some shit to sort out.’
‘Oh, grow up, Connor. He’s a mixed-up fifteen-year-old kid. They’ve all got shit to sort out, but they don’t all steal cars and leave home for a fortnight on a wild goose chase. Any idea where he actually is?’
‘Not sure. He was heading to Mallaig. Then the Outer Hebrides, maybe.’
‘God Almighty.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘Any suggestions what to say when I go back to school? “Sorry Mr and Mrs Gill, but my boyfriend let your son fuck off to the Outer Hebrides, despite the fact you were out your minds with worry about him for two solid weeks, after he bizarrely decided to follow me round the country.” How does that sound?’
There was no answer, so Connor just sat there, watching Hannah fume, trying to ignore the excruciating pain radiating from his hand.
‘I could lose my job over this, you bloody idiot,’ she said. ‘I can’t even look at you right now.’
Hannah squeezed out the booth and stormed down the stairs. Connor let her go. He deserved everything she’d said. The speed, pills, painkillers, whisky and incredible throbbing pain in his hand were all making his head rage and his sight blurry.
‘Are you just going to sit there?’ Kate asked Connor. He couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying. What was he meant to do?
‘Jesus,’ said Kate, getting up. ‘I guess I’ll go and see how she is, shall I?’
She trooped off down the stairs. After a while Connor turned to Danny and Paul.
‘Either of you pair got money for a round?’
‘I think you’ve had enough,’ said Paul.
‘Who are you, my fucking mother?’
‘Here,’ said Danny, chucking a twenty across the table. ‘Mine’s a pint of cooking.’
As Connor approached the bar, two staff materialised. He ordered pints all round and a double gin which he downed at the bar. The doors must’ve opened downstairs because punters started filtering into the club, some of them positioning themselves to get the best view for tonight’s gig, others hanging around at the bar chatting. Connor stuck the drinks on the table.
‘I’ve got to go for a pish.’
‘Don’t get lost this time, eh?’ said Paul.
‘I’ll try not to.’
He headed downstairs to the toilets where he locked himself in the first sit-down. He sat with his head in his hands for a long time.
In the other toilets, Hannah and Kate were in a cubicle, Hannah sitting wiping her eyes with a piece of toilet roll while Kate stood, gently touching her back.
‘Come on, babe, he’s not worth it.’
‘You’ve got that right.’
‘He’s king
of the arseholes.’
Hannah sniffed. ‘I thought he was fucking dead, you know. When he went missing like that, I thought maybe he’d done something stupid. You know how he’s been. Then he just swans in today, already totally loaded, and tells me he’s been with Martin and probably lost me my job into the bargain.’
‘Try not to let him get to you.’
‘I can’t help it.’
Hannah’s breathing slowed. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the pregnancy test stick. She waved it at Kate, who took it and examined it coolly.
‘Congratulations?’
Hannah laughed a sniffly laugh. ‘Thanks.’
‘Come here,’ said Kate, kneeling down and hugging Hannah firmly, the two of them awkward in the tight space of the cubicle. She straightened up, handing her back the stick.
‘How do you feel?’
‘You mean physically or emotionally?’
‘Both.’
‘Physically fine, despite that episode in Inverness. Emotionally, I’m all over the place. I have no idea how I feel about it.’
‘When are you going to tell him?’
‘When on earth can I? I’ve been putting off the test because I knew that if I was, I’d have to confront him. But he’s so bloody wasted all the time, I can’t face it.’
‘Maybe once tonight’s over,’ said Kate. ‘Maybe once the tour’s finished, things will settle down.’
‘You don’t believe that any more than I do.’
Hannah loved Connor, but she’d had enough of all the crap that went along with him. Either he sorted his shit out, or they were finished, baby or no baby. She didn’t even know if she wanted it. She might not have a fucking job as of next week, how the hell was she going to bring up a kid? But that was no excuse, millions of people did it all the time. She was scared shitless of the future, and couldn’t see a clear path ahead of her. Maybe Kate was right, maybe after tonight things would settle down, Connor would straighten himself out and they could sit down and talk about it. Yeah, right. She wasn’t holding her breath.
She got up and flushed the loo.
‘We’d better get back up there,’ she said.
‘It’ll be OK,’ said Kate, giving her another hug. Hannah wasn’t convinced.
Connor sat in the cubicle. How was it everything that had come out his mouth since he turned up this evening was a pack of fucking lies? He wanted to bolt out the door and run down the street, away from the people he loved, the people he knew he was hurting, but seemed unable not to. He was going to hurt them some more, once he split up the band. Maybe then he’d be able to sort himself out. Go home, relax, finally get some sleep. But home was Edinburgh, and Edinburgh was Nick and Shug. Hannah was the key, he needed her to believe in him. After this gig he’d be able to tell her everything. He needed to tell her everything. Maybe she would help him, maybe not. He needed help, that was for fucking sure.
There was a knock on the door. How long had he been in here?
‘Con?’
Danny.
‘Con, come on. We’re onstage in five minutes. I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with you, but you better get it together.’
Connor opened the cubicle door.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I needed a bit of time to myself. I’m fine now.’
‘Once this is over, you really need to take a look at yourself. For Hannah’s sake, if nothing else.’
‘I know.’
The thought of the gig made his stomach tighten. He couldn’t imagine being onstage and singing those songs he’d dug out of somewhere inside him, and yet he was letting himself be led back upstairs, into a hot and sweaty venue where an eager crowd was waiting to be entertained.
He felt into his pocket, stuffing the very last of the speed carelessly into his mouth and licking the powdery bag as he mounted the stairs. He let himself be led like a zombie, then somehow, suddenly, they were on the tiny Tut’s stage being greeted with cheers and whistling from three hundred fans as he automatically picked up his guitar.
All he wanted was some peace and quiet. He thought briefly that he might be able to lose himself in the songs, in the rhythms pulsing around him, this one last time. Sometimes that happened, and he’d drift off somewhere else. Not this time. Not any more, not ever again. Right there, on that cramped stage in front of three hundred people, The Ossians seemed like the most pathetic, played-out joke of a band on the planet. A useless waste of space who spent their time disturbing the air with their tedious sounds and hackneyed, clichéd, half-baked sentiments. Halfway through the opening song Connor’s monitor started feeding back. Nothing he hadn’t experienced a hundred times before, but this time the sound cut right through him. He imagined the noise as tiny particles, the reverberating molecules of air interacting with the atoms in his body, raising them to an excited state, a state in which his body could dissolve into sound itself. He felt his body reacting with the high-pitched whine from the monitor, the noise swirling around him and in him and through him as if he was a ghost, a wraith, trying pathetically to communicate with the living through the impenetrable vacuum of space. He knew he was destined to pass through this world alone, drifting like a lost spirit from place to place, never understanding or being understood, always looking for something real to latch on to.
Then suddenly everything seemed too real. The red and green lights flashing onstage were tearing at his eyes and his brain, the feedback was creeping over his skin and inside his body, wrapping itself around his chest and squeezing until he felt like his heart would explode. He realised amid the noise and the flashing that he hadn’t sung a note or touched the guitar, which hung limply round his neck. The guitar was creating unearthly shrieks of feedback as if trying to talk to the monitor at his feet, one of its own kind, like whales communicating over many miles of sea, locating each other in the murky depths of the world’s oceans. He was hanging on to the mic stand with his eyes shut tight. Why couldn’t they all just shut the fuck up? Why wasn’t anyone doing anything to stop the noise and the lights and the chaos?
He imagined himself falling through the floor, descending into a pit of hell, white hot and brutally bright, the end of every nerve in his body alive with pain, desperate for anything that would stop the sensation of living, the ability to feel. His hand pulsed with excruciating pain and hung limp at his side. It felt like it was the size of a baseball mitt, throbbing and red as if hit by a hammer in a cartoon. He opened his eyes and was shocked to see the faces of the crowd watching in confusion, looking at the frozen statue on stage. His face contorted as if he was seeing demons in front of his eyes. He felt alone. His eyes searched the crowd, looking for Martin, looking for a saviour from all this madness. He knew Martin wasn’t here, but that didn’t stop him. Then he saw him, moving slowly among the stragglers at the back of the room, gazing back at him and radiating pure, angelic light from his simple, beautiful face. Connor felt the warmth emanating from Martin right across the room, and closed his eyes to bask in it. When he opened his eyes again, Martin was gone, and he knew he’d been imagining it all along, willing Martin into existence here in this place, wishing he would come and take him to safety. Nevertheless his eyes still searched the room for that face, the maelstrom of feedback all around him and ringing in his ears.
Then he saw two other familiar faces, and his chest tightened so much he thought he might pass out. Making their way slowly from the bar towards the stage, excusing themselves through a sea of punters, were Nick and Shug. Nick was staring straight at him as he put a hand on successive shoulders to squeeze past, while Shug followed in his wake with his head down. The two of them made their way to the steps at the side of the stage and stood there, Shug stony-faced, Nick with a smile on his lips but a look of hate on his face. Connor closed his eyes for several seconds, suddenly more aware of the cacophony around him, the pounding pain in his hand. He opened his eyes, but this time the vision hadn’t disappeared. Nick and Shug were really there, and they clearly meant to d
o him some serious harm.
He felt like crying. The feedback from the monitor pierced through him and his hand raged in pain, desperate for relief. The sound of the wailing, the dissonance around him was making his hand worse, it was pulsing with angry life. He had to stop the pain and the noise he was immersed in, buried in, swamped in, drowning in like quicksand. If he didn’t do something right now he would spend the rest of his life with the mangled sound of it tearing at his ears.
His left hand went into his pocket and pulled out the gun. Immediately he felt some of the throbbing from his hand transfer to the gun as if the vibrations had been transmitted to the solid, cool metal, soaking up the pain from this monstrous extension of his feeble arm. But the sound, the swirling storm of sound, remained. He aimed at the monitor and fired once, twice, three times, surprised at how easy it was. He felt large bolts of pain shooting out from his hand with the bullets and into the monitor.
Around the edge of his vision, he vaguely sensed panic. The crowd seemed suddenly to be performing a complicated Scottish country dance at double speed. The monitor in front of him wasn’t laughing its banshee howl any more, its wire-mesh front contorted into vicious, sharp shapes. But the noise continued around him. All he wanted was some fucking peace and quiet, was that too much to ask? He turned towards his amp, but Nick came into his line of vision. He stopped. Nick was pointing a gun at him with a look which said he was more than happy to use it if it came to the crunch. Connor was pointing his own gun straight at Nick. He saw Shug behind Nick, frowning, as if he didn’t really understand what was going on. Connor felt nailed to the spot. He stood there looking at Nick, the two of them pointing guns at each other, and he sensed the panic increasing all around him, the caterwauling feedback still whirling around his body. After a period of time that Connor had absolutely no concept of, he slowly turned towards his amp and fired. The amp exploded in a shower of sparks like tiny indoor fireworks. And the feedback was gone. At last. That’s all he wanted. How simple the solution had been. They could all get on with their lives now.
He looked around. Kate, Danny and Hannah had stopped playing and were staring at him. He couldn’t understand the looks on their faces. They seemed nervous, maybe scared. Yeah, they were afraid of him. He wanted to explain there was nothing to be frightened of, he’d sorted out all the horrible noise and mess, they were now free to get on with things. He wanted to tell them everything was fine. If they all just looked out for each other from now on everything would be OK. But he couldn’t speak. And besides, he couldn’t think of the words that would make any sense of all this. He looked back at Nick and Shug, and was confused to see them being wrestled to the ground by half a dozen other guys.
The Ossians Page 30