by Sara Frost
“I told you, Dan, she’s coming with us.” Cam shook his head in annoyance and then dropped the stack he had been manhandling into the back of the van so that he could come across to Dianne and kiss her.
“Well it’s going to make it a fucking tight fit, that’s all that I can say,” Dan grumbled in his Mancunian accent, picking up his bass guitar and almost flinging it next to an amp.
“Cosy, more like.” The drummer came and stood next to Cam, reaching out a hand as he did so. “I’m Tony,” he said with a smile, his voice rolling with broad, northern Irish tones. Although considerably smaller than Cam, he held himself with a cheeky confidence, no doubt aided by his powerful if compact physique. As he spoke, Dianne noticed that he wasn’t staring at her but instead looking over her shoulder, something which caused her to frown.
Seeing her expression, Tony gave a sheepish grin. “Ah, I was just wondering if you’d come on your own.”
Dianne looked perplexed for a moment then, when she realised what he was talking about, she laughed out loud. “I’m afraid Janey didn’t join me.”
For a second, Tony looked genuinely disappointed but quickly covered it up. “Probably for the best, eh? This old heap of shit probably would break down if we crammed any more people in it. Still, she was good for a laugh, was Janey.”
“Is that all she was good for?” Dianne asked, one eyebrow raised.
Tony leaned in conspiratorially: “Well, just between you and me, she was a right dirty bitch—and I mean that as a compliment in the highest possible terms.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her next time we speak.” Something about Tony’s smile and the glint in his eye made Dianne laugh rather than take offence at his words while Cam shook his head at his friend’s remarks.
“What was that?” The final member of Black Ark, the keyboard player, had come up to see what was going on. With his long, blond hair falling across his face, and a soft, almost feminine cast to his features, at first glance he looked by far the youngest of the group, barely out of his teens. As she looked at him more closely, however, Dianne realised that he was in truth probably very close in age to the others, around his mid twenties. His accent was more clipped than the others, a registered pronunciation that could have been from anywhere in the home counties.
“I was just telling this lovely lady what a delightful time we had with her friend the other night.”
At this, the blond youth blushed and looked at her shyly before his own eyes also flickered past Dianne, evidently hoping for the same result as Tony.
“For God’s sake, you two,” Cam said with quiet exasperation, “try and keep your mind on the job and out of your pants for at least a second.
“Easy enough for you to say,” the blond keyboard player said. “From what I can see you’re going to be doing a lot of your thinking down there.”
“Oh, I’m sure we can all find the means to do the same, if this beauty is anything like her mate,” Tony said with a wink, causing Dianne to open her mouth in mock horror.
“Eh, you two, she’s mine,” Cam growled proprietarily, sliding one arm around Dianne’s shoulders.
“Yours?” she asked him ironically.
“You heard her,” Tony chipped in. “Property is theft, and all that. One for all and all for one.”
“Great,” muttered Cam, releasing Dianne from his embrace. “We’ve turned into the three fucking musketeers.”
“Ignore Tony,” the keyboard player said to her, extending his hand now for her to shake. “He’s always pushing it—it’s just his way—but he’s harmless really. Well, mostly harmless. I’m James.”
“If I didn’t push things, how on earth would you get laid, Jim?” mocked Tony, nudging his friend in the ribs. James winced, though whether it was from the nudge or name Dianne wasn’t sure.
She decided to cut across the banter for a moment. “I’m Dianne,” she told the pair of them.
“Oh, we know all about you,” Tony said with a wink.
“Indeed,” James added with a shy smile. “Someone’s been talking about you constantly since the other night.”
It was Cam’s turn to look bashful at this but before he could speak Dan called out: “Are we going to get a fucking move on, or what?”
“Ah, our host bids you climb aboard the good ship Rusty Heap O’ Shite,” Tony said with a mock bow. “May God bless all who sail in her.”
“Why, thank you, good sir,” Dianne said with a small curtsey.
Laughing, Cam offered to take her bag and Dianne gave it to him gracefully. As he placed it in the back of the mini bus, he looked more serious.
“Sorry about that, back there,” he said.
Dianne frowned. “What?”
“‘My property’ and all that bullshit. That was uncalled for.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Seeing as I was worried about whether you were going to take me to the continent and dump me in some foreign town, I think I prefer the proprietary bullshit.” She lifted her hand and pulled his face towards hers so that she could kiss him, something that made Tony whoop and James smile. Only Dan scowled at her as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Well, it’s not much,” Cam said as the rest of them clambered in among the equipment, “but it’s home from home for the next few weeks.” The bus gave a lurch as Dan began to pull away.
“Good job we all get along like a loving, close-knit family,” Tony shouted out over his shoulder. “Isn’t that the truth, Danny boy?”
“Fuck off, you Irish cunt.”
“Daniel, Daniel, not in front of the ladies, please!”
“She can fuck off as well. At the very least, I hope she’s going to take up some of the driving, otherwise she’s a complete waste of space.”
“Dan, please,” Cam grumbled. “Give it a bloody rest.”
“As you can see,” Tony cut in with a smirk, “our good friend Daniel is the life and soul of any party. You’ll have to forgive his lack of manners—he was dragged up by wolves in the back streets of Manchester.”
“No, it’s okay,” Dianne said. “Anyway, he has a point. I can drive—I mean, it’s only fair I do something.”
“You don’t want to be responsible for this death trap,” James said, grabbing onto his seat as Dan flung the bus around a corner rather more aggressively than was strictly necessary.
“I bet it’s not what you were expecting,” Cam added rather apologetically.
“No, it isn’t,” Dianne said, “but I can see I was a bit misled by the hotel—which was very nice.”
“I didn’t realise Cam took you back there to appreciate the interior design,” Tony said with a leer, causing Dianne to blush. She ignored him, however, and continued: “I can see I was a bit misled by the hotel, and so I guess I was expecting one of those big, executive coaches. I can’t see Darius Optimus driving around in anything less than that.”
“Yeah, well, unfortunately we’re not Optima,” Cam said.
“No, we’re Black Ark and this is our little white ark—well, white except for the bits of the old rust bucket that are dropping off,” Tony added.
“That fucking bastard’ll be flying there,” Dan grumbled from the driver’s seat, “while we have to go by sodding ferry.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” James said rather dreamily. “I love ships.”
This caused Tony and Cam to laugh. To hide his irritation, Dan shoved a tape into what, Dianne realised to her slight astonishment, was a cassette player on the dash of the bus. A few seconds passed while the tape engaged and then the sounds of Sympathy for the Devil began to fill the confined space.
“I love this!” Dianne exclaimed gleefully. “Back in the days when the Stones were good.”
“You mean when Brian Jones was with them,” Dan called back over his shoulder, his tone somewhat arrogant.
“Precisely,” she replied. “They were never the same after he died.”
Cam chuckled at this. “I told you, Dan, she’s a smart cookie this one. You�
��re not going to catch her out that way.”
After less than an hour of fun if not entirely comfortable travelling, Dianne was glad to stretch her legs as they boarded the ferry to Calais. Tony and James had gone ahead like a pair of gleeful puppies onto the deck while Dan moped around the van. Cam and Dianne took a more leisurely stroll to the upper decks.
“You’re a pretty mixed bunch,” she said as they watched Dover begin to recede away from them, the famous white cliffs off to one side of the port.
“What do you mean?” Cam asked, frowning and smiling at the same time.
“I mean, you’re from all over the place—the proverbial English man, Scottish man and Irish man, with a miserable Mancunian thrown in as spare.”
Cam laughed at this. “Yeah, well, we’re from all over, though for heaven’s sake don’t tell Dan he’s a spare.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, it’s probably best that you don’t refer to Tony as a paddy. All that witty repartee doesn’t entirely cover the fact he can be wound up like a tightly-coiled spring, especially when someone thinks he’s from the south. I guess Jim and I fit the English and Scots roles though.”
“Jim? I thought he prefers James.”
“He does, but he’s always been Jim to us.”
“And how long has that been?”
Cam looked thoughtful. “Getting on for five years, I guess. We met at uni.”
“Oh,” for a second Dianne felt a little uncomfortable. Cam picked it up immediately. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I didn’t have you down for the bookish type,” she remarked.
He laughed at this. “I’m not.” He grimaced. “I was doing engineering, same as Tony. For all his gutter language, Dan was training to be a doctor though he dropped out—part of the reason he’s such a miserable bastard, I reckon. If it’s books you want, best stick to Jim: he’s the one who was studying literature. What about you?”
Dianne’s discomfort increased. “Well, you know, it never worked out.”
Cam stared at her for a few moments then smiled. “Don’t sweat it,” he said, before turning his eyes towards the sea that was flowing around them. “To be honest, most of us were relatively posh kids who just went to university because that’s what we were expected to do. When we were there, we discovered we preferred the music. You’ve got to follow your dreams, after all.”
Dianne said nothing. For reasons she didn’t especially want to consider, she suddenly felt very small in ways that had little to do with her physical stature next to this giant of a man. Sensing her continuing discomfort, Cam leaned down and spoke to her quietly.
“So, what’s your story, Miss Brooks?”
“What’s to tell? I didn’t have the chance to go to uni, and dropped out of college. At that stage, I thought I could make it in a band but...” she shrugged around and looked at the sea with a grimace. “Here I am at the age of twenty-three, with nothing but a string of dead-end jobs to my name so far.”
“Twenty-three! You’re ancient!” Cam said with a laugh, but the sound of his voice was warm. “There’s still plenty of time to follow your dreams.”
She smiled at this. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Speaking of jobs, was it easy to get time off?”
She paused before answering. “Not really,” she said at last.
Cam frowned. “Not really? Then how come you’re here?”
“I quit.”
His face looked shocked at first, then filled with admiration. “You quit? Fucking respect!” He raised a hand to fist bump hers but almost immediately he became guilty. “I hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble.”
“Don’t sweat it,” she replied, mockingly repeating him. “It really was a lousy, suck-ass job. You did me a favour.”
“But how will you, you know, pay for stuff when you get back?”
Dianne shrugged. “I’ll worry about that when I get back, I guess.”
When the White Ark, as Dianne had started to mentally refer to it, rolled off the boat, Dan was starting to get anxious.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to fucking get a move on. We’ve got to be on stage at nine tonight.”
“Relax!” Tony said. “That gives us loads of time.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say. We drive like the devil to get to Paris, then are all knackered the moment we go on stage.”
“It’s okay,” Dianne said. “I’ll drive.”
“You sure?” Cam asked.
She nodded. “He’s right. You lot need to keep it together for your show. I’ll be your chauffeur. It’s the least I can do.”
“Do you even know where we’re going?” Dan sneered, unwilling to provide even the smallest thanks for her offer.
“Duh!” Dianne pulled her phone from her pocket. “No, I’m just a silly little girly. I don’t know how to use Google Maps. Any of you idiots care to tell me where we’re meant to be heading?”
Tony laughed and reached out a hand for her phone. “If you’ll be so kind, young lady, I’ll happily be your navigator.”
“I thought I was going to be riding as her wingman,” Cam said with a mock sigh. Tony stared at him.
“You need to stop thinking with that gigantic cock of yours, Mister Fraser. There’ll be plenty of time for you to go riding after our gig tonight.” Suddenly sighing, Tony turned back to Dianne. “I don’t suppose there’s still a chance for you to ask Janey to fly in, is there?”
Dianne laughed at this and James blushed, but Dan scowled. “Come on, you fucking numpties. We have to get a move on, like now!”
Tony shook his head as Dan opened the door to get out and make way for Dianne. “Now if there was someone who needs more to get laid like now,” he said quietly, “I have yet to meet him.”
After several hours driving, however, even Dan was impressed with how Dianne handled herself. His own flight to Dover had been something of a mad, reckless rush, but behind the steering wheel Dianne never lost her head. Instead, she managed to negotiate even the trickiest parts of the route with élan and they arrived in the centre of Paris with hours to spare.
“According to this,” Tony said, “the hotel’s about fifteen minutes walk away from the club where we’re playing, Notre Dame. We can drop our equipment off there and have time to freshen up before we’re on stage.”
“That’d be great. I’m starving,” said James.
“How the fuck do you stay so skinny?” Dan asked. “You’re always eating.”
“I’m not!”
“Yes you are. All you’ve been doing since we’ve been on that boat is stuffing your bloody face.”
When the pulled up before the nightclub, Dianne tried to hide her look of disappointment. Glancing around at the rest of Black Ark, she realised that they were all being less diplomatic—all but for Cam who maintained a stoic expression, his handsome face like a rock.
“Is that it?” Tony asked. “We came all this way for that?”
“What a fucking dump,” Dan grumbled.
“I’ve seen better,” James agreed.
“Come on,” Cam said with a sigh. “This is where we’ve been hired to play, and this is where we’re playing. Let’s get our stuff set up then head to the hotel.”
Certainly Notre Dame was much smaller than Dianne had expected, and somewhat dingier.
“Oh well,” she said as cheerfully as she could muster. “I guess it has the whole grunge thing going for it.”
“And Optima is such a crusty band,” Tony said sarcastically. It was the first time that Dianne had seen him looking anything other than exuberant. “Do you think Darius knows about this?” he asked Cam quietly.
Cam frowned. “He must do. I mean, it’s his management who booked the place.”
“If you say so.” Tony added nothing more, but his expression indicated that he was unconvinced.
After a sound check indicated that the sound system was at least better than the decor, they were glad to get to their digs. That was when they s
aw the hotel.
“You are fucking kidding me!” Dan lifted his hands to his face in despair, rubbing his eyes as though to make the vision of the fleapit they were booked into disappear. When he pulled his fingers away, unfortunately it remained very much where it had been before.
“I didn’t think they had no-star hotels, even in France,” Tony said.
“I’m sorry about this,” Cam said to Dianne very quietly. “This wasn’t what was agreed on at all.”
Dianne’s smile was fixed to her face. “Oh, I don’t know. Very Sid and Nancy,” she tried to sound more cheerful than she really felt.
Overhearing her, James mistook the meaning of her words. “Yeah,” he said. “Come on, guys, this is rock and roll.”
“Oh, really.” Dan was utterly sarcastic. “And do you think Mister rock-and-roll Darius Optimus will be staying here tonight?”
“This isn’t good enough,” Cam said, his face looking as though it would explode at any moment. “Come on. There’s a better place down the road. I’ll stick it on plastic and we’ll sort it out with Darius later on.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Tony asked, a look of concern on his face.
Cam didn’t look at him but, with a twist of his mouth, pulled his wallet from his pocket. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll clear it with Johnny. He wouldn’t want us staying in a dump like this.”
“Okay,” said Tony, still clearly unconvinced. “You’re the boss.” To no-one in particular he added: “I just hope you’re right.”
Chapter Seven
“This is okay, isn’t it?” Cam looked around the room slightly apprehensively.
“It’s fine—really, it’s fine.” Dianne placed one hand on his chest affectionately, indicating that he should relax.
“Better than the last place, anyway,” he said grimly.
She paused before replying. “Yeah—yes it is. I must be honest, I was wondering for a few minutes if I’d made the right choice coming along for the ride, even if I am being a freeloader at the moment.”