Street Song

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  17

  ‘Are you sure it’s not just nerves?’ Toni sounded more rattled than I’d ever known her.

  Marysia shook her head, clutching her stomach. ‘You know what my periods are like.’

  ‘Um – I should probably start carrying the gear in,’ I said.

  ‘If you’re going to be in Polly’s Tree you’ll have to learn not to freak out at the P-word,’ Toni snapped. ‘Do you want some ibuprofen?’ she asked Marysia.

  ‘I took some already. I’ll be fine.’ She didn’t look fine. Her face was the colour of cottage cheese and even her floaty short blue dress looked like it was weighing her down.

  ‘When you get on stage, the adrenalin will kick in,’ I said.

  ‘What would you know? Have you ever had crippling period pains?’ Toni demanded.

  ‘I’ve played with a hangover.’

  ‘That’s hardly the same.’

  ‘Guys, can we not fight?’ Marysia begged. ‘Cal’s right – the adrenalin will kick in.’

  We had to do a soundcheck with one of the music teachers. It was funny being surrounded by leads and mics again, sort of homely, and part of me felt meanly glad that Toni clearly hadn’t much of a clue.

  ‘The hall looks huge from here, doesn’t it?’ she said, giving a little shiver.

  I’d been thinking that it looked kind of small, but I said, ‘It’ll be grand.’

  Toni looked down at her denim shorts, black tights and DMs. ‘Maybe I should have worn a dress like Marysia,’ she said. She chewed her lip, rubbing off half her lipstick. I felt suddenly desperate to say something reassuring but the only words in my head were, You look beautiful. Those black tights make your legs look amazing and it’s all I can do not to touch you. I fiddled with a lead I’d already checked. ‘Don’t be nervous,’ I said. ‘It’ll be brilliant.’

  Waiting backstage – a music classroom – was the opposite of brilliant. A folk group diddly-deed for hours on stage, which Toni clearly hated. She kept asking Marysia if she felt OK, and Marysia got so fed up that she went outside.

  Small dancing girls shrieked and drank Coke and dashed around. Two plain girls bustled about with clipboards. A group of girls in short metallic dresses and stilettos kept looking over at me. One of them, with a huge mane of brownish-gold hair and endless tanned legs, smiled in a way that no girl had smiled at me since Kelly. I’d have given anything for Toni to look at me like that.

  ‘Who are they?’ I asked Toni.

  ‘They do really crappy covers to a backing track,’ she said. ‘Hey – you’d better be focused on our music, and not on Jess’s legs.’

  ‘Relax. It’s fine.’ The truth was, those girls were like loads of girls I’d known in the RyLee days. Cal Ryan had no more than a healthy male interest in them. I took a swig of water from a bottle of Ballygowan and leaned back in one of the too-small chairs, and looked over to where Jess and her clones were practising dance moves.

  ‘Should I go and check on Marysia?’ Toni said.

  ‘She said she was going out for some air. You just wind her up.’

  ‘I suppose.’ She chewed her lip, smudging her lipstick even more. ‘I’m just nervous. And – well, I’m pretty hopeless with sick people.’

  ‘Remind me never to get sick, then.’

  The clipboard girls bounced up to tell us we were on after the year nine dancers.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Toni said.

  ‘It’s going to be brilliant.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop saying that.’

  But I was right.

  Even though it was only a school concert, it felt real. I hadn’t expected the lights to be so bright and hot, or the hall beyond the stage to be so dark. Marysia’s family were all out there somewhere, and Toni’s mum and some of her friends. I had a sudden feeling of emptiness that there was nobody in the audience for me. Beside me, Marysia looked pale in the spotlight but her hair shone, and the light played on the black gloss of her bass. On my other side Toni, plugging in her guitar, looked small and determined and wonderful.

  She stepped up to her mic. ‘We’re Polly’s Tree, and this is “Plastic Girls”. One, two, three …’

  And then it was just us and the music. When Toni realised how good the mic made her voice sound, she started really playing with it. She could stand close and almost whisper and she sounded amazing and echoey. I tried not to look too much at her lips against the mic. Marysia’s bass underpinned the song and even when Toni was slow on a few chord changes my lead guitar was there to cover it up. We all helped each other. I’d never had that on stage before. I’d always been alone.

  The applause was intoxicating: clapping, a few cheers. I turned to both Marysia and Toni and grinned and they grinned back. Toni stood beaming in the spotlight, and forgot that she was meant to be announcing the next song, so I stepped up to my mic and said, ‘Thanks. This is called “You Think You Know Me”,’ and Toni caught my eye and smiled a gorgeous slow smile and the stage was the world and we were all the people in it.

  It seemed to last for ages and yet be over in seconds, and then we were in the wings, with a little girl dressed as Dorothy, clapping and telling us we were great and she wished she didn’t have to follow us.

  ‘Ah, our first groupie!’ I said, pulling one of her dark plaits. ‘I love your ruby slippers.’

  ‘Hey.’ Toni was beside me. ‘No flirting now. Shelby doesn’t just look twelve because of the plaits and the gingham, she actually is twelve,’ she said, but she was smiling. ‘You were fantastic.’

  ‘No, you were fantastic.’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘Was I not fantastic?’ Marysia asked in a plaintive voice.

  ‘Yes!’ Toni pulled us all into a sweaty group hug.

  From the stage we could hear Shelby singing ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ in a sweet high voice.

  We were all hyper, hugging and laughing, but when we went back into the classroom to get our guitar cases, Marysia sat down heavily on one of the desks and groaned. ‘Owww. I think the adrenalin just wore off.’

  ‘But we’re going out for a drink.’ Panic stabbed me at the thought of the evening ending. I wanted to sit in a bar, reliving every note, every word of the performance, prolonging this wonderful high.

  Marysia shook her head. ‘I need a hot water bottle and my bed. I’m going to catch Mama and Tata for a lift. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.’

  Toni looked at me. ‘I don’t want to go home yet. Do you?’

  ‘No way. Going straight home on your own after a gig – especially your first gig – that’s not allowed.’

  ‘There’s a post-concert party but—’

  ‘It’ll be crap. So take me somewhere amazing.’

  The South Tavern wasn’t exactly amazing; it was a quiet suburban pub with a middle-aged crowd, but it was nearby, and easy to walk to, our guitar cases bumping together. Toni could have given hers to her mum to take home, but somehow I knew she loved walking with it, being seen with it, looking like a musician.

  ‘It’s a shame Marysia had to miss out,’ she said, once we were settled in a corner, the guitar cases under the table, and two pints of cider on it. I didn’t disagree out loud; and I didn’t ask, Look, what’s the story with you two? because I didn’t want anything to risk this fragile high. We clinked glasses, and I downed about a quarter of mine in one go. Toni sipped more cautiously.

  ‘That’s better,’ I said, wiping my mouth. ‘Must have sweated out about a pint of liquid.’

  ‘Nice.’

  I leaned back in the chair. ‘I’m glad you came out,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t have stood just going back to the hostel on my own. You know – you feel so high; you don’t want to come down.’

  ‘Is your hostel not full of fit Australian girl backpackers? You mean to say you haven’t been having loads of really meaningful, spiritual experiences?’

  ‘Hardly. You should have seen what I had to clean up this morning!’ I started telling her, hoping to impress her with my hard work
.

  ‘Stop it!’ Toni said. ‘I don’t want to hear about – ugh!’ She wriggled her fingers in disgust. ‘I don’t know how Marysia can want to do medicine.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So what’s your ambition? I mean – what will you do after your gap year? Uni?’

  I shook my head quickly. ‘Haven’t got the qualifications.’

  She wrinkled her forehead. ‘But you’ve left school. You’re older than me.’

  ‘Didn’t finish sixth year.’

  ‘How come?’

  I wrinkled my nose. ‘Boring story.’

  ‘I have a high boredom threshold.’

  ‘Well, I sort of dropped out.’

  She was silent for a few seconds. ‘Why?’ she asked.

  I took a long draw on my pint. I really didn’t want to tell her this. But something about being on my own with her, having shared that magic time on stage, something about not having been able to talk to anyone for ages, made me want to be truthful. Or at least semi-truthful. ‘I had a few – um, issues.’

  ‘What sort of issues?’

  ‘Substance issues.’

  ‘Ah. Like what?’ I could tell she was trying hard to sound cool, but that she was a bit freaked.

  I sighed. ‘This and that. Pills mostly. I wasn’t really addicted,’ I added quickly, because her expression had graduated from a bit freaked to properly shocked. ‘Not the hard stuff. I just partied too hard and it all got a bit out of control, so they packed me off to this place for a few months, and now it’s fine.’ I drained my pint.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I looked at the empty glass. ‘OK, I like the odd drink. But I haven’t touched anything illegal for – well, ages. And since I’ve been up here I’m not even tempted. Last year things were so – complicated.’ I wished I could tell her how complicated, but I couldn’t. Apart from anything else, I didn’t want to sound all, Poor me, I couldn’t take the pressure. ‘And now life’s simple,’ I went on. ‘I play my music, earn enough to stay at the hostel. It’s grand.’ It sounded pretty aimless even as I said it, and Toni might not have meant to look disapproving, but she did. ‘Not everybody’s a high achiever like you, Toni.’

  She twisted her glass. ‘Who’s they? You said they packed you off to rehab.’

  I didn’t answer for a bit. ‘My mum and stepdad. He’s a bit of a control freak and one of the things he liked controlling was me. That’s another reason to stay up here. He wanted me to go back and finish school but – I don’t know; I feel too old now.’

  ‘But you can’t just give up your education. You don’t imagine,’ she added, as if I were about ten, ‘that Polly’s Tree is suddenly going to be discovered or anything, do you? I mean, we’re great, and we’re even better since you joined, but Marysia and I – well, we’re not naïve. We don’t have dreams of stardom or anything.’

  I laughed. ‘No, Toni, I have absolutely no dreams of stardom. Now, it’s definitely your round.’

  While she was away at the bar, the two yummy mummies at the next table, all blonde bobs and Boden, started chatting to me, and I used the old RyLee charm just to see if I still had it. Their lip-glossed mouths drooped when Toni showed up.

  ‘You’re in there,’ she said, when they turned away. ‘If you like older women.’

  ‘They’re meant to be more grateful. But I like them young and fresh.’

  ‘We’re seriously going to have to work on your attitude to women,’ she warned.

  ‘Maybe at the same time as we work on your sense of humour?’

  She smirked.

  ‘So what do you want?’ I asked. ‘If it’s not rock stardom?’

  ‘Well – uni, obviously.’ Yes, of course it was obvious for someone like Toni, who was clever and focused. ‘I want to be a lawyer. Oxford, maybe.’

  ‘That sounds like harder work than cleaning the Crossroads, even after a stag night.’

  ‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘It’s serious pressure.’

  ‘You sound like you don’t really want it?’

  She looked into her glass. ‘I think it’s more my mum’s dream. She had a place to do a PhD in Oxford. And then she met my dad, and fell madly in love, and got married, and had me, and stayed here instead because he wouldn’t move to England. Only Dad ran off with a fiddle player from Galway.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Oh – I was eightish. Old enough to know what was going on.’ She took a long sip. ‘And it’s not like the Galway fiddler was even the love of his life – there’s been I don’t know how many since then. It’s like – he always just went for what he wanted. And Mum – well, she went for him, but she lost out on other stuff.’

  ‘And she blames you?’

  ‘No, not blames. She wants me to have more options than she did. I mean – mums always do, don’t they? I bet yours didn’t want you to be a druggie drifter.’

  ‘Not exactly how I’d describe myself.’ My lips tightened.

  ‘Oh God, Cal – I’m sorry.’ She grabbed my arm, but only for a few seconds. ‘It’s not how I’d describe you either. What I mean is – does she mind you being up here?’

  ‘She hasn’t said anything about it,’ I said truthfully. I sipped my pint, more slowly than the previous ones. I felt self-conscious now she knew more about my past. Now that she saw me as a druggie drifter. ‘My mum was in a band in the nineties. Just covers in pubs, but she always loved music. Always wished she’d gone further with it. But she had me and that kind of stopped her. My dad was around for a lot less time than yours – like about eight years less. But she was glad when I got into music. And my stepdad – well, he was kind of into music too. But he’s a bastard.’ And that was all I wanted to say about Ricky. I twirled my fingertip round the top of my glass and the silence felt heavy around us.

  ‘Well, my dad’s a cheater and a liar,’ Toni said.

  ‘Sounds like a country song,’ I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  ‘Maybe we should be better at having our own dreams,’ Toni said. ‘So what’s yours?’ She smiled at me, her eyes big and starry, her cheeks pink, a little drunk; and I was a little drunk too, and very aware that the night had to end soon, and the only dream I could think of was the one where she felt about me like I felt about her. I stretched out my hand towards hers on the table.

  Before I could touch her, she said, ‘I should go,’ and pushed her glass away.

  ‘I’ll walk you home.’

  We were silent on the short walk to her house. It was in darkness, the street silent. I couldn’t help looking up at the window of the room I’d stayed in and thinking how much cosier it would be to be snuggling down there, with Toni next door, than walking another two miles to the Crossroads.

  ‘See you Sunday.’ We had a rehearsal in Marysia’s shed. I wanted to hug her – two hours ago all three of us had been tangled together in a sweaty band hug – but the high was over now, and she was looking up at me with tired, gritty eyes and swinging her guitar case like she couldn’t wait to get inside.

  One of the things about being in there was learning to be more mindful of what they called your triggers. And most of the time I didn’t think about it because, like I’d told Toni, I didn’t have any issues now. But I recognised the sour icy feeling that was creeping from my core and making me irritated with stupid things like a drunk man reeling down the street opposite me singing ‘My Way’, which an hour ago I’d have found funny, and maybe even harmonised with. It was my old enemy, the post-gig low. Which often followed the post-gig high.

  RyLee used to do all sorts of daft stuff to keep it at bay, even when he was being driven home by a smug/raging/critical (depending on how the gig had gone) Ricky. Cal Ryan had more sense. OK, he was slightly pissed, and he had a lump of weed tucked away, but he never thought about using it – and he certainly wasn’t shagging some random girl outside a bar.

  Because he was falling harder and harder for the girl he’d just walked home.

  18

  The Int
ernet café was dark and smelled of sweat. I seemed to spend a lot of this new life being grateful for places I wouldn’t have been seen dead in before. If you’d asked me a month ago if Internet cafés even still existed, I’d have said no, not in the developed world. The Crossroads had Wi-Fi but that was no good for someone whose proper phone was at the bottom of the Liffey. I hadn’t been online since the day I’d borrowed Toni’s phone and checked that Ricky was alive. I hesitated before logging on to my email.

  You have 79 unread emails.

  I deleted all the ones telling me I hadn’t been on Facebook lately, and the ones trying to sell me Viagra, and that left 26. A message from Kelly – I had a moment of thinking, Who? – telling me I was a shit and she never wanted to see me again. I don’t know why I bothered to read it. Three from Ricky that I deleted unread, and the rest from Mum.

  I’d been trying not to let myself think about Mum. But my talk with Toni had made me feel terrible about leaving her without a word. The cumulative effect of her emails made me feel worse. It started with Please come home, son. Ricky’s very angry but he’ll let bygones be bygones.

  Went through I don’t where you’ve gone, Ry. Ricky won’t let me report you missing because he knows there’ll be bad publicity. That’s the last thing you need. (By which she meant, the last thing Ricky needs.)

  And then, We know you’re OK because of the activity on your bank account. Ricky’s reported your card stolen. We know you’ll be home when you run out of cash.

  And then Ricky hasn’t spoken to your friends because we don’t want to run the risk of them talking to the press. This is for your protection! You’re lucky Ricky didn’t press charges for you assaulting him.

  Ricky, Ricky, Ricky. Yeah, she cared about me, and even missed me, but it was obvious what mattered most. I gave up after that. Clicked Delete All. Then I composed this.

  Hi Mum. Sorry about the silence. I lost my phone and it’s not easy to get online. And I’m sorry about the way I left. I panicked. I didn’t say I was sorry for hitting Ricky. But I’m fine. I have friends and a place to stay. Don’t ask me to come home. Ricky wants to control me too much. I know I’ve put you through a bad time. Again. Please don’t worry about me. I promise I’m fine. I read it over and then added: AND I’M NOT TAKING ANYTHING. NOT EVEN TEMPTED. xxx