Street Song

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  There was a tiny silence, then a thunder of applause. I looked at my bandmates and grinned. I loved them both. We were so inside the music that it wasn’t like we were three separate people, three separate egos, at all. We were a band. And we had another song to sing.

  * * *

  ‘You were brilliant!’ Toni’s mum said. ‘I mean, I always knew you could sing, but you had that audience eating out of your hand. I’ve got some lovely photos of you.’

  There was a brief hiatus while Nasteez were setting up – there was some sort of issue with the sound desk, surprise, surprise – and we took advantage of it to get settled at her table.

  ‘Mu-um!’ Toni said. She looked round the room. ‘Oh, look,’ she said. ‘There’s a whole crowd from school!’

  Some girls waved over, and I recognised Jess from the school concert. Her hair seemed to have got even longer and shinier, to match her legs maybe.

  Nasteez started up then, with a clash of cymbals, so all we could do was wave back and slide into the seats Toni’s mum had kept for us.

  I don’t think Nasteez could really have almost got a recording deal. The lead singer spat when he sang – not in a 1976 punk way; just in a lack of salivary control way.

  ‘Well, you were much better than these guys anyway,’ Toni’s mum said.

  ‘I should hope so!’

  ‘We could make out every word you were singing. This is just noise!’

  The Nasteez lead singer gyrated and banged his mic stand up and down. I felt sorry for whoever had to sing into it next, with all that spit on it.

  Toni’s mum went to the bar and came back with halves for the girls and a pint for me.

  ‘Mum!’ Toni protested.

  I grinned. ‘Cheers, Mrs Flynn,’ I said. Maybe I was forgiven.

  ‘It’s Dr Carey,’ she said. So I guess she did do that PhD even if she didn’t go to Oxford for it. ‘But I suppose you can call me Jane.’

  I raised my glass to her. ‘I could call you “Queen Jane Approximately”,’ I said, trying to woo her. ‘That’s a Bob Dylan song. Or’ – I saw her face – ‘maybe not.’

  There was a delay before the next band – probably to repair whatever damage Nasteez had done to the equipment – and Jess and a few others came over.

  There was a lot of Omigod, you were amazing! Jess threw her arms round the girls, and then she did the same for me, leaning into me with one foot off the ground so I had to steady her and hold her properly. Which I didn’t mind. She smelled gorgeous and I was happy when she squeezed in beside me at our table, but to be honest, I was more focused on Toni and Marysia, and that lingering feeling of having performed together. We weren’t saying much, just grinning from time to time. I wished we were still on stage.

  ‘And now – give a warm welcome to – The Maloners!’ called Paddy Cann.

  ‘Oooh, Olivia’s friends,’ Jess said. ‘They’re meant to be amazing.’

  She kept up a commentary as The Maloners set up. ‘That must be Liam there on bass – oh yeah, I suppose he is quite cute – not really my type – she’s been obsessed with him for months – the drummer’s got nice arms, hasn’t he? – what did she say his name was? – Stuart – or Steve?’

  I guessed it was Olivia who’d assessed The Maloners as amazing. Compared to Nasteez they were: they could all play their instruments, and the lead singer had a strong voice. But their two songs sounded identical – not only to each other, but also to about ten things in the charts. I exchanged glances with Toni and Marysia as they went off stage, and Olivia ran to meet and snog Liam.

  ‘We’re better.’ I answered Toni’s unvoiced question in a low voice.

  ‘Thank God you made us do “You Think You Know Me”,’ Marysia said. ‘You were right about the songs needing to contrast.’

  ‘You should listen to me more often.’

  Jess was smiling and looking from one to the other of us, aware, I suppose, that she wasn’t part of it. I took her hand, just to be friendly, just to stop her feeling left out.

  OK, I took her hand because there was still a tiny stupid part of me that hoped it might make Toni jealous. Jess’s hand was slim and manicured, with long pink nails. I kept looking at Toni’s nails, painted black tonight and short on the left hand, like mine, like all guitarists’, and I wanted to touch that hand so much I squeezed Jess’s without thinking about it and she squeezed back and smiled up at me.

  The next two bands were really good, and one of them, Clio, was four girls in what Toni said were vintage dresses who did amazing harmonies and whose lyrics were quirky and clever. The lead singer was gorgeous too. Jess said she’d talked to one of them in the toilets. ‘They’ve been together for five years,’ she said, as Clio left the stage to huge applause, and Paddy Cann said there’d be a break for the judges to deliberate. ‘Apparently they have a huge online presence.’

  Polly’s Tree had no online presence, which was exactly how I wanted it to stay.

  Suddenly Toni gave a yelp. ‘They’re coming back!’

  We all exchanged glances. Marysia held her thumbs. ‘That’s what we do in Poland,’ she muttered, so I held mine too, even though I suddenly knew that I dreaded winning. Dreaded anything that was going to bring us attention. ‘Good luck,’ Jane whispered across from her table, and showed us her crossed fingers.

  There was a lot of talk from the chief judge, some bald guy whose band had got to number seven in the charts in 1992. He was skinny and small, with a strong Belfast accent, but when he started to speak you could feel his passion for music, and though the audience was wired and impatient to know who’d won, there was total silence as he spoke. He said, to be honest, the standard was very mixed, and that too many people were content with sounding like people on MTV, and that there was no substitute for practice, practice, practice and keeping it simple and honest. It was a million miles away from the way they used to go on in PopIcon, all that rubbish about stars being born and TV history being made.

  The winning band, he said, stood out for their lack of gimmickry and their energy and pure love of what they were doing.

  ‘That’s what this competition is all about,’ he said. ‘Not TV. Not image. Just kids playing their own truth. And so,’ he went on, ‘the moment you’ve been waiting for. The runner-up tonight is … Clio.’

  Whistles and claps and cheers. OK, so Clio were only second. That meant that one of the first four bands, the ones we hadn’t heard, must have been totally amazing to have beaten them. Which was perfect. As long as Polly’s Tree kept on playing. As long as I still got to be friends with Toni and Marysia. I smiled and clapped really hard as the Clio girls went on stage to get their prize, which was a piece of glass shaped like a guitar and a cheque to be spent on equipment or recording.

  ‘And the winner of Backlash Belfast 2016, representing Belfast in the Ulster Final in the Ulster Hall next month is … Polly’s Tree.’

  22

  The girls screamed and pulled me into a jumping hug. When we pulled away there were mascara-streaked tears running down Toni’s cheeks. I reached out and blotted them with my fingers. I felt her cheeks soft and wet under my rough guitarist’s fingertips.

  ‘This is what you get for being in a band with soppy girls,’ I said, and then we all fell back into our hug.

  That was the picture they printed in the Belfast Telegraph next day: you couldn’t see our faces, just Marysia’s hair flying free and our arms all wrapped round each other.

  If I could go back to one moment, and stay there for ever, it’d be that one: Marysia’s hair in my mouth; Toni’s arm across my back; her happy tears on my fingertips.

  Moments before I blew it all apart.

  23

  It was surreal. The girls kept looking at each other and shrieking, ‘We won!’ Queen Jane sploshed champagne into our glasses and we all laughed when the bubbles went up our noses.

  A skinny blonde girl pushed through the crowd, dragging a stocky, dark-haired, bearded guy. I hadn’t really expected Shania t
o show up so it took me a second or two to recognise her. ‘Oh my God!’ she shrieked. ‘Yous were brilliant!’ She turned round to the guy. ‘Joe, didn’t I tell you?’ Her big eyes shone, and I realised she was on something.

  That was Joe? Up close he looked older than me – mid-twenties, I’d have said, unless his beard made him look older than he was? Or maybe Shania wasn’t as young as I’d imagined.

  ‘Yous were brill,’ Joe said. ‘I knew yous’d win.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘We go to McGroarty’s all the time,’ he went on. ‘You should come and play there; the bands they have are crap.’

  Toni was looking quizzical, and I was suddenly glad that I had someone who was there to see me. I introduced them as friends of mine: it seemed a bit sad to say Shania was a random girl I’d met in the street, and Joe a complete stranger. Then Paddy Cann and the judges and the organisers congratulated us. Nasteez walked past with their gear, and gave us dirty looks, and we laughed more.

  It was all grand, until this guy in designer glasses came up and said, ‘Hey, well done. I’m Matt, from LiveScene BT. Can I do a quick interview?’

  ‘Back in a sec,’ I muttered.

  ‘I’ll get you a pint,’ Joe said.

  I stayed in the gents’ as long as I could. On the way out I saw Jess with her coat on.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Where’ve you been?’ She shook back her hair. ‘They’re talking to some journalist. Toni told him she picked you up in a park, completely randomly. Is that right?’

  I kissed her, mainly to shut her up. She gave a tiny giggle of surprise and then leaned into me, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss.

  It was only a kiss. She pulled away, moistened her lips and said, ‘Hmm. Get my number off Toni. My taxi’s here, unfortunately.’ She waited as if she wanted me to tell her not to get the taxi or something, but I just said, ‘Oh, you’d better go then,’ and she did, with a great swishing of hair.

  ‘Cal! Where’ve you been?’

  It was Toni.

  ‘What was that all about?’ she said, breathless.

  I shrugged, feeling my cheeks burn. ‘Toni – we won! Jess and I just had a bit of a celebratory kiss. It’s not a big deal.’

  ‘Do you do that a lot?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Randomly shag girls.’

  ‘It was a kiss!’

  ‘But you shagged that Olivia, didn’t you? I had a really interesting chat with her in the loos just now.’

  For a second I had to think who she meant. ‘Well, yeah. Once. It was nothing.’

  ‘But sex should be – well, special.’ She sounded wistful and then seemed to recover herself. ‘You shouldn’t treat girls like that. It’s degrading.’

  ‘It was Olivia’s idea. She had a condom in her pocket.’

  ‘Too much information.’ Her eyes flashed with something I couldn’t read. I wished I could have told myself it was jealousy but it wasn’t. It was more like disgust.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I was drunk. I probably wouldn’t even have remembered her name if we hadn’t met her tonight.’

  ‘Do you not see how offensive that is?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re so worked up about. We’re both consenting adults. And it was weeks ago!’

  ‘And what about that wee girl? Don’t tell me she’s a consenting adult? She’s jailbait.’

  ‘Shania? Now you’re being offensive! I’ve never touched her. I hardly know her.’

  ‘I didn’t think that mattered to you. And what about your mate Joe? Don’t tell me he hasn’t touched her?’

  She stood in front of me in the corridor which smelt of that chemical dirty-clean smell from the loos, all glowing with indignation. Her eyes sparked and her hair was damp with sweat from being onstage, her cheeks still smeared with mascara. She was fierce and lovely and we were arguing about sex.

  I bent down and kissed her.

  For few seconds she was kissing me back – or I thought she was, hands entwined in my hair. For a few seconds I registered that her lips were firmer than Jess’s, without the sweetness of lipstick – hers had worn off – but with a salty tang under the taste of champagne.

  My hands tightened round her waist, and her rosy, spicy smell was stronger than ever, and then I wasn’t thinking about Jess, or about anything, and something stirred inside me that I’d never felt before, something disturbing and delicious that I almost couldn’t bear—

  And then she yanked herself away, eyes wide and staring as if she couldn’t believe what she’d done.

  ‘I am not one of those girls,’ she said. ‘And that – that did not happen.’

  And she stalked off.

  24

  I rushed back into the bar, but the table where we’d been sitting was empty. There was no sign of Joe and Shania either. My guitar case sat across two stools, looking very abandoned, and a barman was collecting glasses. ‘They’re away, mate,’ he said.

  I grabbed my guitar and dashed outside. It was a long straight street, mostly bars and a few offices, and right at the end I could see them – Toni’s mum and aunt walking together, and Toni and Marysia beside them. They walked arm in arm, each of them carrying a guitar case in her outside hand.

  I could have run after them. If I’d been drunker, I might have. And God knows what kind of scene we’d have had in the street.

  The post-high low was hovering just over my head, and I knew when it fell it would smother me in its black cloud. But I knew how to keep it at bay. The pubs were still open. In fact I was standing right in front of one, the street littered with cigarette butts, and a pulse of rock music coming from inside. I pushed open the heavy door and lost myself in the noise and the heat and the drink.

  * * *

  Some instinct got me back to the Crossroads. I had no conscious thoughts about where I was, it was all a jumble of streets and closed-down factories and walls and gates and graffiti, and some of the kerbstones were painted and some weren’t, and then I turned a corner and recognised it. The crooked Crossroads sign winked under a streetlight. But the steps looked higher and steeper than usual. I stood at the bottom of them, frowning up at the faraway wavering door. It was hard bloody work hauling myself up those steps. I had to stop a couple of times. The rail was cold and hard under my hand. Inside me hot and swimmy and sour. All the drink sloshing around. I burped.

  I couldn’t find my key! Shit. But Beany would let me in. Beany loved me. I bladdered at the door.

  And there was Beany, pulling the door open, in a dressing gown. He looked like an angry dad. His legs were bare and hairy and so skinny for such a fat man that I found myself transfixed by them. I started shouting, ‘Hey Beany, we won, we bloody won,’ because I suddenly remembered that we had. But not Beany. That was wrong. No wonder he looked so cross. What was his name? Something beginning with M. I stumbled through the door. ‘Mervyn!’ I tried to hug him.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he said. He took a step back from me. ‘What kind of state—?’

  ‘We won!’ I said. My guitar felt heavy. I set it down and leaned against the counter because the room was swaying.

  The solid feel of the counter must have sobered me up a bit because everything shifted into sharp focus and I knew exactly where I was and why Beany was so annoyed. The clock on the wall said quarter to three.

  I also knew, with a lurch of horror and nausea, that I was about three seconds away from puking.

  I looked round for something – a bin, anything. Nothing. Spun round – maybe get back outside in time, yanked at the door handle, bloody thing wouldn’t budge.

  Too late. It spurted out, all over the door, all over the doormat, and all over my feet.

  And as I stood there, sobering up, the glass of the door icy against my forehead, I knew I’d puked all over my future at the Crossroads Hostel.

  25

  Sunday morning. Too early. Beany frowned into the tea I’d just made him.

  ‘I don’t do second chances,’ he said. ‘If anybod
y knows the rules it’s you.’

  ‘I’ve cleaned it all up. I’m not used to champagne, Mervyn. I must be allergic to it.’ I made myself sound very young and innocent.

  Beany humphed. ‘I’m allergic to people waking me up at three in the morning and boking all over my hostel.’

  I made my most irresistible RyLee face, even though I despised myself for it. ‘It was just such a big night for us. It went to my head. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So you should be,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘If anybody knew I’d bent the rules for you … I swear, son, see if you do that again – no excuses. No more chances. You’ll be out on your ear. I don’t care if it’s three o’clock in the morning. I mean it.’

  ‘I know,’ I said quietly. ‘I promise I won’t.’

  I meant it, too.

  So that was Beany sorted out. Phase one of Mission: Damage Limitation. I didn’t think phase two – Toni – would be so easy.

  I’d reached the stage of hangover where all I wanted was to lie on my bed and feel sorry for myself, but that wasn’t an option. One, because, though Beany sometimes bent his daytime lockout rule for me, I couldn’t expect it today; and two, I had to go and face Toni while I was brave enough. I felt disgusting after three hours’ fitful sleep in my clothes, and my early-morning cleaning exertions, which included washing my Converse in the pink sink in my room, so I had as long a shower as the Crossroads facilities would allow. It was still early, so there wasn’t a queue for the bathroom, and when I emerged, wrapped in a towel, I felt clean on the outside, though still pretty dodgy inside.

  I dried myself in the room I’d so nearly lost, looking at it with new affection. My clothes flung in a heap over the chair; my guitar case in the gap between bed and wall, where it fitted so perfectly; my phone charging on the bedside locker, my favourite red hoody hanging on the door, with Toni’s rainbow striped scarf over it – it was all homely and familiar now. I pulled the duvet up neatly, opened the window to let out the smell of alcohol and sweaty clothes and, leaving my guitar behind for once, grabbed my hoody and my phone and let myself out into the street.