Street Song

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  I kept replaying Toni’s arms round me, her cool hands on my burning face, her fingers in my hair. How it felt when she left.

  I tried not to remember how disgusting I was – smelly and pathetic and coughing my lungs up all over her. Would she be in Oxford by now? The clock said it was after ten but my head ached so much when I opened my eyes that I squeezed them shut again. Outside the cubicle were voices and action. Someone kept yelling out, ‘Don’t tell Jack. Don’t tell Jack.’ Over and over again.

  I’d get to stay here for a few days, I supposed, and then—

  I closed my eyes.

  * * *

  Back in the street, fighting the cough. Cars zooming, lights attacking my eyes. No. Hospital. Movement. Bright lights overhead. A lift. Swoop of nausea as the lift plunged upwards. A foreign accent telling me it was OK. Cool hands on my head. Lie still.

  * * *

  Different noises, new voices. Someone pulling at my clothes.

  ‘He’ll need a bath.’

  ‘One thing at a time.’

  ‘Cal? Cal? Can you hear me? Are you with us?’

  ‘Looks like he’s been on the streets.’

  I tried to open my eyes, but it was too hard.

  * * *

  Too hot. Shivering. Cool water. There you go. That’ll help.

  ‘Toni?’

  ‘I’m Sarah. Who’s Toni?’

  * * *

  The room stayed still and it didn’t hurt so much to keep my eyes open. I was in a ward with other beds. I didn’t look closely at the other people; the lights were low. I was hooked up to a drip. I’d vaguely known, last night, that they were doing all that. I still felt like shite, but not as spectacularly ill as last night. Two of the others were snoring.

  I closed my eyes again.

  * * *

  ‘Marysia!’

  ‘Is it OK to hug you?’

  ‘You might not want to.’

  ‘I could only catch pneumonia if my immune system was already compromised. Which it’s not.’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s – I keep asking them to let me have a shower. They gave me a bit of a wash but I still stink. I know I do.’ I could never have said that to Toni, though with Toni I’d be even more aware of how revolting I was. And much as I ached to see her, I hoped I wouldn’t be wearing this hospital gown when I did.

  ‘I don’t care.’ She hugged me tight and I relaxed against her soft warm body. There was none of the fizz I felt when I hugged Toni. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said fiercely, ‘do anything like that again.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘How could you let things get that bad? I mean – you have a family. Why didn’t you go home?’

  ‘It’s complicated …’

  ‘I can’t believe you were in our shed and we never even knew. Why didn’t you come to the house?’

  I winced. ‘I kept thinking things would get better. I knew I was sick, but I thought if I lay low for a few days it’d pass and then I could get back to busking and – I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight.’ The more I looked back at those feverish shivering days the more nightmarish and unreal they seemed. ‘Can we talk about something else?’

  ‘Where will you go when you get out?’

  ‘Don’t know. Don’t make me think about it. Tell me what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘Just exams and stuff.’ She grimaced. ‘Like you said: talk about something else?’

  In the end, we didn’t say much, especially as I had a really messy coughing fit, but having her there was the next best thing to having Toni. Easier in some ways. I wasn’t as embarrassed. Marysia held the cardboard dish and said, ‘Well, you don’t want that shit clogging up your lungs, do you?’ as if it didn’t bother her.

  ‘You’ll make a good doctor,’ I said.

  When it was time for her to go – they were really strict about visiting – I said, ‘Can you come tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t know. My mum and dad are both working late. I’m meant to be babysitting. I can probably leave Tomasz at his friend’s house, but Kryssie doesn’t have friends and Mum’ll kill me if I leave her on her own. I might have to bring her with me. That would probably set your recovery back at least a week.’

  ‘Well – that would put off having to find somewhere to go,’ I said. ‘Or I could cough up more of that delightful phlegm and scare her off.’

  Marysia smiled. ‘I thought you’d be – I don’t know, different. Sorry for yourself,’ she said, ‘but you’re just the same old Cal, aren’t you?’

  I couldn’t answer that.

  * * *

  There was a TV thing attached to the bed, but you had to put money in. I’d no phone, nothing to read. I was trying to make myself eat, but, between feeling sick, and the hospital food being pretty disgusting, that wasn’t going too well. The most interesting thing that happened was when they took out the drip. There was a small bruise where it had been.

  I was forcing down a cup of greyish tea when an older nurse I hadn’t seen before came up to me.

  ‘Cal Ryan?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  She smiled, but I could see her taking in the general grossness of my half-washed state. It’s not my fault, I wanted to say, I keep asking for a bath! ‘We’re having difficulty finding your records,’ she said. ‘I just want to check I have the correct details.’

  I hesitated. I had some vague notion that I must be entitled to some kind of healthcare in the North, but not if I didn’t exist.

  ‘That’s not my full name,’ I said.

  ‘Ah. That possibly explains it. So what’s your full name?’ She held her pen poised.

  I chewed my lip. This woman wouldn’t have heard of RyLee. But now that the time had come, I was a bit reluctant to get rid of Cal Ryan. He hadn’t been a bad guy, even if he’d messed up in the end. But he’d reached the end of the road.

  ‘It’s Ryan Callaghan,’ I said.

  She started to note this down on her clipboard. ‘Any middle names?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, since there was no help for it. ‘Ryan Lee Callaghan.’

  57

  Marysia came again, dragging the sulky-looking Krystyna with her. Krystyna flumped into the only chair, clutching Heat magazine and an asthma inhaler. She fiddled with her phone.

  ‘She was meant to wait in the canteen but she won’t go there on her own because she said men keep looking at her.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling, and I started to smile, but then remembered Shania. They took turns. I shivered. ‘She watches too much TV,’ Marysia went on. ‘Kryssie, sit over there and don’t earwig.’

  Kryssie gave her the middle finger and then pointed at her earbuds. She shuffled backwards in her chair until she was as far away as possible.

  ‘Sorry,’ Marysia said. ‘It was the only way I could get away.’

  ‘Have you heard from Toni?’

  Marysia nodded. ‘She should be home anytime. She thinks it went OK. I bet she was brilliant, though.’

  ‘She was brilliant the other night,’ I said. ‘I mean – I know she’s squeamish, and I was pretty gross, but – she was amazing. Really – well, caring.’

  Kryssie sucked loudly on her inhaler.

  ‘Well, you know why, don’t you?’ Marysia looked at me coolly with her wide-set grey eyes. ‘She loves you.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ I nearly said, I wish. ‘That’s insane! I drive her mad—’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. And you love her too, don’t you?’

  I opened my mouth to protest, but closed it again. Because all I had left was truth. I looked down at my hands.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Kryssie sucked on her inhaler again. Noise leaked from her earbuds, a tinny beat with a high vocal; it didn’t sound like real music at all. I couldn’t believe she was just sitting there like a cow chewing the cud, reading her celebrity gossip and not even looking at us.

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ Marysia said. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘The problem
? Well – aren’t you and Toni – you know?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A couple?’

  Marysia laughed. ‘No! What made you think that?’

  ‘Everything! You’re always – hugging, and calling each other babe and – you know … all that.’

  ‘That’s what girls are like, Cal! Toni and I are best friends. But not lovers!’

  Kryssie didn’t even look up at the word lovers.

  I tried to make sense of this new reality. ‘So you’re not gay?’

  ‘Ah,’ Marysia said. She stopped laughing and sucked in her lips. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘So …’ This was too complicated for me.

  When Marysia spoke again her voice was low and serious. ‘I – I’m gay,’ she said. ‘Toni’s not. But we’ve been best friends for years and for a long time she was the only one who knew, so …’ She shrugged. ‘She’s protective of me.’

  ‘But being gay’s not a big deal,’ I said. ‘Not these days. Being gay’s cool.’

  Marysia raised her eyebrows. ‘Maybe in your world, Cal.’ She looked at her sister and continued, in little more than a whisper. ‘My family are very traditional. Very Polish. Very Catholic. And even at school – you say it’s cool to be gay, but you’ve never had to deal with the bigots and the haters.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘It’s not all rainbows and Pride,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to be who I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to shout about it just yet. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Yeah.’ More than she realised. ‘So your parents don’t know?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet. Only Toni – and you now, and – well, I’ve been seeing someone. Katie. I met her at a group I’ve started going to.’ She blushed.

  ‘So Toni – she’s not—?’

  ‘Definitely not.’ Marysia laughed. ‘I think,’ she went on, ‘that she sometimes wishes she was – you know, part of her’s a bit annoyed with herself for being heterosexual. It’s so ordinary. But’ – she sounded serious again – ‘she might not admit it, but she’s been in love with you for ages. That’s why she was so hurt and angry when you let us down.’

  ‘And’ – I could hardly bear to ask – ‘is she still?’ I looked down at the blue bedspread.

  ‘Am I still what?’ asked Toni’s voice.

  ‘Ah,’ Marysia said. ‘Toni! He wants to know if you’re still angry with him. Or still in love with him. I’m not sure which.’

  Toni, in a smart black dress I’d never seen before – she must have come straight from the airport – looked at me. ‘Both,’ she said.

  58

  ‘So,’ Marysia said. ‘We’ll give you a bit of space. Come on, Kryssie.’

  The curtains hadn’t parted behind them before Toni’s lips fluttered against mine. It was much gentler than our first kiss, and it went on for much, much longer. Even when we had to stop – because I hadn’t enough breath to keep going – she didn’t move away.

  She sat down beside me on the bed, holding my hand, rubbing her thumb over my calloused fingertips.

  ‘I didn’t think that would ever happen again,’ I said.

  ‘I was scared it would.’

  ‘Scared? I’m not that bad, am I?’

  ‘I mean – I didn’t want to fall for you. You were too like …’ She looked down at our hands.

  ‘Like Anto?’ I suggested.

  ‘Maybe. I was always so scornful of my mum – falling for such a loser.’

  ‘Hey! I’m not a loser.’ I snatched my hand away.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She reached and took it again. ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant, you were another—’

  Musician? Free-spirited troubadour? Actually, my loser credentials were pretty strong.

  ‘I let you down,’ I said, just to get in first.

  ‘Yes. That really hurt. It was easier just to hate you.’

  ‘Can I tell you what actually happened?’ I explained about Shania. Already she seemed like someone from another life.

  ‘I told you she was trouble,’ Toni said. ‘Well. In trouble.’ Then her voice softened. ‘Poor kid. So you were helping her? When you said her name I – I don’t know, I assumed—’

  ‘I couldn’t just abandon her. And that’s how I ended up with nowhere to stay.’

  ‘But – I’d have understood that,’ Toni said. ‘If you’d explained.’

  ‘In fairness, I did try.’

  We looked at each other. Someone out in the ward rang a bell for a nurse. There were tiny flecks of green in her hazel eyes. I’d never noticed before.

  ‘In fairness,’ she said at last, ‘you didn’t have a brilliant track record. You said Shania and I – I didn’t really listen to the rest. Because I can’t deal with being messed around. I told you about my dad – I saw what it did to my mum. All the lies. Having a whole secret life. So – no secrets?’

  ‘No secrets.’

  I was just about to kiss her again when the curtains swished open.

  ‘Have you two been snogging the whole time?’ Marysia said. ‘Sorry,’ she went on. ‘Kryssie thinks she dropped her inhaler. She wouldn’t come on her own.’

  Krystyna pouted in the gap between the curtains.

  ‘Look for it,’ Marysia snapped. Krystyna sighed and looked round the chair where she’d been sitting. ‘It’s not there.’

  ‘Try under the bed.’

  Krystyna bent over and looked under the bed, gave an exclamation, reached under it and came up again, clutching a blue inhaler. Then she stopped. She looked closely at the bottom of the bed where my notes were. Nosy little cow.

  ‘That’s so weird,’ she said, sounding more animated than I’d ever heard her. ‘You’ve got exactly the same name as …’ She frowned, and came up right up beside me, her fishy eyes round in her pale face.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ she said. ‘You are him, aren’t you? You’re RyLee? Ahhhh! Selfie!’ She pulled out her phone and before anyone could stop her, had placed her face beside mine and snapped a couple of pictures.

  ‘What the—?’

  ‘Nobody’s going to believe this!’ she said, beaming all over her stupid face. ‘I can’t wait to share this!’

  ‘Don’t.’ My voice was hoarse. ‘Don’t you dare.’ I grabbed her phone, and then flopped against the cold pillow, suddenly exhausted.

  Toni looked from me to Krystyna to Marysia. ‘Can someone tell me what’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Who the hell is RyLee?’

  59

  ‘He’s nobody,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t exist any more.’

  ‘You just disappeared!’ Kryssie said, her eyes glittering in her round face. ‘Some people said you were back in rehab; some people said you were in jail; some people said you were dead.’

  I gave a short laugh. ‘That suggests at least three people were even interested, which is a definite exaggeration.’

  ‘I was. I loved PopIcon. Have you met anybody famous? Did you really crash that car? Did you have millions of girlfriends? Do you still do drugs? Marysia says you ended up on the street? Oh my God, this is such a good story.’

  I closed my eyes. ‘Can you make her go away?’ I was still clutching her phone.

  ‘This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me,’ Kryssie shrieked. ‘Though no harm to you, but you’re not that hot any more. I suppose you’re too old.’

  ‘Will someone tell me what this is about?’ Toni asked. She was staring at me as if she’d never seen me before.

  Kryssie started burbling about PopIcon and its teen winner, and how his mentor on the show had ended up marrying his mum, and people had said it was all a fix, and then the show was cancelled and RyLee had crashed and burned and been dropped by his record company before even releasing an album, and now nobody ever heard anything about him. It was a pretty accurate account. I wanted to run away, but all I could do was lie there and listen.

  ‘Cal? I take it this is all rubbish?’ Toni asked, her eyes wide.

  I blinked back sudden stupid tears. She would de
spise me enough without me actually acting like someone on one of those shows. I remembered my first televised audition. ‘You’re only sixteen; they love it if you’re vulnerable,’ one of the production team advised me. ‘So think about your granny dying or your dog being put down or something. Have you ever been bullied? Because that always goes down well. But don’t actually sob – a few attractive tears will be perfect.’ I hadn’t been able to think about anything sad, and I’ve never been a crier. But now I couldn’t stop the tears running down my face. The only good thing was I still had Kryssie’s phone. I bent over it, and deleted the two pictures.

  Marysia grabbed the phone. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said grimly. ‘She’s not getting it back.’ She put it in her bag.

  A nurse appeared and stared at us. ‘What’s going on? You’re disturbing the whole ward.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Toni said. ‘Kryssie was – she’s leaving now.’

  ‘I’ll have to ask you all to leave if you don’t—’

  ‘No!’ I wiped my face, and sniffed, which probably didn’t count as attractive crying. ‘Not Toni and Marysia. I need – I need to talk to them.’

  ‘Go and wait in the canteen, Kryssie. Get yourself a Coke.’ Marysia handed her a pound coin.

  Kryssie stomped off. The nurse looked at me. ‘Fifteen minutes,’ she said. ‘And keep it calm. You don’t want to relapse, do you?’ She went out and closed the curtains for us.

  ‘So?’ Toni asked. ‘Is that true?’

  I nodded. ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘So you’re – some kind of reality show pop star?’ Her words dripped with derision and disbelief. ‘You were on TV and everything? And you didn’t tell us? You lied about who you were?’

  ‘Why?’ Marysia asked.

  ‘I knew you’d despise me. I despised me – him. When I met you that day, we had this instant, well, connection – and it was all about the music. I’d been a so-called professional and it had never been about the music. I knew what you thought about things like PopIcon, so I – I just didn’t tell you. And then – it all went too far.’