Street Song

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  ‘We’ll get paid in cheap wine and goodwill.’

  ‘That’s OK. Only’ – I was going to have to face this – ‘what am I going to do for a guitar? Mine was kind of wrecked, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Pretty wrecked,’ she said. She looked as if she was about to say something else, but closed her mouth.

  ‘Could someone lend me one?’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone.’

  ‘Do you not have an old one you learnt on?’

  She shook her head. ‘Gave it to a charity shop.’

  ‘You could just sing and let me play?’

  ‘No way! Number one, the sound’s too thin with one guitar – you heard us at the Ulster Hall. And number two’ – she grinned – ‘well, you spent a lot of time making me a better guitar player. I’m not going to go back to just singing.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  It was staring me in the face, of course. In my bedroom in Dublin was my old guitar, the cheap Westfield I’d had since I was about eleven. It was pretty shit – it would be a comedown after my lovely Taylor – but it would be better than nothing.

  And I couldn’t put off facing that room, and Ricky, for ever.

  62

  For a moment, when I saw the skip halfway along the road, I panicked. Was it too late? Had Ricky chucked all my stuff out just to make a point? Then I realised that it was actually outside the house next door, and was only full of old windows.

  ‘Take your time,’ Anto said, when he’d parked his rusty Primera outside. ‘I have my paper here.’ He looked up at Ricky’s house, the white mansion shining against the dusky sky. ‘That must’ve cost a few quid, eh?’

  I swallowed. I was going to have to walk through those wrought-iron gates, up that driveway, ring the doorbell – he knew we were coming – and face Ricky.

  ‘Three million,’ I said in a strangled kind of voice.

  ‘Jaysus! And you sleeping in a cardboard box.’

  ‘Dad! He wasn’t—’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. I wondered if Toni realised that she‘d got her tactlessness from Anto, as well as red hair and music.

  We didn’t speak on the way up the drive. I could see Toni’s mouth open to comment – on the top-of-the-range Merc on the driveway, the topiary in the shape of an electric guitar – but she didn’t form any words. I couldn’t have replied. With every step, my stomach shrank and my heart swelled.

  Ricky opened the door so quickly that I knew he’d been clocking us walking up the drive. I couldn’t help looking for a scar on his forehead but it was smooth. Botox smooth.

  His eyes lingered over Toni as if assessing her for one of his girl bands. She stared back boldly.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Not your usual style, Ry.’

  I tightened my grip on her hand, but she didn’t need me to defend her. ‘Yeah, he’s gone upmarket,’ she said, and Ricky’s eyes bulged.

  We went into the pale gleaming hall. It all looked the same. I remembered standing at the door watching Kelly leave. ‘I hear you’ve been busking,’ Ricky said, ‘and playing in some kind of amateur set-up … bit of a comedown, eh? How are the mighty fallen! But then, you were never going to make it without me.’

  Ryan was inside me. Ryan cringed. You’re right, Ryan thought. I didn’t make it. And then Cal drew himself up. He was taller than Ryan. He was actually, he realised, taller than Ricky.

  ‘The opposite,’ I said. ‘Playing proper music, with proper people. Being my own person. Having freedom.’

  Ricky laughed. ‘I hear that went well. The freedom of the streets. The romance of the roads. I suppose you can always write a song about it. Don’t think you can come crawling back to me though.’

  ‘Come on, Toni.’ I pulled her after him, up the wide shallow staircase, and into my old room. I pushed the door shut and leaned against it, breathing hard.

  ‘I can see why you hit him,’ Toni said. She went to hug me but I couldn’t let her.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Let’s just get the stuff.’

  The room had been dusted and tidied since I left, and looked clean and impersonal. But still full of stuff. My MacBook on the desk, the shelves of old schoolbooks and some music magazines. I opened the built-in wardrobe and stood looking at the rows of clothes. It was funny to see all this designer stuff – shirts and jumpers and a couple of neat racks of boots and shoes – I’d got so used to wearing the same few pairs of jeans, over-washed T-shirts and hoodies, and the old Converses which were so badly trashed that Jane had bought me a new pair for an early Christmas present.

  ‘I don’t need all this.’ I imagined pulling all the clothes off the rails and having them drown me. ‘My new place is tiny.’

  I was moving in the new year – not to a hostel, thankfully. One of Jane’s colleagues let rooms to students and his current one had just dropped out of uni so he was happy to let the room to me. I even had a job, at the community centre where Marysia’s LGBT group met, teaching guitar to beginners. It was only a few hours a week, minimum wage, but it’d be a start. And it would help me with my application for a youth work course in college.

  ‘Take your favourite stuff,’ Toni suggested. ‘No, actually’ – she became all practical – ‘take everything, and sell what you don’t want. This is all top gear. No point in leaving it for him.’

  I gave a small laugh, which broke the tension. ‘Good plan.’

  We busied ourselves filling bags.

  My old guitar looked worse than I remembered. And it was blue. I hadn’t forgotten it was blue, but it looked bluer and crapper than I remembered. The strings were corroded and when I played a chord we both winced. But it was a guitar. It didn’t have a case, so I wrapped it in a coat and set it by the door with the other stuff. When I turned round Toni was unhooking the RyLee photo from the wall.

  ‘Ugh. Don’t.’ I turned away.

  ‘No. Look.’

  ‘I don’t need to look.’

  ‘You do,’ she insisted.

  And she shoved it in front of me. There was the stage with the PopIcon logo in the background. RyLee was printed across the bottom in a faux-handwriting font. It wasn’t my writing. RyLee, with no guitar, grinned out at the camera, his hair gelled into a shape that must have been fashionable a couple of years ago.

  ‘Just leave it,’ I said, ‘or smash it.’

  ‘No way,’ Toni said.

  Still holding the photo, she put her arms round my waist, resting her chin on my shoulder. ‘You were quite cute,’ she said, ‘in a generic sort of boyish way. I mean, I wouldn’t have fancied you then.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Whereas now’ – she cupped my face in her hands – ‘you’re kind of gorgeous. In a grown-up kind of way. And I love you.’ She kissed me. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘He’s still part of you.’

  63

  ‘We’re just going to swing by my dad’s,’ Toni said. ‘We’ve loads of time before the train.’

  ‘I don’t know how you’ll get all that on the train,’ Anto said. ‘I’d be happy to drive you to Belfast.’

  ‘Dad, this car’ll do well to get back over the Liffey, let alone up the M1,’ Toni said. ‘No offence,’ she added quickly.

  Anto’s house was just round the corner from the park where Toni and I had picked each other up in September. Its greying curtains and weed-filled path made me wonder how Jane and he could possibly have lived together.

  ‘I take it Bernie’s left you again,’ Toni said, when Anto opened the door onto a small hall full of speakers, leads and junk mail. ‘Dad, not having a woman around isn’t an acceptable excuse for living in a pigsty.’

  Anto shook his head at me. ‘Is she this bossy with you?’ he asked.

  I looked at Toni and laughed. ‘Sometimes.’

  He reached over and ruffled Toni’s hair. ‘Come on, I’ll put the kettle on. I’m not totally helpless. And no, Bernie hasn’t left me. She’s just helping her mother out. She had an operation, women’s problems. Bernie’s away out to Ball
ymun to look after her. It was either that or have her ma here.’ He shuddered. ‘And if you think Toni’s bossy …’

  He went off into the kitchen and Toni and I went into the small living room that looked smaller because of the guitars on the walls and on stands – four of them, though two didn’t have strings and looked like they were being worked on. One of the ones with strings was a beautiful old Gibson that made my fingers twitch with longing. The walls were full of pictures of Anto playing with various bands. Toni talked me through them. ‘That’s the band he was in when he met Mum. That’s the Spancil Hillbillies. No, you won’t have heard of them.’

  ‘He’s been on the scene a long time, then,’ I said. In some of the photos – in the nineties – he looked as young as me.

  ‘That’s the pub-covers-band scene, he means,’ Toni said as Anto came in with a tray of coffee. ‘Just in case you imagine he thinks you’re secretly Bono or something.’

  ‘Ah, Toni, Toni, you get more like your mother every day,’ Anto said.

  ‘Would you like to hear some of our songs?’ Toni asked.

  ‘Course I would.’ Anto shook his head. ‘I was never a great one for songwriting,’ he admitted. ‘Every idea I had, it seemed like somebody’d already had it and said it better. D’you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘And sure, there’s so many brilliant songs out there already.’

  ‘Not like ours,’ Toni said. She took down a battered old Yamaha from the wall. ‘This’ll do me,’ she said. ‘I wish Marysia was here.’

  Anto reached for the Gibson, and I thought for a moment he was going to hand it to me, but he started tuning up as if he was going to play himself. I sighed, thinking of the old blue Westfield out in the car. ‘I suppose I should go and get my guitar.’ Soon, I supposed I could sell some stuff and buy a decent guitar again. But it would never be the same.

  ‘Yeah,’ Toni said. ‘You should. Actually,’ she said, ‘I’ll go and get it for you.’

  I heard her go upstairs, but didn’t hear the front door. Maybe she’d gone to the loo first. I picked up the Yamaha while she was away, strummed a few chords, and then started picking out a tune – just messing around, really, but Anto watched what I was doing and then joined in. The sound of the two guitars – we were both showing off a bit – filled the small room.

  ‘Hey.’ Toni stood in the doorway. ‘Put that down, I’m going to need it. You’ll have to make do with this.’

  And then I saw that she wasn’t holding a cheap blue Westfield, wrapped in a coat. She was carrying a guitar case – my guitar case, battered and familiar. She handed it to me.

  ‘Is this …?’

  ‘Open it.’

  I set the case down on the floor and knelt in front of it. Something fluttered in my chest and my fingers fumbled with the catches. Toni leant over and flipped them open for me.

  Inside the case lay my guitar. Not bashed. Shining, clean, with all of its strings – new strings, I realised, as soon as I ran my fingertips across them. I looked at Toni’s shining eyes and couldn’t say anything.

  Anto broke the silence. ‘First time she’s asked me to do anything for her in years,’ he said. ‘It’s not perfect,’ he added, as I pulled the guitar out of its case and cradled it. ‘There were a few scratches I couldn’t get out – but sure, they’re part of it, aren’t they? Part of its story.’

  I played an Em, softly, and then a G. And then a D. The guitar sounded better than ever.

  ‘Well,’ Toni said. ‘Will we let Dad hear what we can do?’

  ‘OK. But first,’ I said, ‘let me play you my new song.’

  Acknowledgements

  Music has been so important in my life that I can’t quite believe I haven’t written about it until now.

  Thanks to everyone who has cheered Street Song on its way – especially my first readers, Susanne Brownlie, Lee Weatherly and Caoimhe Browne. I owe a specially big thanks to my wonderful agent, Faith O’Grady, whose wise response to an earlier draft pushed me into writing a much better book, and who has been tireless in her support. Everyone at Black & White has been wonderful to work with, with a special thanks to my editor, Megan Duff. Thanks for falling for Cal and Toni and helping me bring their story to readers.

  I’m very grateful to everyone at the Belfast Welcome Organisation, especially Sandra Moore, for letting me spend a morning there and being so generous and helpful.

  Writing a book can be as lonely as busking in a deserted street in the rain, so I’m super-grateful for all my writer friends who help to make it more like a pub session in front of a roaring fire. I’m not naming names, but if you’re reading this and think I might mean you, then yes, I do.

  As always, thanks to my family and friends for all their support and belief in me, especially Mummy and John.

  And I know this is a bit weird, because they can’t read, but I’m eternally thankful for Castlewellan Forest and my guitar, both of whom are always waiting at the end of a long day’s writing to help make real life beautiful.