Maybe it’ll bring her out of herself a bit, give her a bit of confidence, I hope so. Luckily, I don’t think Josie noticed how surprised I was about it, I managed to cover it up well.
‘What do managers do?’ she asked.
‘Manage,’ I said. ‘Get the band out there, get them known, get them places to play at and most importantly, get them a following. Because without a following you might as well not bother because even if you get them gigs no one will bother coming to see them.’
I could see the panic on her face and I racked my brains to think how I could help her. Then I remembered that I used to play in a Sunday football team with Jason who runs the Old Vic pub. We go back years to when we first moved to Frogham and he owes me a few favours so I called one of them in. When I knew him, he was a skinny lad who used to run up and down that pitch like a rocket. That was a few years ago and now he runs the pub he obviously drinks a lot of the profits because I shouldn’t think he’d be fit enough to walk the length of the pitch with the size of the beer gut on him. But the Old Vic have all the up and coming bands play there and some of the ones on the way down and it’s got itself a name as the place to watch live music. Just the place for Biro’s band to play.
Jason wasn’t at all keen when I asked him, says he’s got his reputation to think of and can’t be just having any old rubbish playing in his gaff. So, I had to do a bit of arm twisting and give him a gentle reminder about how I helped him with his tax returns a few times when he was looking at a fine because he’d made such a mess of it. He ummed and aahed but gave in eventually and agreed to put them on the bill in a couple of weeks’ time. I just hope they’re not complete shite or else I’ll never hear the end of it from him. Most likely I’ll have to do Jason’s next tax return for free but that’s a small price to pay to put a smile on Josie’s face. And I’m not proud of it but I did play the grieving widower card as well, felt a bit bad about that but it’s for a good cause.
I did think about sneaking in and watching this band to see what they’re like. I do like a bit of live music and I know Biro is a clever lad, plays the guitar, piano, the lot. And he’s the singer too. I might pop in and watch them, the Vic’s a dark and dingy old boozer so they won’t notice me in the corner. Keep a sneaky eye on Josie, too; she’ll never even know I’m there. Not because I think she’d do anything wrong; I know she wouldn’t, she’s not like that. No, it’s everyone else that bothers me; Josie’s so young and trusting, a real innocent.
Although I’m not sure if I should; part of me thinks that’d be like spying on her and I shouldn’t do it but the other part of me just wants to protect her.
I’ll have to give it some thought.
Makes it easier for me though, knowing that Josie is trying to move on, like I’m trying to. Because I still have dark days although I try my best to hide them. I miss Nessa so much and I can’t believe she’s gone and most mornings when I wake up, for a moment I feel quite happy and then reality crashes in and I remember she’s dead. It catches me unawares; I’ll see something or someone will say something funny and I think, I’ll tell Nessa when I get home and then a split second later, I remember she’s not there. It’ll be a year ago next month, a whole year. It seems like only yesterday and forever ago.
Chapter 7
Josie
B iro has managed to borrow one of the music rooms again for the band’s first rehearsal. It’s much bigger than the one we did the auditions in but this time we’re not allowed to let ourselves in. For some reason the caretaker has to let us in and he says he’ll be back to lock up afterwards. Biro is fuming and doesn’t know why we can’t just turn up like we did before and lock up when we leave. Caretaker Jeff informs us that it’s because it’s a Saturday. It was a Saturday before, Biro tells him, but this argument doesn’t seem to make any difference to Jeff. Caretaker Jeff is old, at least as old as Dad, miserable (not like Dad) and awkward.
He makes a big deal of unlocking the music room door after taking forever to find the right key from a great big jangly bunch, and then he won’t let us touch anything until he’s given us a health and safety lecture on the correct way to move furniture.
‘If you want to move the tables and chairs you have to put them back exactly where they were when you’ve finished. I suggest you take a photo on your phone to make sure you return them to the correct position. I’ll be back in three hours to lock up and inspect the room.’
Hopefully he’ll go now. But he doesn’t, he stands there with his arms folded and feet apart, blocking the doorway. I don’t know what we’re supposed to say and I can hear the sound of Danny and Mogs’ voices and footsteps coming down the corridor.
‘Just give us the keys and we’ll lock up, drop ‘em off to you on the way out.’ Biro looks down at Jeff with a leave now glare.
‘Oh, no, no, no.’ Jeff shakes his head. ‘More than my job’s worth to do that. No, I’ll be back in three hours.’
He stands there, feet planted firmly apart like we’re going to try and knock him over. What’s he waiting for?
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Biro mutters under his breath.
‘What was that?’ Jeff looks at Biro suspiciously.
‘I was just saying, you can bob off now, Jeff. We’re good, we know how to move the tables and stuff.’ I look at Biro and recognise the signs; he’s ready to explode.
‘Bob off?’ Jeff says. ‘Bob off? I’ll decide when I bob off, son. I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, you cocky little sod.’
OMG. I can see that we’re not going to be rehearsing today, at least not in this room. Biro will not back down; he never does. Might as well zip my coat back up.
Before Biro can respond Danny and Mogs appear behind Jeff and he reluctantly moves aside ever so slightly and lets them squeeze past him to come into the room.
Jeff looks Mogs and Danny up and down with a frown.
‘Hello,’ says Danny pleasantly. ‘I was just saying to Mogs what a brilliant job someone has made of those new waste bins in the cafeteria. Was that your idea by any chance?’
Jeff looks taken aback for a moment but soon recovers his composure. He preens and looks proud. ‘It was. Took a bit of doing but I persuaded the canteen staff in the end. Much tidier.’
‘Cracking job,’ says Danny.
The canteen has a new system for leftover scraps from the plates; instead of flinging it in the bin by the door as you walk out, the bins have been moved to the back of the hall by the fire exit. Everyone’s moaning about what a stupid idea it is as you have to make a detour right around the hall. Nobody can understand why it was changed as it was perfectly alright as it was. After a couple of days some bright spark left a Tesco’s carrier bag hanging on the exit door’s handle and now everyone has started scraping their plates into that instead.
Mogs and Biro go straight over to the desks and start moving them and I cross my fingers that Jeff doesn’t insist on giving them the health and safety lecture. Biro stands and watches them with ears that are so red I’m surprised there’s not steam coming out of them.
‘Well,’ says Jeff, still preening from Danny’s compliment. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Be back at nine.’ He plods off down the corridor and I close the door firmly behind him.
‘Miserable old fucker,’ Biro says.
Danny and I look at each other; Biro in a bad mood is not a pleasant sight.
‘You defused it well,’ I say to Danny. ‘How did you know it was him who did the bins?’
Danny laughs. ‘My auntie’s a cook in the canteen. They all want to kill him for his stupid idea. They’re swapping the bins back on Monday.’
‘I’d like to see his face when they do.’
‘Are we here to rehearse or to talk about sad old bastards?’ Biro shouts at us. ‘Because we’re wasting practice time.’
‘Okay, I’ll get the keyboard set up,’ Danny says with a smile as he pulls the keyboard out of the bag and puts it on a desk. A bit of an improvement on using two chairs, a
t least he won’t have to kneel down to play it. Luckily Biro’s bad mood doesn’t seem to affect Danny or Mogs who’s totally engrossed in tuning his guitar. Good job too as there’s only room for one diva in this room.
‘You’ll defo have the legs for that when we play at the Vic?’ Biro frowns at Danny.
‘Yeah.’ Danny plugs the cable into the wall socket. ‘As long as I can get a lift. If I have to get the bus, I won’t be able to carry them as well as the keyboard.’
The legs are obviously bothering Biro; a keyboard on two chairs isn’t going to look cool.
‘My Dad can pick you up,’ I surprise myself by saying. ‘He’ll be dropping me off anyway so he won’t mind.’ Dad won’t mind at all; he’d drive round and pick everyone up if I asked him to.
Danny smiles his megawatt smile.
‘Oh, thanks, Jose, that’d be great.’
Danny has the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen, and that includes on any girl I know. He seems so nice too, so easy to get along with. Normally I can’t even look at anyone as good looking as Danny, let alone talk to them but he’s so nice. As long as there are lots of girls in the audience it won’t matter how bad his playing is as they’ll be too busy drooling over him.
We push the rest of the tables up against one wall and stack the chairs in the corner.
‘Okay, that’ll do.’ Biro pulls a bunch of papers out of his pocket. ‘This is the playlist. I’ve put ten songs on it in order of play but obviously we won’t get to play them all, but better to have too many than not enough.’
‘Cool.’ Mogs gives the list a cursory look and then scrunches it up and puts it in his pocket.
Danny looks a bit unsure. ‘Are we going to have the music to follow?’ He looks at Mogs then Biro. ‘Only I don’t know these songs.’
Mogs looks surprised. ‘Just improvise, won’t we?’
‘Yeah, sure. Look Danny, I’ll show you a few chords and you just play the same chords in a different key. Just follow us, play a few chords as and when.’
‘Oh.’ Danny looks even more unsure.
‘Don’t worry mate, it’ll be a breeze.’
Biro spends the next hour showing Danny the keys; it’s pretty straightforward and Danny perks up when he realises that he doesn’t have to play the whole song. Mogs sits on the floor in the corner with his ear buds in and his eyes closed listening to music.
I’m feeling bored and wishing I hadn’t come and the plink plonk of the keyboard is starting to get on my nerves.
‘Okay, Mogs, MOGS!’
Mogs looks up with sleepy eyes.
‘We’re going to start, Danny’s got the hang of the chords so we’ll go through the list straight from the top.
‘Kay, dude.’ Mogs pulls himself up off the floor and picks his guitar up from the table.
‘Don’t you want to check the list, Mogs? Check what we’re playing?’ Biro asks.
Mogs blinks at Biro through his hair and shakes his head.
‘No.’
Biro doesn’t look very impressed and I hope for Mogs’ sake that he remembers the order otherwise Biro will definitely go into orbit.
Danny stands expectantly at the keyboard, Mogs passes the guitar strap over his shoulder and his fingers hover over the keys. Biro picks up his guitar and adjusts the microphone so it’s just slightly too high and he looks all lead singerish trying to reach it.
‘One, two, three!’ Biro shouts.
✽✽✽
An hour and a half later and I think we’ve established that:
Mogs is an even better guitar player than we thought – he can play anything . Without music. And he remembered the running order perfectly.
Biro cannot sing.
Danny has absolutely no rhythm. At all.
After the gig at the Vic I will need to leave college and possibly Frogham and get a job as I won’t be able to cope with the humiliation and embarrassment. What I said about no one noticing that Danny can’t play – I was wrong.
‘No, mate, no. It’s quick, quick, slow, slow, then on the next bar it’s quick, quick, and just one slow.’ Biro is speaking very slowly and calmly but he doesn’t fool me, I can see his left eye twitching; a sure sign that he’s had enough.
‘Yep, got that.’ Danny smiles. ‘But remind me, what’s a bar again?’
Biro sits down on the desk next to Danny and puts his head in his hands.
‘You alright, Biro?’ Danny looks at Biro with concern.
Biro doesn’t speak for a while and the room becomes very quiet. I pull my Parka hood up and pull the woolly bit down over my eyes. Yeah, I know I said I wasn’t going to do that anymore but I know what’s coming and I really feel for Danny. Mogs coughs nervously and finds his fingernails suddenly fascinating. He has his head bent right over so his hair covers his entire face.
‘The thing is, mate...’ Biro starts to say to Danny.
Danny looks at Biro expectantly.
‘Well, the thing is, um...’
Danny waits.
‘I don’t think this is working out mate, the keyboard thing. You know, maybe you should practice a bit more, have a few lessons before you think about joining a band.’
Danny’s face drops.
‘I’m crap, aren’t I?’ he says. ‘It’s Stereo Outcast all over again.’
‘Sorry, mate.’
Danny perks up. ‘What if I pretend to play guitar like I did in Stereo Outcast? That could work.’
‘We need a keyboard player,’ says Biro.
‘You could play keyboards,’ Danny says. ‘Mogs plays enough guitar for two people.’
This is true; Biro can play well but Mogs leaves him standing.
‘Hmm. Dunno.’
I watch Biro thinking it over, he probably realises that the chances of getting anyone else to join the band are non-existent. Without another band member we can kiss goodbye to the gig at the Old Vic.
‘Okay we’ll give it a try. See if it works.’ Biro gives Danny his guitar and unplugs it from the amp.
‘We’ll run through the first number and if it looks like a goer, we’ll swap the microphone onto the keyboard and put you up the back between me and Mogs.’
Danny nods and puts the strap over his shoulder and positions his hands on the guitar so it looks like he’s playing.
‘Right,’ says Biro, ‘one, two, three...’
Mogs starts to play the opening bars and Biro joins in on the keyboard. Danny pretends to play the guitar and looks pretty convincing to me. Unless anyone’s looking for it, they wouldn’t know.
This could work.
Biro opens his mouth to sing.
Or maybe not.
Biro’s horrible wail fills the room but doesn’t sound as awful as usual because Danny is also belting out the opening bars and his voice somehow dilutes the awfulness of Biro.
They sing the whole of the first song and I pull my hood back off my head so I can hear properly.
Admittedly, Danny is singing a lot of the words wrong but the voice, the voice is not bad, much better than Biro’s.
Mogs finishes and stands staring, his fingers still, watching Danny in surprise. Biro stares at Danny, frowning.
Danny realises that we’re all staring at him.
‘Sorry, wasn’t I supposed to sing?’
‘Mate, why didn’t you tell us you could sing?’
Danny shrugs. ‘You never asked.’
‘How is it,’ ask Mogs with a puzzled expression on his face, ‘That you have no timing at all on the keyboard but you can sing in time? And in tune?’
‘Yeah, he’s got a point, dude, how does that work?’
‘Dunno.’ Danny shrugs again. ‘I think it’s my ear, eye and hand co-ordination or something like that. When I sing, well, I just sing.’
‘That was epic, dude.’ Biro shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Epic.’
‘Thanks.’ Danny looks worried again. ‘But I’m not great at the words, if I can’t remember them, I sort of just make them up.’
‘Okay, Biro.’ Danny starts to take off Biro’s guitar. ‘No, no, leave it on, mate, it looks good. I reckon I’ll be centre stage and you and Mogs can be either side of me. What do you reckon, Josie?’
‘Good idea,’ I agree.
Biro resumes his position behind the keyboard.
‘From the top, dudes.’
Tourists of Reality have arrived.
Chapter 8
Josie
I ’m a bit early. Does that look really sad? It probably does. Who in their right mind gets to a counselling session early? But it doesn’t feel like counselling, it’s more like talking to a good friend.
I feel safe with Adam.
I’ve decided I’m not going to feel bad about how I feel; I usually manage to make myself feel guilty about everything. This counselling is helping me and that’s all that matters.
The door’s open so I go in and take my coat off and sling it over the back of the chair, settle down in the seat and wait for Adam to arrive.
Yes. I’ve taken my coat off; no more huddling and hiding in my Parka. It’s a new development, the taking off of the coat. Not a major deal for most people but for me it’s a massive step forward. Not saying that I’m that brave anywhere else, apart from Uncle Ralph’s office, but one step at a time. I hope the day is not too far away when I can sit in the college canteen without huddling and hiding in my Parka. I’m a good advert for this counselling – only my fifth session and it’s already made such a difference. Obviously, I’ve still got a long way to go but I’m on my way and I’m feeling a bit better every day. There are still some things that I haven’t talked about, and one thing that I’ll never talk about, but I’m getting there.
I’m impatient for Adam to arrive so we can get started; I’m looking forward to telling him about the band rehearsal. As I gaze around in my boredom, I wonder what else this office is used for. There are stacks of box files marked A to Z on metal shelving which means there must be twenty-six of them. Can’t imagine that Q and Z get used very much. There’s a musty smell in here of old paper and rubber bands and pencil shavings and, everything looks like it could do with a good clean.
So Talk to Me Page 6