Dream On (25 page)

Band practise was tomorrow night and they had a gig
on Friday, but everything seemed so flat, now. Such an anti-climax.

He looked up at the pale, cold sky.

At some point in the future he would start wanting
to write songs again, but right now all those words and melodies (ha!), the
ones that used to race around his brain all day long, were silent. He didn't
know if it was because of Raw Talent, or because he was scared that Ariel was
going to leave him.

Who was he kidding? If he felt sure of Ariel's
love, the stupid talent show wouldn't have mattered half so much.

A Viking needed his woman.

A Viking leader, as he knew he'd been in a former
life, needed to have the most beautiful woman of them all, the pick of the
bunch. Ariel.

He sighed, heard Jim calling to him to get his act
together, and went back in. A Viking needed his dosh, too - and his heir; today
was Harley's birthday, and, as soon as he'd cleaned up after work, Dave was
going round to Janice's to give his son his presents - a Shrek outfit, of all
things, and various other bits and bobs pertaining to his other favourite films
of the moment, too, which were, apparently, Ratatouille, something about a bee,
and something about surfing penguins. Janice had told him what to get, and his
mother had gone out and bought it all for him.

That wasn't right, was it?

He had to be told what to buy his own son for his
birthday, because he didn't spend enough time with him to know what he would like. He felt ashamed of himself. That was going to change, in the future.

Everything seemed to be moving out of his control,
all of a sudden. He wasn't so involved in the lives of Harley, Janice and her
family, anymore, as he'd always presumed he would be, whatever happened. The
power of Thor seemed to be diminishing; he couldn't put his finger on it, but
it was. Ritchie hadn't bothered to update the MySpace page for days. They
hadn't accumulated any new fans for two weeks. Shane was acting as distracted
as Ariel. How could everything have changed, just because of some poxy TV show?

When he got round to Janice's at six o'clock, a
special birthday buffet tea was already in progress.  Dave's mum Yvonne was
there, and Linda, two of Harley's friends from school, and Janice's mate
Carolyn, with her boys; there were balloons and a birthday cake, jellies and
ice cream, bridge rolls filled with egg mayonnaise, and Harley's favourite,
Ritz cheese sandwich biscuits.

Dave ate a piece of birthday cake, talked to his
mother for a while, and wished he could have a drink.

"Hey," he said to Janice, "do you remember that year when
you did that kids' party for adults, for my birthday? That vodka jelly was
lethal, wasn't it!"

Janice laughed. She looked different, somehow;
slimmer, prettier, happier, he thought.  Like the old Janice, before she
started moaning at him about everything. Not that she hadn't had plenty to
moan about, of course -

"Yes, it was a laugh, wasn't it?" she said, and her
hair, longer now, shone underneath the artificial light of the room as she
moved; she'd put some sort of mauve colour on it. "And the lethal game of
musical chairs - I had bruises for a week! Ah, a long time ago, now!"

"I remember Shane running his hand up my leg to
make me move during a game of statues, so that he'd win," said Carolyn. "Not
that I minded, of course. He's not coming along today, is he?"

"Daddy!" shouted Harley, running up to him in his
Shrek outfit, "come and see what Max brought me! It's in the kitchen!"

Dave took his little hand. "Who's Max, kiddo? One of
your schoolfriends?"

"No, silly! Max at Mummy's café!"

"Oh, he got you a present, did he?" said Dave. "That's nice of him. And don't call grown-ups silly, even if it
is
your birthday."

Harley led him out to the kitchen to show him the present -
a toy dog kennel, three feet high, with a black and white toy dog sitting in the
front of it.

"That's great," said Dave. "I hope you said thank you."

"Course I did!" Harley bent down and picked up the
dog. "I'm going to call him Sam, like Max's dog."

"That's a good name for a dog," said Dave, and
stroked his son's hair.

"Yes! I love Sam, I play with him when we go to Max's
house."

Dave looked round; Janice was watching them from
the doorway, and looking decidedly edgy, he thought.

"Do you? Do you go to Max's house a lot?" He was
looking at Janice as he asked this; she looked away, and pretended to be
listening to something Yvonne Bentley was saying.

"I've been - " he counted on his fingers " - three times. Mummy goes there when I stay at Grandma Linda's."

"Really?" Dave stood up. He put his hand out and
touched Janice's arm.

She turned round.

"You're seeing Max Stark?" he asked, trying very
hard to sound reasonable rather than accusatory.

She blushed. "Yes. Do you have a problem with that?"

Dave laughed. "No, of course not. He'd a good
bloke." He was lying. He had a
big
problem with it. Max was, indeed,
a good bloke, with a successful business, too, and a pretty flash sort of car. And the worst thing was, Dave knew that he could do absolutely nothing about
it. He no longer had any rights where Janice was concerned. "I'm just
surprised, that's all."

Janice shrugged her shoulders. "Well, these sort of things
just creep up on you sometimes, don't they."

Ah. That made him feel better. Probably Janice
welcomed the attention of her nice reliable boss, who had to be at least
fifteen years older than her. The father she'd never had, the nice steady
bloke, the antidote to the thrills and spills of having a Viking rock and
roller as a partner. It was text book stuff, really.

Harley snuggled up to his leg, and Dave picked him
up.

"Are you having a good birthday, eh? Do you like the
presents I got for you?"

"Yes! I love you, Daddy." Harley put his arms
around his neck and kissed him on the cheek, then he looked at his mother. "Mummy, is Max coming here as well today? I want to save him some birthday
cake!"

"Of course he's coming," Janice said. "And he's bringing
Sam, too!"

Harley clapped his hands. "Hurray! I love Max and
Sam! Mummy, ring him up and tell him to hurry up and be here!"

Dave felt worse again, immediately.

He didn't mind Janice thinking of Max as a father
figure - at least, he didn't mind
too
much - but he certainly didn't
want Harley to think of him as one, too.

That was a different matter, entirely.

Just when he'd thought things couldn't get any
worse, right?

Ariel was going away.

Five minutes before Max Stark and his famous dog
were due to arrive at Harley's birthday party, Dave left. He hated leaving so
early, but he didn't think he could face seeing Max Stark there, acting as if
he owned Janice, no doubt, and probably being welcomed by Janice's mother, with
all the protectiveness of one who wanted to see her only daughter 'nicely
settled'. He headed off to The Bandstand. Ariel usually worked on Wednesday
nights; it was darts night, and Shane's Uncle Vic liked her to do that shift
because all the men fancied her; it was good for business, he said.

Dave needed to see her.

But that night, she wasn't there.

"Taken a few days off, Dave, mate," Vic told him. "Gone
down to London to see some old friends. I'm surprised she didn't mention
it."

So was Dave. He texted her immediately.
Hey,
stranger! Why didn't you mention you were going to London? When are you
coming back? Love you, D x

He stood at the bar and had one pint, the only one
he could have, as he was driving.  He made it last for a whole half hour,
exchanging words he couldn't remember with people he hardly looked at, before
Ariel deigned to reply.

Sorry, spur of the moment thing. Back Friday
night. Text then  x

No explanation. Nothing. However spur of the moment
it was, she could have told him, couldn't she? She'd sat on a train for two
bloody hours and she couldn't even spare a moment to text him.

She didn't contact him again until Friday evening,
at about six; he could meet her off the train, if he liked, she said.

"Let's go for a drink," she said, pulling out of
his arms. She seemed pleased to see him, but he knew, he just knew, that
trouble was brewing, and he was damn sure it was going to be in the shape of that
slippery snake Will Corrigan.

They went to the bar of a hotel opposite the
station.

"Okay," he said, putting his pint and her white
wine on the table. "Let's have it, then. Where have you really been and what
have you got to tell me?" He hoped he sounded more self-assured than he felt.

"I
was
staying with Emily," she said, "but it wasn't
just a social visit."

"No? Did you see that Will bloke when you were down
there?"

"I did, yes."

He knew it! His instincts were always right, weren't they? When he had a bad
feeling, it was always for a good reason, wasn't it?

He looked at her. "Did you sleep with him?"

She laughed. She actually
laughed.
"That wasn't
the reason I saw him. God, why are you men's minds always in your
trousers?"

He believed her; that was something, anyway.

"Go on, then, tell me what this is all about."

She stopped smiling, then, and took a sip of her
wine. "I'm going away, Dave."

Dave felt as though someone had punched him in the
stomach. He hadn't expected that. He hadn't expected anything quite that bad
at all. "Going away? Where? When will you be back?"

"Later in the year.  Autumn.  For a visit. I haven't
made any definite plans. I don't know if I'll be coming back here, or
staying in London yet, or what."

"So where are you going?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm going to work on a
cruise ship. Singing. Playing my guitar, doing my stuff. That's where I
went, on Thursday, for my audition. I was there for most of the day. That's
why I've been in touch with Will; it's what he does, you see. He told me about
this agency who find him work called  Oceanwide Entertainment. He said it's a
great life; you get paid for doing what you love best, and you're meeting all
sorts of people, and travelling all over." She smiled, then, and leaned
forward.  "The interview-stroke-audition went even better than I'd thought it
would - they loved me, and they rang me by the end of the day to tell me I was
in. It was great! I don't know why I didn't think of it before! I can do the two things I love more than anything - seeing the world, and
playing my music."

"Yes." Dave breathed out long and hard. "Yeah, I
can see that. I don't blame you." He looked at her bright, sparkling eyes,
and that beautiful smiling mouth that he always needed to kiss, would always
need to kiss, and he wanted to hold her to him, tie her to him, so she would
never, ever leave him. "I don't think I can bear the thought of you going,
that's all," he said.

She reached out and held his hand. "I'm sorry,
Dave. I knew you'd take it badly. But I can't stay here - that talent show
was the last straw." She drank some more wine, and turned to look at him. "I'm
fed up with gigs in pubs. Do you remember nutty Glynis Tooke's Creative
Workshop thing? That was the penultimate straw, I can tell you; they could
hardly even be bothered to clap me. It was the only gig I've done since I've
been back here, and they couldn't wait for me to finish. I'm never going to
make
it,
Dave. Hardly anyone does, and I've faced up to it, now; I haven't
got that ingredient 'x' to get me plucked from the crowd. I'm not bad,
though - well, I'm good enough to entertain people in one of the smaller rooms
on a cruise ship, apparently, and that's why Oceanwide Entertainment are taking
me on. I'm one of the lucky ones; I can see my own limitations, and I've
found a way of doing what I love and getting paid for it, because I don't have
any responsibilities. That's all."

No, she had no responsibilities. Not even to him.

"I thought we were going to reach for the stars,"
said Dave, but even as he said it he knew he sounded foolish.

"You can if you like," she said, a tad harshly, he
thought, "but I've got a life to live and a living to earn."

He picked up her hand and kissed it. "I could come with
you. I could get a job as a barman, maybe get to play guitar with one of
the bands, or something - "

"And leave Harley?" Ariel said.

He sank back into his seat. "No. No, of course
not." Not after all he'd promised himself, on the night of Harley's birthday. "So when are you going?"

"Not just yet," she said. "I don't want to let Vic down
until he's found someone to take my place, and I want to spend a bit more time
with Dad."

"And me?"

She moved closer to him and put her arms around his
waist. "Of course you. Mostly you." She tilted her face up to look at him. "I
will miss you, you know."

"I thought you loved me," Dave said.

"I do."

"Yeah, but not in the way I love you, or you couldn't leave
me."

She put her head on his shoulder. "I feel a lot more for
you than you realise, you know."

"Yes. It's okay, I understand." He pulled her
closer to him and kissed the top of her head. "So how long have I got with you,
then?"

"Oh, three weeks, a month or so," she said. "My first
placing won't be until April, but I'm going to go down and stay in London for a
few weeks before that; it's easier, I'll be near all the places I need to be -
I've got to have a medical, stuff like that, and rehearse."

"Where will you be staying?"

"With Emily. That was one of the things I wanted to
sort out with her.  She's getting me some waitressing work in a restaurant owned
by a friend of hers, so I'll have the days free to get things sorted."