Dream On (3 page)

A professional drummer had appeared. Dave had been
given a glimpse of his own Inner Viking.

The signs were all there.

Thor had arrived!

The back room of Shane's Uncle Vic's pub, The Bandstand,
where live bands featured twice a week, became the venue for band practice.

The acoustics weren't all that, Shane said, but, as
he pointed out, it was free.

"I reckon we've got to keep it pretty mainstream,"
said Ritchie, "if we're going to get a following."

"What, mainstream like The X Factor?" Shane said,
and laughed. "Bagsy I be mentored by Dannii Minogue, right?"

"No,
not
like The X Factor," said Dave. Why
had such a great idea become an uphill struggle? At least Ritchie was taking
it seriously, albeit in a rather uninspired fashion, but Shane seemed to be
treating the whole thing as a bit of a joke, more interested in getting his leg
over a load of rock chicks than achieving critical acclaim. This Chris Boswell
chap - Boz - was likely to have a more professional approach, though the whole
Boz business was a worry in itself. Dave wanted him in the band, because he
was an accomplished drummer and had a few good contacts, but there was always
the worry that he might go off and find himself a proper drumming job. Boz
hadn't actually committed himself to Thor, not properly.

"Aye, I'll give it a go, I haven't got much on
right now," he'd said, when the proposal was put to him. "I could do with
playing a bit of decent rock music instead of all that holiday camp shite I'm
stuck with at the moment."

"So you're in, then?" Dave had said, trying to sound
casual. It was important that Boz saw him as an equal, not some amateur who
was desperate to have him on board.

"Aye, I'll give it a go, I haven't got much on
right now," Boz had said again, which didn't really tell Dave anything.

But at least he'd agreed; he'd just walked through
the door, drumsticks in hand.

"We'll need a MySpace page," Ritchie was saying. "That's
what our Pete told me. All unsigned bands have them these days."

"Oh yeah, my sis, she's always on MySpace," Shane said,
grinning. "She posts them sparkly pictures of angels all over her mates' pages
and gives it that 'lol' stuff all the time." He laughed.

"No, I mean MySpace Music," Ritchie said. "They've got a
special section for bands and singers and that. You can put your actual
music on it. You've got to have an online presence these days, our Pete
says."

"Why aye, man, he'll be telling us we've got to
tweet, next!" said Boz, grinning and shaking his floppy dark hair out of his
eyes, then throwing a drumstick up into the air and catching it.

"Shall we just wait until we've actually practised the
songs?" Dave said.

"Might be an idea!" Shane laughed again. "I like that one
about the young Viking guy who's got to leave his Mrs and kid and doesn't want
to, that's good, that one."

"'Cross the Sea'," Dave said. He was particularly
fond of his second powerful rock ballad; he'd felt quite emotional when he was
writing the lyrics. They'd made him think about the night Janice had chucked
him out, and the look on Harley's face when he'd packed his bag. Not a good
day at all.

"As long as we can do a few covers too," Shane
said. "
'Livin' on a Prayer'
always goes down well with the ladies!" He struck
a pose. "I quite fancy meself giving it a bit of the old Jon Bon!"

Dave closed his eyes in despair. Why didn't Shane
understand? He didn't want this band to be a tenth rate Bon Jovi, or a second
anything.
They would be the first Thor, like nothing else that had gone before.

A few days later, Janice Brown watched Dave walking
down the road, away from the house he'd once shared with her and Harley. As
always, she felt tears prick at her eyelids, though she was never quite sure
why. She was always one big soggy heap of conflicting emotions whenever Dave
left after a visit. Anger and frustration, because she couldn't get through to
him that there was more to being a father than visiting a few times a week and
bringing your son a toy motorbike, even if it was a Harley Davidson. Then
there was the
protectiveness
he always inspired within her, not so
different to that she felt for Harley; she wanted to shield him from the
disappointment he would face when he realised he was never going to be an
internationally famous rock star - a Viking themed rock band, indeed! Whatever
next?

The strongest emotion she felt, however, was a
mixture of pain and sadness, loss and
pointlessness
, because, despite all
his daft dreams and hopeless irresponsibility, she still loved him.

She'd hoped that chucking him out might bring him
to his senses and make him buckle down a bit, but she was terribly, terribly
afraid that her strategy had backfired; he seemed to have accepted her
decision, now - and she was scared, so scared, that all she'd done was push him
away.

"Come on, Dave, mate, I'm waiting for that cement!"

"Look at him, he's away with the fairies! You dreaming
about being on stage at Wembley, lad?"

Dave shook his head and forced himself back to reality;
indeed, he had been fantasising about just that.

Just now, Shane and Ritchie had been thrashing out
the intro to 'Cross the Sea', as he took centre stage. The whooping and
clapping of the audience was deafening, as they recognised the opening bars of
Thor's biggest hit.  Then the scene had changed; he was walking out, instead,
to the foot stomping riffs of 'Valhalla' -

The brickie, Jim, came over and took the heavy
bucket out of his hand. "You want to wear a hair net, mate," he said, and he and
Phil Wiseman, of Phil Wiseman Construction, both laughed.

"Yeah, there aren't any little leather clad dollies
here to drool over those golden locks," Phil said, "just me and Jim waiting for
the cement, and half of it's in your hair!"

Dave never minded being teased about being the
site's resident rock god, as they called him, but he minded it even less today.

That very morning, Ritchie had told him a bit of
good news.

Alison Swan was thinking of coming home.

Alison Swan, his first love. The one he'd all but
forgotten during the happy years with Janice, but, lately, had been thinking
about on an almost daily basis, especially when he spun his dreams of future
success.

Lars Erikson, main man of Thor, spotted backstage
at The Forum, with beautiful girlfriend Alison -

"Yeah, I saw her at The Bandstand the other Sunday
lunch, when Stranded were playing," Ritchie had told him, in the kitchen earlier
that morning, in passing, as if it wasn't important. "You know, when you
couldn't come 'cause you had to go and visit Jan's gran."

They'd been throwing together their sandwiches and flasks
while gulping down cups of coffee, like they did at approximately seven o'clock
every morning, when Ritchie had just come out with it.

"Yeah?" Dave had said. His chest felt tight. Stupid. Like he was a sixteen year old kid, or something. "She all right,
then?"

"Dunno," Ritchie said. "No, not really. Says she's
about had it with London, pissed off with the people she lives with, and
nothing's happening for her with the singing. Says she's going to come
back for a bit, stay with her dad, get a job, write some new stuff, you know?"

"What did she look like?"

Ritchie laughed. "Well, fit, like she always does, mate! She was with that sexy slapper mate of hers - Melanie, isn't it?"

"Melodie." Dave put down the butter knife and
looked out of the window. "Alison Swan. Bloody hell."

"No,
Ariel,
" said Ritchie.

"What?"

"Ariel. She calls herself Ariel now. Thought it
was a better name for a singer. It's all right, isn't it? Cool."

"Yeah, it is." Ariel Swan. Dave liked it. It was
a lovely name, sort of dreamlike and ethereal. Like her. "So she's going to be
sticking around? Not just a visit?"

"Reckon so, yeah."

"Right." He closed his eyes.

"Going to look her up, are you? What will Janice
reckon to that?" Ritchie laughed. "Here, mate, I know! If you got
together with her again, you could shorten your name to Daz. Then you
could be Ariel and Daz. That'd be quality, wouldn't it?"

Harley was sitting on the living room floor,
transfixed, as he gazed at the penguins dancing on the television screen. Janice
had vowed never to be a mother who shoved her child in front of the telly so
she could get a moment's peace, but all those ideals had flown out of the
window once she experienced the reality of trying to juggle her part time job
in the Sunrise Café, visits to the care home to see her grandmother, keeping up
with her domestic responsibilities, making sure her son felt loved, secure and
mentally stimulated, as well as having some sort of life for herself, without
all the plates simply failing to spin and coming crashing down all at once. If
Harley watching 'Happy Feet' (to be followed by 'Ice Age', with a bit of luck)
meant she could get the ironing done and the bathroom cleaned, then so be it. Anyway, she liked standing there doing the ironing, watching the film with him;
the atmosphere in the living room was warm and snug, as the rain and wind
howled outside - typical English Saturday weather. Sunny all week then rainy
at the weekend. Always the same, especially on August Bank Holiday weekend.  She
hadn't got to go into work until Tuesday; Max Stark, her boss, had allowed her
the whole weekend off as a special treat, to give her some proper time with
Harley before he started school.

If only Dave was there as well, the picture would
be complete.

Tears threatened again; she blinked them away. She'd been feeling a bit morose since she woke.  On mornings like this she
longed to see Dave slumped there on the sofa, yawning off his hangover and
stretching his arms out, requesting coffee every ten minutes, scratching his
stomach and making Harley laugh.

On mornings like this she found it hard to remember why
she'd chucked him out in the first place.

The first few years Janice Brown spent with Dave
Bentley were the happiest of her life.

She was twenty-four to his twenty-six when they
met. She'd seen him in The Romany and fancied him for ages, but she never
thought he'd look twice at her; well, he was with Alison Swan for about two
years, after all. Janice didn't imagine she'd ever catch the eye of someone who
used to go out with Alison Swan.

She couldn't believe her luck on the night Shane
Cowley engineered a conversation with her friend, Carolyn, leaving her to
entertain Dave Bentley.  She was even more surprised to find that he wasn't
cocky at all, but a really nice guy - funny, and he actually listened to what
she was saying, too. By the end of the night they'd arranged to meet the
following evening, which was how you knew if a bloke was genuinely keen, wasn't
it? If they just took your number you knew you only had a fifty per cent
chance that they would ring.

By the end of the first week, they were in love.

Proper love, not just lust and fun. Dave was a kind person,
too; for Janice, that was one of the most important things of all.

Janice had been brought up by her mother, Linda,
and her grandmother, Evelyn. Evelyn was a second mother to her; she'd taken
care of her when she was small, while Linda was out at work to support them
all. But now Evelyn was eighty-five, and in a care home; four years before,
she'd shown the first frightening signs of Alzheimer's Disease.

Dave got on well with both Linda and Evelyn. Once
Evelyn became incapacitated by that terrible condition, he was the one person
who could be relied upon to lighten its impact on all of them.  When Evelyn was
distressed, confused, claiming she didn't know who Janice and Linda were,
asking over and over to be taken home even though she was sitting in her
favourite armchair in the house she'd shared with her daughter for twenty-five
years, Dave would jog her memory, make her laugh.

"You know Janice, you daft old bat!" he'd say,
putting his arm around her and showing her pictures of Janice when she was a
child. "She's the one who always had muddy knees, and wet her knickers when you
took her to Madame Tussaud's, remember?"

And Evelyn would smile, and start talking about
that day out, when Janice was just eight years old.

When her condition worsened, she started to go 'on
walkabout' if she wasn't watched at all times, and Dave would go out in the car
to look for her. He told Linda to call him, day or night, if she needed help,
and he meant it. Even now, he still went with Janice to Fenland Lodge to visit
Evelyn, and her grandmother's face always lit up when she saw him. Yes, although
Dave found it hard to separate dreams from reality most of the time, his heart
was in the right place, which was one of the reasons she'd wanted him to be the
father of her child.

Harley hadn't really been an accident, though Dave believed
otherwise, to this day.

Once he was born - the birth being so miraculous
that both she and Dave burst into tears of wonder and delight - they settled
down into their new home on Greyfriars Council Estate, which wasn't too bad as
council states in Fennington went. Not too rough, a larger ratio of respectable
owner-occupiers to drug dealers. Dave had seemed so happy at first. He even
took the decision to sell his beloved Suzuki Bandit and buy a family car; he'd
settled down into cosy domesticity and relinquished all those juvenile yearnings
about becoming a rock star - or so she'd thought.

Until Critical Mass.