Wasted (6 page)

Soon, the house is silent again. Her mum has gone to bed. Jess wonders if she ought to go and check that she's OK. No, her mum should look after herself.

A few minutes later, there's a hurried stumbling of feet across the landing, a groan and the sound of her mother vomiting in the toilet.

Jess turns on her side, pulls the duvet over her head, and eventually blocks her mother out.

IT
is the following day, a head-rushing hot Saturday. It will soon be evening, when darkness will bring something perilous to Jack or Jess. But for now it is day and the sky is clear. Some things will happen that are not dangerous at all. Although perhaps all those things, too, are part of the whole jumble and you just can't untangle it: small things having huge and unpredictable effects, like butterfly wings in New York causing hurricanes in Indonesia. Or whatever it is.

In the morning, Jess had fed Spike and was leaving the kitchen, toast in mouth, tea cooling in mug, when Sylvia groaned down the stairs, gripping the banister with one hand, one finger and thumb of the other pressing tightly into her forehead as though she could squeeze out the pain if she pressed hard enough.

“Gotta go, Mum. I'm going to Jack's house – band practice? You look rough.”

“Thanks. What band?”

“Jack's band, Mum. I told you. Anyway, gotta go. Don't know when I'll be back. Sometime this afternoon. Then I'm out tonight.”

Sylvia made a noise sufficient to suggest that she vaguely understood this and had no strength to disagree.

Soon afterwards, wth the curtains of her mum's bedroom still grimly closed, Jess leaves the house, refusing to think of her mother, though it's not easy. A brief anger flashes.

The moment when she arrives at Jack's house is not one she will forget. He has come to meet her at the end of the road and his wide smile as he says hello makes her heart turn over. He grabs her hand and leads her into the garage. Jack's garage is large and contains no sign of cars. To be fair, there are two garages, and the other one presumably has a car in it, but this one is seriously kitted out for a band practice.

The fractional silence, as the band turns to see this girl that Jack has found, is something loaded. One boy lets out a long, low whistle, then comes to greet her from behind his drums.

“Meet Tommy,” says Jack.

A girl with a nest of streaky blonde hair and black-rimmed eyes smiles at Jess from behind a keyboard and says, “Hi, I'm Ella.”

“That's Chris,” says Jack, and Chris raises his hand, and then plays an impressive series of chords on his bass guitar. Jack helps her get her mic at the right level and asks if she is OK. She nods, unable to speak. He picks up his guitar. He wears a thick, red sweat band round his forehead, holding his hair off his face. Jess takes in his prominent cheekbones, his angular boniness and firm chin.

They start with the songs Jess and Jack practised the night before. Jess quickly comes to love the sensation of the others around her, all working together without edge. She relaxes into the feeling of singing with a band, and it is as though she has done it before. It is better than being in her bedroom on her own, pretending, or in the school music department singing over a backing track. This is so real it is almost touchable.

She tunes into their wavelength easily. Nearly two hours pass; the songs become familiar. She adds her own flavour to them. Sometimes they argue a little about details. All of them are serious musicians; there is no weak link, no difficult ego.

“What about your song?” asks Ella, at one point.

“What?”

“Jack said when he first heard you, you were singing something and you said it was your own.”

“The Colour of Loss”. She is not ready. She does not have her guitar.

Rubbish, they say. She can use Jack's. He hands it over. Chris and Ella sit on the ground. Jack steps back into the shadows. She has no choice. She fiddles with the tuning pegs a little. It does not, in fact, need tuning but she is playing for time. Tries out a few chords, shifts into a comfortable position, foot on a stool, leaning over the guitar. Tucks a strand of long hair behind her ear. Closes her eyes and takes herself away and into the song.

At one point, she forgets the words, hesitates, stumbles, but no one moves. The song continues. Although she wrote the lyrics, “loss” is not something she often thinks about. The only things she believes she has lost are her father and a hamster that died when she was five years old, but neither of these losses has seemed to hurt her deeply. Not in any damaging way. There are no scars that she can see. But everyone can imagine loss and grief, and her song taps into that. She is not thinking about the meaning while she sings, only the colour of it, the pearliest blue.
For grief can be beautiful
, she thinks.
It is not always dark
.

*  *  *

The words on their own, written down, are nothing much. But when the music fills them and her voice gives them life they become stronger than all those things. When she finishes, there is silence. And then sounds of admiration. She smiles, blushes.

“You have to play that,” says Tommy. “Doesn't she, Jack? At the next gig. On her own?” There is a murmur of agreement.

Jack is still in the shadows. He is bending down to pick something up. There is a long moment when he says nothing. Then, “Definitely. Let's take a break, shall we? Anyone want tea or anything?” And he leaves the garage with their requests.

Outside, Jack stops. He takes some deep breaths. Jess's song has corkscrewed its way inside of him. He had not properly heard the lyrics before, being struck only by her voice, and now the words have churned something deep in him but he cannot quite say what.

Jack goes into the house. He is on his way to the kitchen but in the hall he stops. Sunlight is shafting through a circular window halfway up the stairs and dust swirls in its beam. For a few measureless moments, he does not feel his body. He is outside, watching himself stand there alone. He sees everything as though he has never seen it before, although he has lived here for about ten years. It is shiny and beautiful and the house breathes a bright yellow air.

Suddenly, he smells the sea, the salty chill fishiness of it. It waves through him, catching him unawares, and it leaves with a cold ripple across his skin.

A thought comes to Jack then: how would all this be different if his mother – either of them – had not died? And this is what he has lost, not his mothers, who are in some ways still there as part of him. What he has lost is everything that hasn't happened to him, everything that he is not, but might have been.

He feels so small now, a fractional part of something vast and unknowable. Because everyone, everyone in the world, has an equal loss.
Everyone
has a billion things that haven't happened. He is nothing special.

He shivers. Then walks into the kitchen to get what he came for. When he goes to open the fridge he discovers that his fingers are crossed. He looks at them.

Lucky Jack. How long will his luck hold?

NOW
it is evening and the forces of night are gathering. Of course, many bad things happen in daylight too and many nights pass peacefully. But not this time.

Jess has been home after the day spent practising. It had been perhaps half past seven when she'd got home and her mum had been nippy with her.

“I've already eaten. I couldn't wait any longer,” Sylvia had said. And indeed the kitchen had shown signs of this, with a single plate and single knife and fork sitting there by the sink. Not the wine glass, for that was not finished with.

“I did text, Mum.”

“Well, you know what I'm like with my phone.”

“Yes, well, if you want me to text you it might be sensible
not
to be like that with your phone.”

“Yes, well, if only everyone was as sensible as you, Jess, darling,” her mother had said.

Ah, so there's still a headache going on
, Jess had thought, but hadn't said it.

Anyway, she'd made something to eat for herself, had a shower, thrown clothes all over her room as she tried to find the right items. What are the right items for the first night of a new life? All the usual problems come into play when deciding how to dress for this ordinary unordinary night – mustn't try too hard, mustn't not try hard enough, mustn't wear something which will show sweat, must wear something that goes with favourite bag/shoes/necklace, must show enough but not too much.

But let's not dwell on this, for none of it will make much difference to what happens. Jack and Jess will do what they do, say what they say, whether Jess wears the blue or the brown, the floaty or the tight, this or that. She looks great anyway.

At about ten o'clock, she is ready to go. She leaves her mother in front of the television. Sylvia has tried to engage Jess in conversation at the last minute, not because she really wants to know the answers to her questions but because she faces the rest of the night alone.

“So, tell me about this boy,” she says, remarkably brightly for someone who only a few hours earlier would have described herself as definitely within spitting distance of death's door. She takes another large glug of wine and the glass twangs against her teeth.

“He's nice. You'd like him.” Jess is trying to leave. “Say hello to Julia for me.”

“What's his name again?”

“Jack. You know it's Jack. I must've told you four times.”

“What does he look like?”

“Just nice, Mum. I expect you'll meet him soon. Look, I've really got to go.”

“What time will you be back?”

“We agreed already – two o'clock, max.”

“That's awfully late, Jess. I don't know.”

“Mu–um – we've already been over this. Exams are finished, and there's no school tomorrow, and no one else will be going home any earlier. You don't want me to walk home alone, do you?”

Sylvia shrinks into herself and picks up the TV zapper. “Just be safe, darling, OK? You got your key?”

“Do I ever not have my key?”

“No. You're a good girl, Jess.”
Oh God, not now, please. Not the weepy bit, please not now
.

“See you later, Mum. Love you.”

And she does, love her. But she will have to leave her. Both now and later, properly. She knows this now more clearly than she ever did. Somehow, she will do it.

So, Jess is approaching the bar where she is meeting Jack and the others. She hopes he is outside waiting for her so that she doesn't have to hang around like a loser. He is. His body is very close to hers as they squeeze past people. She smells his scent.

Ella, Chris and Tommy are all there at a table in a booth and they greet her, making room for her. Everything is black and chrome and not at all comfortable. But Jack squeezes in after her and the fact of things not being comfortable ceases to matter. On the table, there's a pitcher of vodka mixed with something pinky orange and lots of ice and a few bits of leaf. Someone pours her a glass and she sips from it, but in her head she tells herself that she is going to be careful tonight.

Which is sensible, but sensible may not be enough.

She notices that Jack has a glass of the vodka+whatever drink, so the not-drinking-thing is more of a drinking-sometimes-thing. This is something of a relief, because he won't be judging her.

“Cheers!” they all say, clinking glasses together. “Here's to Schrödinger's Cats!” The conversation eases and flows. She finds out a bit about them. Tommy – who has a drummer's jangled hairstyle – is at the same college as Jack, and his dad is in the army and has just gone to Afghanistan. Ella works in a clothes shop and is saving for her own flat. Chris is looking for a job – he lives at home and is not getting on with his parents, who don't like him spending all his time with the band when he should be settling down. It's all normal stuff.

And then Jack swears under his breath. He turns his head away from the bar, as though trying to avoid looking at someone. He
is
trying to avoid looking at someone. Jess can't see who.

“Kelly,” mutters Jack. “Don't look now.”

“Kelly who?” asks Jess.

“Kelly Jones. You must know her. She goes to your school.”

“Oh God, her. Yes, I know her. I can't stand her.”

“Why did she have to come here? Isn't it a bit classy for her?” asks Ella.

“Everywhere's a bit classy for her,” says Jack. There's a real edge to his voice.

“Not your best memory from Northseas High, then?” asks Jess.

Tommy looks at her and then realizes. “Oh, you weren't there when Jack was there, were you?”

“No.”

“Ahhhh. So you don't know why Jack and Kelly don't
exactly
get on?” No one is smiling.

“No, but I don't think you should tell me now – she's coming over.”

Jack looks at Jess with a plaintive
Get me out of here!
look, which is quite amusing. Jess is intrigued. She does not know that a moment is about to happen when it really will matter what she says.

“Jack Redman. The oh-so-wonderful Jack Redman. And his merry band.” Kelly is now standing right beside them. Jack has not looked up.

“Ignore her,” he says quietly.

Kelly is not alone. She is with Samantha and Charlie, as usual. She is looking as tartily gorgeous as always. People look at them, and don't they know it? Kelly herself is tall – well, they all are, but whatever each of the others is, Kelly is just a little bit more. Which is why she's the leader. Her long, straight, sweeping hair is the palest blonde to the roots. Her facial bone structure is cover-girl-perfect, lips large and soft, skin pale and undeniably interesting, cheekbones to die for and accentuated by the clever use of blusher. Bubble-gum-pink strappy top, stopping just on her navel, with flesh on show beneath it. And a tight little stomach with nothing bulging anywhere. She works hard at the being beautiful thing.