For David
If we leave now, we’ll still get in You go, I’ll shepherd
CONTENTS
COVER PAGE
PART ONE: The Dreamers of Dreams
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
PART TWO: The Movers and Shakers
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
PART THREE: The Music Makers
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
ATTRIBUTIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
COPYRIGHT PAGE
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Arthur O’Shaughnessy, ‘Ode’
CHAPTER 1
I knew all about Carter Tanqueray long before he caught me crying in a rehearsal room.
Word at the academy travelled fast, and the other girls in my dorm didn’t seem to talk about much else. I knew he was at the academy for guitar, like I was, although there was a heated debate about whether he was actually any good or whether his mother’s donation for the new auditorium had secured his place. I found out that his mum was the first black cardiothoracic surgeon at Birmingham General Hospital, even though I couldn’t have picked Birmingham on a map and didn’t know what cardiothoracic meant. And, as his sometimes-girlfriend Verity told me breathlessly, his dad was the jazz musician Liam Tanqueray, who I’d never heard of but who had just been given a residency at Ronnie Scott’s in London.
I was only a week into my time at the academy, but I was already wondering why I’d worked so hard to get here. The other girls weren’t exactly unfriendly; we just didn’t seem to care about the same things. I’d thought the other students would want to talk about music, that maybe I would find friends here who wanted to write a hit song as much as I did, but instead the main topic was whether this mysterious Carter Tanqueray was going to ask Verity or Ava to the Summer Ball. I didn’t join in: the Summer Ball was months away, and by then I’d be back in Australia. I lay in the dark after Lights Out, thinking of my girlfriend, Ellie, waking up to a sunstruck morning in Sydney. Meanwhile, in the bunks around me, the girls placed their bets.
Chapel period was the only time I got to myself each day. As everyone else filed into the school hall, I hid in the toilets until the first hymn, then picked my way up the creaky stairs to the top floor rehearsal rooms. One long window looked out at the clipped green lawn stretching down to the churning River Thames. It was the same view in the brochure Ellie and I had pored over, sprawled out on her blue checked bedspread, except in the brochure the school grounds had been bathed in sunshine. Lying on her bed, we’d decided which cover versions and originals to include in my audition reel. Back then, the scholarship program had been just a distant dream, and the thought of two months in the grand schoolhouse had seemed so perfect.
Sometimes I stood at the window for the full fifty minutes, watching the fronds of a willow tree swirling in the wind beside a rickety boathouse where the rowers kept their equipment. Sometimes I folded myself over my guitar and tried to work on my songs. Even if I hated every second at the academy, I was determined to use my time here to become a better songwriter.
‘Passport’ was an unfinished love song for Ellie, like everything else I’d written since I’d arrived in England – a three-chord minor progression, lyrics filled with longing. I recorded some of the verses on my phone but never sent them to her. I wanted to be the same Liliana she loved when I called her every night. I wanted her to believe that the Henley-On-Thames Music Academy – HOTMA to the people who actually fit in here – was everything the brochure said it would be. I wanted to believe it, too. I’d dreamed of getting the scholarship since I first read about the academy in a Rolling Stone feature on Addie Marmoset; she made it sound like a school for rock stars. They only took one foreign student a year and it was almost unheard of for the winner to be a guitarist. For three years, when my friends headed to the beach after school, I caught the bus to my guitar teacher Trent’s house for two hours of intensive tuition.
The email finally came through one Saturday, as I was catching the bus into the city with Ellie and Phoenix. Once I read the subject, my hand started shaking and I couldn’t bring myself to open the message. Phoenix, who always took over when I was too gutless, took my phone from me and read it aloud, their voice rising as we realised what it meant.
‘This is Addie Marmoset’s old school, Lil,’ they said. ‘And look how it turned out for her!’
Ellie looped her arm around my neck and kissed me. ‘My girlfriend is the next Addie Marmoset,’ she said, and it finally started to feel real, and the three of us leapt up and danced in the aisle of the bus. When I got home, Dad emerged from his study to pull me into a hug and my brother, Jack, took the night off work to celebrate with us.
Addie Marmoset was my biggest celebrity crush and I wanted to be just like her. She was fifteen when she auditioned for a reality show called Quest for the Best. Her soulful version of Bill Withers’ song ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ brought two of the hardened judges to tears and the clip went viral, which was how I first saw it. The show had plucked her out of the academy and put her into a totally cheesy five-piece group called Perfect Storm, where she was the youngest member by five years and the most famous by a mile – partly for her four-octave vocal range, and partly due to her doll-like features and beguiling stare. When I first told Jack I’d won the scholarship, he’d joked that Addie Marmoset should get a restraining order – although she was long gone now, touring the world with Perfect Storm and relaxing on the beach with some Argentinian lingerie model despite being only eighteen.
I wished I was on a beach with Ellie right now, instead of writing her a song she’d never hear. The problem with loneliness is that it doesn’t take much to tip you into tears, and a three-chord minor progression will almost certainly do it.
The door was ajar. The boy must have stood there watching me for a while before he cleared his throat and I jumped, sending my guitar clattering onto the floor, the loose sheets from my notebook flying.
He was alarmingly good-looking: cut-glass cheekbones, aristocratic eyebrows, and the kind of get-back glare people write songs about. The sleeves of his white school shirt were rolled up – against the uniform code – to reveal lean, light brown arms. English people were meant to be polite, but he didn’t apologise for interrupting me.
‘All right?’ he said,
the all-purpose greeting I could never get used to. ‘I’m Carter.’
Somehow, throughout all the chatter in front of the bathroom mirrors and whisperings after Lights Out, the girls in the dorm hadn’t mentioned the cheekbones or the alarming good looks. ‘Oh, you’re Carter,’ I said before I could stop myself, and hurriedly wiped my eyes.
He looked delighted that his reputation had preceded him. ‘And you must be the Aussie exchange student. Lily, right?’
‘Liliana.’ Only my closest friends got away with shortening my name. My brother, Jack, took the easy road and now only Nonna still called him Giacomo, but I was always firm with people from the start.
‘Who’s it for, then?’ he asked.
‘Who’s what for?’
‘The song. What was it? “She follows me through Security even after we’ve said goodbye.”’
My face was on fire. Lyrics always sounded stupid out of context, and having them quoted word-perfect was a first. ‘It’s not finished.’
‘I like it. Keep at it.’
‘Oh, thank you, I will.’ I didn’t try to hold back the sarcasm. ‘Now I’ve got your go-ahead.’
He snorted, extracted a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his school pants, and tapped it against his thigh. ‘Well, I’ve got a date with the boathouse.’ He turned to leave, then stopped. ‘I’m getting a band together, actually. We’re looking for a vocalist. You should audition – if it’s not beneath you.’
I wished I hadn’t been so rude. But if I tried to apologise now, my voice would crack and he’d know how desperately I wanted a friend. He drummed his hands casually against the doorframe and waited for my answer.
‘I don’t think so. I’m only here for two months.’
‘Easy, tiger,’ he smirked. ‘I’m not offering it to you yet. I said you could audition.’
‘I’m not meant to do any extra-curricular activities.’ I hated how petty that sounded, but it was a condition of my scholarship.
‘They wouldn’t know about it. It’s a rock band, not a school-sanctioned one. The academy prefers everyone to stick to classical or jazz, so we’re meeting in secret. Plus, the drummer and bassist – Sam and Richie – are from other schools.’
‘And the academy wouldn’t like that either?’ I tried to ignore the way the words ‘rock band’ had made something tighten in my chest. I loved playing the rock classics Trent had taught me: Bowie, Iggy, Lou Reed.
‘Marney’d want us to keep it all in the family,’ he said, ‘but I want the best. And Sam’s the best.’
I’d met Ms Marney, the Housemistress, on my first day at the academy. She had a heart-shaped face, neat black curls and wore a lot of pink, but her flinty voice made me suspect she was more formidable than she seemed.
‘If you’re interested, come down to the boathouse after Lights Out tomorrow.’ He raised one of those eyebrows and I understood what had got Verity so knotted. I was uncomfortably aware that he was watching my expression. ‘And if you decide not to audition, do us a favour and don’t tell anyone about it.’
After he left, despite myself, I watched from the window as he materialised, walking straight-backed towards the boathouse. Halfway there, he glanced over his shoulder and I could have sworn he was looking up at the window, but I couldn’t see his expression.
•
I had never joined a band before. Trent said other musos my age would slow me down, but I’d always been curious about playing with other people. I turned Carter’s invitation over and over in my mind – on the one hand, secret band; on the other, possibly getting expelled from the scholarship I’d worked for years to achieve. It was a no-brainer, really.
And yet when he’d asked me, something had clicked into place. It wasn’t just his arched eyebrows and sinewy arms and alarming cheekbones. He was the first person at the academy who’d talked to me like an equal.
Back home in Australia, I’d always had Phoenix, but I was so focused on my music that I’d found it hard to make new friends. I had hoped it might be different here, that I might finally find people who understood me. People who knew what it was like to be up late with a guitar, head hurting and fingers torn but unable to sleep until the song had been threaded together; people who understood how it felt to see someone step onto a stage – Addie Marmoset or Iggy Pop or hell, Liam Tanqueray – and think, ‘I want to do that.’ My whole life I’d been looking for a crew who got me the way Ellie’s extroverted skater mates got her. I suddenly missed her more than ever. I pulled out my phone and Skyped her, keeping my voice low as I told her about the band. ‘I can’t go,’ I said. ‘I’ve worked too hard to get into the academy.’
‘It’s not like they’ll throw you out for auditioning. You might not even get in.’ She was walking home from school, sunlight dappling her face as she passed under the banksia trees. We’d walked that route together so many times. At first, it had been as friends, heading to her place to hang out and listen to her mum’s huge vinyl collection of old-school punk. One day she’d offered to help carry my guitar. Then, three months ago, I’d finally got up the courage to reach for her hand, and she’d turned to me with a look of such unguarded joy that I’d wondered why I’d needed courage in the first place.
‘I don’t even know how I would sneak out of the dorm,’ I said. After Lights Out, there was no way to open the door without spilling bright light into the room, and it wasn’t like Verity would turn a blind eye to me sneaking out to audition for her ex.
Ellie snorted. ‘Now you’re just coming up with excuses. Seriously, Lil. I don’t know why you’re not jumping at the chance. You’re only there for two months. You said you were going to take every opportunity the academy gave you.’
I did say that, back in Sydney when I was buoyed up by winning the scholarship and I felt full of confidence. Now that I was actually here, it seemed much harder.
‘Besides,’ Ellie went on, ‘aren’t you just a little bit curious? About a secret band auditioning in a boathouse in the middle of the night?’
CHAPTER 2
I couldn’t get out of the dorm door at night without anyone noticing, but I had another idea.
After Lights Out, I waited as long as I could bear it, then crept into the bathroom, clicking the door shut behind me. My puffa jacket was stuffed inside my locker and I pulled it on quickly, then grabbed my guitar from its hiding spot in the towel cupboard and jimmied the window open. I slid the guitar out before me, keeping a hand on it to stop it sliding off the roof, and hauled myself after it. The jacket rose up, fat drops of rain falling on my exposed back, and I snagged my knee on a nail as I tried to get a grip on the wet iron. Clambering across the roof like a spider, I tried not to think about the ten-metre drop. As I yanked open the window to the storeroom on the other side, I finally let out my breath.
I checked over my guitar. My knees were soaked through and there was a hole in my pyjamas where the nail had torn them open, exposing my thermals underneath – wearing jeans to bed would have looked suss. With my guitar on my back, I crept along the corridor, down the stairs and out of the schoolhouse. Under the verandah, the thought crossed my mind that there might be no audition at all; maybe Carter was a teenage serial killer who lured unsuspecting foreign students to his lair with promises of stardom. I texted Ellie to let her know I’d taken her advice, even though she would have been in class at this time of day. Then I stepped onto the deserted lawn and walked down to the riverbank, using my phone as a torch.
There was no answer when I knocked at the boathouse door so I prised it open, groping for the light switch. The room buzzed with fluorescent light, showing neatly stacked rowing sculls along the walls and, at one end, a beanbag, two milk crates, a coffee cup repurposed as an ashtray, and a pile of out-of-date NMEs. I blew on my hands to warm them. If Carter was late, at least I had time to practise.
Outside, some idiot was hooning his speedboat down the river. Henley-On-Thames was a small historic town: there were speed limits on the river, especially a
t night. I tried to ignore the noise and started playing Led Zeppelin’s ‘Black Dog’ – a pretty standard blues riff, but tricky on an acoustic. My hand cramped through the solo – probably down to nerves and the cold – and I stopped to massage my palm, the muscles bubbling under my skin.
Someone called out, ‘Carter?’ and two boys about my age opened the door, blinking at the light. The guy who’d spoken had smooth, dark brown skin, a wide smile, and was holding a tube amp, which he quickly put down to shake my hand. ‘I should’ve known Carter wasn’t playing Led Zep.’
His fingernails were scrupulously short and clean. Ellie often said you could tell a lot about someone by their hands. ‘Are you guys in the band?’ I asked.
‘I’m Sam,’ he said. ‘Drums. This is Richie. He’s on bass, transportation and general tomfoolery.’
There was nothing about Richie that said ‘tomfoolery’. His hard-nosed face and blond fringe were more Ralph Lauren catalogue than sense of humour. He didn’t shake my hand.
Sam motioned to my guitar. ‘Don’t let us stop you.’
Richie flopped onto the beanbag and lit a cigarette, but I was too self-conscious to start playing again. ‘I’d better save something for the audition,’ I said. ‘What kind of band is it, then?’
‘That will depend a lot on the kind of vocalist we get. We’ve never got further than jamming together at Richie’s place so far. But Carter’s decided he’s gonna be a rock star, so what can you do?’
Richie laughed, causing smoke to come out his nose in a rush.
‘Has it got a name?’
‘Lady Stardust,’ said Sam, watching my reaction closely. ‘It’s one of David Bowie’s more obscure tracks.’
I liked that he specified it was obscure, like he was giving me a gracious reason not to recognise it – even though I did. Trent had started me off on Bowie in my first guitar lessons, before I’d hit puberty or understood the songs. ‘I love Bowie,’ I said.
‘Everyone loves Bowie,’ Sam said. Then he added, like a proper music snob, ‘Especially now he’s dead.’
I plucked out the opening bars of ‘Lady Stardust’ to prove I was a true fan, and he smiled that unguarded smile again just as the door swung open and Carter charged in. He was carrying a sixpack of Carlsberg and being trailed by five boys I recognised from my classes. At the tail end of the line was Verity, Carter’s sort-of ex, shivering in a little black dress, her legs so white they glowed against her mulberry Docs. Ava had obviously lost this round.
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