by Terry Tyler
***
Janice sat at the back of the room on a bar stool, with Carolyn. She couldn't work out whether she felt proud of Dave, or embarrassed for him. Maybe it was because she knew him so well - but those stupid outfits! Yes, yes, she knew Thor was a rock band with a Viking theme - boy, did she know; Dave must have told her fifty times over the past few weeks - but clearly she hadn't been listening properly when he told her about the gear they would be wearing. She'd imagined a bit of animal skin here and there, if she'd imagined anything at all; she certainly hadn't expected them to look as if they'd arrived straight from one of those Viking battle re-enactment events that occurred at the Danes' Camp Visitors' Centre each summer.
She felt awkward, too, sitting there with Carolyn. What if Carolyn thought they were awful but didn't like to say anything?
"They're great!" Carolyn shouted in her ear, over the music.
Did she sound as if she was just saying it?
"D'you think so? Really?"
"Yeah! It's good how they're playing some covers as well as their own stuff, so it doesn't get boring."
Ah. "D'you think their own stuff is boring then?"
Pause. "No. But we don't know it, do we? You want to listen to stuff you know when you're on a night out."
Janice grinned. Dave would go mad if he heard that.
"So, we just all keep churning out 'Sweet Home Alabama' and 'Hey Joe' for the next twenty years, do we? Because people are too brain dead to actually listen to and appreciate something they haven't heard before?" was one of his favourite rants.
"What do you think of the gear, then?" Janice dared herself to ask. "D'you think it's a bit much?"
"Nah, they look cool," said Carolyn. "It looks realistic, not silly. Mind you, I could do Shane some damage whatever he's wearing! Your Dave looks pretty hot, too."
Your Dave.
The closing bars of 'Saved' signalled the end of the first set, and Dave came bounding over to Janice; he kissed her on the cheek. For a moment she felt happy; it was as if they were still together.
"What did you think?" he asked. His face was flushed, his eyes glittery; his face bore the same look she remembered from when he used to take speed, before Harley was born.
"I thought you were brilliant!" Carolyn chimed in. "Is Shane coming over here for a drink, too?" Her head bobbed about as she scanned the room. Dave looked at Janice and winked; though Shane and Carolyn had got it together on a few occasions over the years, their couplings had never been anything but a port in a storm for Shane. She was, Shane said, one of the "ten to two" girls; the ones you asked for a dance ten minutes before a nightclub closed, knowing you could probably get to accompany them home without so much as buying them a drink first.
"You were great," Janice said, and smiled at him. He ordered her a Bacardi and Coke; as he paid for it and accepted praise for his performance from various people at the bar, she realised how much she wanted him to stay with her, not just buy her a drink and bugger off back to his mates. She wanted him to tell her she looked nice, too. She'd managed to squeeze herself into her size twelve jeans (even though she had to wear a loose top to cover the roll of fat that bulged over the waistband), and she was sure her hair was starting to grow. She was feeling confident; she wanted him to think her as pretty as he had when they'd first met. Oh why, why, was she so weak when it came to Dave? She was so strong, so organised about every other aspect of her life, but she just couldn't stop loving him, and loving him wrecked her defences.
"You look really nice tonight," Dave said to her, as he handed her the drink, and he kissed her on the cheek again.
She smiled at him; then, over his shoulder, she saw a sight that made the smile freeze on her lips. Her chest tightened; an atmosphere of doom seemed to pervade the room.
All her tomorrows flashed in front of her eyes.
Alison Swan had just walked in.
***
Dave gave the signal, and the second set kicked off with 'Flying High', the new song he'd written about the joys of freedom. Ritchie had laughed when he first played it to them, saying it was blatantly ripped off from Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Freebird', but Dave resented this; it might be influenced by that great rock classic, but there was nothing wrong with that, was there? The key phrase being 'influenced by' not 'ripped off from'. 'Flying High' was followed by Guns 'n' Roses' 'Sweet Child O' Mine', and the place really took off; girls were dancing, guys playing air guitars down at the front. Dave couldn't remember having felt this good in years. He was back in the saddle again! This was what it was all about! Another two up tempo covers, then they slid easily into the long intro for 'Cross the Sea', his own song about the brave Viking warrior's pain as he waved farewell to his wife and child. Janice and Carolyn had moved nearer the front; he looked at Janice as he sang the song, and he felt her eyes looking into his, too. He wondered if she could feel the meaning in the lyrics, too, as he sang. As the song came to a close he peered around the room to see how it was going, to gauge the reaction of his audience, and that was when he saw her. Right in front of the stage.
Alison.
Ariel.
Dave didn't know how he managed to get through the song.
She looked different. Well, she would, wouldn't she? In the eight years since they'd broken up she'd lived in London, travelled all around South America and South East Asia, then lived in London again, tried to make it in the music business - and failed, which was why she was back.
Gone was the waist length hair; it was still that dazzling white blonde colour (natural? He was never quite sure), but now it was cut just to her jaw and tucked behind her ears. She looked the same, but more - more travelled, sophisticated. He laughed at himself. Yeah, hiking to the other side of the globe probably would tend to make you look kind of travelled, wouldn't it? She was still slim, not an ounce of extra flesh on her - maybe a bit too thin, but who cared? Not he, when she was wearing his all-time favourite outfit for women; frayed denim shorts over thick black tights, and cowboy boots. Her face was thinner, too, he noticed; when she smiled at him he could see the hollows under her cheek bones. Oh, and those eyes. He remembered drowning in her eyes. Ridiculously huge pale blue sparklers with long, black, fluttering eyelashes. He'd written a song about them once. That perfect pouty mouth. Who could look at that mouth and not want to kiss the life out of it? God, but she was so damn pretty.
Dave was hardly aware of the audience clapping as they finished the set; it was gone eleven o'clock and he saw Shane's Uncle Vic doing that slicing of the throat movement, indicating that they were to finish and not play another number. Good. He didn't want to. Not tonight, with Alison there. Ariel. He waved to the audience and shouted out something like thank you and goodnight, after which Shane grabbed the microphone and said something else about them playing next week at The White Hart. Dave was glad Shane had remembered. He had forgotten everything.
Then he remembered Janice.
***
Janice was watching him, and she knew. She knew him so well. She'd observed his shock when he saw Alison Swan standing there, even though Dave probably thought he was hiding it from the world. The show was over, and she knew the exaggerated larking around on stage as the band packed their gear away and drank the pints of lager she'd bought ten minutes ago was for Alison's benefit, to show her what a great time he was having - and to cover up the fact that he was completely thrown by her presence.
Janice watched as Alison sipped her glass of wine and chatted to her friend with the long black hair. Oh yeah, Melodie Waters. Hadn't seen her around for ages, either. Mind you, though, she never went to the places Melodie Waters was likely to hang out.
Was Alison hanging around to talk to Dave?
Janice looked at Dave again; he was laughing at something Boz was saying, but his eyes darted this way and that. Perhaps he felt her looking at him, because he smiled at her, then, gave her the thumbs up signal and blew her a kiss. The next moment his eyes swivelled across to Alison Swan once more.
/> "Come on, let's go," she said to Carolyn.
"What? I thought we'd stick around a bit! I was thinking that Shane might want to have a bit of a celebration, if you know what I mean!" Carolyn laughed, and threw a coquettish smile at Shane, who wasn't looking.
"If he wants you, he knows where to find you," Janice said. She didn't like Carolyn making a fool of herself, but she could hardly blame Shane; Carolyn didn't do herself any favours. "Come on, let's go. We can get a cab from the rank."
All evening, she'd hoped Dave might want to come home with her so he could tell Harley about the gig in the morning. She'd been thinking of suggesting this to him, but she wasn't about to hang around; Dave knew where to find her, too.
***
Alison-Ariel was still there. There could only be one reason, couldn't there? Dave leapt down from the stage, and walked towards her.
"Hello, stranger," he said. He reached out and took her hand.
She smiled; Dave felt that tell-tale lurch in both heart and groin.
"Hello," she said, softly, and put her drink down. "Come here, then."
He enveloped her slender frame with his arms; she felt so delicate after Janice's warm, soft curves. Almost fragile. Alison wasn't fragile, though, not at all. She smelled wonderful, of some sort of upmarket patchouli oil, he thought.
"How long has it been?" she asked, pulling away from him. "Five, six years?"
"Got to be. I haven't seen you since before you went off travelling."
"Mm - I always think I'll bump into you when I come back to visit Dad, but I never seem to."
"Yeah, well, up until recently I haven't been going out that much."
"No." She smiled again. Beautiful. Dave was aware of another twinge in the groin area, and hoped it wasn't going to get embarrassing.
"I heard you're a dad now," Alison-Ariel said. "Glad you haven't given up the music, though. I don't know the girl you're with - Janice, isn't it?"
"We're not together anymore," Dave said - then wondered if he should have added that so quickly. Maybe he should have held out, not let her know he was available. Semi-available, anyway. He didn't want to upset Janice. He pushed away the memory of a night in bed with her only a couple of weeks before, and the fairly recent conversation in which they'd discussed getting back together again. She'd chucked him out, hadn't she? "Yeah, Harley's four. He's a brilliant kid."
Ariel smiled. "I can't imagine you as a dad. Hey - no offence! You know what I mean, though, don't you? You think of the person you used to know and - "
"I thought you were great!" cut in another voice. "Ariel heard you were playing and said we had to come along!"
Dave looked round. Melodie Waters. He'd hardly noticed she was there. Hadn't seen her in a while, either. She was looking good, too; all women tended to fade away next to Alison, though. Ariel.
"Thanks." He smiled at Melodie. Pretty girl; long black hair, too much heavy suntan make-up. He looked back at Alison. Must stop calling her that. Ariel. His Alison. He found he was holding her hand again.
"Well, we'd better get off," said Ariel, though she didn't take her hand away. "I've got a busy day tomorrow. Got to go out with Dad to visit various relatives."
"Perhaps we can meet up some time," said Dave. "I'd love to hear all about your travels, and everything that happened in London."
"Too much to tell about the travels, not enough to tell about London!" she said, and smiled. "But yes, that would be good. I'll be at Dad's, when I'm not looking for a job that doesn't actually make me feel sick at the thought of turning up for it." She glanced up at Melodie and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Dave saw it, though; it was as though she was warning her not to say something.
"There's nothing much about, is there?" Ariel continued. "Anyway, we'll have to exchange numbers."
"Dave! Are you going to give us a hand, or what?" Ritchie called out from the stage.
"Yeah, in a minute!" He leant forward and kissed Ariel on the cheek. "I've got to go. But soon, right? I'll call you at your dad's. Thanks for coming, both of you. Soon, okay?"
He dropped her hand, and watched as Ariel walked away from him.
"Dave!" Ritchie again. "Bloody hell, Shane's bad enough, I've just had to drag him away from two little slappers. Don't you start!"
Dave jumped back onto the stage and started unplugging stuff - and then he remembered Janice. He'd been going to suggest that he went home with her, then he could tell Harley all about the gig, in the morning. Perhaps she could phone a cab, while she was waiting for him.
But when he looked around for her she was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER FOUR
She'd done some things to earn a crust in her time, but this had to be the worst.
Ariel Swan hated what she did, and she hated herself for doing it.
Okay, it was a job, and they were hard to come by. It put money in her pocket, though it made her feel as if she was selling herself cheap, prostituting her soul. At least prostitutes were honest about what they did.
Every time she walked out into that hateful room, felt all those eyes on her, she wanted to run and hide. Shove back on the jeans and sweatshirt she'd so reluctantly stripped off, and get the hell out of there. She hated wearing that gaudy, tasteless costume; she wondered if people looked at her and thought, isn't she worth more than this? She knew the women (the few who actually deigned to look at her at all) felt superior to her; with their jobs in offices, shops, banks, they were better than her, that was what they thought. They would rather go without the money than do this.
What she dreaded most was seeing a man she knew, there in the crowd. Like all the others who tried to catch her eye, his attention would be captured only by her immediate fulfillment of his needs - except that he would think, ah, so this is what became of Alison Swan, is it?
Enough.
This would be the last time she put herself through this. When she tore off that outfit at the end of this evening, it would be for the last time.
She looked at the man directly standing just a few feet away from her. He was dark, handsome; had he met her elsewhere he might have looked at her so, so differently.
She formed her lips into a bright, puppet-like smile, as instructed by the greasy, leering oaf who'd given her the job.
The dark, handsome man just stood there, waiting for her to respond to him in the way she had learned, the way she had to force herself to do.
She took a deep breath.
"Cheeseburger, sir? And would you like fries with that?"
No, nuts to this.
She wasn't doing it anymore.
Her feet hurt, she was fed up with smelling of chips, and it only paid a pittance, anyway. First, she served Dark Handsome, not because he was so lush but because he had a sweet little boy with him - not that his father should have been feeding him that crap in the first place - then she locked her till, walked off into the Staff Only area, and hurled off her bright emerald green jacket, trousers and baseball cap.
Oran, the eighteen year old assistant manager, hurried in after her, then averted his eyes when he saw she'd stripped down to her underwear. "You can't just walk off in the middle of a shift!" he said, gesturing at her with his clipboard.
Ariel pulled on her jeans. "I just did," she said, then finished dressing and walked out of the side door, giving Oran a pat on the cheek as she passed.
Freedom!
Now what?
It was only half past eight; she didn't feel like going home just yet. Dad wouldn't be there, he'd be being pampered at Pam's. Home cooking, all his laundry done, sex on a plate - and Pam wondered why he hadn't asked her to marry him. Didn't need to, did he? Ariel sighed, and lit a cigarette with difficulty, shielding her lighter with her hand; the wind blowing across the flat fenlands was so much more brisk than in London. She didn't feel like going round to see Melodie to talk about hair, nail and whatever else extensions. Didn't want to go for a drink, either; what was the point of sitting on your own at a bar
if you couldn't have a cigarette to go with it? Stupid bloody smoking ban. Bloody England. What did you do at eight-thirty on a rainy Monday night in Fennington St Mary?
Burger City was on the outskirts of town; it was a long walk back to her childhood home, but she didn't mind. She quite enjoyed getting wet. Perhaps, on the three mile journey, she would write another song, in her head. Something about being at a crossroads in her life, she thought, and laughed inwardly. Yeah, she was at one of those, all right! All those plans, and she'd ended up, at the age of twenty-eight, with no job, back at home, living with her dad. No, she mustn't think of it as 'ended up'. Going home to live with her dad was just a temporary lifestyle choice, while she took a breather and decided on her next move. She must use the time wisely, write, have a good think, not get despondent.
A car raced past, music blaring out, and showered her with the spray from a puddle. Wanker! She looked across the road; there was The Bandstand in the distance. Her thoughts flitted briefly towards Dave. Should she? So tempting. She'd seen the way he looked at her that Saturday, after his gig; sort of wistfully. Yes, the thought of a little fling with Dave was very appealing indeed. But only because she had nothing much else in her life right now. She didn't want to run the risk of falling for him and staying in this town forever, or, worse, not falling for him and hurting him all over again. No, she wasn't big on using people.
Still tempting, though. Dave had this weird thing going on. He was really nice, and a bit of a pushover, but he was still sexy. Usually, pushover men weren't sexy. Or maybe she was wrong, and he wasn't a pushover anymore. That would be good to discover.
Mustn't start thinking about Dave. How he'd looked the other night. Older (well, he would, wouldn't he?), bigger, more overtly masculine. It made her feel all - well, restless. As horny as hell, actually. Hmm.
