A Song for Tomorrow

by Alice Peterson

‘It’s close to her family home. I spent a lot of time by the sea, working out what to do with my life. I found it healing.’

  For a moment I’m reminded of Tom and how he takes his troubles out of London, to the ocean, away from the crowds, the pushing and the barging. ‘She pulled me through,’ Pete says.

  ‘Katie helped, but you did it too.’

  ‘I know my studio isn’t exactly Beverley Hills but I’m older and hopefully wiser in this game, and I’m a lot happier.’

  We hit another open road.

  I drive for a couple of miles, both of us lost in our own thoughts. ‘What am I doing wrong?’ I say, eventually breaking the silence between us.

  ‘It’s not you, Alice, it’s me.’

  ‘It’s not you. You’re wonderful. I’m the one they listen to.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s my responsibility to make you sound as good as you can possibly be. I need you to play some more gigs, we need to build a platform for you, but gigs are knackering, they’re physical . . .’

  ‘I can do it.’

  ‘I’m worried . . .’

  ‘You don’t need to worry—’

  ‘Yes I do. You’ve got to look after yourself. It’s my responsibility to—’

  ‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’

  He looks at me, as if resigned that I won’t give up. ‘I’ve been talking to a friend of mine, Trisha, a vocal coach; she’s one of the best in her field, one of the best in the country, the world probably. I think she could bring the emotion out in your lyrics, help turn you into more of a performer. Will you think about it?’

  ‘Call her.’

  ‘You don’t have to make a decision right now.’

  ‘Call her.’ I smile. ‘Or I will.’

  39

  Trisha’s studio is in Hammersmith, close to the Apollo theatre. As I walk down some rackety stairs a woman behind me sighs impatiently. ‘Please go on,’ I say, waving her past me, and am about to add, ‘I have a skiing injury,’ but then I stop. I can’t be bothered to use my breath to make excuses.

  I walk down a long corridor with a few adjacent rooms, each filled with a piano and stool. I hear someone singing Barbara Streisand, ‘The Way We Were’. Her voice is so powerful I would have thought people out on the street could hear her. I follow the sound until I’m outside her studio. Trisha looks as if she’s in her late thirties. She’s tall with long dark hair sweeping down her back, and she’s wearing a bohemian dress with lace up boots. She looks more like a gypsy than a vocal coach. As she carries on singing, seemingly unaware of my presence, I’m unsure what to do. Stay or come back when it’s over? I scan the studio. It’s filled with fame: framed pictures of singers with their messages and kisses scrawled over their images in thick black marker pen. A mirrored wall adorns one whole side of the studio. I can smell incense burning. ‘You must be Alice,’ she says, when finally she meets my eye, yet I believe she’s known I’ve been watching her all this time. Her dark hair accentuates her pale face, dark eyes and bright red lipstick. I shake her hand, but am quickly clamped to her generous chest, her arms around me, as if she were greeting a long-lost friend.

  ‘Pete’s told me a lot about you,’ she says, her bracelets jangling as she plays the piano, her fingers slim and graceful against the keys. ‘But you tell me why you’re here.’

  ‘I want to be a singer, and a songwriter, but I’m stuck. I need a teacher—’

  She stops playing, turns to me, fire in her eyes. ‘I am not a teacher. Don’t ever call me that.’

  She’s scary. ‘Sorry.’

  She carries on playing, her voice gentle again as she says, ‘I’m a vocal coach.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’ Why did I have to ask that? Uh-oh, I wish I hadn’t . . .

  She stops playing and turns to me again with that fire in her eyes. ‘The difference is there isn’t a thing I don’t know about music, Alice. It’s in my blood. You’ve got to know it, from here.’ When she taps my heart I feel a shot of energy and warmth. She calms down before she says, ‘I’ve heard your demos, sweetie. You’ve got talent, one hundred per cent.’ She returns to playing the piano. ‘This is my Rainforest piece. Here are all the animals, the deer, the butterflies,’ she says, her touch light against the keys, ‘the poison arrow frogs, the snakes, the monkeys . . . and then the fires.’ With drama and volume now, her hands effortlessly move up and down the keyboard. ‘You see the change? That’s what you need as a singer, to evoke passion, sadness, joy and peace, all these emotions. Often it’s not what you sing, it’s the way you sing it. Are you with me, sweetie?’

  I nod. Dad often says it’s not about what you say in court; it’s the way you deliver it.

  ‘Up,’ she demands.

  I stand up.

  ‘Face the mirror.’

  I swivel round.

  ‘Drop your shoulders. Relax.’ She stands behind me, massages my shoulders. I can smell her Chanel scent. ‘They’re like blocks of wood, sweetie.’ She digs her fingers into me, as if I’m bread dough. It’s painful. Ouch.

  ‘Raise your arms above your head. Feel that stretch. Go on, feel it.’

  She sits down at her piano again, plays C to G in the major chord, telling me to sing ‘la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,’ along with her. Once we’ve satisfied different major and minor chords, she plays a new tune, singing, ‘double gin and tonic, double gin and tonic, double gin and tonic . . .’

  I want to laugh but sing along with her. After a series of warm up exercises, she says, ‘Give me one of your favourite female artists,’ as she heads over to her shelves which are bulging with folders marked in alphabetical order.

  ‘Natalie Imbruglia.’

  She takes out the ‘I’ file, slots a CD into the machine. She hands me the sheet of lyrics to the song, ‘Torn’.

  ‘Sing.’

  The background music comes on. I clutch the microphone, the palm of my hand sweaty with nerves. By the end of the song I’m struggling to breathe, my voice hoarse, as if I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes.

  ‘Can you smell the oil in here?’ she asks me.

  It’s hard not to.

  ‘Frankincense. Supports the immune system. Helps to focus the mind and overcome stress. What you eat and drink . . .’ She picks up her glass, sips through a stripy straw, ‘. . . the bad habits, they need to be kicked to the kerb. Do you want to know what your bad habit is?’

  ‘I’ve probably got loads.’

  ‘Your breathing.’

  ‘That could be difficult to—’

  ‘Pete’s told me you have CF.’

  I’m relieved she’s not looking at me with sympathy. She puts her drink back down on the top of the piano ledge before placing a hand on my heart. ‘Breathe, Alice.’ She holds a hand against my chest. ‘The first thing you ever breathe from is your diaphragm, not your lungs. You have a diaphragm. Let’s use it. Lie down, on the floor.’

  ‘It’s not that easy . . .’

  ‘Yes it is. I’ll help.’

  I feel vulnerable as I lie down.

  ‘Trust me,’ she says, supporting my head. ‘Sweetie, you have heard of your diaphragm, haven’t you?’

  I nod, uncertainly. I don’t tell her I think of my body as a car, and that if I opened the bonnet I’d have no real idea what was inside.

  ‘Has it ever had a workout?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have no idea, do you. It’s the most important sheet of muscle in your body. It starts here.’ Trisha places a hand across my breastbone. ‘. . . And extends all the way down to the bottom of your ribcage. As you expand your ribs you flex the diaphragm. Breathe in. From here.’

  I take a deeper breath.

  ‘You feel that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sort of . . .

  ‘You’re flattening the diaphragm, creating this vacuum that holds air in your lungs. I want you to practise this at home, on your bed. You breathe from here, flexing the diaphragm, air fills the lungs, you sing better, simple as. You get it?’

&nb
sp; ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Think of it like a balloon filled with air. Think of the sound you can make by squeezing it at the top. It might only be a small amount of air being released that makes the sound but it’s the larger amount of air below that gives it the control, that makes it sound good, you get me?’

  ‘I think so,’ I say, beginning to understand.

  ‘If the balloon loses too much air, it dwindles, the pitch falls, the sound fades, disappears. Gone. OK, heard of these muscles?’ She’s now prodding what she calls my abdominal wall muscles. ‘As you sing, you are going to give away a little bit of air, like that balloon. Not too much, keep it controlled, and these muscles should wake up. Wakey wakey!’ When she gives mine a prod I laugh. ‘They help keep your ribs expanded and that then keeps air in your lungs and you should feel it all the way down to your belly button, girl.’ Trisha helps me to sit up; I’m like a ragdoll in her arms.

  ‘You have put so much pressure on your vocal cords, it’s time they had a rest.’

  I touch my throat. ‘I have these nodules. I’m a mess,’ I admit, close to tears.

  ‘Vocal abuse. It’s no wonder you feel hoarse, out of breath and sore, sweetie. As a child I used to hold my pencil the wrong way.’ She picks up a pen, mimics the action. ‘No one told me the correct way so I’d write and I’d write, really hard, until I got this callus, this lump right here. You can still see it.’ She shows me her third finger on her right hand, a small lump still visible. ‘You need to sing using your body, not your throat. So let’s practise. Sing me one of your songs, thinking about your breathing, about everything I’ve said. And take your time.’

  I gather myself, before I sing ‘Breathe Tonight’.

  Trisha stops me halfway through. ‘It’s going to take time but I can see you’re a quick learner.’ She holds a hand across my chest again. ‘Breathe in . . .’ Pause. ‘. . . and breathe out. In . . . and out . . .’

  This time as I sing I can feel a subtle difference.

  ‘You see,’ she says, ‘and again . . . don’t stop. One more time . . .’

  Soon I can’t breathe at all. I’m gasping, coughing, trying to sit up. I feel arms supporting me from behind, holding my ribs.

  ‘I’m here. I’ve got you, Alice. I’m here, sweetie. Breathe through your mouth. Relax, I’m here.’

  I sink back into Trisha’s arms as she says, ‘I won’t let you go.’

  ‘Please help me,’ I murmur, ‘you’ve got to help me.’

  ‘I will. That’s what I’m here for.’

  I thank her as if she has just said she will save my life.

  ‘She’s up against so much, Pete,’ Trisha says to him on the telephone after our session, looking straight at me. ‘Doesn’t take long to see she’s one of a kind. She has this aura, this incredible energy. I felt it the moment she walked into my studio.’ Another pause. ‘Yeah, she’s frail but has steel in her heart.’ Pause. ‘No, I didn’t call her brave, didn’t dare!’

  I smile.

  ‘She bloody well is though and she knows it too.’

  I fight back the tears now. What is happening to me? I am turning into an emotional wreck.

  ‘Any other person would say you’re in fantasyland, but you know me, Pete, always love a challenge . . . Yes, her lyrics are beautiful.’ Pause. ‘She’s beautiful too, I hope you’re keeping your hands off.’

  I can’t help smiling at that too.

  ‘Good, I’m glad you’ve learned your lesson,’ Trisha continues. ‘If she’s going to get anywhere we’ve got to go back to basics, teach Alice to breathe as best she can with the messed up apparatus she has. I will make this girl an athlete, an Olympian, day and night.’

  An Olympian? Good luck with that!

  ‘We’ve just got a lot of work to do.’ She takes out her gum, aims it at the bin. When it goes in she catches my eye. ‘Simple as.’

  It’s my third session with Trisha. ‘Move, Alice, remember to use your body to express yourself,’ she says, singing along with me.

  When I reach the end I do feel lighter; I don’t feel so tired or breathless, the discomfort is easing in my throat. ‘Your diaphragm, the thing you didn’t even know existed until a few weeks ago,’ says Trisha, ‘is pretty darn strong. That cough has given your voice power. That’s why you can belt out a tune.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You have one of the strongest diaphragms I’ve worked with.’

  It’s as if I have been singing in a dark room all this time, and at last someone has switched a light on.

  My cough, my enemy, has in fact helped me, when all this time I saw it as an obstacle, a reason not to sing.

  ‘I never knew there was another way,’ I exclaim.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Trisha says, before taking a sip of her drink through her straw, ‘but it’s the softer notes we need to work on now, sweetie. Get up, no time to rest.’

  ‘Were you a sergeant major in a former lifetime?’

  ‘Believe me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.’

  40

  Two months later, August 2001

  I feel chesty and hot when I step out of the shower. I can’t be ill, not for my meeting with Trisha this afternoon. Over the summer we’ve had five more sessions, working mainly on my breathing and vocals.

  Trisha and Pete both want me to play a gig this autumn. We have so much work to do. I can’t be ill. I can’t let them down. Can’t waste more time . . .

  I must have caught a cold last weekend. Tom, Lucy, Jake and I stayed in our family cottage on Exmoor for a few nights. On Sunday we had a picnic lunch before Jake and Tom swam in the river, Tom eventually persuading me to join him. But I stayed in the water for such a short time. I open my wardrobe, telling myself I can have an early night tonight. I cough again, before wearily plugging in my nebs machine. I’ll feel much better once my treatment is out of the way. I wish I could press a button and it would all be done.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Mum comes out of the kitchen with a half eaten sandwich when she hears my rasping cough.

  I can’t even say the word ‘Trisha’ before I’m coughing again.

  She feels my forehead. ‘You’re burning. You can’t go, not like this.’

  ‘I’ll . . .’ Cough. ‘I’ll be fine . . .’

  ‘You need to rest.’

  I swear if one more person tells me what to do . . .

  ‘Honestly, don’t worry.’ I open the front door and head down the steps, towards the gate—

  ‘Wait!’ I turn and see Mum following me to my car. I pick up my pace, rush to unlock the door before chucking my bag onto the passenger seat. Just as I sit down behind the wheel Mum bangs on the window. ‘You’re not to go!’

  I turn on the engine.

  She’s thumping the window with her fist now.

  ‘Mum, please!’

  ‘Listen to yourself, how can you drive, how can you sing . . .’

  I press my foot on the accelerator. ‘MUM!’ I screech, when she plants herself onto the bonnet of my car.

  ‘You can’t go!’ she shouts, seemingly oblivious to the ginger-haired traffic warden who stops, circling my car like a shark with his evil little machine.

  I lean out of the window, ‘Give her a ticket,’ I suggest, before telling Mum, ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’

  ‘Go then. Drive.’

  I rev the engine. Surely Mum will get down.

  I switch on the radio. The clock is ticking. It’s coming up to two o’clock. I need to be at Trisha’s by two-fifteen.

  ‘I’m going,’ I warn her again.

  She shrugs. ‘Go.’

  I grip the steering wheel. I feel trapped. Claustrophobic. Stuck. My car is my freedom. I get out and storm in front of her. ‘It’s my life. You need to respect that.’

  She crosses her arms in defiance. ‘You need to give me a break, Alice.’

  ‘I am not a child.’

  ‘Well stop behaving like one.’

  ‘You have no right—’

 
‘I have every bloody right,’ she says, just as angry as I am now. ‘Why risk—’

  ‘Everything in life is a risk.’

  My mobile rings. It’s Trisha. ‘I’m on my way,’ I assure her.

  ‘I can’t make it today, sweetie, something’s come up last min. So sorry.’

  My pride won’t let me tell Mum my session is off so when Trisha hangs up, I still say, ‘Great, won’t be long, leaving now.’

  I get back into my car, turn on the engine once again, but Mum remains on the bonnet.

  She isn’t going to budge.

  ‘Hello.’ She waves to the traffic warden, who has clearly clocked all the cars down our street and is now heading back in our direction. ‘Everything all right?’ he asks her.

  ‘Yes, all fine,’ she says, making him even more confused.

  I turn on the radio again.

  My foot hovers over the pedal.

  I don’t care that I’ve got nowhere to go. I’ll go for a drive. I’ll go and see Jake, play some piano at his place. I need to get out of the house before I explode . . .

  Mum is now waving at our elderly neighbours.

  Stop talking to them.

  I will stay in this car forever if I have to.

  I will not give in.

  A minute goes by.

  I wind down the window. ‘Mum, this is getting silly.’

  ‘Off you’ll go leaving me to worry about you driving . . .’

  ‘You don’t need to worry.’

  ‘. . . Worrying in case you crash . . .’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘. . . Worrying you’ll hurt someone else on the road or I’ll get a phone call from the hospital and I’m sick to death of worrying . . .’

  ‘But Mum . . .’

  ‘. . . And I’m tired.’ She wraps her pink cardigan tightly around her. ‘I’m so tired, Alice.’

  It breaks my heart when I hear her cry. I bite my lip, holding back my own tears as finally I open the door.

  ‘Budge up.’ I perch next to her. We sit quietly for a moment until I say, ‘Here.’ I hand her my car keys.

  Mum doesn’t take them.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say tearfully, ‘I know it’s not easy.’

  She puts an arm around my shoulder. ‘I love you.’