Loving Danny

by Hilary Freeman

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Danny’s mother was standing at the door. When she saw me her expression changed from anger to shock to alarm. ‘Are you all right, Naomi? You look terrible – you’re soaked through. What’s happened?’

  I was still hyperventilating, tears streaming down my face, my jeans and coat splattered with mud. ‘Please, I need to see Danny. Please . . .’

  Shaking her head, she let me pass her, stepping away from me so, I assume, I didn’t stain her pristine dress.

  ‘Danny’s in his flat,’ she said. ‘You know the way.’

  I didn’t thank her – I was already banging on his door.

  He opened it almost immediately. ‘Naomi?’ he said, bewildered. He had dark circles under his eyes and it looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. ‘What are you doing here?’ His mother was still loitering in the hall, curious. He nodded at her. ‘It’s all right, Mum, you can go now. I’ll deal with this.’

  He led me into his flat, locking the door behind us. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked again. His arm twitched in my direction and I could tell he wanted to touch me, but he wouldn’t let himself.

  ‘Your letter . . . I . . . how could you? I don’t understand.’ I began to sob, huge, chest-filling sobs, like hiccoughs that I couldn’t control.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Sit down and have a drink and then we’ll talk.’

  He made me a cup of tea and watched as I sipped it. Soon I had stopped shaking and my sobs had begun to subside. Suddenly self-aware, I felt foolish and then worried about what I must look like, with my hair plastered to my face and no make-up.

  ‘I’m sorry, Omi. I didn’t mean to upset you like this,’ said Danny gently.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I repeated. ‘You tell me that you love me and then you finish it. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It made sense to me when I wrote it. I thought it was for the best. It is for the best.’

  ‘But why? What about how I feel? I love you too. I didn’t know how to tell you, but I do. And—’

  ‘You what?’ he exclaimed, his eyes growing wider.

  ‘I love you,’ I muttered, embarrassed.

  His eyes pierced into mine. ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Say it again,’ he demanded.

  ‘OK, I love you.’

  ‘Again!’

  I was almost laughing now. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Again!’ he cried. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to hear you say that.’

  ‘I love you, Danny,’ I told him, frustrated that I couldn’t infuse those three syllables with the colour and depth that lay behind them. ‘I love you, I love you.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I can’t tell you how happy you’ve made me.’

  He walked over to me and took my hands, pulling me up from my chair. Then he wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me tight into his body, kissing me so hard and so urgently that I was momentarily afraid I might be swallowed whole. Soon I was kissing him back, channelling all the emotions within me – all the words I should have said and the thoughts I couldn’t articulate – into kisses. I was kissing him with my body and my mind and my soul. After that kiss, there was no going back for me, no escape. Danny had me. He was no longer just my boyfriend, he was part of me. We were one entity: NaomiandDanny, DannyandNaomi.

  We never spoke about the letter again. I regret that now. I should have asked him why he had turned a small argument into such a big drama. Did a little bit of him enjoy it? Had he foreseen the effect that letter would have on me – was it all part of a clever game? And, most importantly, why would he try to protect me from himself?

  I didn’t ask because I was so caught up in the intensity of his feelings, and mine. In my half-formed dictionary of love, D-R-A-M-A was spelled P-A-S-S-I-O-N. The sad thing is, even if I had asked, I don’t think he’d have had the answers.

  Chapter 11

  Danny was on stage, singing to a crowd of about eighty people in a dingy room at the back of a pub. He had played in hundreds of venues just like it – dark, hot rooms that smelled of stale beer and cigarettes. But this night was different. Somewhere in the crowd stood an A&R man named Jed Wilson who had the power to change Danny’s life forever. If he liked The Wonderfulls he could give them a record contract: the golden ticket that would take them out of local pubs, out of new band nights and poorly paid support slots, and put them on the bill at festivals and thousand-seater venues and even, one day, stadiums.

  Danny wanted a record contract more than he wanted anything. There was no point fooling myself; no matter how much he declared that he loved me, if he’d had to choose between a record contract and me, I’m pretty sure I’d have been a poor runner-up. Music was his first love. Danny had spent his childhood imagining himself on stage at Wembley, a huge crowd mouthing along to his lyrics. Unlike most childhood dreams, which are drummed out of us by the realisation that we don’t have the talent or the opportunity to fulfil them, Danny’s had stayed with him, growing ever stronger. If you were to take away the deep voice and the stubble and the six-foot stature, you’d see he was still just a little boy playing air guitar in front of the mirror.

  ‘You’ll be fantastic,’ I reassured him, as we drove to the venue for the soundcheck earlier that afternoon. ‘The record company would be mad not to sign you.’ I knew it was what he needed to hear and I wanted him to be successful because it meant so much to him. But part of me feared what might happen if The Wonderfulls achieved fame and fortune. Success would change him; it was inevitable. Would there be room in his life for me, what with recording sessions and tours and magazine interviews? And what about all the girls he’d meet, groupies who were prettier and more interesting than me?

  No matter how much he told me that he loved me, that I was beautiful and funny and clever, nothing could erase the nagging doubt that I might not be good enough for him. I felt I’d lucked out and that one day Danny would wake up and realise that he’d made a mistake. I’d noticed the way some of the girl fans looked at me, and I imagined them whispering to their friends about my features or my figure, asking, ‘What’s he doing with her?’ I sometimes asked myself the same question. I don’t know where self-esteem comes from – perhaps you’re born with it. My lack of it certainly wasn’t my parents’ fault; they’d always told me I was pretty and special, that I could be anything I wanted to be. It had just never seemed that way to me.

  Seated at the side of the stage at a table covered in flyers and demo CDs, I looked into the crowd and tried to work out where Jed Wilson was standing. There were several men I didn’t recognise, but they could equally have been there to see one of the other bands performing that night. Jed, I decided, would be alone and he’d probably be aloof and dressed a little too smartly, almost certainly in black. Danny had told me that most A & R men were terminally uncool, desperate to appear young and trendy and ‘down with the kids’, when in reality they were just overpaid businessmen heading towards middle age. There were a couple of guys who fitted the bill, one with a – presumably – ‘ironic’ mullet-type hairstyle and another whose jeans and T-shirt looked as though they might have been pressed. I watched them closely for a while; neither seemed to be enjoying himself much. If one of them was indeed Jed, it wasn’t a good sign.

  Although nobody would admit it openly, the band’s rehearsals – which were disorganised at the best of times – had not been going well. Dylan had failed to turn up on several occasions and nobody had been able to contact him. Danny had taken his place, but the bass guitar wasn’t his instrument and he’d found it hard to sing and play at the same time. When Dylan had finally resurfaced, he had offered few excuses for his absences and was not even apologetic. From his weary and unkempt demeanour it was obvious that he had been smoking far too much pot. He no longer seemed to care whether The Wonderfulls made it; he no longer cared about anything much at all. Worried that Dylan might leave altogether, the
others kept their irritation to themselves, but the tension between them was palpable.

  Still, the gig was as successful as anyone might hope. Danny was in fine voice, Dylan had got his act together and most of The Wonderfulls’ fans had shown up to cheer them on. There had been a lot of buzz on the website about the possibility of a record deal and everybody appeared to like Danny’s new songs. I watched the crowd’s reactions as they heard them for the first time; they clapped and shouted their appreciation as much as they did for any of the old favourites. That gave me a warm feeling. I had seen the songs progress from scrawls in Danny’s notebook to demos to full performances – I knew them as well as the band did. So when Danny said, ‘This is a song for someone very special,’ and looked directly at me, my heart leapt in to my mouth. I knew exactly what he was about to sing.

  Not long after the letter incident, on Valentine’s Day Danny had sent me a cryptic text, inviting me to his flat that evening for ‘a surprise’. I still found the idea of surprises rather unnerving but, since the picnic, I no longer dreaded them. I had no idea what it might be and I spent the whole day at work in a state of nervous excitement, imagining every possible scenario. He had already sent me a huge card and had flowers delivered to me at work – surprises enough, after he’d told me he thought Valentine’s Day was just a commercial enterprise dreamed up by greeting card manufacturers. Foolishly, I’d taken him at his word and sent him nothing. Now I felt guilty and spoiled.

  So what else did he have planned? Perhaps he was going to cook me a special meal, or present me with a gift, or even – if I let myself get carried away – whisk me off somewhere romantic, like Paris or Rome. Alone in the photocopying room I practised my reaction: a look of shock, followed by a tearful ‘thank you’. As a child, I’d rehearsed my Oscar acceptance speech in much the same way, mouthing the words in the mirror and concentrating hard on sad things – in those days it was abandoned kittens – to conjure up genuine tears in my eyes. Now all I had to do was imagine not being with Danny.

  I quickly changed in the toilets at work and took the bus straight to Danny’s house, choosing a seat at the back so that nobody could watch me applying my make-up. When I arrived, he was standing in his drive waiting for me. I ran into his arms, letting him lift me up and cover my face with kisses.

  ‘Are you ready for your surprise?’ he asked. He was smiling, but he seemed a little agitated.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I replied, with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. His evident nerves had done nothing to calm my own.

  He took my hand and led me into his flat, asking me to sit on the sofa while he disappeared into his bedroom to fetch my gift. When he came out he was carrying his guitar. For a moment, I thought, He’s giving me his guitar, but it didn’t make sense. He knew I couldn’t really play and it was his prized possession. I tried hard not to look confused.

  ‘OK,’ he said. He hung back near the door. ‘This is what I’ve been waiting to give you . . . I’ve written you a song. I hope you like it.’

  Resting his leg on a footstool, he pulled his guitar strap over his head and began to play a series of chords, which (thanks to years of school and Mum’s music lessons) I could tell were in the key of G. He was so jittery that his fingers fumbled for the strings. Then he cleared his throat and, after a couple of false starts, he began to sing:

  ‘Take it, take it now;

  This precious moment will allow

  Time to stop and heal all pain.

  You are the sun that halts the rain.

  And the dark clouds will disappear;

  You are the calm that quells my fear;

  Fate has cast the starring role,

  So take the stage and save my soul.

  Save my soul.

  Take my hand, take my hand.

  The best things in life are never planned.

  That captured smile, two worlds collide,

  My shooting star, my guiding light.

  You will always be

  The other half of me,

  And if my world should fall apart

  You would be there

  To mend my heart.’

  When he had finished, he put down his guitar and leaned against the door frame, waiting for a reaction. I didn’t know what to say. I felt I needed to hear the song again before I could compose my thoughts. I was still scrolling through the song’s lyrics, seeing them lined up in my mind, as though they were written on a screen. Danny had said I was his other half, that I could save his soul – he had sung of being with me forever. He’d said things in song that would have sounded over the top, scary even, in plain speech. But somehow, as lyrics, they worked. Whatever I said in response would seem trite. I felt as if I wanted to write a song back to him to express my feelings, but I didn’t know how. So I sat there, in silence, overwhelmed by the words and the music and Danny’s incredible voice, trying to compute it all.

  ‘You didn’t like it,’ he said, hanging his head in resignation. Danny always assumed the worst.

  ‘No, no, I loved it!’ I said, hoping the tone of my voice would convey the emotions I couldn’t articulate. ‘I really, really loved it. I’m just stunned. Did you really write that for me?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ he said, laughing. Now he was perky, like a dog that has just been petted. He came over to sit beside me. ‘Who else?’

  ‘Angelina Jolie, perhaps?’ I joked. ‘Honestly, Danny, it’s the best present you could have given me.’

  And it was. Nobody else in the world had ever received this present and nobody would again; it had been created just for me. I didn’t ask Danny about the detail of the lyrics. To be honest, I was a little embarrassed by the intensity of them. Instead, I said the only thing I could think of that seemed appropriate and would please him. I said, ‘I love you, Danny.’

  Ever since Danny and I had admitted that we loved one another, we hadn’t been able to stop saying it. To me, the words ‘I love you’ were like a magic spell, and one which I was afraid would be broken if I didn’t keep saying and hearing them. They made me tingle all over, sapped my appetite and cleared my mind of any other thoughts. They were also a useful silence-filler, a way to make up quickly if we disagreed, or to cheer each other up when we felt down. Now, as a response to Danny’s song, they were shorthand for: ‘Thank you, I’m not sure exactly what you’re saying to me here, but, whatever it is, I feel the same.’

  Hearing the song – my song – played at Danny’s gig that night was just as special as the first time. It wasn’t just because Danny looked deep into my eyes as he sang, sending warm shivers through my whole body. It was also because he was singing it in public – declaring his love for me in front of all his fans. Even though it was dark and the audience’s attention was focused on the stage, I felt proud, as if all eyes were on me. I wondered if the crowd were listening to the words and imagining who they were about, who Danny’s muse might be. I’d always envied girls who’d had songs written for them – they were usually beautiful models or actresses or tragic icons. How incredible that I, plain old Naomi Waterman, was now one of them. If The Wonderfulls made it big, ‘my’ song could be played on radios and CD players all over the world. How amazing would that be?

  When he had finished singing the song and the whoops were building to a climax, Danny made a show of putting down his guitar and turning to walk off the stage. The others followed him. It’s a ploy every band uses at the end of their set: whip the crowd up into a frenzy and then, when they are hoarse from cheering and tired from stomping and clapping, come back on stage to perform an encore. I often wondered what might happen if the crowd didn’t behave as anticipated, and started walking out. But that night, as always, it worked a treat.

  Two songs later, the lights came on to signal that the gig really was over. Danny threw down his guitar and jumped from the stage, rushing straight over to me. ‘Is Jed here?’ he said breathlessly. ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I replied, looking back into the crowd
, which was now dispersing. It was eleven o’clock and the pub staff were hurrying people to finish their drinks and leave the premises. There was no sign of mullet-man or the guy with pressed jeans. ‘I thought I saw him earlier – or someone who might have been him,’ I volunteered. ‘I didn’t notice him leave. Maybe he’s in the loo or something?’

  ‘Stay here,’ said Danny. ‘I’ll just be a sec.’

  He clambered back on stage and said something to a couple of the other band members. There was lots of head shaking and shoulder shrugging. Then he was off again, weaving his way through the crowd to find someone who might know the whereabouts of Jed Wilson. I saw him speaking to a guy I recognised from the website as one of The Wonderfulls’ fans. I think he was called Simon. He was short and broad and his belly spilled over his jeans like milk boiling over from a pan. I watched as he gave Danny a bear hug, patting him on the back and whispering something into his ear. Danny gave him a quizzical look, then made his way back to me, deliberately dodging other fans, who had hung around to congratulate him on the gig. His body language had changed completely; he looked tired and dejected.

  ‘He was here,’ said Danny. ‘But the bastard left halfway through the set, apparently.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything, does it?’

  ‘Don’t be naïve, Naomi. He obviously didn’t dig us.’

  ‘But you were great tonight. Really great.’

  ‘Not great enough, it seems.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll give you a call tomorrow. Maybe he needed to talk to someone else first?’

  ‘Maybe,’ sighed Danny. ‘But don’t hold your breath. If he’d liked us, if he’d wanted to sign us, we’d know about it.’

  I tried to hold his hand, but he brushed me away. When Danny was upset he found it hard to be affectionate. Seeing my hurt expression, he squeezed my shoulder and told me he’d meet me at the front of the pub once he’d helped the others to load up the equipment.