Bright Stars

by Sophie Duffy

  Shiver

  The inaugural gig of The Lunes was in… drumroll… Fylde JCR. I was actually almost quite looking forward to it a wee bit. I’d heard my brothers’ bands often enough but this was different. I felt privileged, I suppose, to be allowed into the Inner Circle of Coolness, nerd-boy that I was. But I needed a role within that Circle of Coolness so I agreed to act as roadie. Bex was hoofing equipment around too.

  ‘No way am I being a groupie,’ she’d said to the band, striking her standard pose of hands on hips. ‘There won’t be any knicker-throwing, so don’t get your hopes up.’

  (That had made me feel peculiar, thinking about Bex’s knickers being thrown. Thinking about Bex’s knickers full stop.)

  The pair of us worked like dockers while Tommo took an age in the men’s bogs, preening and doing stuff I didn’t want to think about. Hyper helped out, eager as a Jack Russell. Dave Drummer got stuck in as he was used to lugging round his kit. Slap-bass Carl claimed a dodgy back and grunted instructions in his Accrington accent. Bex was strong. She manoeuvred the amp like a weight-lifter, her slim arms packed tight with muscles that she said came from her summer job on a farm hurling around bales of hay.

  (And then I had a Benny Hill vision of Bex in a checked shirt tied at the waist, chewing on a wheat sheaf, a rosy glow to her cheeks.)

  The bar was filling up, the usual Friday night crowd, plus some less familiar faces curious about the new-look band. We’d slathered posters all over campus. Christie got an interview on Radio Bailrigg, the university station. A feature in SCAN, the student newspaper. The Lunes were coming to town and they were going to rock Lancaster’s socks off.

  But pride comes before a fall. And Tommo was not the most humble. Didn’t know what humble meant. Right on cue, he strutted out the gents, his hair a riot of colour and spiky architecture. Tight black jeans. Doctor Marten boots with yellow laces. Flowery shirt. And he’d dared mock me for wearing a ‘skirt’ at the Freshers’ Ball. My dad and brothers would’ve lined up to Glasgow kiss this nancy English boy if they’d heard that comment, if they could see Tommo now, doing the soundcheck, one-two, one-two.

  I knew it wasn’t nice of me but I kept having this thought. I tried to push it away and enjoy the event but the thought burrowed under my skin, deeper and deeper, impossible to ignore. It was a bad thought. A nasty thought. My mum would’ve hated it. She would’ve scolded me and sent me away to my bed. But I was free to think what I wanted to think, so I lanced that bad, nasty thought and I let it ooze.

  I hoped the band would flop. I hoped the gig would be a disaster. I hoped with all my heart that Tommo would reap the fall from grace that was surely coming his way.

  Smoke, sweat, heat, lager fumes. The audience loved them, loved Tommo, fed off his charismatic performance. His voice was hitting the right notes. Dave was sweating like a pig and likely to lose a drumstick. Hyper was nodding his head so hard it might drop off. Carl was in his own world but thankfully no slap bass, sticking to the agreed style. It looked like they were going to pull it off. Two amazing songs that hit the mark and smashed it.

  Only then I realised things weren’t quite right. Jim from Hull in the Black Sabbath T-shirt was lurking by the pinball machine with his Weeble girlfriend, holding her hand, watching Tommo with a curious expression. I watched Tommo too. Saw the sweat on his face, felt his energy sizzle, caught Bex’s expression. She was standing still, not dancing, not even swaying. And Tommo, he was leaping and pogoing and letting it all go but he was out of rhythm, sync, whatever you call it. I’m not a musician but I appreciate music and he was speeding up, too fast, too quick, like he was somewhere else, not with this band at all. Like he was tumbling through space, slipping through a crack in time, falling from grace.

  And poor Bex, just stood there, dumbstruck, appalled, scared.

  ‘What the hell was that, you jackass? You’ve been doing drugs, you idiot! Your first gig, you screw-up! You’ve no idea how hard everyone’s been working, you selfish jerk!’

  ‘Don’t reckon much to your team talk. Call that a motivational speech?’

  ‘Shut the hell up, you asshole.’

  This exchange was taking place in the gents while I sat, unnoticed, in one of the stalls. I’d gone in there to have a moment to myself, the way I used to at school when it all got too much. And now I didn’t dare come out, had to put up with the smell of pee and lager and old fags for a while longer.

  There was a beat when all I could make out was the sound of Christie chewing gum.

  ‘It’s all right for you, Miss La-di-da, in your rhinestone designer jacket, your tight blue designer jeans, standing there, tall and Amazonial, set against a blank canvas of pissy urinals.’

  ‘What did you take? Was it coke?’

  ‘Wish I could afford that.’

  ‘Tell me, you idiot.’

  ‘Speed.’ Tommo sounded like the worst kind of schoolboy.

  ‘Speed?’ She was the head teacher from hell.

  ‘You know, amphetamines.’

  ‘I know what speed is. I’m not the loser here.’

  She was pacing the floor now, I could picture her, stepping over dodgy-looking puddles in her baseball boots. She stopped. Took a deep breath. Started again, more calm, more measured. ‘Why?’

  ‘I was tired. I needed to get fired up. I didn’t want to let you guys down.’

  ‘Cut the crap.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he whined. ‘I messed up but please… please don’t tell Bex, Christie. Please.’

  I thought Christie was going to shout again but she took another of those deep breaths, like she was about to start sprinting, and I could almost hear her brain working, hurdling from thought to thought.

  ‘I must be sick or something cos I’m gonna keep quiet this time. But I’ve got this on you, buddy. One more foul and Bex will know. One more foul and you’re off, you hoser.’

  ‘Off?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘You can’t sack me.’

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘I am watching. You’re fit when you’re angry.’

  Then I heard a slap and a gasp. Footsteps, the door slam shut.

  I stayed where I was, not sure what to do.

  A creak, a rustle. Tommo was still there, outside the cubicle. Just inches from me.

  ‘Did you get all that, Jock?’

  Bex was mad at Tommo. Said she’d have it out with him but not now. Said she couldn’t face him yet. Didn’t know whether she would cry or shout. She wanted to shout but she was too tired. Too down.

  I’d caught up with her outside, in the rain, in the quad that was nothing like the quads of Oxford I’d seen in Brideshead. I’d left the bar, left the students who’d jeered as Tommo had launched himself in a ridiculous attempt at a stage dive, crash-landing amongst the plastic pint jars and scrunched-up crisp packets. They’d not even got halfway through the set.

  ‘There’s something I think you should know,’ I said.

  She slowed, let me come alongside her. ‘What’s that then?’ she asked. ‘What do I need to know?’

  ‘It’s Tommo.’

  ‘Speed? He’s been taking speed? I assumed it was booze. He wouldn’t do that stuff.’ Bex was sitting on my bed. I’d persuaded her to come back for a cup of tea so I could talk to her. She needed comforting but she also needed to know the truth about Tommo. Believe me when I say I didn’t want to grass him up. I had no choice. My conscience wouldn’t let me hold anything back from her.

  She took a breath, gazed at me with big Bambi eyes and I wanted so much to console her, to wrap my arms around her. Tommo was wrong for her. Tommo was all wrong. But I just sat there, rubbing her shoulder gently, her woolly jumper bobbly under my fingertips.

  ‘Bex…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wondered if maybe you should rethink, you know, your relationship with Tommo…’ I trailed off. Maybe I’d said too much. But I was only looking out for her. ‘I don’t want to interfere. I mean, I know it’s none of my bus
iness but I am worried for you.’

  ‘You’re worried?’ Bex shuffled away from me, made some space between us and I ached for it to be closed up again. Me and Bex side-by-side, no one else, on my bed.

  But she was annoyed. She’d crossed her legs, folded her arms and her voice was escalating.

  ‘What are you saying, Cameron? That I can’t make my own decisions about Tommo? He’s been stupid, yeah, but he isn’t going to hurt me. I can handle Tommo. Don’t worry about Tommo. Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘I know you can look after yourself but he could really throw your life into turmoil if he’s into drugs.’

  Bex shrugged off that idea but I was sure she stiffened as if she knew there was truth in this. ‘It was probably a one-off, to get him through tonight. It went wrong and Tommo will learn from that.’

  Tommo wouldn’t learn anything he didn’t want to learn. But I wasn’t going to push my point home now. She was obviously tired.

  ‘Let me get you that cup of tea.’ I made myself useful, put on Radio Bailrigg, fiddled around. She began to relax and I felt the anxiety lift from my heart to see her there, in my room, on my bed, with the clean sheets.

  ‘You can stay over, if you want.’ I hadn’t planned to say this. I couldn’t actually believe those particular words had come from my mouth. Here I was, asking Bex to stay over. Beautiful Bex. Just to give her a refuge for the night.

  She said yes, all right, without even looking at me, took off her jeans and jumper and stood there in her thick black tights and long baggy Free Nelson Mandela T-shirt. ‘Do you have a spare toothbrush? My mouth’s like the bottom of an ashtray.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I always keep a spare toothbrush.’

  ‘You ladies’ man, you,’ she teased. But she was wondering all the same. I could tell. I knew Bex better than she knew herself. She thought she was hard and tough and, yes, she could save a fox and push the law but inside her heart was fragile. She shouldn’t give it to Tommo. She should give it to someone who would take care of it. She should give it to me. I would keep it in tissue paper and bubble wrap. I would cushion it in rose petals. I would treasure it always.

  She crept off to use the loo and when she came back with fresh teeth and a pink face, I was already in the bed, in my boxers and T-shirt.

  ‘Top and tail,’ she said. ‘More room that way.’ And she took a pillow off me and got in the other end of the bed. There was a blast of cold air as she flapped the bedding. And then I felt the warmth and length of her legs in those tights and wondered what I would do if she got hot in the night and took them off.

  The cold made me shiver.

  Song

  ‘Where the hell were you last night?’

  There she was, Bex, bedraggled, panda mascara, yesterday’s clothes, her hair wilder than ever, waiting outside Professor Proctor’s room for a seminar, the one all three of us shared. She’d not had time to go back to her room, which Tommo could clearly see.

  She opened her mouth to speak and then shut it, changing her mind. But then she changed it again and I knew this was going to blow up. ‘It’s none of your bloody business where I was last night.’

  ‘So you were with another bloke?’

  ‘Yes, I was, actually.’

  ‘You were?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I felt I had to speak up at this point. ‘She stayed with me.’

  Tommo stood very still. And then he smiled. He turned to Bex and apologised, made himself stare deep into those puppy eyes and mean it. He was sorry. He should’ve known.

  The apology slammed into a brick wall and slid down onto the floor and then she stamped all over it with her boots before storming off into the tutor’s room, sitting at the far side of the table between two geeks and busying herself with her notebook and pen.

  Tommo followed her in, pushing past me, chose the empty seat next to a pretty girl and started making witty comments to her, making her laugh. Couldn’t help himself. Such an arse, sneaking schoolboy looks at Bex while she ignored him, scribbling all over the white space of her notebook, filling its lines with her erratic, exotic handwriting. He wouldn’t give up. He’d pester and pester her.

  After the seminar, Tommo caught Bex by the arm. She let him hold it while he made his excuses.

  ‘I looked everywhere for you. All over campus. I even went in the Chaplaincy Centre and asked the God Squad if they’d seen you.’ And then, when this failed to move her. ‘I wrote you a song. The bloody great song we’ve been waiting for.’

  He had her attention now.

  ‘I wrote it in my head as I walked back under the stars. I walked down along the Spine, past the same old tattered posters, theatre productions, union meetings, Nightline, drink-driving, drugs, and one I’d somehow missed before. Battle of the Bands. The Sugarhouse.’ He managed a quick smile, carried on. ‘I went back to my room and I wrote the song – an advantage of being an insomniac – and I cried when I thought of you and I vowed I’d put things right.’

  I’d heard enough. I hurried away, leaving Tommo with his muse. I didn’t have much choice as Professor Proctor was on the warpath, about to rugby tackle me for my elusive essay. I vanished into thin air. Pouf!

  Kilt

  The pubs were kicking out and the queue outside the Sugarhouse was swelling. Inside, it was filling up fast. What had been a trickle at first was now a flow of bleached ripped denim, baggy T-shirts and big hair.

  ‘You Brits have such weird fashion sense.’ Christie had to shout at us to make herself heard at the bar. As ever she was served straightaway, the barman drooling. ‘I mean look at that guy’s shirt. What the hell is that?’

  We looked at the guy’s shirt. It was a hybrid of Miami Vice and Noel Edmonds.

  ‘Come on, they’re not all that bad.’ Bex pointed out one or two guys who were half-decent but Christie remained to be convinced. ‘What do you wear in Canada?’

  ‘To be honest, I’m usually in sports gear so I guess I shouldn’t comment.’ She handed Bex her pint of cider, me my lemonade. ‘Anyway, cheers.’

  We clacked plastic glasses and moved out into the quiet room; the blast of Guns N’ Roses in there was overpowering – though Christie was into that kind of soft rock middle-of-the-road music. But Christie was also proving that her taste was versatile. She liked the stuff Tommo was writing. She liked the sound The Lunes were making. Now was the time for stripped down indie bands with loud guitars and big drums, she said. Instead of the high-production synthesised sound, she said. They were on the money, she said.

  ‘How you feeling?’ Bex asked. ‘Nervous?’

  ‘Sure,’ Christie said. ‘A little nervous.’ She flicked back her hair. ‘Hoping your boyfriend doesn’t mess things up.’

  The word ‘boyfriend’ hung there in the smoky atmosphere.

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

  Christie paused. Ploughed on. ‘They’d better step up tonight. They only have to ride out two songs. Surely even Tommo can do that.’

  Bex wasn’t offended by this comment. Didn’t seem bothered about Tommo right now, not after the Fylde fiasco. Christie deserved some respect. She was a great manager; unknowingly to Tommo and the rest of the band, she had already entered them into this competition. She was always one step ahead.

  And tonight The Lunes were third up. Third out of six acts. Each with a two song set. Judged by the SU president, the manager of the Sugarhouse and Andy Kershaw.

  Yes, Andy Kershaw from the radio and telly. Another drumroll.

  They had a chance. If Tommo stayed on track. Okay, he should be allowed to veer off here and there, but he had to stay with the others. Be tight. That’s the word Christie kept using: tight.

  We finished our drinks then went out to watch the first band. They were crap, it was clear from the outset. The second band was marginally better but too derivative, all Johnny Marr guitars, gothic lyrics and dreary, hammy performances. Top marks for effort. The lead guitarist/singer had spent hours on his sculpted hair and kne
w exactly where to place himself, where to look, how to look. But his style didn’t reflect the content. It was insubstantial.

  The audience was revving up though. ‘So long as Tommo does what he does best,’ said Christie. ‘I’ve no worries about the rest of the band.’

  Tommo was the loose cannon.

  I didn’t want to hang out with Bex and Christie anymore. I moved away, lingered at the back, not sure how to feel, uneasy. I’d had several swigs of vodka on campus earlier. The swigs were swirling round my empty stomach now, making me want to fetch up.

  Then there was this change in the atmosphere, something electrical, right there in my head, like a storm was on its way, over the horizon. A tautness. A pressure behind my eyes. The smoke didn’t help. The lack of air. I leant against the wall, tried to breathe.

  A drum beat. Dry ice. The crowd clamouring. Dave, emerging as if from a misty loch, the drums slow and steady, then faster, faster, louder, louder. Hyper on his keyboards, minus his mullet. Carl on the bass, adding depth and pulling the audience in further, into this strange land that I couldn’t navigate. And then on strutted Tommo, a dazzling light shining on his chiselled face. He was singing now, words I’d seen written on scraps of paper, drifting around the practice room, his bedroom, the JCR. Tommo was doing more than singing the words out loud; he was performing them, meaning them, living them, putting emotion into his voice that wasn’t there before. He was leaping round the stage with the energy of a punk, the sounds of the Skids, Big Country, Scotland. But as the dry ice cleared, I could see the bloody bastard was wearing a kilt. My kilt! The one he’d mocked. The one I thought was hanging up in my press, in my room. He was using my culture, stealing my heritage. What did I have but my family, my ancestors? And there he was, Tommo, prancing around, lapping up the attention, screeching and howling and grating his guitar which was louder than guitars should be, like there was a whole clan of them, and the heavy drums banging and banging and banging like a call to arms.

  Bex was leaping around down the front, elbows jabbing, hair flying, Christie giving her the thumbs up, the Ice Queen giving her royal approval. The audience loved them. They loved Tommo. And I think in that moment I actually hated him.