Forever Phoenix

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘OK!’

  My mobile buzzes. Sasha wants us back at the Portakabin Green Room for make-up and costume, and this time when we head inside the place is hectic. Marley and Dylan are leaning in to the light-bulb mirrors trying to see who can perfect the most artfully tousled hair, and George is refusing to wear his red charity-shop jumper because it has a reindeer on it.

  ‘Look in the suitcase, George,’ Sasha says, exasperated, as she delicately outlines a snowflake on Romy’s cheek with face paints. ‘There might be a spare one. But it looks fine, it really does …’

  ‘I don’t like dressing up,’ George grumbles. ‘It’s not what I joined a band for!’

  Marley silently rolls his eyes and Sasha chucks me a carrier bag of stuff and tells me to get ready, so I duck into the toilet cubicle and change. The green mohair jumper Sasha has picked out for me is a beautiful jewel-bright colour, but it’s huge … the wide neckline slides off one shoulder, and the whole thing hangs down almost to my knees. I consider trading it for George’s reindeer jumper, but then I spot a studded belt lurking at the bottom of the bag. With the belt slung round my hips, the jumper transforms into a fluffy minidress, half punk and half sixties chic.

  In the very bottom of the bag there is a flat box, the size of an exercise book. I take the lid off carefully to find a beautiful ear cuff fashioned from silver wire with magpie feathers fanned out along the curve. I push my hair back on one side and fit the cuff round the back of my ear. It feels heavy and cool against my skin, and the feathers press against my hair like a blue-black sunburst. Sasha has made me something inspired by her magpie sketches and it is absolutely beautiful.

  Pie obviously agrees, because he swoops back on to my shoulder the moment I emerge, and the rest of the band give me the thumbs-up as Sasha ushers me into the make-up chair. ‘I love it, Sasha,’ I say. ‘The ear thing, whatever you call it … it’s awesome! Thank you so much!’

  ‘You’re going to be brilliant,’ she tells me, and I lean back and close my eyes as she gets to work. Ten minutes later I open my eyes and see someone I hardly recognize gazing back at me from the mirror. She is fierce and striking and dramatic, her green eyes lined with black, a delicate snowflake painted on one cheek, a prancing magpie patrolling the back of her chair. Blazing auburn and cerise hair falls in spiral curls from behind a feathered earpiece and her mouth moves slowly from a perfect ‘O’ of surprise to the widest grin. The main thing I notice about the girl in the mirror is that she looks bright and brave and beautiful, and for once in my life the way I feel inside matches up.

  The door opens and a girl with headphones and a clipboard appears. ‘Five minutes to soundcheck!’ she yells. ‘All bands on stage and ready to go!’

  Time folds in on itself. One moment we’re watching the other bands soundcheck – there’s a teen boy band from Birmingham and a hip-hop combo performing before us – and the next we’ve soundchecked too, scoping out our places on the stage, adjusting the mics, playing one song three times over until the sound guys have the mix right. And then the light is fading around us and people are filing into the enclosure and someone introduces us to the Lord Mayor. Someone else introduces us to the presenter, a bouncy bloke from a kids’ TV programme, and a young woman with ten piercings in one ear interviews us for a music blog.

  Finally a spotlight appears on stage and the bouncy TV guy gallops into the centre of it and gets the crowd cheering and whooping as he introduces the boy band. They play twenty minutes of cheesy Christmas covers, and suddenly I’m worrying that the crowd will hate us because they won’t know the words to our songs and they won’t like the way I sing, and someone will probably report me to the RSPCA for having a magpie on my shoulder. The hip-hop group are next, and they’re totally different … original songs and lots of energetic dancing, even if they are a bit clichéd with their backwards baseball caps and low-slung baggy jeans. The crowd love them too, and the tiniest spark of hope ignites inside me that perhaps the crowd will like whatever is put in front of them, because they’re here and they’re hyped and they’re happy, and they really only want to see the big lights switch on anyway.

  ‘Break a leg,’ Bex whispers as the hip-hop kids finish and the presenter starts telling the crowd that the Lost & Found are the best-kept secret on the Midlands music scene. ‘I mean, not literally, but y’know!’

  ‘You’ll smash it,’ Marley promises, and I instantly think of my fears of falling offstage and picture myself being stretchered away with two broken legs.

  ‘Think of those two little girls,’ Lee says, and he takes my hand and we walk together on to the stage, and the crowd is going wild. Pie, his claws digging into my shoulder, gives a euphoric squawk, and Lee lets go of my hand and steps back into his place, but I don’t think I can even breathe, let alone sing. I am dazzled by camera flashes, lights, by the sheer size of the crowd below. My body is full of adrenaline and flames and fear, and just for a moment I falter.

  Marley grabs his mic.

  ‘Hello, Birmingham!’ he yells, and there’s an answering roar of applause. ‘We’re the Lost & Found and we’re thrilled to be here with you tonight! This first song’s a new one – it’s called “Fireworks”!’

  It’s my top-of-the-hill moment.

  The band crash in with the opening chords and I step up to the mic, and suddenly I am past the point of no return. I am freewheeling, euphoric, singing my heart out, the beat of the music pulsing through my veins like blood. There is no better feeling in the world.

  16

  Ked Wilder

  Afterwards I was so high from it all that I barely remember anything. I felt like I was wired to the National Grid and fizzing with electricity. I remember the cheers of the crowd, and I remember spotting the little girls from the Leaping Llama at the front of the crowd and asking them up to sing with us. Marley keeps saying this was a stroke of genius, but at the time it just felt like the right thing to do.

  My memory of the actual light switch-on itself is hazy, but it was done by Ked Wilder, who turned up with his famous friend Lola Rockett. Marley nearly wet himself when he realized she was in the audience, I swear.

  ‘I told you, I told you, I told you!’ he crows later.

  We talk for a while with Ked and Lola and Grandma Lou, squashed into a circle of vintage armchairs arranged round a carefully tended firepit, next to a stall selling mulled wine and spiced fruit juice. This is my first glimpse of Ked – a tall, stringy guy dressed all in black with a jaunty fedora tilted back over his grey moptop hair. His eyes are hidden behind mirrored shades even though it’s a cold, dark night in December. He looks like a cartoon of himself, but he smiles a lot, and it’s impossible not to warm to him.

  Lola Rockett, of course, is exactly the way she looks on TV … small, frantic, ridiculously pretty, and determined to be everybody’s new best friend.

  ‘Ked’s told me so much about you,’ she says, leaning in to focus on me and Marley. ‘He’s been singing your praises for months now, but with losing your old lead singer … well, we all assumed things would fall apart. When Ked asked me to come along tonight I’ll admit I thought it would be a waste of time. I only agreed because my sister lives in Birmingham and it’s a chance to see her …’

  Ked laughs. ‘Let’s just say it hasn’t been a waste of time,’ he says. ‘Far from it!’

  ‘I know!’ Lola Rockett squeals. ‘I’m amazed! I’m astonished! I’m beyond impressed! And you’re all so young!’

  ‘With a lead singer who’s been on board for less than a month,’ Ked adds. ‘Extraordinary!’

  Lola Rockett turns her shrewd blue eyes on me. ‘Extraordinary indeed,’ she says. ‘Everything about you – the eyes, the hair, the feathers, this amazing creature …’ She stretches a long index finger towards Pie, who hops away, alarmed, on to the safety of Lee’s shoulder.

  The turquoise-tipped finger lifts a hank of my dip-dyed auburn hair and pokes at the magpie feathers adorning my lovely ear cuff. I feel like a butterfly pi
nned to a board, being examined with a magnifying glass.

  ‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ Lola marvels. ‘Quite unique! And what a story! My viewers would absolutely love you, Phoenix. Well, all of you, obviously. We’ll definitely have to get you on the show. I’ll get my people to call your people!’

  Marley’s face is bright with hope. ‘The New Year show?’ he asks. ‘That would be amazing!’

  Lola Rockett laughs. ‘The New Year show? Oh, no, no, not that. We’ve been booked up since October! I’m sorry, these things are organized so far in advance. It’s all tied up with the record companies and the promoters, and, well, you don’t actually have a deal yet, or an EP …’

  ‘It’s only a matter of time,’ Ked says kindly, but Marley looks devastated, as if Lola Rockett has stomped all over his hopes and dreams with her turquoise-leather stiletto boots, as if all the hard work has been for nothing.

  Bex puts her arms round him, hugs him tight and tells him not to be such an idiot, and I feel a bit sorry for him too. I can see that for all his slave-driver tendencies and wild ambitions, Marley is just a music-mad kid with a talent for making catchy tunes and dreams of fame and fortune. You can’t really blame him for that.

  The evening flies past in a blur. We are interviewed by four different newspapers, two radio stations and the local BBC news programme. Everybody asks about Pie, and I have to explain over and over how I rescued him as a chick and raised him by hand and how, even though I released him back into the wild, he kept coming back. I don’t mention the bit about smuggling him down from the Scottish highlands in a cat basket … do you blame me?

  We chat a bit to the other bands too, and the girl backing singer/dancer from the hip-hop group (I think they’re called Pretty Street) tells me she used to play keyboards in the Lost & Found. Bobbi-Jo, her name is. ‘You’ve got great stage presence,’ she tells me. ‘I liked being part of the Lost & Found, but it wasn’t really the right fit for me. I’m happier with the hip-hop lads!’

  In between, we sign hundreds of autographs and pose for loads of selfies. Everyone wants a picture with Pie.

  ‘Fame at last,’ Lee says, and I laugh and tell him I can’t take it in, and he says I’d better get used to it.

  It’s past ten by the time we get back to Greystones. Lola Rockett has gone off to stay with her sister so it’s just Ked and Grandma Lou and me, sitting in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate. Kind of surreal, but there you go.

  ‘When Marley told me he’d found an amazing new lead singer, I did not expect it would be Louisa’s granddaughter,’ Ked is saying. ‘What are the chances? I’m totally blown away – you have the most incredible voice, Phoenix!’

  ‘That’s not what my mum used to say …’

  Ked laughs. ‘I remember your mother as a little girl,’ he tells me. ‘She was always very serious. And not the best of judges when it comes to music, it seems!’

  ‘Not at all,’ Grandma Lou says.

  ‘You’re more like your grandmother,’ Ked says with a sigh. ‘In looks and perhaps in spirit too. I’m very curious, though … where does the musical streak come from? Your father? His family, perhaps?’

  ‘He’s an accountant,’ I explain. ‘I don’t think I’ve inherited any musical genes at all … it must be purely random.’

  ‘And then there’s Pie,’ he goes on. ‘He’s a very handsome bird, and an important addition to the band. I’m really glad I took the time to come up and see you play!’

  ‘I’m glad, too,’ I say, stifling a yawn.

  Ked smiles, and I have the strangest feeling that I’ve met him somewhere before, even though I obviously never have. I think he just has that kind of face … and that kind of personality, the kind that draws people in, makes you feel you’ve known them forever.

  ‘You have a huge talent, from what I’ve seen,’ he says. ‘I think you have a bright future ahead – in fact, I know you do, Phoenix. A very unusual name, too … I have a song called “Phoenix”!’

  ‘Yes, I love it! When I was small I loved that there was a song with my name in, and the girl in the song is so wild and free, too!’

  Ked beams. ‘Remember, Louisa?’ he says.

  ‘Of course I do!’

  I don’t ask what it was that Grandma Lou remembers. I don’t ask anything, because now that the buzz of the gig had finally begun to wear off, exhaustion has wrapped itself round me like a warm, soft blanket.

  Ked reaches out and takes Grandma Lou’s hand in his own, smiling. It seems a bit weird, with them being so old and stuff, but Grandma Lou has already explained that Ked is her best and oldest friend. They met long ago in the sixties when she was a young model and he was an up-and-coming pop star, and although their love affair lasted only a year or so, their friendship weathered every storm, becoming stronger with the passing of time. I try to imagine them young and in love, but I’m just too tired to do it.

  I say goodnight and take my hot chocolate up to bed.

  Next day, I sleep late and Ked is long gone, heading back to his home in Devon, by the time I surface.

  ‘He’s so cool,’ I tell Grandma Lou. ‘With his mirrored shades and his funny hat and winkle-picker shoes … and his fancy famous friends too. That includes you, by the way!’

  ‘Why thank you!’ She laughs, dropping a jokey curtsey before dunking a chocolate chip cookie into her lapsang tea.

  ‘But he’s really nice, too,’ I continue. ‘Down to earth and funny and … well, you know, kind. I really liked him.’

  Grandma Lou’s eyes mist over. ‘Oh, I’m so very glad about that, Phoenix!’

  ‘Shame about Lola Rockett’s New Year show,’ I comment. ‘Marley’d set his heart on that. But she says she’ll invite us on sometime, so that’s almost as good. And the gig was … just awesome, Grandma Lou. I was so scared beforehand. I didn’t think I could do it. But I did do it, and I loved it! I really, really loved it!’

  ‘Everybody else loved it, too,’ Grandma Lou says. ‘I was so proud!’

  I don’t waste time wondering if Mum would have been proud too. I already know the answer to that.

  17

  Christmas is Coming

  ‘Nothing like this has ever happened before,’ Bex marvels. ‘A full-page spread on the band, two half-page features, a three-quarter-page one and a colour spread!’

  ‘Did you see the BBC local news round-up?’ Lexie adds. ‘Three whole minutes … and that gorgeous interview with Phoenix and the Leaping Llama girls!’

  ‘Every single review is positive,’ Marley concludes. ‘Phoenix, you’re a natural … you know just what to say to keep those journalists lapping it up!’

  ‘I don’t even remember what I said,’ I admit. ‘I was on such a high I couldn’t think straight!’

  ‘Well, it was perfect,’ Marley says. ‘All this coverage … and all of it saying that the Lost & Found are better than ever, that we’re right on the edge of the big time! Didn’t I tell you the hard work would be worth it?’

  It’s Monday, and newspaper articles from the last few days are spread out across the table in the school canteen for everyone to see. As well as pictures of the band, there are several close-ups of me with Pie on my shoulder, my hair flying out as I dance, lost in the music. I spent so long worrying about the song lyrics and dance steps and putting on a brave face that I didn’t even think of this aspect of fronting a band – you are the one people notice.

  ‘No date yet for that mythical EP you promised,’ George grumbles. ‘And no TV slot either. What’s the point of being on the edge of the big time if we never get past that point?’

  ‘We will,’ Marley promises. ‘It’s only a matter of time. We have to stick with the daily practice, stay focused …’

  ‘We can’t practise every day, Marley,’ Lexie says. ‘Not in December. Have a heart … Christmas is coming!’

  ‘Ked could call at any moment to invite us down to Devon to record that EP,’ Marley argues. ‘We have to be ready! What’s more important?’


  Nobody knows quite what to say to this. I mean, I’m the lead singer and even I think daily rehearsals might be a bit much right now, but Marley is imagining the future unfurl before him. He can’t see anything but his name in lights.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ George says at last. ‘Can’t any of you see what’s happening here?’

  ‘George has a point,’ Bex comments. ‘We can’t keep up this level of pressure – if you push too hard, you’ll break the band! I have mock GCSEs to study for. We all have stuff on, especially in the run-up to Christmas. C’mon … get real, Marley!’

  ‘You’re losing the plot, Marley, mate,’ Lee adds quietly.

  It’s hard to tell which way this is going to go.

  Marley looks angry at the challenge … disappointed too, as if we’ve all let him down. And then his face breaks into a smile, and he brushes away our protests, tells us that maybe we’ve earned a break. Practice will be Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays until such time as he hears from Ked again or gets a date to record the EP.

  ‘We have to stay tight and strong,’ he declares. ‘Ready for anything. I have this feeling … we’re so, so close. But yeah, sure … I guess we can slow down a bit for now. Christmas is coming!’

  You can tell it’s almost Christmas because the waiters in the Leaping Llama have started wearing Santa hats and even my takeaway hot chocolate – in a reusable bamboo cup – comes with a cinnamon snowflake stencilled on top.

  The shops are opening late in the run-up to Christmas, and I’m out with Bex and Lexie, trying to do all our present shopping in one go. I buy a small hardback sketchbook with creamy watercolour paper for Grandma Lou in the art shop, and a red silk scarf with pale pink hearts on it for Mum in the fancy department store.