Face the Music

by Marianne Levy

  It was Dad.

  I answered on the third ring.

  ‘Dad! Hi!’

  ‘How’s my little superstar?’

  ‘Really well, thanks.’

  ‘House still standing?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ I said, because the only thing worse than living in a falling-down house was admitting as much to Dad. When he and Mum divorced we had to sell our old house, and somehow he’d managed to rent a pad in America with his half of the cash, right on the beach, while we ended up in chaos. His flat looked like the kind of place you’d go to on holiday. No – correction. It looked like the kind of place Savannah would go to on holiday. And Savannah gets her jeans from Harrods.

  ‘Great! And how’s your new career?’

  ‘Um. Actually, Dad, I could do with a bit of advice on that. I’ve got this big meeting tomorrow with the record label and I’m supposed to play them a load of new stuff. Only, I haven’t written any.’

  When I said it out loud, it sounded very, very bad.

  ‘Easy! Just play them some of your old stuff and tell them it’s new. They won’t know the difference.’

  ‘But . . . I played lots of it at the concert in Adrian’s shop.’

  ‘Like anyone remembers exactly what you played.’

  It wasn’t the best solution, but it was a solution. ‘OK, maybe I’ll try that.’

  ‘How is Mr Scuzzy Record Shop?’

  ‘Adrian? He’s really well, thanks. And the shop’s so busy. You know Mands is working in there full time now, and she’s doing this gig night once a week, with new bands, it’s been selling out.’ There was this pause and I was clearly supposed to ask him about his new partner too. I lasted as long as I could, which was two seconds, and then I said it: ‘And how’s Catriona?’

  ‘Not so good,’ said Dad.

  Which was a first. Ever since he went stateside, Dad’s life has been one hundred per cent fantastic.

  ‘Er, how do you mean?’ I said. ‘She’s not ill, is she?’ I knew as I said it that she probably wasn’t. I mean, Catriona is a twenty-five-year-old vegan Pilates instructor. They don’t get ill. They can’t.

  ‘She’s found a new direction.’

  ‘What direction was she going in before?’

  ‘Katie, Catriona and I have decided to uncouple.’

  Ah.

  ‘Oh Dad, I’m sorry,’ I said, which wasn’t necessarily true, but he seemed glad I’d said it.

  ‘Probably for the best,’ said Dad. ‘Because of the apartment.’

  ‘Still seeing dolphins from the kitchen window?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. No.’ He cleared his throat. This was turning out to be the strangest Dad conversation ever. ‘The dolphins haven’t gone anywhere. But I have.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Fancied a change, didn’t I? A man can have too many dolphins.’

  ‘So, where are you living now?’

  ‘Well,’ said Dad. ‘Thought I might head over to see you guys for a bit. While I’m between places.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I thought my heart might tear out of my chest and explode. ‘That would be brilliant! When were you thinking? Next month? Or is that too soon? Sorry, that’s probably too soon, isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t wait until next month to see my best girl. How about . . . next week?’

  ‘Next week? Wow. Yes. YES!’

  ‘Hold on . . .’ There was a pause and some tapping. ‘Confirmed. Sorry, I was just buying the plane ticket.’

  ‘BRILLIANT! Will you bring your guitar?’

  ‘Sure thing-a-ling.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ I said, because I couldn’t.

  ‘Got to go, Katie. But – can I ask a quick favour?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Could you tell your mother for me?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Love you, K.’

  ‘Love you too, Dad. I’m so glad you’re coming home.’

  Well, after that I was practically dancing. I know this because three cars on the main road slowed down to honk at me.

  So I swung back up towards our lane, noticing how the air smelt better and the sky was just that bit more blue.

  And perhaps I should have spent a little more time looking at what was going on straight ahead rather than sniffing the breeze and tilting my head at the clouds. Because I neglected to do my usual around-the-corner check and ran smack bang into Mad Jaz.

  She was wearing this top that was half red netting and half slashed black shiny stuff, along with a truly epic level of liquid eyeliner.

  I did consider pretending that I hadn’t seen her and carrying on walking, but I decided against it. Jaz and I are sort of friends these days, although it’s a slightly uneasy friendship, at least from my side of things, as it’s based partly on liking Jaz, but also partly on fear.

  Also, Jaz had seen me and was calling, ‘Katie!’

  ‘Hi, Jaz,’ I said.

  ‘How’s the songwriting?’ said Jaz.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I mumbled. Then, to change the subject to something that I actually wanted to talk about, ‘My dad’s coming home. From America! Maybe he’ll be back for my birthday? He said next week, and my birthday’s on Thursday . . .’

  ‘I thought your dad was that guy you live with.’

  ‘Adrian? Urgh, no! Adrian is Mum’s boyfriend. No. My dad’s this super-cool musician who lives in California. And he’s coming back next week.’

  ‘OK,’ said Jaz.

  ‘So I can’t stay and chat,’ I said. ‘I have to go home and tell Mum.’

  ‘Why are you telling her?’

  ‘He asked me if I would.’

  ‘So he’s laid it on you? Nice of him.’

  ‘It was, actually,’ I said. ‘Dad wanted me to know first. We have this really special relationship. And anyway, Mum will be fine with it; she’s got Adrian now.’

  Jaz fell into step beside me. ‘Has he always been in America?’

  ‘No,’ I said, speeding up in the hope that maybe she’d drop back and go away. She didn’t. ‘He moved there a few months ago, after the divorce. He got this cool flat by the sea. You can watch dolphins from the kitchen window. Well, you could. He’s just moved out.’ Then, as I thought about it properly, ‘Maybe there’s a chance that he’s back forever. How cool would that be?!’

  ‘Depends,’ said Jaz. ‘Was it one of those good divorces, where everyone stays friends?’

  I really wanted to say yes. But I couldn’t. It had pretty much been the opposite of that. ‘Not especially,’ I said.

  ‘And your mum thought he was safely in America. Only now he’s back in just a few days, and he wasn’t even brave enough to tell her himself, so he’s got you doing it,’ said Jaz.

  ‘That is a very twisted way of looking at things,’ I told her. Although I have to say, the sky had gone back to its normal colour and I could definitely detect a bit of diesel on the breeze.

  We’d reached my front door.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Jaz.

  ‘What for?’

  Jaz smiled. ‘Katie, you are about to tell your mum that your dad, who she hates, is coming home next week, and that he was too cowardly to tell her himself.’

  ‘Honestly, Jaz. It’s no big deal. See you Monday, OK?’

  And then I was back in the hall, with its familiar smell of damp and a strange sort of soupiness that we’d recently traced to a particular patch of carpet.

  I couldn’t go upstairs, not with You Know Who in my bedroom. So I went into the kitchen, instead.

  ‘Katie, love!’

  ‘Oh, hi, Mum.’

  ‘Are you all right? Has something happened?’

  I was going to tell her, I really was. It’s just, I don’t know, maybe Mad Jaz had spooked me with her madness.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing’s happened.’

  ‘In that case, why haven’t you done the washing-up?’

  ‘Because,’ I said, trying to keep the wobble out of my voice, ‘I have a very
important meeting with my record label tomorrow, and I am TRYING to write a song.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  I think it’s fair to say that as far as my music career is concerned, Mum is not a fan.

  This is for a number of reasons. Some of them are fair enough. Others are completely nuts.

  • And I do appreciate that this is a big one – Tony, the head of my record label, had sort of tried to destroy my entire life in order to get revenge on Mum’s new boyfriend, Adrian. So yes, all right, I can see why she might have a few trust issues when it comes to Top Music. I kind of have them too, even though ever since my single went into the charts they have been very nice indeed, sending me chocolates and cards and more bunches of flowers than we have vases to put them in (i.e. two).

  • Mum reckons that it will stop me from putting any effort into my schoolwork. I pointed out to her that I never put much effort into my schoolwork anyway. This did not seem to help.

  • Dad is a musician. This means that I am not allowed to be a musician too. No, I don’t understand this one either.

  After the whole single-going-viral-concert thing had happened, Tony took Mum and Adrian and Manda and me out for dinner in London at this ultra-glam restaurant called The Ivy. Me and Mands spent most of the meal celebrity-spotting (we saw Amanda Holden, Stephen Fry and someone who we are fairly sure is in Game of Thrones), while the adults talked about contracts and percentages and things that I did want to be interested in, but somehow found I wasn’t.

  By the end, and after a couple of glasses of champagne, Mum was smiling, and even let Tony kiss her on both cheeks, although once he’d got into the back of his fancy black car outside, she said, ‘I don’t trust that man as far as I can throw him.’ But it seemed that she had agreed to ‘see how things go’, which, when I quizzed Adrian later, meant she would let me record an album, so long as I didn’t take even a single morning off school and that any money I made was put into an account that I couldn’t get to until I was about seventy.

  ‘And the second it makes you unhappy, then that’s it, game over,’ said Adrian.

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  So on the morning of going in to see Top Music, I made sure to seem especially upbeat, singing in the shower and eating three of the four slightly stale croissants Adrian had found reduced in Morrisons.

  ‘I still don’t know, Katie,’ said Mum, looking down at a sea of pastry flakes. ‘I just think—’

  ‘I know what you just think,’ I told her. ‘And I’m just saying, let me try it. If I don’t like it, I’ll stop.’

  We’d already had this conversation about seventeen times in the last week. I really couldn’t see why we needed to be having it again now, when there was a train to catch and people waiting for me.

  Which I told her. And she sighed.

  ‘It’s going to change you, Katie.’

  ‘Er, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, what if it changes the people around you? How are you going to feel when your friends start treating you differently? Some people are weak, Katie, and who knows what they’ll do for a bit of attention, an envelope full of cash . . .’

  ‘Like who? Lacey?’

  ‘I don’t want to see you hurt,’ said Mum. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I won’t be. Adrian’ll look after me. You trust him, don’t you?’

  I said this knowing full well that Mum would not be able to say that, no, she didn’t trust her boyfriend. And then, as I’d hoped, she gave me a kiss and headed off to the hospital for her shift, leaving me to exchange a look with Adrian, and swipe the final croissant.

  ‘Katie, hello! And Adrian! Mate! So great to see you both.’

  And then there we were in Top Music’s great big glass meeting room – me, my guitar and Adrian.

  That was our side of the table. In the middle there was a plate of (what I knew from past experience would be really delicious) biscuits. Then on the other side sat Tony Topper, the head of Top Music, with his rich-man stubble and bright white teeth, and skin that would make an orange feel pale.

  ‘So, we’re just finalizing the details for your first concert,’ said Tony.

  ‘Er, OK. Um.’

  He leaned forward and I wondered how he made his shirt so incredibly crisp. Maybe he just got a new one out of the packet every morning. That’s what I’d do.

  ‘You seem a bit worried.’

  ‘Well, yes. I’ve never done a big concert before. I mean, the only one I’ve done was in the shop, which is tiny and in Harltree and full of mouldy old vinyl.’ I remembered the shop’s owner was sitting next to me. ‘But you know, completely supercool.’

  ‘It’s OK, Katie,’ murmured Adrian.

  ‘All I’m saying is that . . . I’m a tiny bit worried about it,’ I said. ‘Not, you know, super worried. Just, averagely worried. The normal level of worried.’

  Tony showed me a mouthful of expensive teeth.

  ‘No problem, Katie. We’ll keep this first one pretty small, shall we? More of a showcase than a concert. Intimate and low key. Just have some industry people in, a select group of fans, a few friends, and that’s it.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘And of course put the word out that you’re playing and then make sure no one can get tickets. That’s always a good way to generate buzz for a new artist. Get you trending on social media.’

  I’m sorry, but there is literally nothing more cringey than when a grown-up says ‘trending on social media’. Tony may be a humongously successful music boss with all the world’s money, but ‘trending on social media’? Er, I don’t think so.

  ‘And if it all goes well, we’ll have you playing Wembley soon enough. So –’ he nodded towards my guitar – ‘shall we?’

  At which point I kind of got a bit panicky and spent far too long tuning up, during which Adrian ate two biscuits and got crumbs all over the table.

  ‘OK,’ I said, eventually, when I couldn’t put it off any longer. ‘So, this is “Cake Boyfriend”, which is kind of my favourite song from everything I have. I mean, it’s maybe not quite single material. But I think it should definitely be on the album. Maybe.’

  And then I started to play.

  Now, here’s the thing. I wasn’t at all feeling it when I started.

  But music’s sort of like magic, isn’t it? Not that I believe in magic, but if I did, I’d say that songs are spells, and as you’re singing them, you’re kind of pulling everyone around you into this glimmery bubble where nothing else matters. It’s just you and the music.

  The song finished, and I stopped, and smiled, feeling a bit giddy.

  And Tony said, ‘That’s fine, I suppose. Anything else?’

  Then I played through ‘Song for a Broken Phone’, only Tony said that most people get free upgrades on their contracts and are quite glad when their phones break as it gives them an excuse to get a new one.

  So I played ‘London Yeah’, only Tony said that it was too UK-focused, and I needed to think about foreign audiences, and so I sort of gave up and concentrated on eating the remaining biscuits, which in fact weren’t quite as nice as I’d remembered.

  ‘Katie, forgive me if I’m wrong,’ said Tony, who did not look like a man who thought he was wrong, or who thought he needed to be forgiven, ‘but didn’t you play all these songs at the record-shop concert?’

  Rumbled. ‘Maybe . . .’

  ‘Have you got anything new? Anything at all?’

  ‘I’ve got the beginnings of a song about spaghetti hoops,’ I said.

  The awkward pause that followed lasted for something like infinity.

  ‘We’ll send over some ideas,’ said Tony. ‘And it’s great that you’re coming to the Karamel gig. Kurt’s a real fan of yours.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not actually—’

  ‘You two should collaborate on something.’

  ‘Er.’

  ‘Great, I’ll run it by him.’ He saw me eyeing what was left of the biscuits. ‘Have one, have one! They’re here fo
r you. And congratulations again, Katie. We’re so excited.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Just, try not to put too much pressure on yourself, OK? With the writing. It’ll come.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, through a big mouthful of biscuit.

  ‘If you can,’ said Tony, ‘try to go for something incredibly universal, that’ll really translate. Something that your fans can latch on to, like they did with “Just Me”. Funny but serious. Introspective but upbeat. You know the kind of thing.’

  ‘Um, yes.’

  ‘We’re certain you’ll come up with it very soon.’

  ‘Um, yes.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re feeling as confident about Katie as I am,’ said Adrian, giving my shoulders a squeeze. A couple of months ago this behaviour would have qualified as unacceptable, but now, I must admit I was grateful for it.

  Especially when I reached for another biscuit and Tony said:

  ‘About that.’

  ‘The biscuit?’

  ‘Yes. This is a little delicate, Katie. But, you’re going to be in the public eye quite a lot, soon. And I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be great for you to go into all of this really feeling . . . and looking . . . your best.’

  Was Tony calling me fat?

  ‘So if you’d like a personal trainer, or for us to get you on to a meal plan, just let us know. Top Music is here to help.’

  He was!

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll, um, bear that in mind.’ I pushed the plate away.

  ‘I’ve got to get back to it now, conference call to the Glastonbury people. Remember, I’m on the end of my phone, day and night, if you ever want to play me anything.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Don’t let the pressure get to you,’ said Tony. ‘The last thing we want is for you to get some kind of creative block.’

  I must have looked startled as he coughed.

  ‘Crystal Skye had one, after her first concert. We waited and waited, and eventually we locked her in a hotel room for a week.’

  ‘And then she wrote a new song?’ said Adrian.

  ‘No, she had a nervous breakdown!’ said Tony, getting to his feet, which meant we had to do the same. ‘But then she wrote a song. So, it worked!’