Out on a Limb

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  Just the G would do for me, I think, as I nod and smile and agree.

  The boys play their set – their whole seven precious, much practised songs – with barely a pause to draw breath. While I (much like Charlie and Tom’s dad as well), have been charged with the business of capturing the action, on the video camera his father sweetly bought him for the purpose; an awesome responsibility for a woman who finds herself quite unable to breathe either. And I do. Because almost as soon as they’ve begun, I find myself locked in the grip of an appalling and completely unexpected anxiety. I have listened to them play these songs so many times now. I know every word, every beat, every bridge, every chord change, and my heart thumps in anticipation of every single next note. I know they’re note perfect. Absolutely note perfect. But it doesn’t seem to matter. This is live. This is real. This is (like, Mum, you know), really important. I barely respire from the first to the last.

  By the time they’re done, therefore, and the crowd are clamouring for pictures and autographs, mobiles and programmes and beer mats held aloft, I’m so overcome with pride and relief and, yes, oxygen depletion, that I’m almost too tearful to speak. I want to march right on up there and shout from the rooftops. I’m not sure what it is that I want to shout, exactly, but something. Just some sort of primeval noise. But I’m also aware that the height of uncool would be a mother with the vapours in the picture right now. Time for that soon enough. So instead I slip away to get a handful of loo roll to mop my eyes with.

  The toilets, as is so often the case in these types of venue, are located not on the premises, but in an underground, and possibly uncharted region at least five shop fronts down and on the other side of the road. It doesn’t seem in the least fanciful to assume that I might come upon a slumped female skeleton, clutching a Bacardi Breezer and a clutch bag, who had given up trying to find a way out of the labyrinth and simply expired where she sat. I pass a kitchen, a stock room full of Brobdingnagian bean cans, and several doors sternly marked ‘private’. Private, I assume to refer to privation. What species of troll would want to work in such a place? When I eventually light upon the door marked Senhoritas!, I have almost forgotten why I came. They do, however, have some loo roll, at least – in fact, several great spools of the stuff. Here be giants also, it seems.

  I look a mess, but a proud one. So I don’t linger long. And on my way back up, I almost collide with Charlie, himself groping his way out through the gloom.

  ‘This sure takes me back,’ he says, jovially. We fall into step and head back up the sticky stairs. ‘Trouble is, it also reminds me how terrifically ancient I am. He glances at me. ‘How are you, anyway? Still working at the clinic?’

  ‘Still working at the clinic.’ Another bright shaft of sunshine in what’s been a mainly cloudy sort of day, is to find I can be here and have chats with Charlie and that everything – almost – is back how it was.

  ‘And still enjoying it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I nod, ‘ yes, I am. Very much.’

  He frowns. ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was rather hoping you’d be bored by now.’

  ‘Bored?’

  ‘Well, it’s not quite the same, is it? You must find it lacking in challenge compared to the work you used to do at the hospital, surely?

  ‘Not really. It’s just different.‘

  ‘But you must miss the acute stuff.’

  There’s all sorts of acute stuff I do miss, for sure. But lots that I absolutely don’t. I shake my head. ‘Well, obviously it’s not as–’

  ‘Not as challenging. Can’t be. ’

  ‘No, but –’ I turn to face him as we mount the final steps. ‘Charlie, what’s with the interrogation?’

  He shoves a hand in his pocket. ‘Well, you know, I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Oh, dear. That sounds worrying.’

  ‘No, seriously. You should never have left in the first place. We both know that. And, well, you could always come back. They’ve still not managed to find a replacement for you. And you must admit you’re wasted on that kind of –’

  ‘Charlie, I really don’t think that would be a terrifically good idea.’

  ‘No, I’m serious. I’m talking work here. No games.’

  I shake my head. ‘No, I know that.’

  He stops. ‘Do you?’

  I stop too. And smile at him. ‘Yes, I do. And I’m glad.’ I gesture towards the bar. ‘Claire seems nice. I’m glad you and she…well…whatever…’

  He smiles broadly and claps me on the back. ‘ So I guess I just keep on with the guilt trip, then, do I? Anyway, speaking of which,’ he says. ‘How’s your friend’s knee?’

  He raises his brows as he say this. I stiffen. ‘Oh, improving I think. I haven’t actually seen him since then.’

  ‘Oh?’ His brows change direction and converge at the bridge of his nose now. ‘I got the impression you and he were, well…’

  ‘Then you got entirely the wrong one, Charlie. I told you, he’s just my mother’s dead fourth husband’s long-lost son.‘

  He looks at me hard. ‘And that’s a lot of things to be. Quite enough to be going on with, I imagine.’ Then he grins. ‘For the moment, at least.’

  ‘Look, I need to get back and help dismantle Jake’s drum kit.’

  ‘And we need to be off.’ He pecks me on the cheek. ‘So it’s farewell, then, my lovely,’ he says.

  By the time we return to the stage itself, the last gaggles of teenagers have said their farewells also, and the bar manager, much tattooed and with a back-to-front baseball cap, is already attacking the floor with a broom. Guitars are nestled back into cases and amp leads wound back into their liquorice roll coils. That done, and refusing further offers of help, we wave off Charlie and Claire and Oliver and Oliver’s brother and stepsister, and Ben and Ben’s auntie, and I have a sudden sense of just how very precious all this is. And how much I’m looking forward to getting Jake home, and the two of us sitting, over toast, in the kitchen, watching the video I’ve recorded of their set, and deconstructing every single moment before bed. And also a sudden rush of complete understanding about why I should never feel resentful of Rob about the boys. He doesn’t have this. I’m very lucky.

  But it seems I’m wrong about everyone else having left. Jake and Tom – whose dad has gone to fetch his car from the multistorey – are just setting to work with the drum keys, when I hear a clatter of spiked heels coming towards us from across the now empty hall.

  It’s Lucy Whittall, who’s obviously collected her coat now; she’s lusciously encased in a long shaggy sheepskin, which dips in places to the floor and which I fear for in the rain. Lucy Whittall who I thought had left some time ago. But no, it seems, for she’s come back to say goodbye.

  ‘Ah!’ she says as she approaches. She’s bright-eyed. Looks as if the night is still young. As it is for her, I guess. ‘The superstar lifestyle, eh, lads?’ she calls gaily. I think, from my depressingly sober perspective, that’s she’s more than a little well-oiled.

  But then why shouldn’t she be? I shake my head. ‘I sincerely hope not. I’m hoping they’ll be superstars with sufficient cash to employ someone else to do all the donkey work for them. ’

  ‘Tsk! What am I like?’ she says in response. ‘Standing here watching you guys work.’ She shrugs off her coat and flings it down, without a backward glance, amongst the massed amps and leads and other muso paraphernalia, and then pushes up the sleeves of her slinky red top. And once again I’m struck by how much I like her. For everything I’ve read about her, everything I’ve heard, there is something so warm and engaging about her. She even, though I’m not sure why I should consider it a plus point exactly, reminds me of my mother at her age. Grabbing life by the lapels and giving it a good shaking, while people like me skirt cautiously around the hem.

  I’m just thinking, in fact, that she is so like my mother must have been at her age, when I hear her name cal
led from the back of the hall. She swings around to see. Then she waves. ‘Over here!

  I hear the voice again. ‘Are you coming?’ It’s his voice. It’s Gabriel. I feel cold.

  She shields her eyes from the glare of the still burning stage spots. ‘Won’t be a mo. I’m just lending a hand.’

  She turns to me. ‘Like, what’s the big rush anyway? If I know Gabe, no sooner will we get there than he’ll be whining on about leaving again.’ She rolls her eyes at me, then turns round once again. ‘Gabe?’ she calls. ‘Come and help out here a minute will you, angel?’

  Oh, God. ‘There’s no need –’ I begin.

  ‘Nonsense,’ she says firmly. ‘Didn’t your mother always tell you? Many hands make light work.’

  And too many cooks make the kitchen too hot. Or something like that. ‘Er,’ I hear him mutter as he emerges from the shadows. ‘Er. Okay, yes…sure.’

  Angel. Angel Gabriel. Archangel Gabriel. With his hair-back lit by the spots as he approaches the stage, he could almost cut the mustard, celestially speaking. Except not. He’s fully mortal. As I’ve had occasion to find out. Flustered at the thought even as I’m cross with myself for my pathetic inability to stop it happening in the first place, I fish in my bag for my car keys and then point to a couple of stands that are lying closest to me.

  ‘Right. These ready to go now, Jake?’

  He looks up from where he’s unscrewing the bolts on the cymbals. ‘Yep. And you can take the snare too. And the toms.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, picking up a couple of stands. ‘Why don’t you guys bring everything as far as the back door while I go and get the car. I’ll try to park it just outside so we don’t get everything soaked.’

  ‘Will do,’ says Jake brightly. He’s still running with perspiration. I remind myself not say anything mumsy about putting on his hoodie so he doesn’t catch a chill.

  ‘Shall I grab these, then?’ asks Gabriel, gesturing to the drums at the side of the stage.

  ‘Sure,’ I say levelly. ‘Thanks. You’re very kind.’

  The rain is being kind too. It’s eased up, at any rate, and is now only visible as sparkles around the street lights and in the steady drip and gurgle from the gutters and drains.

  I jog across to the car and drive it back to as near to the back entrance as I can. When I get out, I see Gabriel leave the step by the back door and lope across with a small tower of drums in his hand. He’s got the collar of his jacket pulled up around his ears, and he grimaces when he sees me.

  It could be just because of the rain on his face, but I know better. It’s because he’s very much in I’d-rather-be-elsewhere mode. And he’s not the only one. My insides are churning. How unutterably tenacious this feeling has become. I really wish Lucy hadn’t suggested he help. I wish they’d just gone. He obviously wanted to.

  Wants to. I feel exactly as I did when I was almost fifteen, and had, in the woefully misjudged belief that he liked me as-a-person, let Owen from the lower sixth inside my bra while we stood outside some sorry school disco. Owen then went out with a girl from the fifth form and I was advised (by a well meaning bitch-friend called Emma) that his triumph – because triumph it had been, apparently – earned him the coveted title of Primus. For his enviable ability to heat up cold stuff. As in rather stiff, rather swotty, dreary lab-rat-type pupils. As in me. He never spoke to me again.

  Still, now we’re here, and I’ll just have to lump it. Lump this whole sorry dénouement to our whole sorry moment. The whole sorry away-with-the-bloody-fairies encounter. Fifteen or forty. It still feels the same.

  I haul open the boot to get the first of the kit in. ‘How’s your knee?’ I ask him, because I have to say something. I ask it in what I hope is a light-hearted and friendly manner, but his gruff answering ‘okay,’ is anything but.

  He’s not looking at me either. I take the toms from off of the top of the snare so he can put the latter in the boot first. I feel mortified. Quite unable to think what to say. The silence lengthens. ‘Well, have you had any treatment for it?’ I ask eventually. ‘You know, done some physio? It’s –’

  ‘No,’ he says, cutting through my brisk attempts at small talk. He puts the snare in and carefully slides it to the back. Then he takes the toms from me again and bends down to put them in too. Then, less harshly now. ‘I haven’t had a chance.’

  I’m conversing with his back now. ‘You didn’t need to do that,’ I say. ‘You know, cancel your appointment and everything.’

  He rises again now and turns to face me. He’s looking at me properly for the first time at last. Which is no good thing for my health, I decide. Or his, clearly. He’s still frowning. Because I obviously remind him of his pre-nup transgression. His dalliance with the idea of succumbing to his loins and of having a quick bit on the side. The thought doesn’t do him justice, but I know that’s what he’s thinking. It’s so plain on his face. He shakes his head. ‘I think I did.’

  I don’t know what to say to that. He’s probably right. Probably thinking he doesn’t want to upset me. Embarrass me. Which it would have, but even so, I really don’t want him to think that. I don’t want to be cast in the role he’s assigned for me. Don’t want to be the cause of his discomfort most of all. ‘Well,’ I scrabble together finally. Briskly. ‘Whatever. It’s up to you. But you shouldn’t just leave it.’

  ‘Look, Abbie, it’s fine now. Okay?’

  I swallow the frost in his words and wish a freak tornado would happen along and spare me this torture. And him too. For torture it certainly seems to be. This is as ridiculous as it is painful. ‘Gabriel,’ I say, in as matter of fact and dignified a tone as I can muster. ‘You know, you really don’t need to be like this with me.’

  He doesn’t answer. Just turns back then, to where the rest of the kit is beginning to pile up in the doorway. ‘Look,’ I say as I follow him. ‘You know, you don’t even need to be here. I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself. I’ve done it enough times before, believe me. Really. And you have to be somewhere, don’t you? I don’t want to hold you up.’

  Jake’s just placed some more kit in the doorway, and I watch his retreating torso as he goes back inside for more. It’s pitch dark until we approach the building and then the security light blazes into being again. Just short of the doorway Gabriel stops and turns around.

  ‘I know that,’ he says, pushing up the sleeves of his jacket. The halogen lights up the golden fuzz on his forearms. ‘But I’m here now, aren’t I? Bass drum. Where does that need to go? Does it fit in the boot too? I’m not sure it’ll go.’

  ‘It…um. No, it doesn’t…it goes on the back seat.’ I feel so agitated now that I almost want to punch him. I cross my arms across my chest. ‘Gabriel,’ I say. ‘Will you please just stop this?’

  He blinks at me. ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Being so bloody poker-faced, that’s what!’

  We’re still standing in the halo, the back door to the club now sighing closed ahead of us. I can hear sounds of car doors slamming, engines firing, and bubbles of laughter, all mingling and floating as one back across the car park. His shoulders drop visibly. His breath makes a cloud in front of his face. He picks up the bass drum and as he leans to do so I breathe in the coconut.

  He takes a breath too.

  ‘I knew this was a bad idea,’ he says finally, almost under his breath, to himself.

  But as I hear it too, I feel I have every right to answer. I’m feeling crosser by the moment. ‘You’re telling me,’ I say, as I pick up the two remaining stands. ‘I’m beginning to feel like I’ve got a communicable disease.’

  He frowns. ‘Oh, Abbie. It’s not that. It’s just…well…’ He glances back inside.

  I follow his gaze. Oh, I get it. Of course. Lucy’s in there. ‘Gabriel, for God’s sake, stop looking at me like that! Just get over yourself will you? Is that what this is about? That you’re worried I’ll tell her?’ I glare at him. ‘I told you already. Don’t
flatter yourself!’

  H e starts back towards the car, shaking his head as he does so. Then he turns back to me suddenly and looks me square in the eye. A whole handful of seconds thump by before he speaks to me. ‘I’m not,’ he says quietly. ‘Believe me, I’m not. Don’t worry. You’ve made that abundantly clear.’

  I don’t know how to respond because I’m not even sure which bit of my question he’s answering. Only that there is something in his expression that makes my heart thump all the more. But, tough. His precious ego is really the least of my worries. ‘Well, good,’ I say anyway. Firmly. Like I mean it. ‘And you really needn’t worry in any case.’ I spread my palms and dredge up an air of insouciance from somewhere. ‘I mean, it’s not as if we’re even likely to see each other again, is it?’

  Ever again, I think. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No. I suppose not.’

  He walks on, then, holding the bass drum out in front of him. He could almost be a stray from a minstrel marching band. He’s certainly marching right now. I watch him get to the car, place the drum gently on the ground, then open the passenger door and manhandle it inside. The rain’s getting heavier again now. Visible even in the darkness. We need to get a move on. Quite apart from anything else, Jake has school in the morning. And I have work, and he has work, and mother has any number of social engagements to be ferried to, and normal service must resume next week. As it does every week. As it will every week after that. I grab the bag of cymbals and the bass pedal and follow him back to the car.

  I let him take them all from me and slot them in turn into the well in front of the back seat. I can think of nothing else useful to say to him. Nor him me, it would seem. His jaw is now rigid as he goes back to the door and returns with the last of Jake’s kit. Two more drums and another stand, all of which he busies himself with fitting in as well, the rain rat-a-tatting onto the back of his jacket. It’s getting so heavy now it’s clumping his lashes. He straightens and runs the back of one hand across his brow. Then, just as I think he’s about to say something else, an explosion of noise pours out from behind us. I turn around. Jake and Tom, laughing, are emerging with Tom’s amp, Lucy Whittall and Tom’s father behind them.