Rain got a text at nine the next morning. She was writing an email to her dad that she’d re-started about fifty times, an email that was definitely not going to mention the diary. Her head was still fuzzy from the glass of red wine she’d drunk the night before with dinner, and she’d showered but let her hair dry any way it liked. The text said, ‘I’m outside. Wondered if you want to chat again. It’s okay if you’re busy or would rather not. Harry.’ She thought about how nice he’d been the night before, when she’d talked about her dad. Since then, she’d been worrying about having made a fool of herself. She was afraid she’d talked too much about things that were probably a bit embarrassing for a near-stranger to listen to, although he’d listened nicely. She blushed when she thought about it, and screwed up her eyes.
Rain and Harry had swapped mobile numbers early in the day when they went to get the chainsaw together, in case they’d split up and then lost each other, but the text came as a surprise.
‘It’s Saturday,’ Rain texted back. ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’
‘Nothing comes close,’ Harry texted. ‘Now can I come in, it’s raining out here.’
Rain glanced out of the window. It was raining quite hard. She could also see the outline of her hair reflected in the glass: it wasn’t good, but hey, so what? She went downstairs to see Harry.
Her grandmother had left a note on the kitchen table that said: ‘Gone to supermarket for big stuff. Text me if there’s something I’m likely to forget. Text me anyway to remind me to get garlic, I ALWAYS forget.’ Rain let Harry in the kitchen door and sat down at the table to write the garlic text to Vivienne.
‘How are you feeling?’ Harry said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from her.
‘Fine. I’ve drunk wine before,’ Rain said, pressing send on the phone and looking up at him.
Harry smiled somewhere over his shoulder. ‘I meant, how are you feeling about what you told me yesterday,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’re a really champion drinker, though.’
Rain hid her own smile because she didn’t want him to know she found him funny. She had already decided not to mention the diaries to Harry again, or anything personal like that. He had a gorgeous and slightly possessive girlfriend. She didn’t want to risk starting to really fancy him and making a fool of herself, trusting him like a boyfriend and then having to back off when the real love interest was around. She didn’t want the cool student couple gossiping about her while they were washing magnolia emulsion out of their hair together, being intimate and loved-up.
‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ Rain said. ‘It was … silly. I’d just had a shock and I can’t call my best friend, she’s unreachable this summer. I’m honestly absolutely fine. People’s lives are complicated. My family’s no exception. I mean, there’s Vivienne, she’s had two husbands, I don’t know if … ‘
‘Look, you don’t have to explain anything,’ Harry said. ‘I hope you’re okay.’
‘Of course!’ Rain said, throwing her arms up a little wildly. He tilted his head sideways to gauge her okayness. ‘I mean, I sort of didn’t sleep and stuff, but, you know it’s … ‘
‘Yeah, it’s, um … ‘ Harry said. ‘It’s a pretty big deal.’
‘The thing is,’ Rain said, finding herself unable to stop again, ‘I just don’t know what to do about it. I feel like I won’t be able to stop thinking about it until I know the truth, but I don’t know who does know, and if I ask the wrong person I could really mess up.’
‘There’s not really very much you can do without asking people, though, is there?’
Rain slumped forward, her head in her hands. ‘That’s it. It’s depressing, but it’s just something I’ll have to do or not.’
‘Okay, well. You know. Good luck,’ Harry said. ‘And if I can do anything, I’m always happy to listen and stuff.’
‘Thanks.’ There was an awkward pause.
‘I was, I was sort of thinking, though,’ Harry said. ‘Did you think about any specific name when you were reading through the diary?’
‘No,’ Rain said. ‘My parents moved from London not long after that and I don’t think they’re in touch with anyone they knew from back then. Why?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing, it’s stupid,’ Harry said. It looked to Rain as if he was not saying something else.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Is there something I should be doing? I really don’t know where to start. I don’t know who any of the names are, so there’s no one I could ask.’
‘Really, it’s not my business,’ Harry said. Again, he looked evasive.
‘But what?’
‘I didn’t say “but”.’
‘You sort of seemed about to. Look, tell me what you think, please. Even if it’s nuts, I promise it can only help.’
‘Well … ‘ Harry sighed. ‘No, it’s … ‘ Rain gasped in frustration, and then Harry suddenly blurted: ‘Have you heard of Quentin Vienna?’
‘Er … yeah. But I don’t know why? Who is he? What’s he got to do with my mum? Oh, right, his initials are QV. You think it’s him, then? Who is he?’ Rain was talking in a joky, bossy way, but she could see that Harry looked rather serious.
‘He’s a singer. Was a singer. I, sort of, went home last night and you know sometimes if you hear initials you put words to them, like you fill in the words, even if you don’t know what the initials are for?’
Rain didn’t do that. She bit her bottom lip and looked at him, waiting for him to finish.
‘So I just … didn’t stop thinking about it. Even when we were all out together, I wasn’t really keeping my mind on the conversation, I just kept coming up with the same name for the initials and, hey, shall I make some coffee? Do you fancy some coffee?’
‘And it was … Quentin Vienna?’
‘Yeah. I mean, he’s not famous, but I know his music. He sang in a band you probably won’t know. They had about two hits, neatly avoiding being labelled one-hit-wonders – all well before your time.’
‘But not before yours?’ Rain said, playfully. ‘What was the band? You’re saying my dad was a pop star? What would he be doing going out with a schoolgirl?’
‘Oh, listen, I don’t know,’ Harry said, pulling away from the conversation again. ‘It’s pretty stupid, I guess. It’s just that you trusted me with something important and I was worried it was because you didn’t have anyone else you could tell – and I took it seriously because you were. I just thought if I told you it might spark off some memory.’
‘No. I’m really glad you told me,’ Rain said. ‘It … doesn’t. But I mean, nothing does. I’m sure he’s not … my dad, and everything, but thanks for thinking about it. I mean, there must be a million QV people out … ‘
‘Yeah, that’s the funny thing,’ Harry said. ‘The – really, let’s get some coffee – point is, the initials are too weird. No one else has those initials. Well, okay, there are actually lots of people, I went through the phone book … ‘ He stood up and went to fill the kettle with water.
‘You went through the phone book?’ Rain looked at the back of his head as he stood at the sink.
‘Er … yeah. Does that seem weird?’ He didn’t turn round to look at her as he asked.
‘Um … no?’
Rain heard Harry chuckle. ‘Well, God damn it, I did, anyway. It turns out there are literally hundreds of people with surnames beginning with V – Vaughans, Vales, Vincents. Some of those, but not many, have Q initials. It’s really not many. And it’s all in alphabetical order, so it didn’t take me very long. You could check it yourself … ‘
‘And you came back to this singer, Quentin Vienna?’
‘Well, it’s the year before you were born, so, I think we’re talking about a year before his band was big, not that they were ever really big. It’s possible.’
Rain was about to ask more questions, then stopped suddenly and her stomach lurched as she realised she was almost beginning to enjoy herself. What they were talking about was dead serious – it was real. Her mum would have been torn to pieces when it happened, when the man she had fallen in love with somehow had to leave her. It turned Rain’s own identity on its head, it would make her question things she thought she knew about herself and her life.
It would break her dad’s heart.
Rain sank back in her chair and remembered the pain and tried not to feel the excitement. But her heart was galloping inside her still slumped body.
‘What if I don’t want to know?’ she said, her voice husky.
Harry brought the coffee cups to the table, and Rain breathed in the warm smell. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ he said. ‘You know who you have to talk to. And it’s definitely not me.’
The silence stretched and Rain heard the clock in the hall ticking.
‘If you go now,’ Rain said, blowing on her coffee, ‘you know and I know that I’ll just go straight to my computer and look up Quentin Vienna on Wikipedia, and I’ll wish you were here to ask things because you seem to know what you’re talking about better than me. You’ve told me now and I can’t put the genie back in the bottle.’
Harry gently held her forearm in his hand without taking his eyes off her face. The warmth of his touch on her skin made her shiver. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he said. ‘It was just silly speculation. You can forget it because you know I don’t know anything.’
‘But what if you do,’ Rain said. ‘What if this is right?’
‘Well,’ Harry said. ‘Before we worry about that, I think you should get your laptop.’
Quentin Vienna (singer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
| Origin | England |
| Genre(s) | Synth Pop |
| Label(s) | Fruitgum Records |
| Associated acts | Lavender Sandcastles |
| Website | Unknown |
Quentin Vienna is a songwriter and singer known for his work in Lavender Sandcastles, a retro indie band with heavy Synth influences, active during the Nineties.
Lavender Sandcastles
Before they started their project Lavender Sandcastles, Quentin Vienna (vocals) and Marv Higson (keyboard) were playing in a band called Primitive Grip. Later on they left that band and they started writing with new band member Danny Redstone (guitar). They were contacted by Fruitgum Records and got a contract with the label. They were joined by Kelvin Culhane (bass) and Jeff Riesling (drums and percussion). Their first hit single was ‘Elemental’ from their debut album Lavender Sandcastles, which reached number 3 in the British charts and was number 1 in Sweden, Finland and Norway. The following year they released Belinda’s Destiny which would be their last album. The first single from that album, ‘Can’t Face You’, reached number 10 in the British charts.
Later Years
After the band broke up, Quentin Vienna left the music business.
‘That is … interesting, my mum has both those albums and she used to play their songs when I was a kid,’ Rain said. Her heart and pounding head seemed simultaneously flooded with panic and adrenaline. ‘But that’s got to be true of millions of women her age, hasn’t it?’
Harry gave a little shrug. ‘Yeah. Thousands, maybe.’
Rain tried to find some more revealing links, but there was just page after page of identical hits telling her how to buy their songs, brief discographies on geek music sites, the videos on YouTube and Google, and some pictures that would have been funny, with terrible clothes and hair-cuts, but were now weird and jarring. She stared at the close-ups of Quentin Vienna’s face.
‘He doesn’t look like me, though. Does he?’ Rain said. She could see a resemblance, but she didn’t want to.
‘He … well, he does,’ Harry said. ‘You can see it, I can see it. Look at this one.’ He clicked back to a window at the back of fifty other pictures of Quentin Vienna. He had blond hair and Rain was a brunette, and Rain’s dad had brown hair and her mum had had dark blond hair … but Quentin’s was clearly dyed. His eyes were similar to Rain’s – hazel-brown, not much lid showing, low brows. Her chin had a little dimple in it like the one Quentin Vienna was thoughtfully rubbing in some of his pictures. Rain took a knife out the kitchen drawer and studied her reflection, as if she needed a reminder. Meanwhile, Harry waited quietly, and she realised how silly she looked, staring at herself and trying to find a stranger.
‘Look at his ears,’ Harry said.
Rain touched her own ears with her fingers. ‘Well, who looks at ears?’ she said. Harry shrugged. But Rain could see exactly what he meant.
‘You don’t really have any big reason to think I’m Quentin Vienna’s daughter? My mum had the albums and the initials are QV, that’s it?’ Rain had to work hard to say this in an offhand way, as if she was making fun of him and herself, and wasn’t feeling let down. But her eyes gave her away.
‘Well, look, don’t think I’m completely barking,’ Harry said, picking up a bag he’d slung under the table earlier, ‘but there was sort of one other thing I did.’ He took out his phone. ‘I … well, I downloaded a couple of their songs.’
‘Quentin Vienna’s songs?’ Rain said, looking at him with wide eyes.
‘Lavender Sandcastles. Yeah. I mean, just because I knew them and wanted to hear them again and I’d started thinking about them. And this one’s interesting.’ Harry found the track on his phone – it was called ‘Not My Baby’ and they both listened to it through the tinny little speaker.
‘I can’t hear what he’s … ‘ Rain began, but Harry made little shushing gestures with his fingers.
When it was finished, Harry said, ‘Neither can I, not all of it, but I think we should try to work it out. I looked on lyrics sites, but it’s not there, probably because it wasn’t a single.’
‘Hang on, let me get a pen and something to write on.’ She brought two pens and Harry started the song again. Three or four listens later, they’d got it.
You don’t get my life it’s not your life
Maybe you’re braver than me
Or maybe you just don’t know what it’s like out there
I’m scared for you but I can’t do this with you
So someone else will be holding my baby
Someone else will be teaching my baby to smile
Have to tell the world this is not my baby
Though I love you more than any other boy ever will
Have to let the world think this is not my baby
If you knew how much I love you you’d never let me go
You want more than I can give you
You say it’s easy and I laugh then you laugh
But I saw you last week with that guy
The one with the hair and the stupid look
And someone else will be holding my baby
Someone else will be teaching my baby to smile
Have to tell the world this is not my baby
Though I love you more than any other boy ever will
Have to let the world think this is not my baby
If you knew how much I love you you’d never let me go
‘You know baby never means baby in pop songs,’ Rain said.
Rain read through the lyrics again, frowning and pulling little strips of skin off her lips.
‘I just don’t think it’s enough,’ she said, looking up at Harry with a tiny blob of blood in the middle of her mouth.
‘You’re, er, bleeding,’ Harry said.
‘Oh sorry,’ Rain said, rubbing her lips with her fingers, which came away bloody. ‘I do that. I do some weird stuff sometimes.’
‘Everyone does,’ Harry said, nodding.
They heard the door open and Vivienne was back from the supermarket, carrying heavy bags. Rain had all the clearest pictures of Quentin Vienna open on her computer, and their transcriptions of the song were spread in front of them. The little phone rattled as ‘Not My Baby’ played for the fiftieth time.
‘What are you two up to? Homework?’ Vivienne said.
Rain closed the laptop a bit too hastily, just as Harry grabbed for his phone and turned off the song.
‘Well, take your faces out of the internet, it’s Saturday,’ Vivienne said, heaving a huge bag of potatoes on to the kitchen table.
‘Let me help you with those bags, Vivienne,’ Harry said. ‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’
‘So, Harry, why are you here today?’ Vivienne said.
She started pulling things out of her cotton carrier bags, until the table was crowded with fruit and deliciouslooking pastries and bread. Rain hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet and grabbed a croissant, while listening to the rest of the conversation. She was feeling a bit lost for words because they’d been doing something she didn’t want Vivienne to know about.
‘I fancied going to the Tate Modern today to see the new Andy Warhol exhibition and wondered if Rain wanted to come along,’ Harry said. ‘Although I know it’s the weekend and you may both have something else planned.’
‘Actually, I would love it if you both got out of here for the rest of the day.’ Vivienne was stacking yoghurts in the fridge and she whirled around, smiling. ‘I really need a haircut so I thought I’d drag Rain along with me to the Red Door, but quite honestly, it’s not cool enough for her.’
‘What’s the Red Door?’ Rain said.
‘It’s a salon thing in Mayfair,’ Vivienne said. ‘I used to go a bonkers-number of years ago, and probably everyone I knew then will have gone and it’ll all be different and depressing, but … ‘ She looked thoughtful. ‘Anyway, if I can palm you off it’d be even better, I can take my time without feeling guilty. I’d like a manicure, too – my hands are manly after all that gardening.’
‘Terrific,’ Harry said. ‘And your hands are still very dainty. Are you taking a 23? We can all get the bus together.’
‘Oh, good idea,’ Vivienne said. ‘You two can cross the river at St. Paul’s.’
‘Exactly,’ said Harry.
‘I’ll just get changed, so I don’t scare their chi-chi customers,’ Vivienne said. She vanished into the hall.
Harry and Rain looked at each other as they waited for her.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Harry said. The arrival of Vivienne seemed to have loosened him up: he seemed back to normal, teasey Harry again. ‘Although I suppose you think it’s rude to talk while you’re absolutely stuffing your face with croissant.’
Rain immediately gulped the mouthful down. ‘Maybe I just got a bit freaked out seeing how quickly you came up with that lie.’
‘It wasn’t a lie!’ Harry said, laughing. ‘Look!’ He pulled a crinkled Time Out from his pocket, which was open on an article about the exhibition he’d mentioned.
‘Oh, that’s convenient,’ Rain said. ‘But you were obviously planning on taking Madrigal and just improvised.’
‘I thought it’d be a good idea to spend a day away from this house to talk things over, if you wanted to. And it’s a good place to do that, you’ll see. Why would I lie?’ Harry said.
Rain bit her croissant again. ‘I don’t know,’ she mumbled as she chewed.
‘Well, look, I should probably just go,’ Harry said. ‘In fact, that’s probably best because you’ve got a lot to think about, more than you wanted to, and I think I’ve only complicated it … ‘
‘But … I don’t think I want to go on without you,’ Rain said. ‘I’d like to talk about it some more. If that’s okay?’
Harry paused. ‘So you’re going to love the Tate,’ he said, grinning.
Rain’s diary
30 July
I keep staring at the Lavender Sandcastles albums and thinking, are you totally nuts, Rain? I keep looking into Quentin’s eyes, trying to see if he has a message for me. Are they like my eyes at all?
My weird days, my weird summer, my weird life. I’m feeling closer than ever to knowing my mum this summer … but at the same time she’s throwing unbelievable shocks at me. I’m having something that feels quite like a romance … but I know the boy can’t be mine. I think the hardest part of all of this is having to go through it all without my dad. Today I miss him more than ever before, so hard it hurts … but I have to start accepting that he isn’t my dad, and maybe at the end of this, when we’re together again and everything should be fantastic, I’ll have to tell him.
Harry and I went to the Tate Modern today. We took the bus to St Paul’s, which is all plump and pretty like a cake, and walked across the Millennium Bridge, which is shiny silver and seems really fragile compared to all those big scary Thames bridges that cars go over. It’s very windy, so my rubbish hair flew about and this either made it look worse or better. And there’s a bloke at the other end trying to sell you whistles that make bird sounds who you have to sort of ignore by pretending your mind is on higher, artistic things. Quite honestly I was terrified of going into an art gallery with Harry because I don’t know the first thing about art. I was worried we’d stand there in silence and he’d say something about abstract or cubism, or ask me what century Anthonyo da Vinci was painting in and I wouldn’t know anything, so he’d secretly think I was an idiot and want to run away.
We went inside and it was the most amazing thing I’ve seen since I got here. A massive hall, giant, bigger than any room, really high, really long, the floor all painted like a chessboard with black and white squares, and tons of little kids running around with silly bowler hats and moptop wigs, screaming with laughter and having a fab time with their parents and each other. I was just standing there with a slack jaw thinking – this is an art gallery? They also had more of my new worst fear … living statues. Harry said, ‘Oh no. Can you try to control yourself with the statue people this time?’
Then we just messed about. We watched the kids, we wandered around. I even understood the art! I think. I mean, there’s not that much to understand. The name gives you a clue and it’s more about feeling whatever you feel when you look at it. The Warhol pictures were stunning – just these simple photographs, but some of them made me weirdly emotional, like a series of prints of electric chairs. Then as we walked back through the other rooms there was a grand piano hanging from the ceiling which suddenly seemed like it was about to fall on our heads when we walked under it – all the keys fell out and I jumped a mile, and we had to leave the room because we were laughing too much. I wondered if my friends back home would take the piss if they knew what I was doing, because this summer, no one is going to be wandering round art galleries, that’s for sure. They’ll just be having a laugh, drinking cider by the river, going to Blackpool for the day. And I love that stuff.
Sooner or later, though, I guess you have to do something else.
My mum went to art galleries with him – the summer she got pregnant with me.
We went ages without talking about QV and I got nervous, wondering whether Harry was avoiding the subject now or what. It wasn’t till we went to the café and we’d got our drinks and some bread with mezze and dips to share, that Harry quietly drummed his hands on the table and said, ‘Okay, Miss Rain, what’s our plan?’
‘What are we supposed to do?’ I said, ‘The Wiki entry didn’t give us anything. I don’t suppose Quentin Vienna was in the phone book?’
Harry said, ‘No. It’s probably not his real name, it doesn’t sound very real. But I bet Madrigal could help.’ I don’t know what my face looked like, but it must have given away something, because Harry said, ‘Oh, hey, I’m not going to tell her anything. Her dad’s this really rich estate agent now, but he used to be big in the music industry at exactly the right time for Quentin Vienna, so I’m guessing he still has some contacts.’
‘If her dad’s so rich,’ I said, ‘why is Madrigal spending her summer doing decorating work?’
Harry looked like he was about to answer, but he just changed the subject and started talking about the London music scene twenty years ago. I couldn’t think of anything except Madrigal finding out about my life.
‘How are you going to not tell her? She’ll want to know why you’re asking – what ARE you asking?’ and Harry smiled in this sort of pretend secretive way and I suddenly got angry. I said, ‘Look, this is serious and it’s horrible. When I’m with you it’s easy to forget what we’re actually doing and it just seems like, nearly like fun, and then as soon as you’re gone I remember and it’s not fun, it’s nothing like fun. And then I want to stop and run away and go back home to my dad, except he’s not there and I don’t know who he’ll be when he gets back. I don’t think I can keep doing this Miss Marple investigates thing.’
Harry said, ‘Rain, the only way you’re going to stay sane if you do this is to remember every minute of every day that your dad is your dad. And he loves you. And you love him. What we’re doing now is … just like when people trace their family trees – but it is NOT YOU. You haven’t changed. You’re still you.’
I got all whiny and said, ‘Family trees are about people you never knew. This isn’t like that. Everything has changed! You just don’t understand,’ feeling totally stupid as I was saying it, but I couldn’t stop myself.
‘Well, tell me how you’re going to NOT find out.’ he said. ‘Tell me how you’re going to go back home and carry on with your life and not spend every moment wondering what the truth is.’
I shoved dry bread in my mouth, which was suddenly sore because I wanted to cry. I could hardly swallow. I said, ‘Please stop pushing. I don’t care. I wish I’d never read the diary and I don’t want to know any more.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Harry said. ‘I didn’t mean to push you, that’s the last thing you need. I was trying to keep things light, but look, it was a mistake. I KNOW this is really big, life changing. I just thought I could help. I think you’re great.’
And I, like some total dick, started crying.
| From: | s.lindsay@zoctine.com |
| Subject: | I miss you too |
| Date: | 31 July 08.10 a.m. |
| To: | rain@zoctine.com |
Rainy, I don’t know what I did to deserve such a sweet email – probably being so far away from me for so long has made you forget what an infuriating absent-minded neglectful dad I am. But I miss you very much too. It’s Sunday, which means you and I would normally be making our way through a mountain of papers and a hill of fried bread. The thought of that is making me homesick. You’re the only reason I want the summer to go quickly. It’s strange reading emails from you when we’ve never been apart before and we’ve always just communicated in half-sentences and shorthand while going about our normal days together. I’ve meant to tell you since we started sending emails to each other that you write very well and you’re super-smart, a lot better than me at this kind of thing. I think maybe you’ll never be a scientist, but I’m not worried about you at all. Other parents worry all the time about their kids, and I never have, but not because I don’t love you. I’m very proud of you, Rainy.
Love Dad