Viola Beach: ‘Boys That Sing’
I knew I wasn’t helping myself, but after the showdown with Greg, I really needed to see Adam again. My mind was a mess; it felt like a canvas onto which a child had thrown an entire palette of paint and swirled the colours round with their hands until they formed a brown smudge, interspersed with occasional splashes of brightness. Adam, Greg; Greg, Adam.
It was impossible to think straight. Because despite my anger with Greg, was I really ready to call it a day?
I’d asked Adam to come to my office. It felt more business-like, more proper. As I waited for him, my shoulders were hunched, my hands were bunched into fists, and my feet bounced up and down on the tiled floor. I felt as though I might explode.
And then he was there, and the world lit up.
‘Hi,’ he said. He was smiling at me uncertainly as he approached my desk. I stayed on the other side, the solid wood a safety barrier between us. And it struck me then how different he seemed to the old Adam. The old Adam would have strutted in here like a peacock, ruffling his feathers, showing off, the preening and the parading all defences to shield how lonely he’d felt, how unloved by his family. Now, those defences had been stripped away and he was open, vulnerable.
Unfortunately, it only made him more attractive.
I smiled back. ‘Thanks for coming.’ I tried to sound formal, hoping it would help me avoid making any irrational decisions or doing anything stupid. ‘Take a seat.’
He sat down opposite me and I folded my arms. The air between us fizzled and I knew he could feel it too.
‘This is nice,’ he said, looking round the small office I shared with a colleague. It was deliberately simple with nothing too distracting.
‘Thank you.’
‘Do you see patients here?’
‘No, that’s usually in the treatment rooms down the corridor.’ I gestured vaguely in the direction of the door. Adam nodded.
‘So?’ He spread his hands out questioningly. ‘I’ve brought my guitar like you asked.’ He indicated the case he’d leaned up against the desk. ‘What next?’
I took a wobbly breath. ‘I’m happy to keep helping you,’ I said, the words coming out in a rush. Adam’s face lit up.
‘Really?’ He swiped at his eye. ‘Honestly, you don’t know what this means. I was so worried—’ His face flushed, something else I’d never seen the previously confident Adam do. He ran his thumbnail along the grain of the desk. ‘I was terrified I’d messed it up. That I’d scared you off.’
‘You didn’t.’
He looked up to meet my gaze. ‘I’m glad. I mean, I know you’re married and I know nothing can happen between us. So I’m sorry. Truly.’ He held his hand up in a mock-salute. ‘I promise to keep this strictly professional.’
Despite having planned to say that myself, I still felt the disappointment crush me as though someone was sitting on my chest. I nodded.
‘Thank you.’
The moment sat between us for a while, with neither of us speaking. But Adam didn’t look away and I felt my body heating up under his gaze as though it would burn right through into my soul. The tick of the ancient clock above the door was the only sound in the room, apart from the roaring in my ears.
I reached down and pulled a notebook out of the drawer beside me, breaking the spell.
‘I’m going to take notes while we work,’ I said, forcing the words through my parched throat.
‘Okay.’ He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. ‘What do you need to know?’
‘First I need to write down what we’ve tried up to now.’ I scribbled on the pad. ‘And then I’m going to ask you for a few more details about your medical diagnosis, and what the doctors say regarding your chances of recovery.’ I looked up at him and tried to ignore the smile on his face.
‘Yup, that all sounds very professional and proper.’ There was no disguising the laugh in his voice now.
‘Adam,’ I warned. ‘This is serious.’
‘Sorry.’ He crossed his arms and waited. When I’d finished writing I looked up at him again. ‘So come on. Tell me as much as you can.’
So he told me again about his accident, about how doctors didn’t know whether he would ever regain his memory. He told me some more about his recovery, and how he’d been on his own in the hospital for three days before his parents had come to see him, and about how he kept waiting and waiting for someone else to visit. He told me about trying to discover his old self through social media, and the scraps of information he’d found out from the few friends who had visited, and how quickly he’d realised he didn’t want to go back there, to his old life, no matter what happened next. And he told me how lonely he’d been since he’d been back.
‘It’s almost as though I had no friends before. Not real ones anyway,’ he said. ‘I mean, I have all these numbers in my phone, but I don’t know who any of them are. A couple of people have messaged me to see how I am but even that petered out after the first couple of months.’ He rubbed his face. ‘I’m really scared I could just be a horrible person, Erin.’
‘You are not a horrible person,’ I said.
‘But how can you be sure of that?’
‘I know you, remember?’
He shook his head in frustration. ‘Yeah, but you said yourself we haven’t seen each other for years. And it doesn’t sound as though I was very nice to you even when we were together.’ My face burned. ‘But if I mattered to anyone at all, how come nobody has come to see me more than a handful of times, or rung me?’ He hung his head and looked down at his lap. ‘How come nobody seems to care?’
‘I care.’
His head snapped up again. ‘I don’t get why.’
‘Because we’re friends.’
‘Are we?’
I stared at him, uncertain how to respond. Because of course we were never just friends. We were always far, far more than that, and I’d loved him with every ounce of my being, even if he hadn’t treated me as well as he should have done. He was young, back then. We both were. I felt sure he’d changed, grown up.
‘Anyway, sorry. I promised not to do that.’ He wrung his hands together in his lap. ‘I just feel like I need to know who I am. Even if I don’t like what I discover, I need to know. And if you can help me that would be amazing.’
I leaned forward so we were facing each other square-on across the tabletop. My pulse thumped in my temples at his proximity and I forced the words out in a whisper. ‘I promise I’ll do my best. But you need to understand that there are never any guarantees.’ I looked away for a moment, distracted by the intensity of his gaze. ‘I want you to find your memories again too. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.’
‘I won’t. I haven’t.’ He took my hands and I almost jumped from the seat at the shock that bolted through me. But I didn’t pull away.
‘Right, let’s give this another go shall we,’ I said, finally removing my fingers from his. I didn’t know where to look.
‘Are you going to play me some more songs?’ he said.
‘Yes, I am. But first I wondered whether we should try something else.’ I pointed at his guitar. ‘Could you – would you be able to play something?’
‘Like what?’
On safer ground now, I explained my idea. ‘I have no idea whether this will work, but I just thought if we started the session a different way this time, with you playing some music of your own, it might help.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Okay. Although I have to warn you that it hasn’t worked so far, when I’m busking.’
‘No, I know. But listen. I have a patient who’s never really responded to music in the months I’ve been seeing him. But yesterday during our session he grabbed a tambourine and started shaking it about, singing a long-forgotten song. For the first time since I’d started working with him he got completely lost in whatever memory the song had brought back to him.’
‘And you think it could work for me?’
‘I have no idea but it’s worth a go.’
‘So what shall I play?’
‘I want you to think of a song that you’ve played recently, but one that you know well – a song you already knew when you picked up the guitar after your accident and didn’t have to relearn. Maybe a song that means something to you.’
He frowned. ‘And then what?’
‘And then, instead of performing it to me, try to really concentrate on the lyrics as you sing – on the melody, the timbre, the rhythm. Try and really lose yourself in the song.’
Adam took his guitar from the case and held it, thinking for a moment.
‘Forget I’m even here. Just do it without any forethought or expectations,’ I said.
‘Can I face the other way?’
‘Whatever works.’
He turned away from me so I could only see the back of his head, and then he started to strum. As he haltingly sang the lyrics to ‘Boys That Sing’ by Viola Beach, I saw his body begin to sway and his foot tap, and I imagined that he’d closed his eyes. I tried not to think too much about the meaning as he sang about how he’d never find another girl like her. I just waited, and when the song came to an end, we both sat in the silence for a moment. Then Adam turned round.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘How was that?’
He nodded. ‘It was good. I – I didn’t remember anything.’
‘Okay. Is there a but?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘And…?’
He paused. ‘But I felt something. It wasn’t a memory, nothing concrete like that. But I did what you said and I really focused on the song, the lyrics, and everything as I played. And I felt – melancholy.’ He nodded. ‘Yes that’s probably the best way to describe it. I felt as though I had a hole in the centre of me that I desperately wanted to fill with happiness and joy, but…’ He broke off. ‘You’re going to think this sounds stupid.’
‘Try me.’
He swallowed. ‘I felt sad, empty, but a little bit hopeful. As though this was the way I’d felt before. Not how I feel now. Does that make any sense at all?’
I nodded encouragingly. ‘That’s great Adam.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I do.’ The truth was I wasn’t sure, but it did feel like a breakthrough, however small.
‘So what do you think it means?’
‘Perhaps something in there’ – I jabbed my temple – ‘is starting to dislodge. Perhaps those memories that have been locked away since your accident are in the very early stages of revealing themselves.’ I shrugged. ‘At least that’s the hope. And if not, at the very least you might be forming new memories, starting from now.’
‘Right. So what do we do now?’
‘Now, we just keep trying.’
He studied me for a moment, his gaze drawing me in until I couldn’t look at anything else in the room. Thoughts of Greg, of music, of Mum, Johnny, Dad, of trying to be professional – all of it drifted away through the slightly-open window, leaving behind nothing but this moment, right here, right now.
I heard the slow scrape of a chair across the floor, and I held my breath as Adam stood and walked round the desk towards me. I couldn’t move, my whole body coiled like a spring, and I sat, hands in fists, waiting for him to approach. The air was so thick with tension I could barely breathe as he crouched down beside me and slowly, achingly, reached out a hand until it touched my fingers. I sprang back, a jolt of desire bursting through me as he gently lifted my chin with his other hand, until I was forced to look right at him. He was scrutinising me, as if trying to work something out, and I was on fire, my whole body shot through with desire from my head to my toes.
He moved forward, inch by agonising inch, his fingers now stroking my cheek. His mouth was so close I could feel his warm breath on my face and I felt like I might melt from the inside. His lips brushed my mouth and I let out a groan, pressing myself into him, responding hungrily as he deepened the kiss, his tongue searching out mine. The taste of him was so unfamiliar, and yet the feel of his lips was so right, and for a few, suspenseful seconds I could feel the intensity of all the years we’d been apart pressing down on me as if nothing else mattered but this moment: us, together, his hand running down my neck, to my shoulder and down towards my chest…
I sprang back, my breath coming in gasps.
‘I can’t do this.’
He didn’t respond, but moved away slightly so the gap between us expanded, the space dense with longing. I gulped in air and tried not to look at him.
‘I’m sorry Erin.’ His voice was rough, scratchy. ‘I know that was wrong, but I just – I couldn’t help it.’ His hands were trembling and he shoved them into his pockets. ‘I just – you deserve better.’
‘Better?’ My throat was like needles and I swallowed.
‘Better than Greg. Better than being let down.’ He stopped. ‘I don’t know what I was trying to do. It just felt right at the time. I’m sorry.’
I shook my head, my heart rate starting to slow. ‘Me too.’
‘Can we…’ He looked at his feet. ‘Can we still do this again? The music thing, I mean.’ His face turned pink. ‘I really need this to work.’
‘I honestly don’t know. You’ll have to give me some time to think.’
He nodded. ‘Sure.’ Then he stood up and walked back to the other side of the desk, picked up his guitar and left without looking back.
Never let Adam go.
Never settle for second best, Erin. You’ll always regret it.
Always follow your heart.
Your mother would have left me in a heartbeat if Johnny had ever come back on the scene.
There was one thing Michael wasn’t. He wasn’t Johnny.
I was a wreck. As well as trying to shake the memory of Adam’s kiss, Mum and Dad’s words tumbled round my mind like odd socks in a washing machine, and I couldn’t seem to grab hold of one thought before it disappeared from reach again. I thought back to the moment I’d found the mixtape in Dad’s house and wished I could go back and leave it where it was.
But then, would it really have made any difference? Maybe it was only ever a matter of time before my feelings would have become confused anyway, and all the mixtape and Mum’s memories of Johnny had done was speed it all up.
My daydreaming was broken by the buzz of my phone.
Rose. I considered ignoring her but she was tenacious if nothing else, and I knew if I didn’t answer she’d simply turn up on my doorstep.
‘Hi Rose.’
‘What’s happening? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for ages. I’ve sent you about three hundred messages.’
‘Have you?’
She sighed dramatically. ‘Come on E, don’t hold out on us. What did your dad say? Did you speak to Greg? What have you decided?’
I listened to the empty hum of the line between us and breathed deeply. ‘Is Sam there as well?’
‘Yes. You’re on speakerphone.’
Of course I was. They were my best friends, why wouldn’t they want to know what had happened since the dramatic moment with my mother at the care home? And they didn’t even know about Greg losing the car yet. It had all been too much to think about in the last two days.
I explained everything. What my father had said, and how he’d always believed Mum would leave if Johnny came back.
What Greg had done.
Then I told them about Adam.
‘You kissed him?’ Sam’s voice was so high pitched it was a wonder I could even hear it.
‘Strictly speaking he kissed me.’
‘Semantics, Erin. Fuck, what are you going to do?’
The million-dollar question.
Did I do what my dementia-riddled mother suggested and follow my heart? Did I leave my husband, who I loved but wasn’t in love with and who had betrayed me over and over again, to be with the man who had always set my heart alight, but who had plenty of faults that I wasn’t sure I could live with, and who didn’t remember who I was? Or did I stay with my husband, have a baby, and spend the rest of my life wondering what if?
It was the ultimate coin toss, and I had no idea which way I wanted it to go.
‘I don’t have a clue.’