When I turned up for the next rehearsal, I was the last one there. Carter had nicked Richie’s beanbag and Sam was sticking a flyer on the wall beside Iggy.
HAVE YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES?
The annual Regattle is on again!
BATTLE OF THE BANDS
6 May at Reading Hall
Prizes worth up to £1500
Winner plays Henley-On-Thames Royal Regatta
The sixth of May was less than three weeks away. It didn’t seem likely we’d be ready to play live by then, even if it was just a small show in the nearest town, but it was a great chance to play onstage – something I’d only ever dreamed about. ‘What’s a regatta?’ I asked.
Richie spluttered like I’d just stepped out of a TARDIS.
‘It’s the only interesting thing that ever happens in Henley,’ said Carter, which didn’t answer my question. ‘And it’s the one time of year the bouncers don’t check ID.’
‘It’s a rowing race,’ said Sam. ‘Held in June every year. It’s full of toffs and poshos but it’s not bad for a piss-up.’
Richie scoffed, apparently more because he was either a ‘toff’ or a ‘posho’ than because he’d turn down a piss-up.
‘People come from all over to watch the race and get loaded on Champagne,’ said Tish. ‘Then at the end they have a massive street party with live music.’
‘You’ll still be here in June, won’t you?’ Sam asked.
I sat down on a milk crate and nodded. ‘Only just.’
Carter motioned to the rowing boats stacked behind me. ‘Academy has a team – Rich used to be on it, before he got hisself expelled.’
I filed ‘hisself’ beside ‘toffs’ and ‘poshos’ to tell Ellie about later. When she called, she affected her best British accent to make me laugh and I’d promised to make her a list of English phrases for ammunition.
Richie shrugged. ‘I don’t miss it. It’s bloody cold in the mornings.’
‘Sure you don’t, mate,’ said Carter.
‘Regatta is the end goal, Liliana,’ said Sam, offering me a packet of chips.
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Carter, taking a seat next to me. ‘I’ve got plans for world domination.’
I crunched through a chip and licked the salt off my fingers. Carter was sitting so close I could feel the heat of his arm. ‘What plans?’
‘Fame. Adoration. Millions of pounds.’
Richie added: ‘All the groupies you can handle.’
Carter laughed, but it didn’t sound like Richie was far from the mark. He got up and took his guitar from its case, and I let out my breath.
He looked at me. ‘What about you, Jimi?’
It looked like the flattering nickname was here to stay. ‘You can keep the groupies,’ I said. ‘I’d settle for a Supernova award.’ I’d never said it aloud before, even joking around.
‘You help us write a song like that one about the passport, you’ll get it.’
So my songwriting had got me over the line. All my worry about choosing the right audition piece was for nothing – Carter had already made up his mind in the rehearsal room. I looked up at the flyer. Set list of two original songs plus two covers … all local schools are welcome to enter …
I ignored the fact that we hadn’t mastered any covers yet, let alone written any originals, and asked, ‘How are we meant to enter if the academy doesn’t even know we’re a band?’ I looped my guitar strap over my body and played the opening bars of Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’ to check it was tuned.
‘Oh, the academy wouldn’t enter the Battle,’ said Carter. ‘They’re above such things.’
‘We’ll enter under Tish’s school,’ said Sam. ‘Reading Comprehensive hasn’t fielded a band in ages.’
‘That’s because every instrument at Reading Comp that wasn’t nailed down was stolen years ago,’ said Carter.
Tish looked like she might kick off, but Sam just laughed. ‘Lucky for you,’ he said. ‘Otherwise they might be more precious about making sure the band actually did go to the school.’
•
We hid the equipment under a tarp in the corner of the boathouse so that the academy rowing team wouldn’t find it in the morning. Then Sam helped Tish clamber into Richie’s speedboat and Carter and I stood on the riverbank, the fronds of the willow sweeping behind us.
‘Same time tomorrow,’ said Carter.
‘And when are we going to get any sleep?’ Richie complained, his hand on the throttle.
Trent had told me about guys like Richie, who assumed talent was more important than hard work. Loads of bands had faded on the basis that their members just couldn’t be bothered. They didn’t call it the ten thousand hours for nothing.
‘All those groupies don’t come for free, you know,’ I said, and Carter’s face lit up. He hooked his arm around me and crushed me against him: he smelled of cinnamon and leather and fresh sweat. The hairs on my upper arms rose and it wasn’t just from the cold.
Richie tossed his cigarette butt over the side of the boat and I felt sorry for the ducks. ‘Same time tomorrow, then,’ he said, and the motor drilled out in the night as they sped away.
After Carter went into the schoolhouse, I hung back on the verandah and called Ellie, but it went straight to voicemail. I rang Phoenix instead, who was surgically attached to their phone. Sure enough, they picked up on the first ring.
I’d known Phoenix since before I could remember. Our mums had met in the Classics department at university, helped each other through their exams, then travelled through Greece and Malta together geeking out at artefacts in museums. When my mum left the first time, Phoenix’s mum, Beck, had come round and stocked our freezer with homemade lasagne and pasta bake, which was thoughtful even though Dad had always done the cooking anyway. When Mum took off the second time, Beck sat on my bed for hours and held me while I sobbed, and when Mum returned, she and Beck never spoke again. When she finally left for the last time, two years ago, it was Phoenix who’d sat with me, though I was too used to it to cry by then.
I wasn’t great at meeting people, but Phoenix smoothed the way for me. They used to sign us up for activities in the primary school holidays – gymnastics or soccer or code camp, always something new – and when we hit high school they were the reason I was invited to parties. If it wasn’t for Phoenix, Ellie would probably never have looked at me – but Phoenix had decided to try skating, and that was how we found ourselves at the skate park one day after school, watching this gorgeous, graceful girl zooming around the bowl.
When Ellie and I started going out I made sure to include Phoenix as much as possible; I didn’t want to be one of those people who ignored their friends when they got a girlfriend. Luckily, they got along fine, and things between me and Phoenix hadn’t really changed. I still helped them out when they fell behind in Maths, listened as they regaled me with their drunken escapades even though I didn’t drink, and defended their pronouns even when I still sometimes accidentally thought of them as ‘she’.
‘Isn’t it, like, midnight there?’
‘It’s just after one,’ I said. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’ve fallen into an Instagram black hole. I’m so glad you rang. You can save me from myself.’
I told them all about the band, and how we planned to enter Battle of the Bands despite having only jammed together a few times. The story took longer than it should have because Phoenix kept punctuating it with questions and their trademark throaty laugh.
‘So tell me more about this Carter,’ they said. ‘This Richie bloke, I’m getting nothing off him, but Carter – now, he sounds interesting.’
‘You’d like him,’ I said. ‘He’s more my type than yours, though.’
‘Musical, charismatic, dangerous AF?’ they asked, and I could hear the smirk through the phone.
‘You got it. Seems like he’s constantly amused by something.’
‘That sounds unsettling. Does he know about the charming Ms Wong?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ I said, taken aback. ‘It’s not like that.’
‘You just said he was your type.’
I rolled my eyes. Phoenix was incorrigible sometimes. ‘To look at, not to touch.’
‘Well, at least you seem happy,’ they said. ‘I’ve been a bit worried about you.’ I’d thought I had managed to hide my loneliness from everyone back home, but if anyone was going to pick up on it, it would be Phoenix.
When we hung up, I tried Ellie again without success, then crept back up the stairs and into the dorm. In the bed beside mine, Freya rolled over, but she wasn’t awake. I slid down under the covers, the new blisters on my fingers singing, and grinned to myself in the dark.