I moved numbly through the days, showing up to class and rehearsals like a shadow. I cried so much that a lump settled in my chest. I thought I’d missed her before, but now that it was over, her absence felt like a physical thing. I went between certainty that she would never want to see me again to hopeful daydreams that she would forgive me when I was finally back in Australia. Lyrics poured out of me: loss and longing, of course, but I also wanted to immortalise the happy times in our relationship, the way she’d brush her hair from her forehead, the feel of her shoulder blades under my hands, how her laughter rose at my jokes.
Now that I knew she’d never hear it, I shared ‘Passport’ with the band at our first rehearsal in Richie’s living room. I threw open the floor-to-ceiling French doors so the ducklings on the river could hear every mournful note. It was so different to ‘King Cutie’ – precise and sad where that song was raucous – but when I looked up and saw their matching expressions, I knew it had the same magic.
‘How long have you been hiding this one away?’ Richie smirked.
But Carter put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘What did I tell you guys? She’s our secret weapon.’
I was stoked by their reactions, and brought new songs along to our next few rehearsals. After each session, Carter and Richie would crack open a sixpack and Sam would walk me back to the academy across the bridge.
Tish was still in charge of the socials and our online views were rising. Carter was delighted, but I made the mistake of reading some of the comments. Can’t sing what a minger sounds like a strangled cat. It was like reading a particularly vicious school report.
‘You shouldn’t let it get to you,’ Sam said one day as we paused on the bridge to watch a squad training for Regatta zoom beneath. The shouts from the cox pierced the air. ‘Just don’t read them.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ I huffed. I rolled the sleeves of my vintage Adidas T-shirt up to expose my shoulders to the weak sunshine. ‘They’re not calling you a minger.’
He laughed, irrepressibly good-natured. ‘Maybe not, but I’m black, I’m an immigrant, and I live in council housing. You think no-one’s ever said anything mean about me?’
I blushed the way I always did when Sam pointed out our differences. I should have realised how privileged I was, even in a situation like this. ‘Why do people who don’t even know you feel like they have the right to weigh in on who you are as a person?’
‘That’s the point. If they knew you, they wouldn’t say it. They just want their slice of power.’
We lived for our eight-hour Sunday rehearsals, but it was never enough time. Carter and I spent every lunch break together fine-tuning our songs’ guitar parts. He and Verity weren’t speaking: he was still cut about her narking to Ms Marney. His relationship with Ava slid through the cracks of definition, and at breakfast he alternated between sitting with her and joining our usual table on a whim. Neither of us ever mentioned the almost-kiss outside the schoolhouse again, and I began to feel hot and stupid whenever I thought of it. If his fingers brushed mine when I was showing him a new riff, or if our eyes met after we nailed a song, I sometimes caught a flicker of something in his gaze – admiration, maybe, or hope – but I would always pretend I hadn’t seen it.
The days were getting longer and when I looked out the window at the now off-limits boathouse, it was often surrounded by rowers preparing for Regatta. When I’d first arrived, two months had seemed like it would never end, but now my flight home was fast approaching. When I told the band I was booked to leave the day after our Regatta gig, Richie said, ‘I guess we should start auditions for a new singer,’ and his words cut me deep.
Of course the boys would want to find someone else to take over vocals, although Sam promised me they wouldn’t use my songs. The thought of them continuing with some other singer – maybe even Verity, if she and Carter could put their differences aside – made me shaky with envy.
But every time I spoke to Jack, he said Dad was counting the days to my return, telling everyone who’d listen how proud he was. And I would think of our cosy house, the porch cluttered with discarded shoes and surfboards, and the way the asphalt burned our feet as we ran to the beach in summer, and I’d start to miss home.
One lunchtime, a few days before Regatta, Carter showed up to the rehearsal room waving an envelope. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be interested in this?’
‘Clickbait,’ I snorted, but when he didn’t elaborate I rolled my eyes and asked, ‘All right, what is it?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, tapping his hands on the doorframe the way he had the first day we’d met. ‘Just a couple of tickets to see Perfect Storm in Reading.’
I dropped my guitar and snatched at the envelope, not really believing him until I was rubbing the tickets between my fingers. I had seen posters for the show, of course, but tickets had sold out in minutes. ‘How did you even get these?’ I breathed.
‘Dad’s got contacts. At least he’s good for something.’
Carter seemed conflicted when it came to Liam – he would use his name if it benefitted him, but made enough bitter comments that it was clear they barely saw each other. It was his mum, an elegant woman in a silk shirt and skinny jeans, who’d taken him out to lunch at half-term.
‘Who’s the second ticket for?’ I asked, but I already knew. ‘You are going to see Perfect Storm?’
Carter smiled. ‘For research purposes only.’ He drummed his long fingers on the top of the piano. ‘I thought I’d better find out what the attraction was.’