Game faces on. The roar from the crowd crashed over us like a wave, but behind the mask I was churning with what had happened backstage. The cameras were covering us from every angle – how could they miss it? How good would our performance have to be to convince the whole world that the band wasn’t a fractured mess?
The hall was full, but the stage lights saturated the view and I couldn’t make out individual faces. Sam watched from the drums behind me, his jaw set as if tonight – the gig he’d been fighting for – was now something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The stagehand helped Carter loop his guitar over his head as if he’d never put one on before and Sam counted us in.
My hands hit the strings. Sam kept perfect time and Richie fell into sync with me, but I strained to hear the riff through my earpiece. I hardly dared to look at Carter as I pressed up close to the mic and sang the opening line. He wasn’t playing, or if he was, I couldn’t hear it at all.
I went through the whole first verse, waiting for him to snap out of his daze and jump in. He missed my glare because his eyes were closed, his body loose, his hands moving over his Telecaster. He was playing – or at least, he thought he was. I still couldn’t hear it, and that meant only one thing: his thousand-pound guitar wasn’t even plugged in.
I did a quick mental calculation about whether to sacrifice rhythm or lead, and switched over. This was the biggest performance of our careers and there was no way he was going to ruin it. As we built to the bridge, Sam’s showman smile did little to hide his horror. Richie shook his head ruefully, as if I should never have expected any better from Carter.
Carter finally looked over at me, baffled, and not just about the guitar. It was like he’d just woken up and couldn’t work out what he was meant to be doing onstage at the Royal Albert Hall. We finished the song and the crowd cheered – still on our side despite the performance. I let out my breath. We had nine tracks and a New Year’s Eve countdown: we still had a chance to turn this around. I waved at the stagehand and she skidded onto the stage to plug in Carter’s guitar.
I strode over to Carter, keeping my back to the audience, and hissed, ‘Get it together.’ His eyes were glassy and he staggered a little, as though it took all his power to stay upright. How had he deteriorated so fast? He’d seemed fine in the dressing room, a little unsteady maybe, but this was something else. This was almost as bad as the night he’d ended up in hospital.
That horrible night. No – I couldn’t think about that. If I thought about that now, while every camera was on us and our concert was being broadcast around the country, I would crumble. I’d be only a few seconds away from thinking about what he’d promised me afterwards. If I thought about that night, my mind would go to the girl I’d given up in order to believe him.
In the next song, Sam dropped the beat, causing Richie to forget he was on national TV and glare at him. But I couldn’t blame Sam for that – if I’d just ended a two-year relationship, I wouldn’t have even made it onstage. Anyway, we had bigger problems: Carter’s contribution to the song would have been better if his guitar hadn’t been plugged in.
When I imagined Dad and Jack sitting in the wings, I burned with shame. We might have been able to pack out a hall, but we couldn’t deliver a quality show. Glitter promises, empty smile. What if I was the stargirl, after all?
Each song was worse as my failure welled up inside me, until my own guitar work started to slip. What was the point in getting it right if the band was falling apart around me? Carter looked weirdly triumphant, as if my mistakes made his screw-ups less embarrassing. Either that, or he was beginning to sober up.
At midnight I did the countdown, and while some of the crowd joined in, it was a scattered response – nowhere near what you’d expect for a massive New Year’s Eve party.
‘King Cutie’ was our final song and, in rehearsals, I’d imagined this as the moment we proved our worth to the audience, where my mistakes might be forgiven, but Sam sped up the tempo as if he couldn’t wait to get over the finish line.
‘He’s got the words, they always work …’ I sang. ‘One cocked eyebrow … an arm’s-length smirk …’
I’d written this song before I had even really known Carter, and yet I’d known that much. I’d believed him when he’d told me the girl on Have You Heard was Richie’s pull, when he’d said he wanted something meaningful with me. When he’d promised to stop drinking. If tonight was anything to go by, that promise was worth nothing – so what did that mean for the rest of them?
Mid-verse, my voice cracked and I dropped the rest of the line. Tears pressed behind my eyes and before I knew it, they were running down my face, my make-up coming off in sheets. The screens at the side of the stage showed me in real time, sobbing through the chorus, my own giant face mocking me as I cried while a stunned, paying audience looked on.