AS THE OPENING CHORDS FLOATED out over the grounds, I remember thinking that there was something familiar about the song, but I couldn’t quite place what it was. I saw Danny looking back at me from the stage. I wondered vaguely if he recognised it too. And then I remembered. It was my song. Your song.
You know how sometimes you’ll find out something about someone and it changes everything you ever thought about that person? You flash back over all those not-quite-logical conversations, those sideways looks, those evasions, and all the pieces of the puzzle gradually shift into place. You begin to understand – like being run down by a very slow train – that you got everything wrong; that person’s motives and actions were, in fact, perfectly transparent right from the start – if only you had been smart enough to see. And once this realisation dawns, two things happen:
1. You feel deceived, cheated, lied to – even though none of those things may have technically happened.
2. You are very, very angry at yourself for being so stupid, for not seeing what was right in front of your face, and for not figuring out what everyone else already knew.
By the time Jet reached the chorus, my chorus, a lot had suddenly become clear. What an idiot I’d been. How deluded and blind. How completely and utterly self-deceivingly stupid to think that Jet Lucas might actually be interested in me when all he wanted was my songs. I felt sick then, actually nauseous. The bubble-wrap began to peel away and the wires holding my body together snapped and I catapulted into the air in a thousand pieces.
There was a sudden, long, dying wail of feedback from the speakers. Up on stage, Danny was holding the lead to the sound system in one hand and waving the other in a threatening manner at Jet Lucas. In the silence, I heard myself gasping for air. Or maybe I was crying – I couldn’t tell. For a second, I imagined myself leaping onto the stage and … doing what? Screaming, kicking, punching, swearing like a lunatic?
And then I was up there.
Jet saw me coming. In his face was everything I needed to know. No guilt, no embarrassment, no regret – just stony- faced resentment that he’d been caught out. In that one look I saw all my fantasies turn to ash. I knew – finally – that he wasn’t worth wasting another breath on. But that didn’t stop me.
‘You,’ I began, my voice rising to a crescendo, ‘lying, cheating, thieving, untalented dirtbag.’
The audience, thinking the evening’s entertainment had resumed, fell quiet. I could sense their anticipation from beyond the glare of the lights. I decided to indulge them and made a lunge for the microphone stand.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ I bellowed, ‘let me introduce the real Jet Lucas.’
Jet tried to escape, but Danny, still brandishing the electrical lead to the sound system like a gladiator’s weapon, headed him off so that he was trapped cowering like a rabbit in headlights.
As I described all the horrible things Jet had done to me – and no doubt lots of others – I became angrier and angrier. When I got to the part about him stealing your song, there was no stopping me. The audience listened with horrified fascination as I tore Jet Lucas apart live on stage.
‘Do you even know what that song is about?’ I ranted at him. ‘No, of course you don’t. Because you didn’t write it, did you? And your mother didn’t die. And you didn’t watch her dying – slowly, excruciatingly – for years, knowing there was nothing you could do about it. You don’t really know anything, Jet. You think a song is just something that’s going to make you famous. That’s going to make it easier for you to treat more people like dirt. But you don’t know anything about music. You don’t know anything about anything …’ With each point, I jabbed my finger into Jet’s chest for emphasis until finally I was simply pounding him with both fists.
Danny, obviously worried that I’d soon be up on an assault charge, dragged me off the stage.
That would probably have been that, but as he led me down the back stairs, I spotted Melissa and Shania – fag in hand – leaning up against Dad’s car and arguing heatedly about something. Something, I’m pretty sure, that had to do with the fact that they had just heard me – in front of the whole school, no less – admit that I’d had a secret relationship with Jet Lucas.
It’s funny, isn’t it? You would think that I’d had enough drama for one day. That I really shouldn’t have given a toss about what the KGB thought about me and Jet. Or even that they’d ditched their stall to come and slaver over Jet’s concert; after all, every teenage girl in a ten-kilometre radius – and a few of their mothers, by the look of it – had done the same. But no. It was as though the surge protector in my head had had enough for the day and switched to overload. I headed towards the car, intent on telling Melissa and Shania to butt out of my life for once and for all.
So focused was I on my new mission that I didn’t notice Danny Baldassarro just behind me and, no doubt recognising the signs from the Jet showdown, preparing to put himself physically between me and my unsuspecting targets.
If you were making a film about the Motherwell High Twilight Fete Disaster, this whole next bit would be in slow motion.
1. First you would see Shania and Melissa slouching against the car, deep in debate about what punishment I deserved for trespassing on their territory.
2. In close-up, there would be a shot of Shania sucking seductively on her cigarette, her expression changing to alarm as she spotted me coming towards her.
3. As the camera followed me towards the car, you would see, in the background, Mr McGregor coming back from the toilet block with a white towel thrown over his head as he dried his hair.
4. In one seamless movement as elegant as one of Nina’s ballet steps, you would see me snatch the cigarette from Shania’s fingers and toss it high over my shoulder.
5. As the cigarette revolved mesmerisingly in a slow arc above us, Danny Baldassarro would reach out and spin me around to face him.
6. As he attempted to pull me away from Shania, the camera would pan up to the cigarette still suspended above us and then follow its downward spiral as it tumbled towards the open door of the petrol compartment of Dad’s car.
7. The audience in the cinema would hold their breath as the cigarette hung, still spinning, millimetres away from the mouth of the petrol tank.
8. Here, a series of quick flashbacks to the petrol station would show me placing the cap on the roof of the car while I pumped three dollars twenty worth of petrol into the tank, then spotting the policeman, sprinting back towards the car and driving off with the cap still sitting on the roof.
9. The audience would watch in wide-eyed horror as the cigarette tumbled slowly onto the lip of the tank, teetered drunkenly for a second or two and then dropped out of sight.
Of course, all this slow-motion stuff might create the impression that there was enough time for all of us to get away from the car before it blew up. And in the film there would probably be one of those bits where the heroines, recognising the danger they’re in, take a slow-motion dive to safety while behind them a spectacular sheet of flame erupts into the sky.
What actually happened was this: Shania flicked her cigarette. The car exploded. My life was over.