part0019

T here’s a new confidence in the band since the gig; they thought they were good, but now they know it. Biro has taught Danny three basic chords on the guitar and somehow Danny is playing them in the right places, at the right time. He’s overjoyed and I’ve noticed he’s started doing a flamboyant sort of arm wave when he hits the last chord.

I raided the cupboards at home and have bought along drinks and crisps for a break. I don’t need to be here really because there’s not a lot of managing to do. I help move the tables and chairs out of the way and then move them back at the end and the rest of the time I just sit and watch them. I just love being here though.

‘Can’t tempt you Josie?’ Biro holds the microphone out to me. ‘Another rendition of Wonderwall?’

‘Definitely not. One night only, I’m afraid.’

‘Shame, was something else, you should have been there.’ Biro winks at me to show he’s joking.

‘You were great, Josie.’ Danny gives me a smile. ‘You could be our singer you know, you’ve got a better voice than me or Biro.’

‘No, I’m happy as manager, thanks.’

Biro looks a bit annoyed at Danny’s comment and I quickly change the subject.

‘Did Jason give you a date for the next gig?’

‘Yeah, two weeks tomorrow. We’ve got the best spot too, last on.’

‘We need to sort a diary out,’ I say. ‘Because there’s an open band night here in the college in April and a lot of the pubs in town have new band nights, usually on Sunday nights.’

‘Cool,’ Biro says. ‘You’ve been busy.’

I have. I can’t rely on Dad to keep getting gigs for the band and I am supposed to be the manager so I rang around most of the pubs in town. A few of them had heard of Tourists of Reality so there must be some sort of band grapevine.

‘They get booked up pretty quickly so we need to be organised.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Biro salutes. ‘You should ask your mate to come along.’ He says it casually but he’s not fooling me.

‘Yeah,’ he says, nonchalantly. ’Unless she’s out with her boyfriend or something.’

Ellie and I have seen a lot of each other this week, we have a lot of classes together anyway but it’s nice to be friends again. It’s made me realise how much I’ve missed spending time with her. I won’t lose her friendship again, I know that. If we seem to be drifting apart, I’ll say something instead of curling up in my shell and pushing everyone away and feeling sorry for myself.

‘I’ll ask her. I don’t know if she’s got a boyfriend.’

I know she hasn’t; I’m just winding Biro up, which makes a change from him winding me up. Funnily enough I was going to ask if she wanted to come but I thought I’d better check with the band first.

‘Is that her with the big hair?’ Mogs peers over at me squinting; he should really wear his glasses because he can’t see a thing without them.

I laugh. ‘That’s her.’

Ellie’s hair is big; a gorgeous, bouncy mass of black curls. She hates it of course, is always trying to straighten it and tame it while everyone else is trying to curl theirs and get some volume into it. Except me, my hair is so short it couldn’t be any more low maintenance.

Biro is studying Mogs with interest. ‘Didn’t know you knew Ellie.’

Mogs shrug. ‘I don’t.’

Oh my, Biro’s got it bad.

‘Guys!’ I drum roll on the table with my hands. ‘We’re wasting valuable time, get on with rehearsing,’ I say in a stern voice. ‘Before I get my whip out.’

‘You seem happier.’ Biro is giving me an appraising look.

‘I am. I think talking to Adam is really helping. Weird, really, because I couldn’t see how talking could possibly help but it has.’

‘Good.’ Biro stares at me a bit too long and I start to feel uncomfortable.

‘Then why are you looking at me like that?’ I sound annoyed. I am annoyed.

‘You know Adam’s just a counsellor, right?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing.’ Biro shrugs.

‘If you’ve got something to say, just say it.’

Biro looks at me in surprise. ‘Whoa. Defensive or what.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘You are. I’m just saying he’s a counsellor, it’s his job.’

‘I know that.’ I punch Biro playfully on the arm. ‘I’m not some stupid kid you know, I haven’t got the hots for him or anything.’

Biro looks at me for a bit longer then turns away.

‘Come on, Pa’s here.’ He picks up his guitar and strides towards Charlie’s battered mini. I have to jog to match his giant steps.

‘Hello, Charlie.’ I say as I clamber into the back seat. How brave I am, no more Mr Birowski.

Biro hands me his guitar and folds himself into the front seat then pushes the seat back as far as possible nearly cutting my legs off in the process. We zoom off before I’ve even had a chance to put my seatbelt on, I try to juggle the guitar and seatbelt but soon give up; way too much effort.

‘Christ, Pa, when you going to get a car I can fit into?’

‘There’s always the bus.’

Biro huffs and looks out of the window.

‘Good rehearsal?’ asks Charlie.

What’s the matter with Biro? He’s my best friend but he seems to have a problem with Adam; he’s taken a dislike to him and he’s never even met him. Maybe I’ve been talking about Adam too much. I told him how we laughed about my YouTube fame. Now I think about it, maybe I do talk about him a lot. Is Biro jealous that I’ve got another friend? I didn’t think Biro was like that. I resolve not to talk about Adam anymore, Biro’s probably sick of hearing about him.

Adam is not just my counsellor.

I let myself in the front door and the smell of the curry we had for tea is still lingering in the air. It was one of Dad’s special currys; basically, anything left in the fridge gets flung in with whatever spices and chillies are available. Tonight’s was pretty fiery; my lips are still tingling.

The house feels warm and cosy and I’m relieved to be out of Charlie’s mini. Biro can be a right pig sometimes; he moaned like mad when he had to get out of the car so I could get out of the back seat. I said to him, you should have let me sit in the front if it’s such a problem and he said it’s okay for you, you’re practically a midget anyway. I could have hit him, I may be small but even so I was practically scrunched up into a ball on the way home, he must have known.

I take my coat off and hang it up and for a moment I think that Dad must have gone to bed, it’s so quiet. I look at my watch; he wouldn’t go to bed at a quarter past ten on a Friday night, he always waits for me to come home; says he can’t sleep until he knows I’m safe. I look in the lounge and the lights are on but the TV is off and Skipper is fast asleep, curled up cosily on the sofa. His feet are twitching, he’s chasing dream rabbits.

And then I hear the murmur of Dad’s voice from upstairs, I stand and listen for a moment. I can’t hear what he’s saying but it’s a one-sided conversation, so he must be on the phone. I breathe a sigh of relief and then wonder what I was so afraid of, where did I think he was? What did I think had happened to him?

I was suddenly frightened he was going to be taken away from me, like Mum.

I go into the kitchen and get myself a glass of water to take to bed, I have work tomorrow but I don’t mind, I enjoy it. Not the job; that’s beyond boring but I like Louise and Uncle Ralph is funny, even though he doesn’t mean to be. Louise took me downstairs to the print room last week and we watched Bert and Lev as they printed Saturday’s Herald. It was a noisy clatter, clatter, but sort of mesmerising. The paper whizzes off the press so fast and then Lev grabs big thick wedges of it and feeds it into another machine and they come out folded and ready to sell. Bert didn’t seem to do much; he stood watching the press, frowning and blowing his cheeks out and just twiddled a few knobs now and again. We didn’t stay for too long because Louise says Lev gets a bit twitchy around women and he did start muttering something about Dagmar no like so we went back upstairs. It was more or less finish time then and Dad was waiting outside in the car so I had to go, but she said she’d tell me what she meant about Lev being twitchy tomorrow.