Dream On (27 page)

She knelt on the floor next to the bath, resting
her arms on the side of it, reached up and kissed him, then stroked the side of
his face.

"I'm not going because I want to leave you. I'm going
because this is something I really, really want to do. The two things
aren't related. What do you want me to do?  Stick around here
working in the pub for minimum wage and eventually provide a half-brother for
Harley?  After which we'll get a council house because you have to
hand over so much money to Janice every week that we won't be able to afford to
buy or even rent anywhere decent - I mean, it's right and proper that you
support Janice and Harley, but it's still a fact of life. Then one day
I'll say to one of the mums in the mother and toddler group, yeah, I used to
sing a bit. Is that what you want, Dave? Because it's what will
probably happen if I stay here."

"We wouldn't be like that. I don't want any more
kids, anyway."

"You would. You'd want one with me, if we were
together. I know you would. Because you'd think it would bind me to
you."

She knew. How did she know?
He smiled."I wouldn't. I know you don't
really want children, either." He bent his knees up and rested his arms on
them.

"I might, one day. But not for years and years." She shivered, reached for a huge towel and wrapped herself in it. She looked
so sweet, Dave thought. Anyone who made the mistake of thinking that Ariel was
'sweet' had got it so wrong, though, hadn't they?

"You can't leave here because of Harley, end of. I'd
think a hell of a lot less of you if you were prepared to do so. 
Look, this is just something I'm doing right now. In between cruises it's
possible I'll come back to stay with Dad for a bit - Emily says I can stay with
her now, but things might change for her, too - she might meet someone, get
married and move to the Outer Hebrides, anything. We might end up together
in five or ten years' time, you and I, for all we know."

"Do you think so?"

She flipped his nose with the corner of the towel. "Well, look at us now! These past few months have been great. It's still
there
,
between us. In spades, isn't it? It's better now than when we were
kids, if anything."

He stood up, showering her with water droplets, and she
laughed.

"You look like a Viking!" she said.

"That's because I am one," he said. He got out of
the bath, sat down on the bathmat beside her and held her close to him. "Have
you got to be anywhere else today?" 

"No. Today's just for you and me. And tonight."

Later that night, as she slept, he mulled over what
she had said. Yes, he knew she loved him, in her way. He knew he was
important to her - but Ariel had dreams, and a big vision; she would continue
to have a varied and interesting life, going to all sorts of places, meeting
hundreds of people, having experiences he'd never have. He believed it was
possible, yes, that they might end up together one day, when she'd done all she
had to do, and he believed that she thought it might happen, too, but he
couldn't put his life on hold, waiting for it to do so. You couldn't waste
your life, waiting. For a moment he thought of his father, who'd taken his
chance and gone off to live with the woman he said was the love of his life (though
how the love of anyone's life could be called Eunice he didn't know), and he
thought of Jan's grandmother, Evelyn, and how her three score and ten were all
over, really; he only had just over half of his left now, too. He had a son,
and he had a band. Which was a lot more than many people had.

He knew, though, that it was easy to be sensible and
strong about it all while Ariel was lying there in his arms; when she was gone,
he was going to go to pieces.

Then the next day she left, promising to email,
phone and text regularly.  He stood and watched the train disappear around the
corner, and then he went home.

Melodie Joy (she'd dropped the 'Valentine')
survived the first three public votes on Raw Talent.

The show had started to gain a bit of interest in
the media; the ratings were picking up, and there was talk of Inspire TV one
day becoming as popular as the Living channel.

Thor played another gig, the weekend after Ariel
left, at a larger, student type pub in Norwich, which went down very well; the
next day there were over twenty new fans on the MySpace page. Dave wrote a new
song about the loneliness a Viking warrior sometimes felt, sitting beside a
camp fire on a distant shore - it was, he argued fiercely with Ritchie when he
played it to him in the flat that night, absolutely nothing like Whitesnake's
'Here I go again'
.

(On my own).

He was excited about band practice that week, where
he would introduce the song to Shane and Boz, too, and they could start making
it all come together.

That was what it was all about, wasn't it?

Thank God for his music - it gave him something on
which to focus, an outlet for the pain he felt.  Thor was still alive and
kicking! It would take more than losing a place on Raw Talent to keep them
down. Anyway, TV talent shows were hardly rock and roll, were they? Now that
rubbish was over, they could get back to working on new material, seeking out
bigger and better venues for gigs.

He strode into The Bandstand for band practice that
evening feeling better than he had done for about two weeks, determined to
battle through; yes, the wrench of Ariel's departure was still at the forefront
of his mind, but he would struggle on. Surely they were destined to be
together again, some time in the future? He'd lost her once before, and still
lived to fight another day. The Vikings had survived for hundreds of years,
through defeat and massacre, death and disaster, hadn't they? No, Dave Bentley
wasn't ready for his trip to Valhalla, not just yet!

He was early; he stopped and had a pint and a chat
to Shane's uncle Vic, who'd recently found out about Shane's forthcoming foray
into fatherhood.

"Might make the lad buckle down a bit," he said. "Mind
you, that Kerry's not a lovely girl like your Janice. She's a bit of a
tartar, if you ask me; Shane seems to get wall to wall earache, poor fella!"

Then Ritchie turned up, looking marginally more
unhappy than usual. He accepted the pint Dave bought him, then put his hand on
his shoulder and suggested they go into the practice room.

"Got something to tell you, mate," he said, but he
refused to say anything until they were both sitting on the stage, pints in
hand.

Dave's tenuous feeling of optimism was dissipating
by the moment.

"Okay, spit it out," he said.

Ritchie took a deep breath. "Shane's pissed off,"
he said.

Dave gave a sigh of relief. "Yeah, we all know that. Wouldn't you be, if you were going to be tied to that Kerry for the rest of your
life?"

"No," said Ritchie. "I mean, he's pissed off. Gone. He rang me an hour or so ago. Didn't dare tell you himself."

"What?"
Dave
felt as though he'd been kicked in the guts - just like when he found out that
Ariel was going. "The fuck? Where?
Why?
When's he coming back? What the fuck's going on?"

"He ain't coming back, mate," said Ritchie, and Dave
could have sworn he saw tears in his eyes. "Not in the foreseeable future,
anyway. I know, I'm gutted, too. Should have seen this one coming, really." Ritchie
took a long draught of his beer and suggested that they should go outside, in
case Dave wanted to smoke. "You'll probably need to," he said, ominously.

Outside an icy rain had started to come down, sharp
needles making their way into the smoking shelter. Dave put up the collar of
his leather jacket, and lit a cigarette.

"Let's have it, then," he said. "Where's the twat buggered
off to?"

Shane had gone to live in Spalding in Lincolnshire, Ritchie told him. The move had been on the cards for a few weeks; it had
been instigated by the Bon Jovi girl he'd met at Raw Talent, Cecilia, with the
brother in the Bon Jovi tribute band. Yes, Shane had been offered the role of
lead guitarist in this band; he'd been up to see this Cecilia a couple of
times, unbeknownst to anyone else, and had now upped sticks, left his latest
factory job, and moved in with her.

"He organised the move and everything, all in
secret," Ritchie said. "Cecilia's brother, he came to collect him in his van
last night, with all his stuff. He gave notice on his flat, even, so he's
definitely not coming back."

"I get it now," Dave said. "It was all he ever really
wanted to do, wasn't it? Play '
Livin' on a Prayer'
and shirk all his
fucking responsibilities to everyone. But why couldn't he have told me? I mean, fucking hell, we've been mates since we were kids!"

"He couldn't face it," said Ritchie. "He knows how much
Thor means to you. And he arranged it all on the quiet because - okay,
look, he's abandoned that Kerry. Made me swear secrecy, 'cause he don't
want nothing to do with any of it. Between you and me, he sounded a bit,
well, on edge. Almost scared. Kept saying over and over that I
mustn't tell anyone where he is. Not even his family know - he's going to
tell them later. It's just you and me. He couldn't tell you 'cause
he, like, he knows what you're like with Harley, and he thought you'd have a
real go at him - he knows what Ariel thinks of the way he carries on, too, and
he thought that if you two knew you'd be bound to tell Kerry."

Dave felt a stab of pain. "Ariel wouldn't have
said anything. She's gone, remember?" He stared up at the sky. "Fucking hell. I've lost my girlfriend and my best mate, all in one go, practically."

Ritchie patted him on the back. "Yeah, I know,
mate, I know." He exhaled loudly. "I can see why he did it. I mean, new
bird, a flat ready and waiting for him to move into, a band to play in, a way
out of his predicament - you can't blame him, really."

"I can," said Dave. "I should think Kerry can, too, poor
kid."

"He feels justified about that," Ritchie said. "Says she
told him she was on the pill. I can see his point."

"Yeah. He does pick 'em." Dave took a long drag
on his cigarette. "Does she know he's gone, yet?"

"No way! I'm a bit pissed about that one myself, to
be truthful. I mean, who's she going to be hassling about that, eh? That's right. Us."

"We'll just have to stay out of it," said Dave. "I mean,
the CSA and all that, they'll have to find him, won't they?"

"Yeah. Let them do the work. All we know is
that he's in Spalding, after all. We needn't tell her that, though. We don't know anything, right?"

Dave stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. Fuck
it. He was so angry with Shane he didn't know whether he wanted to cry or
punch him, but he couldn't let this get him down. Okay, so he'd lost his mate
and his girl, but he still had his band. He
needed
Thor for his sanity;
he couldn't let this break them up. "We can't let this affect the band," he
said. "We can find another guitarist. It's only a minor setback. Maybe Boz will know someone suitable."

Ritchie looked at his watch. "Yeah, he might. He
should be here by now. Let's go in and tell him, right?"

Boz was sitting on the stage, waiting for them. He
looked up, as they came in.

"Oh great, lads, you're here," he said. He folded
his arms. "Er, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but I'm afraid I've got a
bit of bad news."

Boz was leaving, too. 

He, too, had struck lucky at the Raw Talent
auditions.

The A&R man's assistant, to whom he'd been
talking, knew a member of an old punk band from the early 1980s, Genital
Warthog, who'd enjoyed a certain cult status up north at the time, and had
recently reunited. The original drummer could no longer wield the sticks due
to the chronic arthritis of late middle age, so they were on the look out for
someone else; someone a bit younger, with a good reputation and plenty of
gigging experience behind them. Their comeback tour was to take place in
selected venues in the north, so Boz just couldn't say no, could he? These were
paying gigs, in Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Sunderland - and, best of
all, in Newcastle.

"Oh, hell, I'm so sorry," he said, when Dave told
him about Shane. "I'm as sick as dog, Dave, man, I really am. Canny
timing, eh? I've had a belting time these last few months, lads. But
I've got to do this, you get that, don't you? I can't afford not to."

"Yes, of course I do," Dave said. "At least you
had the decency to come and tell us about it." He shut his eyes; he felt numb.

"I'd stay and do the gig we've got booked for
Saturday week, but I suppose that'll have to be cancelled now, won't it?" Boz
said.

"Yeah," said Ritchie. "And the MySpace page. Bollocks. I enjoyed doing that."

"Aye, you still can," said Boz. "The music's still there. People can still go on the page and listen to the sound of Thor!"

"Yeah, but we're a live band," said Ritchie. "They'll lose interest if they can't come and see us, if we're not producing
new material." He looked up at the ceiling. "We'll have to say we split up
'cause of musical differences within the band. That's what they say, isn't
it?"

"Loosely translated as 'two of us could be arsed to turn up
for band practice and two of us couldn't'," said Boz, and laughed; then he
stopped, abruptly.

"No, not funny, Boz," said Ritchie.

"It's all over, isn't it?" Dave said, putting his
hands in his pockets and staring up at the ceiling, too.

"Not necessarily," said Boz. "You could get another
guitarist, another drummer."

"It wouldn't be the same," said Ritchie.

Dave looked at him. There were tears in his eyes;
funny, he hadn't thought it meant that much to Ritchie. "We could put the word
out. On the MySpace page. You never know."

"Nah," said Ritchie. "It's over. Thor was
us,
the
four of us." He grimaced. "Don't think we could get another drummer to wear
that helmet, anyway."