Dream On (7 page)

She'd already auditioned and failed to be accepted
for Big Brother and Britain's Next Top Model. Well, she said, she was tall,
slim and pretty enough to be a model, and she'd actually got down to the last
fifty for the latter. Maybe she was too old.  She put her lack of success with
the producers of Big Brother down to the fact that she wasn't prepared to have
sex on live TV, even if it
was
under the bed covers, and that she was
too intelligent; the sex kittens in The House were always pretty dumb, weren't
they?

She wasn't going to get married in order to go on
Wife Swap. She couldn't cook, so Come Dine With Me was out of the question,
and she was certainly not prepared to gain seven stone just to get on The
Biggest Loser. Thus, singing was her only option.

It was her attitude towards this that
really
annoyed
Ariel.

Melodie thought they were the same. Melodie, who
couldn't read music, couldn't play an instrument, couldn't write lyrics (unless
they included the words 'lol' and 'hun', Ariel presumed), and had no
feel
for
harmony or melody, which was a joke in itself. She had a nice enough voice,
and had taken singing lessons to improve her presentation, but that was all.
Then she had the cheek to talk to Ariel about music, as if she knew what she was
talking about, as if they were both in it together.

"I just know we've got what it takes to make it
big," she'd said, the other day, "you and me, babe - all over MTV and VH1, you
can just see it, can't you? I tell you, I've decided to try out for X
Factor every year until I get on it. It's all about not giving up, isn't
it?"

"Well, yes, partly," Ariel said. "But it's no good
flogging a dead horse. You've got to be good at what you do, as well. I mean, you have to stand out from the crowd."

Melodie struck a pose and pouted. "Oh, I stand out from
the crowd, all right! Anyway, it doesn't matter if you're not that great a
singer these days, does it? They just do all those twiddly things to make
you sound good. It's all about image, these days."

Much of the time, Ariel didn't feel she had much in common
with her old friend at all, anymore.

Listening to Melodie made her wonder if she'd come
across that daft and shallow, too, when she was younger. If she had, the
travelling had knocked it out of her.

Six months in South America. Buenos Aires, Colombia (her favourite place ever), Ecuador, Peru. Staying in the grimmest of hostels, the poorest
of towns, not just following the tourist trails. Meeting people in the most
basic of communities, getting to know other travellers, from all over the
world.

Sydney,
Bali, Cambodia, Vietnam. Hot and dusty, eating octopus and lizard and
anything else the locals ate. After a while, not wanting to be anywhere near
the backpackers bars with all the soon-to-be-students on their gap years,
getting pissed out of their brains and buying dodgy Es with Daddy's money. Not
wearing high heels or make-up for a whole year. Cutting her hair off because
it was too much of a hassle to deal with it long; finding she no longer thought
about her image, how she appeared to others.

Losing Frankie's love along the way when he fell
for an Australian girl called Sadie. Going to India in a group that included
Frankie and Sadie and trying not to let show how badly she was hurting, because
she didn't want to waste the experience of travelling. Leaving them to it,
becoming enraptured with the culture of India. Waking up one morning, two
months later, to find that it didn't hurt quite so much anymore; going back to London with Frankie and Sadie, and being terribly grown up about the whole thing. She said
goodbye to them and moved  in with a couple of guys she knew from The Intrepid
Fox days. Time to get back to what was important.

She found she wrote differently, now; the music
came more easily, inspired as it was by all she had seen and heard, but the
lyrics were harder. She had so much to say that sometimes she felt as if it was
all bursting out of her head, as if she had too many feelings, emotions too deep
to be expressed in words; the emotion came out in the music itself, she felt.

She took a job in a travel agent by day, and hated
every moment of it. All those people who were more interested in the size of
the hotel swimming pool than seeing the actual country; every day when she got
home and tore off the travel firm's horrible navy suit and floral blouse she
wondered what the hell she was doing and became even more determined to make a
success of her music. She did gigs wherever she could, and started to get a
small following - so small she actually knew all their names - and a few
positive write-ups in papers that no-one ever read. She sent more CDs off to
record companies, but heard nothing back from anyone. There was little
encouragement from her flatmates; she'd thought it would be a great experience,
living with two other musicians; she had imagined they'd be supportive,
bouncing ideas around, all three of them inspiring each other. She soon
realised, though, that Mick and Gav liked to talk about music rather than
actually making it. Any creativity they owned was dulled by the amount of blow
and beer they got through,  the latter cancelling out the possible
inspirational effects of the former.

She signed up for guitar lessons to hone her
skills, and started an affair with her tutor. On the day her landlord gave her,
Mick and Gav two months' notice because he wanted to sell the flat, the guitar
tutor asked her to move in with him.

Earlier that day she been writing a song about men
who say naff things during sex - based on him. No, he wasn't going to really
take her there, baby, and she wasn't in love with him. She wasn't going to set
up home with a man she didn't love just because she had nowhere to live. And
she wasn't scared of being alone.

So, what next?

 Another shabby, rented flat with people she
wouldn't normally choose to talk to for more than half an hour, let alone live
with? She was twenty-eight years old. She lived from month to month, hand to
mouth. She hated her job, her love life was a big heap of nothing, her social
circle had not seemed so appealing since she came back from travelling - how
she longed to go away again! More than that, of course, she still wanted to find
some sort of recognition as an artiste, but that didn't seem likely to happen
while she was fighting her way through the underground every day, and living in
situations that depressed the hell out of her.

She slept on the sofa of another friend, Emily, for
a while, which was better than the boys' flat simply because it was less dope
and drink befuddled, but still a world away from where she wanted to be.

She decided to go home.

She would take a step back, re-group, and see where
life took her.

Maybe London was too big for her, right now. Maybe
she needed to gain a small, local following, live somewhere comfortable and
peaceful where she could write her songs. Spend a bit of time with her dad. Borrow his car and drive out into the quiet, bleak, flat countryside of the
fens, and think. 

Bleak and flat. That was how Ariel Swan felt, that
evening.

Ritchie had set up the MySpace page the day after
the first gig.

Thor, on MySpace Music!

The only problem was, there wasn't any music on it.

"I dunno, it could be our gimmick," suggested Boz. "A
music page with no music. I reckon it's pretty cool."

"What?" said Dave, frowning at him.

"Joking, man, joking." Boz slapped him on the
back. "Fear not, guys, Boz will sort it. I know this stoner called Kelvin
- a right geek but a canny lad - who lives with his mam and dad and has a studio
in the spare room. Uses all those programs like Cubase; we can pay him a
visit. Shit hot at mastering, too, he is."

Dave and Ritchie looked at each other and grinned. This was brilliant - Boz had turned out to be a real 'find'.

"That's fabulous," said Dave, "I thought we were
going to have to start forking out for recording studios." It was so weird how
everything kept falling into place; surely it must be a
sign.
And then
there was the return of Ariel -

"Nah, not these days, man," said Boz. "Most of the bands
on MySpace do it like this. We'll have to chuck him something for his
trouble, but he just likes doing it."

"Our Pete says putting your music up like this is
the way forward," Ritchie said, "because any A&R men and scouts who like us, we
can just refer them to the MySpace page and they can see the whole, er, package,
like, all the gigs and photos and songs, all in one place."

"Aye," said Boz. "That's the idea."

"We need to get a load of fans as well, though,
don't we," said Shane. "I'll get me sister to spread the word and ask all her
mates to be our friends, so we look well popular. Hey, this is good, isn't
it? Much better than when you just had to rely on gigs."

"Yeah," said Ritchie, "but we need photos, too. I'll get our Pete onto that, he's got this geezer who does 'em for his poxy
marketing consultancy website." He looked round at them all. "I might even pay
for them, seeing as I'm the only one of us who earns decent money!"

Our Pete was happy to help, and three days later
the Thor MySpace page featured photos of the band and its individual members.

"Get your mates to take photos at your gigs and
post them on their pages - and tag you in them; that way they'll appear on your
page, too," suggested Pete, in his self-imposed role as Thor's marketing
advisor. "That sort of advertising  works in a subliminal way; their friends
will look at the photos, too, and next time they see a gig advertised, they'll
think, oh yeah, that's Thor, I've seen them on Joe Bloggs' MySpace, I'll go
along."

With a few clicks, he chose the right profile photo
for their page. "Now, you can start building a fan base while you create the
brand; build the buzz even before you put the music on the page."

Dave's head was in a whirl. Create the brand? Build the buzz?  Subliminal advertising? This was all galloping ahead in a way
that he loved, but it scared him, too. Was rock and roll all just marketing
these days?

He'd only written four songs.

They'd only played one gig.

But it was a start, wasn't it?

He kept thinking about Ariel that week, too, wanting
to go round and see her but at the same time reluctant to do so; what if she
just wanted to be friends, to catch up - and what about Janice? He knew Janice
still loved him, and until a few weeks ago he'd thought he still loved her. But now he wasn't so sure. Was it the idea of having a family, being with his
son again, that he loved? He feared he was moving away from Janice, just
slightly; it wasn't a conscious decision but he was pretty sure she was working
up to saying, okay, we've talked about it; when do you want to come home? But
if he moved back in, that would be that. He needed to make sure it was the
right thing to do before he made that commitment.

What he didn't admit to himself, at least, not in
so many words, was that if he was officially back with Janice he would have to
forget all about Ariel.

Dave's guilty conscience and the week's wages
bought Janice a second hand laptop that Friday, so she could follow Thor on
MySpace, too.

He took it round to her that very afternoon.

"Wow!" said Janice, when he gave it to her. "Dave, this is
wonderful! It'll be great for Harley when he's a bit older, too."

"Well, I thought you might like to make yourself a
MySpace profile," he said. "Then you can keep up with the band and put comments
on our page about how great we are, and all that."

"Oh, I see, there's an ulterior motive in this show
of generosity, is there?" Janice said, but she was smiling; she looked amused
rather than annoyed. "I can go on Facebook, too - Carolyn says everyone's
starting to use that now, not MySpace."

"Yeah, but MySpace is still where all the cool
people are," said Dave. He laughed, then. "Oh, for fuck's sake, I don't know
about all that crap, that's just what Shane reckons! But Ritchie and Pete
say you have to be on there, these days. All the bands and singers are,
apparently."

"I see," said Janice. She sat down at the laptop
and opened it up. "I'll have to find out how to get on the internet, then. And how to use this thing." She got up again. "D'you want a coffee?"

Dave followed her out into the kitchen. "Where's Mr
Davidson, then?"

"Oh, Mum's taken him out for tea," Janice said. She sounded distracted; he found the local paper lying on the kitchen table and
glanced through it while she put the kettle on and busied herself getting mugs,
coffee and sugar out of the cupboards. She fiddled around in the fridge for
milk, then stopped and looked out of the window. "So, have you seen Alison
Swan?"

Oh, dear. Dave looked up, and swallowed hard. Janice had her back to him but he could see by the set of her shoulders that
this was by no means a casual question; she'd been working up to it.

She stirred sugar into the mugs, frowning, as
though the process called for a great deal of concentration.

"What?" he said. "Oh, yeah, Alison. She's changed
her name to Ariel, now."

"Has she?" Janice laughed, and turned round,
handing Dave his coffee. "She would!"

Dave grinned. "She thought it sounded better for a
singer."

"Did she? So you've talked to her? You have seen her,
then?"

"Only at the gig. She was there, didn't you see her? I just talked to her then. You know, after you buggered off without
waiting for me."

Janice ignored that. "So, is she on MySpace too? If
that's where all the cool people are. She's pretty cool, isn't she?"