True Love, page 14
And they can go even better somewhere else, he says. This place is dead. There’s nothing here for us. You can fuck around all you like here, but not me. I’ve got better things to do than waste my time up here.
And then he stands up and storms from the room, leaving Finn alone in the garage, sitting on the sofa and staring down at the zip on his left boot until he eventually gets up and leaves.
The next day, Evan calls round. Finn’s nan answers the door and calls Finn downstairs. He finds Evan out on the street, his hands tucked in his pockets, pacing around, his sharp nose slightly sunburned after a very hot last day of September.
Finn steps out and shuts the door behind him.
I shouldn’t have said some of the stuff I said last night, Evan says.
Finn says nothing, only nods.
Evan continues pacing, his eyes occasionally lifting to meet Finn’s.
But the tour’s an opportunity, he says. That’s all I’m saying. Why not try it and see what happens? If it goes tits up, then that’s fine. We can come back and carry on here.
He stops and claps Finn hard on the top of his arm. He smiles.
Think about it, he says, and then he turns and walks away down the street, his head lowered, his steps short and quick.
The next day, Finn agrees and they buy the van. It would be more sensible to wait until next summer to set off, since they’ll be sleeping in the back of it, and the winter nights will surely freeze them half to death. But Evan doesn’t want to wait. So it’s decided that come the beginning of December, they’ll set off for three weeks and be back before Christmas.
THE MONTHS PASS AND they practise more and more, honing their set until it’s as slick as it’s ever been. Finn and Evan write two new songs, both of which they try out at the pub they play at every week, and which get a good response. There’s one in particular that’s slightly different from all of their other stuff. There’s a little less distortion in the guitars and Allan’s drumming is less erratic, which gives Finn’s voice and lyrics some more room to breathe. And it’s the first time that he’s written a proper chorus, one that he looks forward to slipping back into, and that he quickly becomes aware people are eager to join in on.
We’re moving in the right direction, Evan says.
They all quit their jobs on the same day. Finn and Evan walk out of the store into the cold December sunshine. Evan reaches up, grabs the collar of Finn’s coat and rags it around.
This is it, he says. This is the beginning of it all. Tomorrow we’ll be off. Tomorrow we start writing our own script.
Finn has told his nan and grandad about the tour. His nan isn’t happy about it, but it’s his grandad who urges her to keep calm.
If it’s what he wants to do, then it’s what he wants to do, he says.
Finn can tell that he’s disappointed that he’s left his job in such a cavalier fashion. His grandad has respect for the workplace, and Finn knows that his quitting so brazenly will have upset him. And yet still he seems to want to support him. It surprises Finn, who still struggles to see beyond his grandad’s gruff exterior. He wonders if there’ll ever come a time when the two of them will do their best to explain who they really feel themselves to be, or the distance between them now will be the distance between them for evermore.
The van is packed with their equipment, with their bags of clothes and great heaps of blankets and duvets and pillows, tins of food and bottles of drink. Evan’s already managed to organize a few gigs along the way, one or two in the cities where some of the biggest bands have come from. When they arrive down South, it’ll be up to them to hustle around and make an impression. They’ll be gone for nearly a month, so they’re going to have to rely on people they meet to offer the use of showers and sofas once in a while.
Finn is waiting in the dark of the morning for the van to pick him up, his breath fogging in front of him. His hands are buried deep into his pockets and he stamps the soles of his boots against the flags to warm his numbing toes.
The street – the street that he’s lived on his entire life – is quiet. Now that he’s leaving it behind, he feels a swell of fondness for it. He remembers how he’d slink back here from the river, his feet still cold and damp in his trainers from the water. It’d been busy with kids then, with its own small dramas playing out every day. Now it’s silent but for his heels on the scuffed, gummed flags. One or two lights are on, but mostly the windows are dark. Some are boarded up. In recent years, houses have been abandoned, some with the furniture still in them. He’s looked through the windows and it has unnerved him, as if the family hasn’t moved away but has simply vanished, dropped off the face of the earth.
He imagines Amy still sleeping in bed, the tousled nest of her dark hair spilling across the pillow, and he feels a pang to be by her side, pressing his body against her and hearing her moan softly in her sleep. When he comes back, he wonders if things might become more serious. They’ve been talking about it, the idea of becoming an item, the kind that walks around holding hands, that makes dinner together on an evening and curls up on the sofa to watch TV. He thinks he could ring her up and tell her now that this is what he wants, but he knows she’ll have to get up for work soon, so he promises himself that she’ll be the first person he sees when he gets back.
The van roars around the corner then, and the horn blares once, twice, three times. A second after it pulls up, Evan slides the door open, hops out and snatches Finn’s bag from his hand.
Time to go, he says.
He barely looks Finn in the face before he’s back in the van, and a chant goes up from Allan and Jake, hands clapping and their voices echoing down the street.
THE FOUR GIGS THEY play on the way are nearly empty. The venues are unfamiliar, and the sound is nowhere near as good as back home. They arrange themselves on stage to a light, almost imperceptible smattering of applause on each occasion. Heads nod along, but they can hear chatter at some points, and Evan leaves the stage furious after the final song, complaining that the further south they go, the ruder people become.
Allan and Jake are the only ones who can drive, and they both complain that their arms feel tired when they’re on stage. None of them have slept properly in the back of the van. Twice they’ve stopped in a lay-by for the night, and every time a car speeds by the van shakes and the suspension lets out a haunting groan, waking all of them up. Even with the heaps of duvets and pillows, the cold seeps through the interstices in the metalwork, and they wake shivering. None of them have showered in days and the smell is potent: sweat and sour breath, the stale, back-of-the-cupboard smell of unwashed clothes.
There’s an intimacy to the whole experience that Finn – so accustomed to being alone with himself and his body – has never experienced before. He can’t seem to move without touching somebody else or one of their belongings. He’s always crouched beneath the low ceiling, his long limbs tucked and folded into himself like an ironing board. When he tries to move and find purchase to haul himself through the van toward the back doors, his hands touch jeans and sweat-soaked T-shirts, socks stiff and crusted with spilled beer, underwear twisted and strewn in a way he’s only ever seen his own at the foot of Amy’s bed on a morning.
At one point, disoriented in the middle of the night and reaching out for his bottle of water, his fingers grope blindly in the chill dark, and find something slick and warm, and it’s only when it begins to move and he feels a short blast of warm air that he realizes he’s had the tips of his fingers in one of his bandmates’ mouths.
The constant closeness makes him retreat into himself. He has been quiet, distant, never quite present. His performances, for the first ever time, become lacklustre. He’s not got sufficient energy, and he’s struggled to work his way into the songs. The words, for reasons that he hasn’t been able to fathom, haven’t felt like his but somebody else’s. Though Evan hasn’t mentioned anything, Finn can tell that he’s noticed; and he knows that he’ll not address it immediately but will keep it safely stowed away until he thinks it the right time to strike.
They arrive. The capital city – they had all been excited about it in their own different ways, having only ever seen it in pictures and in films or read about it in books. But they don’t see any of the fancy or historic buildings around them, none of the wide streets and the expensive stores, no bridge swooping over the glistening roll of the river. Not even the faintest whiff of glamour.
What they find is a place that looks even more run-down than where they’re from. Rain-grey streets with bruised, scarred buildings. The houses all have a different colour of brick – sickly pale, almost yellow. People trudge about with a strange kind of wariness, keeping themselves to themselves, as if holding back a secret.
They find a cafe on a corner with red lacquer seats and chipped plywood tables. They sit down and order tea and some sausage sandwiches. They handle what little money they have with great care, picking out coins and dropping them into the outstretched palm of the woman behind the till.
Darkness is closing in outside. Finn can feel the knot in his stomach tightening by the minute. They’re all tired, worn out. They need to have a shower and a good night’s sleep, but they all know that’s not possible. It’s only Evan who talks, telling them all to get ready for what’s coming up, the biggest opportunity of their lives.
This is it, he says. This is what we’ve come here for. To be in amongst it all. To start living our lives.
But Allan and Jake both sulk beneath their fringes, sipping at their tea and prodding disconsolately at the crusts on their plates. And Finn can only smile at Evan, though he can’t be sure what his lips are doing, and that they haven’t turned down into more of a grimace.
It goes on like this.
Some nights they find a slot to play, and others they find nothing and have to entertain themselves. They drive around from borough to borough, sometimes catching sight of a famous landmark, but only fleetingly. The grey quilt of clouds seems permanently pinned above them. Even the Christmas lights that hang from lamp posts do little to add any cheer.
Some of the gigs they manage to find and play are bouncing, and they come off the stage drenched in sweat, exhilarated. Finn finds it in himself to forget whatever seems to be troubling him, and he gets back into his old groove, feeling his words pouring out of him, faces in the audience turned toward him, eyes wide and cheeks glistening, hair plastered down on foreheads.
But there are other venues in which all he can do is half-heartedly run through the songs, the words alien to him, until they’re done and they can leave – or, if they’re lucky, find someone there whose house or flat they can go back to for a shower.
After one show where Finn could sense his performance to be particularly dispirited, Evan corners him in a narrow corridor at the back of the venue that smells of damp and urine. The light above them is about to blow, sputtering on and off, and splashing the dripping, flaking walls with a sickly yellow light.
What the fuck was that? Evan says.
He is close to Finn, his body low and his fists clenched, like a boxer about to give his ribs a working over.
What was what? Finn says.
You know fucking well what, snaps Evan. We come all this way and you churn out shit like that. Like you’ve just got out of fucking bed.
Finn stammers but says nothing. He can hear Evan’s breath gusting out through his flaring nostrils. He can feel the heat coming off him. He wants to tell Evan that something doesn’t feel right about the whole thing. He’s not happy; he feels uncomfortable. None of this is what he wants.
But as soon as he opens his mouth again, he sees Evan raise up his hand as if to strike him. He closes his eyes, expecting the sing or thud of a blow, but feels only three light slaps on his cheek.
Turn it up next time, Evan says, and Finn opens his eyes to see him walking away down the flickering corridor.
The nights in the van become increasingly unpleasant. They do their best to find quiet streets to park on, but one night Finn hears movement outside. The rest of them are sleeping, Allan curled in one corner snoring, and Evan and Jake side by side, sharing two duvets. Their equipment towers over them, the amps stacked on top of one another, the two guitars propped and crossed at the neck in the opposite corner to Allan, like some new-fangled coat of arms. The only light they have is a battery-powered torch that they pass around to find their bearings.
Finn flicks the torch on.
He listens again and hears nothing. He thinks that maybe he was just dreaming. But a moment later the van starts to shake, and there are shouts and manic laughter coming through the rusting panels. The rest of them wake up, but they’re all too stunned to say or do anything. Finn directs the torchlight from face to face, each one looking paler and more shocked than the last. They listen as they hear glass smashing and more laughter, then they hear someone climb up on to the roof above them, the metal warping and popping under the weight. One of the amps falls and both guitars slide awkwardly to the floor, their strings twanging tunelessly.
They do nothing but wait until the person climbs down, and the shouts and laughter slowly recede. When it’s been silent for a good five minutes, they gingerly open the back doors and step out into the frigid night air. They find that both wing mirrors have been smashed clean off, and there are dents in the bonnet and on the roof. Fortunately, the windscreen is still intact. They have no spare money to get the wing mirrors replaced, so they’ll just have to drive home without.
TWO WEEKS INTO THE tour and a general torpor settles over the group. Only Evan remains optimistic. Though it’s true he’s also been unnerved by the attack, he tries to convince the others that the whole experience will serve as the kind of gritty anecdote that they’ll be able to churn out for people when they get back. Or, maybe one day, they’ll be able to tell it to journalists, who’ll be impressed by the rawness of their origins and drive to succeed.
For the first time, Finn begins to doubt Evan. For all he admires Evan’s drive and optimism, he can’t help but feel his vision for the band is becoming increasingly misguided. Their altercation in the corridor after the gig has very nearly severed the connection between them. Finn loves the band, and he loves creating and singing the songs – but he doesn’t want to make himself miserable doing it. It’s exactly what he feared before they came: it feels like they’re trying to change something that ought to stay as it is.
Jake is the first to suggest they go home a week early. Allan immediately agrees. It’s obvious they have been discussing it between themselves for a while. They’re in the corner of a low-ceilinged pub when they bring it up. Christmas lights and tinsel are strung about.
Evan receives the news in stunned silence. His eyes dart between both of them.
You can’t be serious, he says.
Jake nods, his blonde fringe falling over his eyes.
We are, he says. We’re sick of sleeping in the van. We want to get back. We’ve had enough.
Despite their occasional petty arguments, it’s always been clear to Finn how loyal the brothers are to one another. They have talked in passing with Finn about a younger sister at home with some kind of disability, and it had been apparent in the way they talked about her, with their mouths set straight and their heads nodding slowly, how protective they are of her, and how they already know there are more important things in life than playing in a successful band.
Evan shakes his head, sips his pint, and then wipes his lips with a bunched fist.
Fine, he snarls. You two take the van, and me and Finn will stay. We can run through a few songs without you, and we’ll earn enough money to get the bus back.
He turns to Finn. Finn stays very still. He doesn’t want to disappoint his best friend, the one person who knows so much about him, who saved him with this band. He owes him so much, but he also knows that the two of them carrying on without Jake and Allan is a terrible idea.
Where will we stay? he asks.
We’ll find places, Evan says.
Finn shakes his head and lowers his eyes to the table.
I think we should go back, he says.
What? says Evan.
It doesn’t make sense to stay. We’re all tired. You’re tired.
Being fucking tired is part of the job, Evan says. We came here to work, not sleep.
They argue about it for an hour until Evan eventually storms off. They don’t find him back at the van, so they spend another two hours walking around the cold streets looking for him. Eventually, they come across him on a corner, propped against a letter box. He’s drunk the best part of a bottle of rum, and he’s been sick down himself, a pulp of regurgitated crisps smeared across one shoulder. They pick him up and carry him back to the van, where they watch him fall asleep.
In the morning, it’s Evan who wakes them.
If we’re going to go, he says, then we’d best get started.
His face is pale and drawn, and there’s the tang of vomit coming off his clothes. Finn tries to make eye contact with him, but Evan keeps his eyes lowered. At one point, while they’re making sure everything is secure in the back, Finn puts a hand on his shoulder, but Evan immediately shrugs it off.
They’re around halfway home, when Evan comes back from the service station, his face looking a little brighter. He tells them he’s been in the payphone to a friend of his. There’s a slot become available to play tonight in a pub. It’s up in a town they’ve all heard of, but none of them have ever been to.
But that’s past ours, says Allan. It’s right up on the coast.
It is, says Evan. But we’re already coming back early, what difference would one extra night make? He claps his hands together and rubs them. Come on! he pleads. Why don’t we go out with a bit of a bang?
Finn’s the first to agree to it. He feels sorry for Evan, the way his face looks so open and vulnerable, and he also likes the idea of playing in the North – further north even than their town. Evan’s been almost silent up until this point; if doing this will go some way to repairing what he feels will be a terrible rift in their relationship, then he wants to do it.
