The Lords of Melody, page 15
‘Great,’ said Janis.
We still hadn’t worked out how they’d found out when our previous guests were arriving.
I made for the toilet, yellow cleaning bucket in my hand.
‘Where are you going?’ demanded Janis.
‘I remembered seeing some dirt in the bath.’
‘Why didn’t you clean it, then?’
‘Because the time just didn’t seem right,’ I said. ‘You know how it is with cleaning. Sometimes you just have to wait for exactly the right moment.’
‘OK, then,’ said my sister, impressed, no doubt, by my diligence. ‘But, remember, you are not allowed to use that bathroom!’
I went into the toilet and I did what I had to do.
When I returned, the bell rang and Janis hurried down the corridor to meet Lucien, Clean Freak. Lucien didn’t look much like his profile picture. Or his profile picture didn’t look much like Lucien. It was hard to know who to blame. But as he made his way down the corridor towards us I could see his eyes darting to and fro, searching for dust, dirt and other signs of disgustingness.
Janis introduced us.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘So lovely to have you stay,’ said Miss Katy.
Strum went to shake his hand, but Lucien quickly took a step back and waved at Strum from there.
‘Would you like to look at your room now?’ Janis asked.
‘The bathroom first, if you please,’ replied Lucien, crisply.
‘This way,’ said Janis.
As she pushed open the bathroom door, it was like one of those ads, beams of cleanliness radiating from within.
Lucien ventured inside.
Janis looked over to Miss Katy and Strum and smiled, confident how spotless it was in there.
To say there was a scream does not do justice to the sound that came from the bathroom.
This scream made my response to my broken leg seem half-hearted.
And then came the screamer himself, his face distorted by an expression of absolute horror.
‘What is it?’ implored Janis.
But Lucien was incapable of speech. He swept back up the corridor, grabbed his bags and disappeared through the door. Janis ran after him, but returned soon after.
‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘But what was it?’
She went into the toilet.
And for the second time that afternoon there was an almighty scream. Janis reappeared. She came towards me, and my fight-or-flight response was sending me urgent messages: Run like the wind, Bullseye. But I ignored them. I wouldn’t run, I wouldn’t fight back, I wouldn’t even protect myself. Because I deserved whatever punishment my big sister was going to hand out.
But Janis didn’t touch me, didn’t even look at me – she kept going, past me, past Strum, past Miss Katy and into her bedroom, slamming her door behind.
Immediately, Miss Katy went to comfort her. But the door was locked and Janis wouldn’t let her in.
‘Please, Janis, we need to talk,’ said Miss Katy.
But the only reply she got was sobs, huge racking sobs that seemed to reverberate throughout the house, shaking the weatherboards.
While Miss Katy tried to negotiate with Janis, Strum made his way into the bathroom.
At least he didn’t scream, but there was an audible gasp, followed by the sound of the toilet flushing.
When he came back out he looked at me in a way I can’t remember my dad ever looking at me before, his face full of disbelief and disappointment.
‘You did that?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘Did what?’ said Miss Katy, who had given up trying to find a way past the sobs and talk to Janis.
‘I put Lentil Slop Thing in the toilet,’ I said.
‘Lentil Slop Thing?’ said Miss Katy, looking at Strum for affirmation.
He nodded. ‘The Lentil Slop Thing that was in the fridge.’
‘But why?’
‘No offence,’ I said. ‘But it looks like poo.’
‘No, I mean why in the world did you want to scare the ZedBedZ guest away like that?’
‘For Janis,’ I said.
‘For Janis?’
I could see that Miss Katy was having difficulty getting her head around this. I couldn’t blame her, because I was starting to doubt whatever logic it was that had convinced me it had been the right thing to do.
‘Do you want me to make you guys a strong cup of tea?’ I asked.
‘Do we need one?’
‘Yes, it’s a strong cup of tea sort of explanation I need to give.’
So I made a pot of strong tea and we all sat down at the newly scrubbed kitchen table.
‘Go ahead,’ said Miss Katy.
I looked over at Strum, but there was no easy way to say this. ‘I want Janis to play in the Junior Battle of the Bands.’
‘But the band broke up,’ said Miss Katy.
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ I said.
‘You’re not?’ said Strum, excitement causing his voice to jump up an octave or two.
I explained to my parents how there was a possibility, a very slight possibility, that we could get all the band members on the Palais stage at the same time on Saturday. Bella had already texted and said she’d come. And I was pretty sure Boy-Band Hair would turn up. As for Yang, I just had this feeling he’d show.
‘I knew this felt right!’ said Strum.
It was Miss Katy who asked the obvious question: Janis was never in the band so what’s she got to do with this?
But I had the perfect answer warmed up and ready to go.
‘If we win, Bella said she can have all the money, and it’s enough to get Janis to France!’
Miss Katy drank the rest of the tea, spread her wedding-ring-less hands out on the table, and said, ‘So, tell me if I’ve got this right?’
‘Sure.’
‘You put Lentil Slop Thing in the toilet to scare the ZedBedZ guest away so that Janis would have no choice but to join the band in the hope that you win Junior Battle of the Bands and get enough money to fund her trip to France?’
‘Exactly!’
‘So what do you think would have happened if you hadn’t put Lentil Slop Thing in the toilet?’
‘Well, Lucien would still be here,’ I said. ‘I mean, look how clean the house is?’
‘It is very clean,’ said Strum.
‘Just let me get through this, darl,’ said Miss Katy to Strum, and then she fixed her eyes on me. ‘And if Lucien was still here?’
‘Janis would get that ZedBedZ money, I guess.’
‘And?’
‘She would be able to pay for her trip to France, I guess.’
‘So did you really put the Lentil Slop Thing in the toilet for Janis?’
The answer, of course, was No. But I was incapable of saying it. I was being torn this way and torn that way by these emotions. The feeling of disgust: how could I have done that to my own sister? The feeling of stupidity: how could I not have seen this? The feeling of inadequacy: I still hadn’t succeeded.
And other feelings that didn’t have names, none that I knew of, anyway.
‘Suzi, are you OK?’ asked Miss Katy. ‘You’ve gone pale.’
‘I’m OK,’ I managed to say.
‘So how are we going to fix this?’ Miss Katy asked.
It took me a long time to answer and when I did I could hardly believe the words that came out of my own mouth. ‘We just have to win Battle of the Bands.’
Miss Katy banged her mug of tea down. ‘There is no band!’
Strum took Miss Katy’s hand. ‘They said that about Crimson Viper, too, remember?’
‘It’s not the time for that!’ snapped Miss Katy, snatching her hand away.
But Strum wasn’t going to give up that easily. ‘Sure it ended up bad, but before that, before I went and ruined it all, we were the biggest band in this country, darl. Please don’t ever forget that.’
Miss Katy looked at Strum, her face relaxed, and the smallest of smiles appeared. ‘We were bloody good, weren’t we, darl?’
‘The best,’ said Strum.
This time, when Strum took her hand Miss Katy kept it there.
‘So we give it a shot, tomorrow?’ I said.
‘Sure,’ said Strum. ‘I’m up for it.’
One problem at a time, I thought. Tomorrow I tell him that he can’t play.
Both of us swung our eyes towards Miss Katy.
She sighed.
And she sighed again.
Finally she hummed a tune. A tune we all knew well. You can’t stop the music.
‘What did the drummer say to the singer?’ came a voice from behind me, causing me to jump so suddenly I temporarily left my body.
I turned around – Pigpen had returned to his previous dwelling, the craPad. ‘You scared the hell out of me!’ I said.
‘Which is exactly why they pay me the big bucks!’
‘Yeah, right,’ I said, though I was actually really happy to see him again, especially in the privacy of my room. Plus now that the craPad was doing what it was supposed to do I didn’t feel as guilty about Miss Katy pawning her wedding ring.
‘So what did the drummer say to the singer?’ I asked.
‘You want me to play this one too fast or too slow?’ said Pigpen.
Now that I was a drummer myself I was feeling a bit sensitive about these drummer jokes, but I managed to squeeze out a half-laugh.
‘So how’s the band going?’ he said.
It was a simple question, but it took me quite a long time to answer it.
When I’d finished Pigpen laughed and said, ‘I didn’t even know there was a guest coming today!’
Suddenly, the penny dropped.
‘You’re the one who told Chucky when the other two guests were arriving!’
‘That’s preposterous,’ he said, but it wasn’t because I could distinctly remember telling Pigpen about Jock and Lee Ji-Yoo but I hadn’t said anything about Lucien.
‘Because you wanted your room back.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘You can use as many big words as you like, but I know you somehow told Chucky.’
Pigpen sighed and said, ‘You’ve got to understand how happy I was in my room.’
‘I get that,’ I said.
‘And then that sister of yours Abba-fied it!’
‘She had good reasons,’ I said.
Then I had a brainwave. OK, I’d had quite a few brainwaves lately, and some of them had been more wavey than brainy. I changed tack. ‘Janis is really scared of ghosts.’
‘Phasmophobic,’ said Pigpen.
‘What’s that?’
‘The psychological term for being afraid of ghosts.’
‘OK, so Janis is really, really phasmophobic.’
‘Well, a lot of people are, which is a shame, because, as you know, there isn’t actually a lot to be afraid of.’
‘Yes there is,’ I said. ‘There’s a lot to be afraid of.’
Pigpen seemed a bit confused and I couldn’t blame him. ‘You can make Janis play in the band,’ I said.
‘How can I do that?’
‘Scare her!’
‘That’s not going to happen.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really! Because if you don’t, I’m going to let your superiors know that you’ve been meddling, that you have definitely not been leaving the living to the living.’
‘Blackmail? Really?’ said Pigpen.
‘Really!’ I said, but my confidence was ebbing.
‘So how, exactly, are you going to contact my bosses? Flick them an email? Fire off a text? Maybe an old-fashioned séance?’
‘All of the above!’ I said, but I knew he had me, and I hated him. ‘You were a terrible uncle when you were alive,’ I said.
‘And you were a needy little kid,’ he said.
‘All kids are needy!’ I said, bringing my face right up close to the craPad. ‘They need attention. They need care. They need love. And you didn’t give us any!’
Pigpen said nothing, but I hadn’t finished. Not yet.
‘Do you know what Janis and I used to call you?’ I screamed at the craPad. ‘Uncle Horrible!’
But I hadn’t finished. Not yet.
‘We didn’t even cry when you died!’ I tossed the craPad at the wall.
There was a crack!
And it dropped to the floor.
I woke to the Sunday smell of pancakes.
‘But it’s not Sunday,’ I said, as I entered the kitchen to find Miss Katy in mid-flip.
‘No, but you’ll need a good feed,’ she said.
‘Where’s Strum?’
‘Loading Bongo.’
I went out the front and he was finding space for a guitar case. ‘This just feels right to me,’ he said.
‘Strum,’ I said.
‘Yes, darling?’
‘You know this is a Junior….’ but I stumbled. And once I’d stumbled, there was no getting back onto my feet. ‘You know this is going to be a great day,’ I said.
I went inside to find a pancake on my plate.
The door to Janis’s room opened and Janis came out.
Once again my fight-or-flight response was texting me big time: Danger! Get out of there!
But it got it wrong, there was no danger here this morning. Because Janis was white; as white as the powder snow on the Green Run at Chamonix.
And she had this look on her face, like she’d just seen something scary, or horrible, or otherworldly. Like a ghost.
‘Janis, are you OK?’ I said.
She took a while to focus on me, but when she did, it was like her eyes were grabbing my face. ‘He told me I had to play in your band today,’ she said, her voice weak and shaky.
Pigpen had scared the living daylights out of his niece. OMG, what a beautiful, beautiful uncle he was; the best uncle the other niece could possibly have.
‘Do you want me to get a guitar for you?’ I ventured, readying myself for the torrent of abuse I’d usually receive for such a suggestion.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘He said it was my destiny to play today and to deny my destiny was to forsake my true self.’
Geez, that was laying it on a bit thick, but I guess Pigpen knew his audience.
‘What’s going on?’ said Strum, as he entered the room.
‘Janis is playing, too,’ I said.
‘You are?’ said Strum, looking over at his oldest daughter.
I detected the slightest touch of something in his voice – was he peeved off?
‘It’s my destiny,’ said Janis.
‘Do you want half a pancake?’ I said, talking right over my sister and her destiny before it got too freaky.
‘But you don’t know the song,’ said Strum.
‘Strum, I can play Paganini’s Caprice No. 4 in C minor,’ said Janis, dismissively. ‘I don’t think some pop song written by a snotty-nosed twelve-year-old is going to present much of a challenge.’
Feisty! That was more like the Janis I knew.
‘Righto,’ said Strum, and the peeve had disappeared from his voice now, to be replaced by his customary enthusiasm for all things rock ’n’ roll. ‘We’ll be like Metallica then, twin guitars smashin’ it!’
But Janis wasn’t buying into the Metallica thing – she just looked at the half pancake that I’d put onto her plate as if that, too, was some sort of supernatural entity.
‘After you eat, we better get a move on,’ said Strum. ‘Don’t want to miss the sound check. Miss Katy will come later with Gran and Graham.’
The three of us went outside and I turned to Janis and said, ‘You can sit in the front if you like.’
And that may sound like a pretty normal sort of offer but, trust me, in the Lord family, to offer your sibling the front seat of Bongo the Van Not the Drum was pretty much unheard of.
‘I’m good,’ said Janis, and she hopped into the back.
Unheard of.
We took off and Strum put on a Queen cassette – the never-fail for a family singalong – We are, we are, we are the champions!
But Janis had her face glued to her phone.
I snuck a look – she was googling supernatural stuff.
‘It’s not such a big deal,’ I wanted to tell her. ‘Miss Katy’s dead Great Aunty Nettie used to pop up in the laundry all the time.’
But now wasn’t the time.
Bella was exactly where she said she’d be. Dressed in black, hair in plaits, she was holding her guitar case.
‘So you’ve cleared this with your dad?’ Strum asked.
‘Mum’s totally fine with it,’ said Bella, which answered a question, just not the one she’d been asked. She held out her phone. ‘Do you want to talk to her?’
Nice bluff, Bella!
‘No, I believe you, sweetie,’ said Strum.
I’d texted Bella that Janis was going to play, but she still got a shock to see her sitting in the back.
‘You’re actually going to play?’ she said to Janis.
‘It’s my destiny,’ said Janis, in the same tone of voice somebody would use to announce their impending execution.
Strum found room for her instrument, Bella got in the back, and we were off again. It was then I noticed the fuel gauge was on full. Normally that would be good news, but it just wasn’t that sort of fuel gauge. Strum called it the Zen gauge – full meant empty, and empty meant full.
‘Is the fuel OK?’ I whispered.
‘I got it, sweetheart,’ he said.
Well, my dad’s been driving Bongo the Van Not the Drum since Crimson Viper days.
So if he’s got it, he’s got it, I thought.
Besides, there was something else that needed to be done. ‘Hey, maybe we should go through the song,’ I said.
‘Great idea!’ said Bella.
Janis looked up, and gave a whatever shrug.
Bella played the song on her phone, and Strum called the chord changes. When we’d finished Bella said, ‘Again?’
‘No, I got it,’ said Janis.
‘Really?’
Janis then proceeded to play the song perfectly on air guitar, calling the chord changes exactly as Strum had. Bella was an amazing musician, but Janis really was something else.
‘Structurally, it’s a very very rudimentary song,’ explained Janis. ‘Like a nursery rhyme, really.’
