Page 35 of The Next Chapter
After Ma threw me out, I walked all the way into town with that guitar.
Those first few weeks I slept on friends’, if you could call them that, sofas, always lugging the guitar with me.
I never played it. Got into more trouble at school till eventually they found me a place in a home of sorts, for kids with nowhere else to go.
It was run by a devout couple, the Merrywells they were called.
They really believed in that saying that cleanliness is close to godliness because they always wanted us to be real clean.
And the place was bare, not that I minded those things.
It was just different, a lot quieter than home had been.
The Merrywells were sure that if we prayed hard enough and really believed, God would come to our rescue.
Save us from our unfortunate circumstances.
That was the first time I played Pa’s guitar, sat on this single bed in a row of other single beds, looking at a cross on the wall.
I didn’t feel anything when I looked at that cross.
No matter how hard I prayed, I didn’t think there was some god who was coming to save me.
I guess when I realized that, I felt lonely.
I don’t know if it was muscle memory, but it was like my fingers just knew where to go.
And all the songs I used to sing with Pa came right on back to me.
Pa had only ever played country music then, and I played those songs, but I started trying new things too.
And singing, I’d never really sung before, but it just came so easy to me.
Soon, the other kids would come and listen to me every night and it felt good to be good at something, you know?
Till then I’d only ever been in the way or in trouble, but here I was, doing something that folk liked.
It made me want to get better and better.
So, I practised, and even the Merrywells, who didn’t much go in for music so much, thought I was good.
They thought it was god’s intervention working through my fingers.
I joined the school music group and learned more new songs, ones that were different from what Pa had taught me.
The teacher helped me with new riffs and I loved showing off to the other kids what I’d learned that day.
You weren’t allowed to be in the band unless your grades were all right, and mine hadn’t been.
I started working harder at school. It sounds real cheesy, but right then it felt like music was saving me, and I didn’t want to let it go.
It took a year but I’d gotten pretty good.
I didn’t see Ma this whole time but most of my brothers and sisters were still at school.
They said that Ma had started drinking and that I should come home, that she wouldn’t care if I came home now.
And I probably could have done. But me and Ma were as stubborn as each other, I didn’t want to be the one who backed down. Plus, I was happy for the first time.
I started busking down in the old town on a Saturday to make some money and even though it probably didn’t seem like much to other people, I’d never had so much cash in my life. I hid it in my socks because the Merrywells didn’t approve of that sort of thing.
But underneath it all, I still felt angry. Not that I knew it at the time, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it was always there, simmering away. Towards my parents, mainly. It took a long time, to deal with that.
Maybe eventually, I would have gone back to see Ma.
I was almost ready to graduate high school and I didn’t really have a plan past that.
Just get a job, I suppose. College wasn’t really an option for me, my grades weren’t ever that good and anyway, I didn’t have any money.
You only got to stay with the Merrywells while you were at school, that was one of the rules.
I was hoping that Mikey who ran a record shop in town might take me on, seeing as I spent so much time hanging around in there.
I never nicked anything from him either, not like I did other places.
So maybe I would have gone back to Ma and made up if I hadn’t met Jimmy and his wife.
I was busking one Saturday. By then I was close to eighteen.
I noticed this guy kept walking past. Over and over.
He just looked like a regular middle-aged man with a moustache, everyone had them then.
The first time he and his wife passed he put $20 in my guitar case, so I tried extra hard when I saw him coming back again.
And again. He didn’t put any more money in, though.
He waited until I finished a song and then he and his wife came right up to me.
He had the biggest smile, it made him look completely different.
His wife was smiling too. I remember thinking that they looked really happy, that maybe I’d never seen folk look so happy.
I stared at them, even more so when Jimmy said that he was Jimmy Nickle, some music producer from London, and that if I wanted to talk to him, they were headed to an ice cream place round the corner.
I knew the place, like I did everywhere in the old town.
Course I was worried that he’d be a bit dodgy, I knew enough about boys then to know that they weren’t good for much, but Jimmy’s wife was there too, and she was real pretty.
And maybe I was na?ve, or desperate, I don’t know, but I decided to trust them.
I didn’t want to seem too keen, right, so I finished up my set like I planned to.
I always think that people give more money when they see there’s already some there, so Jimmy’s $20 meant that I had a good day by the time I was done.
Maybe I walked a bit quicker to the ice cream place, because for the first time in my life, it felt like something was happening.
Jimmy was right where he said he’d be, at the counter with his wife.
I looked at the back of them while I could.
They both looked so refined to me, especially his wife.
She wasn’t like Ma at all. Jimmy saw me and they both smiled so easy.
They had these accents that I thought were mighty posh.
I’d have probably done whatever they wanted me to.
Jimmy explained that he was a music producer from London and that he was putting a band together. It took me a long time to realize what he was asking.
He had to really spell it out for me. ‘I want you to come and try out with the band, Lola.’
And what’s that phrase they say? That’s it. The rest is history.
‘I’ve been talking a long time, am I all right to stop there?’
‘Of course, good place for a break, if you ask me.’ I sound more composed than I am. In reality, I’ve spent the last twenty-five minutes in some Lola-based trance. Her storytelling has a weird, hypnotizing quality. There’s a very good chance that I’ve just been gaping at her this whole time.
‘Was that, er, the real Jimmy Nickle, the man who heard you busking?’
Lola doesn’t make as if she’s about to get up, so neither do I.
Like Lola suggested, we’ve moved our sessions outside, down by the loch.
Two weeks have passed since the trip to the cave of gold. Skye, I’m sure, operates on a schedule all of its own. Nothing much happens, but the arrow of time flies faster here than anywhere else, I’m certain.
We’re sat in the shady shadow of the willow tree, a concession no doubt made with my skin tone in mind. I try to ignore the row of ants marching across the picnic blanket we’re sat on.
‘That’s right,’ she says, looking at me. She doesn’t seem bothered by the ants. They’re getting closer to me, though. Her eyes are a different colour to mine, but they seem familiar in some deep-seated way that I can’t quite explain.
This close to her, I can see the faint lines in her face and how dark the skin under her eyes is. It’s the first time I’ve thought that she looks tired. Worn down, almost, by it all.
Or maybe I’ve just lost the plot.
We’re skirting closer and closer to Lola’s time in the band. Jimmy Nickle was their manager. People said that Simon Cowell learned everything he knew from Jimmy Nickle. I know from my research that he died a few years ago. Heart attack.
‘So, you were in a band?’ I venture, shifting my weight, because one of my legs has gone numb, and also to dodge the ants, which I’m sure are now personally targeting me.
I’m wearing a T-shirt and denim shorts. Denim, I decide, is not particularly forgiving in the heat.
Me and the hotel washing machines have a long overdue date this afternoon.
‘That’s right. Beyond Baton Rouge, they were before your time.’
‘I’ve heard of them,’ I rush out.
‘You have?’
I nod and let out a nervous giggle.
‘I thought it might be you.’ I do my best to play the part of someone who’s been unknowingly confronted with a megastar. ‘Ashton being here the day me and Seb arrived kind of gave you away.’
Lola squirms, she looks uncomfortable. Maybe I’m playing it too well.
‘They, you were really famous. My mum loved your music. She taught me one of your songs, “Eyes Full of Wonder”. We played it together all the time.’ I talk fast, hoping that Lola doesn’t cotton on to the fact that I just described Mum in the past tense.
‘That song means a lot to me, I’m glad your mum likes it,’ Lola says.
And suddenly, it’s as if there isn’t enough air under the willow tree, like my oxygen deprived brain can’t compute of a world where Lola and Mum coexist.
I often feel like Mum is here with me somehow, but under the willow tree with Lola, it’s as if I can feel her. Right there. It’s comforting and heartbreaking in one fell swoop. And it makes it all so real.
Mostly, when Lola’s telling her story, I can imagine that all of this happened to someone else, someone who isn’t me. It’s worrying that I don’t feel ready for this to be real yet.
But also, ants.
I jump up, almost falling over – my leg is still dead.