Tender (A britpop era fiction)

Pretty Vacant

As I sit in the back of a cab that drives me through the London evening traffic to the kids' school, I watch the pedestrians outside absent minded. It's almost six in the evening and after being interviewed all afternoon, I realized I needed to get ready and head to the parent-teacher conference with Alikas and Finans class teacher. I have a feeling why she insisted on a meeting and try to prepare myself internally for what the woman's about to say, but I can't keep my mind from wandering back to the interview. I've talked and remembered so much today and while I told Matt one story, countless little details and events I thought I'd forgotten kept rushing back to me. Today it's not as easy to shake them off as it was the last few times. We headed straight through fall and winter of 1994 and stopped right before the night at the Brits in February 1995. To remember everything that happened in those few months still makes my head dizzy. 

As Matt and the crew come back, I pick the story up where I stopped before.

„Liam told me they had an interview, somewhere on the festival ground. So I went looking for them. Found 'em sitting there next to a pretty journalist. I held my distance as I watched them, looking utterly bored. I remember Noel bought a pack of crisps and they shared it while talking to her."

Another strict rule of our mother. Youse lot are gonna share the bloody thing. A sentence heard so often throughout my childhood it's hardwired in my chore. I get frustrated whenever one of my kids doesn't want to share anything with one of its siblings because I haven't known different all my life and I know my brothers have internalized her words in the same way. I'm certain it's the only reason Noel hasn't tried to come for Liams percentage of the Oasis copyrights to this day. And why I - still - get a check every year for the Live Forever shares Noel had once signed over to me. 

Money I carefully put away into a trust fund for the kids. The time where I lived from my brothers money are long past. 

„But Liam was quite nervous. Drumming on his leg, biting his nails...all the things a big sister recognizes as signs of nervousness. He was even more fidgety than usual. But it was when Noel saw me, I realized the little fucker had mucked me. Liam hadn't spoken to him. Noel had no idea I'd show up. Cause Noely looked like he saw a bloody ghost."

With a heavy beating heart, I watch Noel giving a passionate answer to the last question the journo has asked him and Liam mocking his sudden arrousal with a few handclaps. Then he gives Liam the pack of crips he'd bought a few minutes earlier. He pats our kids shoulder, maybe a bit too hard and the hard line around his mouth is one Liam and I both know too well - Imma take care of ya later it says. Noel knows as good as me the knobhead has played us. Liam realizes that and I see him flinch for a split second before he turns around to the journalist and answers her next question with a face as unimpressed as one can be. He really is an actor. I'm sure the little fuck is shitting blue lights right now.

Unconsciously I gulp as I see Noel coming closer. The stern look on his face and the fact that I can't see Noels eyes behind the black sunglasses only add to my nervousness. My hands entangle in a big knot and I can't move until Noel stands in front of me. He grabs the white towel around his neck, not knowing where to place his own hands either.

„Hey there" I whisper finally. I can't take my eyes from his face. His hair is too long I think. On tour it was always me cutting their hair.

"What'd she ask?" I gesture back to the interviewer that now seems confused by something Liam's rambling on about. 

"The usual" he shrugs. You must've known Noel for the last 27 years to pick up the hint of uncertainty in his voice.