The Cure

Chapter 42

Lola's Converse were drenched with beer. It was a fucking Sunday.

It was a fucking Sunday, but the bar was packed to the rafters, and she had been happily nervous when Nate had kissed her goodbye and good luck, leaving for the nightshift with a wink, grimacing when he smiled, the reddish bruise pulling at his jaw.

It was a fucking Sunday, and the bar was teeming, and she had paced in the bar cellar for the past half an hour, the floor swimming with spilt beer from a badly-tapped cask, and she could feel her heartbeat in her stomach, and she needed to go to the bathroom, but it was too late, now, and her hand surely shook too much to play anything at all.

Her mum had been useless on the phone, murmuring her appeasing maternal idioms too quietly to be heard, blathering a breathless and bleating rhyme of it'll be fine, it'll be fine.

It was better the last time; she'd only had time to grab her guitar and sprint down the street, Jared sloping after her, to mollify the Friday night moaners while the real artist turned up.

She was the real artist, now.

Her boss was even paying her for it.

Jules' greeting was as warm as ever, despite the flurry of the previous evening, as he stepped awkwardly down the tight stairs of the cellar, his long body folding beneath the low ceiling.

'Ready to go?'

'Fuck, Jules, I can't.' She was cellotaped to reality, squelching in the puddle of beer, impossibly aware of the air and her own hair about her.

'Bunch of old biddies anyway. They probably won't even hear you. C'mon.' He held out a beer with a wink. 'Don't tell the boss.'

She threw it back like the boss she was, anyway, hiccupping as they ascended the stairs together, her guitar scraping the walls as she climbed shakily towards the stage.

Jules squeezed her arm with his skinny white fingers as she dithered by the bar; she met eyes with far too many of the punters as she scanned the room. They were baying for her blood.

'I have to go to the bathroom,' she whispered frightfully.

'No time. Just go after. Good luck, kid.'

There were two stairs up to the stage; they creaked under her shaking feet, and there was a discernible dimming in the din as she focussed on the guitar stool, the feel of the instrument against her back.

Sweat prickled in her armpits as she took her seat, plugging the guitar in with trembling fingers under the heaviness of their attention.

They were waiting for her to say something, to wish them a good evening, to encourage a good time, but her fingers flew straight to the first chord, one string slightly out; she tried again, willing her hands to still their quivering.

The first song was a struggle, and she closed her eyes through the whole thing, hearing her own voice stripped back, unappealing. The mic whistled wincing feedback when she finished, bringing the guitar too close to the amplifier as she crossed her legs, and she had grimaced; there was a small, collective groan in the audience.

They clapped anyway, and she opened her eyes.

'Sorry about that,' she muttered into the mic, starting at the sound of her own voice reverberating; there was a sympathetic rumble of laughter about the room.

Then there was chatting, and it was comforting.

Let them keep talking, she thought desperately as she began to strum the chords of the second song. Let them keep talking.