the cadence of part time poets

Chapter 100: Phone Off the Hook

Saturday night, gotta gig with a band,
Playing the electric guitar;
Someday I'm going to make it,
Going to be a super-duper-star;

Get a big flashy car,
And a house for my Ma;
The big break better happen soon,
Because I'm pushing twenty-one...

- "Success Story" The Who, 1975

Late February 1979

It would've been easy to pretend as though Fletcher hadn't gotten to them. As though his scam and subsequent betrayal hadn't knocked the wind from their sails and left them stranded in a sea of doubt. Remus imagined it as headlines:

Armageddon: London Band Strikes Fool's Gold!

Verdict's Out on Marauders—'Mental Makes NO MONEY!'

Messers See Themselves Out: What's next for this band of willfully ignorant twats?

They each laughed when one of them made a joke about it, but eventually the laughter would filter off into unease, and then came the restlessness. What was next for Marauders? Could this really be it? They'd promised their parents one year... Was fate finally telling them it was time to throw in the towel now? After all this time?

"Bollocks!" Sirius would growl. "It's just a setback, all bands have 'em! We'll work harder—practice every day. Eventually we'll get into a real studio! And fuck managers, they're all money-grubbing bastards anyway. We'll do it ourselves, no one knows Marauders like we do. No one knows us like we do."

And for a while they believed him, but then life began to creep back in—as it tended to—with its usual responsibilities and when no grand opportunity had presented itself on either the real or metaphorical doorstep, the Marauders were finally forced to admit that their music might be taking a back seat. All of their friends were busy these days; Peter had quit working in the basement of his dad's paper company to go ink illustrations for the comic artists upstairs, and James had been promoted to head waiter at the restaurant. Still madly in love with her fiancé, Lottie continued splitting her time between London and Reading, planning her wedding around train rides and taxi fares while Marlene continued working hard at the non-profit and on her relationship with Dorcas. Out of all of them, Mary was the easiest to pin down. So far she had invited them to several showcases at her conservatory. Being generally busy and not really that big a fan of opera, Remus had only gone to the one, but even he couldn't deny the fact that Mary was brilliant. In just one year she'd managed to expand her voice enough to garner her own solo.

"Brilliant!" Sirius declared, once the concert had ended and they'd all gathered in the lobby. "Assolutamente fantastico! Best contralto in the county."

It was as close as Sirius came to being upbeat since the Fletcher incident. They'd all taken it hard, but Sirius more-so, perhaps just because he'd been the one to vouch for Fletcher the most.

Humbling accepting Sirius' praise, Mary kissed his cheek as Lily handed her friend a small bouquet of roses. Then she beckoned another man over. He was handsome; Remus recognised him as her partner in one of the duets.

"Everyone, this is Claude."

Claude was gone a week later. Last Remus heard Mary was dating some Austrian guy now she'd met while clubbing in St James, but she'd dumped him too the minute things started getting too serious. As far as Remus could tell, Mary quite fancied most of the men she dated, but she knew how to call it quits when they inevitably began pushing for more than she was willing to give. If only they could all be so pragmatic.

Still nursing the gaping wound Fletcher's betrayal had left on his pride, Sirius insisted they made use of every moment the four of them were home together to work on their music. While Lily was busy with school or otherwise fielding phone calls from Lottie as she fussed over wedding caterers and floral arrangements, the Marauders were downstairs in the basement, hard at work. Perhaps too hard. Sirius had deemed their usual 'jam routine' practice-style a futile effort, with too much time spent on haphazard drivel and not enough on overall cohesion. He came at James like a drill sergeant, and Peter like a prison warden—viciously instructing them on their own instruments and not accepting anything less than perfect.