For a Song [#Wattys 2015]

Chapter 8

Hilly

I could feel the collective embarrassment for me radiating from the audience- or at least those who knew. Embarrassment and a couple of cruel sniggers. It probably looked all kinds of pathetic, and pretty desperate too- getting up and begging Dylan Dorian to listen to my version of the song everybody thought he'd written. But I didn't care. Or at least the fact I was so drunk allowed me to pretend that I didn't care. Pretend that I couldn't hear Boy Frankie gulp behind me or spot Girl Frankie in the crowd, putting her hands over her face, supremely mortified. And I definitely didn't see Dylan Dorian. Still standing up with his jacket on, tipping his head and crossing his arms as if to say, you have my attention- now what are you gonna do with it?

So I started. The first few of Izzy's chords dripped out of my fingers and I shut my eyes tightly. What had Izzy always said about playing the guitar? That it got to make as much sense to her as breathing, more actually when her heart started to make that difficult. She could trust in the music far more than she could trust in anything else in the body that was letting her down, little by little failing her everyday. The songs were how she spoke, the lyrics were the easiest way to feel and her second, better, heart lived outside of her body- tucked into strings.

Love me fast, fit all these moments in. We can't stop for breath, baby, just let your head spin...I began, pretending that I wasn't in The Earth Cafe, but back in our bedroom. On Izzy's bed with her flowery sheets and the smell of her gingerbread perfume all around me, practising. Somewhere, in it all, I found myself not just remembering her- but feeling her, being her. It was her version I sang, in a slightly different key from the version on the radio, with a few of Izzy's signature kicks and flicks up and down the scale. Frankie didn't know the song like I did, he'd never heard Izzy practice and I don't know how often he'd heard the other version so it was just me at first. Me and my voice and Izzy and the silence.

During the other acts, the bar had still been lively and chatty but I swear, once I got up on stage you could have heard a pin drop in the spaces I took to draw breath.

But Boy Frankie had my back. He strummed along, finding the music with me. He could have been finding Izzy, for all I knew. It felt like it. And the ache in my chest started to grow with each passing minute.

Would you give me your heart for a song? I begged the audience. There were giant holes inside of me, I was wrecked and empty and I needed something. A heart. Please. All she needed was a new heart.

Would you give me your heart for a song?

I finished playing, ran out of lyrics too quickly because Izzy's song had ended unfinished and hated the feeling of being jolted back into the room. I wanted to hide inside of her song forever because it felt like she was near to me.

But then there I was, in the dark, with tears on my cheeks and no more music left inside of me.

Nobody clapped. Nobody booed. Nobody did anything but stare at me. And then stare at Dylan Dorian.

He tipped his head at me, blinked and then, to my complete surprise, he smiled. The first claps were his. And then the rest of the room erupted with it too.

That wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to recoil in horror at the sound of her name, this jolt from the past when he'd thought he'd gotten off scot free without ever reckoning with me and my sister. But there he stood, acting like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth and clapping and smiling at me. Disgust wormed its way all around me.

Normally the acts were quick to leave the stage and Mitch was already coming up to announce the next act, but I grabbed the mic and shouted into it. "That was for Izzy. Izzy Engel. Ring a bell?" I asked Dylan Dorian. His smile wavered slightly. "Or do you not even have the decency to remember the name of the girl who's song you stole?"