Without A Song

Chapter Nine: Departure

"Is this a rebound from Sue?"

"I've thought about that Terri but I owe Sue nothing. If this had been a one night stand we'd not be having this conversation. I do believe I love Nicole. It can only get better."

"I can hear it in your voice, it's the happiest I've heard from you in months."

"That is me then, how about you, Tristan and Drummond. No going back?"

"No. Drummond is married to his flying career and after my fling with Brad there's no way back for either of us." Terri sighed. "Tristan will be my life and my saviour through this debacle, after that I'm not sure what's in store for any of us."

"You'll be going to join Brad, won't you?" Brad lived in Perth, Australia. I'd never met him but I knew from previous conversations with Terri that it was their intention.

"Nothing is decided, but soon hopefully. Now when do you get back to Suffolk? We need to meet."

We talked around her diary and disconnected. It always seemed so long since we'd last spoken but I was always happy having spoken with Terri at any time. Her voice was always fresh and warm to me.

In the early afternoon I made my familiar way to Asir compound where I joined Nicole in Ben and Casey's lounge. We spoke long and easily, shared some light wine spritzers and another lamb salad until we were fully sated with food, drink and love. When we were ready we left our hosts and I walked Nicole around the two compounds, showing her where I got my information from for my radio shows. Darkness always comes early on the mountain and the roads shone their eerie orange-cream glow as we walked and talked.

With plenty of time on our hands, we went from school to gyms, compound bars to post rooms, the Thai takeaway to the Asiri sports club rooms and community centres. I noted names and contact telephone numbers, times and dates into a notebook I always carried with me. The last leg of my pre-show tour led me past the activity rooms in the school annexe and into the studios of Radio 1760, where we made music happen. My grandparents had instilled their love of music in me and I had followed an eclectic genre ever since. Grandpa Bannister had been a minister in a small Welsh village in the Welsh Marches that are the border between Wales and England. Grandma had the voice of an angel, so Mum said. Lack of work had forced our father to move from the Marches to look for work in the industrial mass of Kitts Green, Birmingham, working for one of the giant car manufacturers before joining ThermAl. My father was never one for standing still. I guessed that was the same when he was younger and where I got my nomadic lifestyle from. He wouldn't stay inside doing nothing so like many young men of his era he chose to mix with the locals at their dance halls and social clubs. That was where he met our mother, at one of the many big band dance nights in the area.

Sat at the studio consoles I was back in my element. With simple moves I slowly slid the faders to their pre-set positions, my fingers bringing the tiny red, gold and green lights into life. I checked outputs, meters, sound levels, programme schedules and various scraps of postits attached to the notice board in front of me. Invariably they gave information of forthcoming events, like the next Graveyard Shift marathon or the school's summer programme, all of it good information that we'd broadcast through the copper sheathed wiring to the apartments and homes on the two compounds. These were the sort of regular links I could fit between Nicole's choices of tracks. When I prepared community shows or the Church Offerings timing was all important because at set places within each show I'd mention regular activities or broadcast forthcoming events with a set musical introduction as background. For example, Carmel Wong's rhythmic, pulse racing single Heartbeat, which was very popular at

the gym workouts, played behind the news from the various sports activities. Rising Star, a haunting Christian ballad played behind news from the church fraternities or the 1950's blues number, Mailman, repeated over and over again while I announced which mail bags were leaving the compound destined for an international arrival hall far, far, away. Before I went on air I'd usually managed to write a script to remind me of all I'd have to broadcast and then I'd add new information found on the noticeboards but tonight I had to depend on a hastily fashioned script I'd knocked up in Ben's bungalow before we left. Nicole raided the shelves of CDs and tape cassettes like a child in a candy store. Forty tracks was the maximum I could play over the two hours and it was a nightmare trying to keep a straight face while Nicole mixed, changed and spuriously interrupted. Heck it was fun though and it gave me a chance to listen to what she liked. Our ages were mirrored in our choices of music although there were some classic crossovers like the heavy metal icons of The Apocalypse, original rock gods the Yarra Band and my personal favourites The Port Stephens Revival. An outback country set they were rock and roll country gents, all synthesisers and metal guitars. Then there was Dominic Famboi, an American Canadian, 1970's megastar who my parents loved yet managed to keep producing singles that were loved by everybody, of all ages. Latter stars of stage and contemporary popular music such as Straight Talkin', The Scoville Girls, Leigh and Tatum Smyth, BratsPack and even the 1995, Paul Tenor No.1 tearjerker, In My Mind could be stomached by an oldie such as me, at a pinch. Despite my many attempts Nicole shied away from wearing a microphone or speaking on air throughout the evening. It was not until the final fifteen minutes of the show that she faced her fears and became a natural presenter. I was chuffed to bits, very proud of her.

I'd planned to work my usual two-hour slot in my head but we overran. Not that it mattered much because there was no one else following me. When we finished we restacked the eighteen disc multiple player and set it to random broadcast. Ash Green would be doing a three hour stint from four o'clock to seven early the next

morning. She could never sleep all the way through the night when her husband worked away at Taif. Ash suited her as a name because I don't think she ever saw daylight. She brought radio alarms to life when the early shifts were crawling into life, helped the duty engineers stay awake through the night and talked to those who could not sleep. No one else would use the studio at that hour but I felt it companionable to hear a familiar voice instead of random music when I awoke. What Ash did at night, I hope I returned when I was on air. By the time Nicole and I had wrapped up it was too late to return to Ben and Casey's bungalow, so we went back to my rooms for our last night together before I left for Suffolk. With music from Eaton Strange's hypnotic album Destination Number Seven, we lay curled together on the long sofa. Nicole propped her head upon my chest, her scent enveloping my all, my fingers gently running through her hair. I lost track of the number of times we said I love you to each other. We were in a puppy love mood and we didn't care. In bed we took our time with each other, each one of us exploring the other, finding out what made each other what and who we were. Nicole was as supple and as flexible as the first time I'd known her and our exuberance of being in each other's company again overspilled into frenetic activity. My strength had returned into every muscle, each sinew stretching and flexing, hands touching, breaths caressing, minds melding. Nothing else mattered, we were there for that moment and the next, in that time and that space. Our rising and our falling matched only by the crescendo of our desires. Like the words of one Eaton Strange track, 'We rose on blazing chariots of fire to the heavens, returning to earth as feathers afloat on a still wind.'

Wednesday morning was great. We slept in, lazed around the pool, made love again ... and it was good. When we were ready, we took my packed bags over to Ben and Casey's bungalow where I enlightened them all about Suffolk, what might happen and what might not. Nicole must have spent all afternoon on my arm, not that I minded. Earlier that morning, before we left the apartment I'd found a solid, twenty-four carat, gold tiepin that had once belonged to my mother. Now as I was preparing to leave Nicole for the first time, I

played the romantic hero and pinned it to Nicole's lapel. She removed it and pinned it just above her left breast.

"There," she said, "In touch with my heart."

We kissed and we hugged, clinging hard while we said our goodbyes and wiped the tears from our faces. I shook hands with Ben, delicately kissed Casey on the cheek and climbed into the now waiting taxi. Casey made me promise to tell them as much as I could, as soon as I knew it. In return they promised to take care of Nicole. Inside the departing taxi I turned my head to see Nicole standing in the open doorway, her arms around her two friends, watching me as I was driven down the hill to Akhbar airport for the internal flight to Jeddah.

At sea level Jeddah can be one hundred percent humidity, not quite so bad in April but the moisture was still raining down the dark brown tinted windows of the airport terminals when I arrived. The flight to London left at two-thirty in the cool darkness of the Thursday morning and I was glad to board the aircraft with its efficient air-conditioning packs. Sad too because a big part of me had stayed behind on the hill.