Tattoo'd Lady (A Brian May Fanfiction) -English-

A good team

I turn to the garden, but dad is not there, he is already in the street, he's going to the Hill's house. I go down the three steps that separate me from the driveway and as soon as the hot air of August touches my skin, a shiver of life runs through my veins. Being too long at home it's not good for me, it's true, sometimes I go to the studios, but maybe I should take a walk in the park, I should breathe the air outside, I should start living again. I know Roger is right, the only way to forget Amalia and to get my life back is to go out of the four painted blue walls of my room is see people, have fun, look at the world with different, positive eyes. Or, maybe, the problem is not so much to come out of the four walls of my room but rather to get out of the four walls of my pride and my stubbornness.

-You have to be more relaxed Bri, more quie...Ouch!-

I suddenly feel like I'm losing my strength, a cold sweat runs down my back and my eyes close for a few interminable seconds. I sit on the bench in the garden, among the roses that are joy and pride of my mother, I place the toolbox on the ground and I take a deep breath. I hope my father didn't notice my slight dizzy spell, but unfortunately for me it wasn't in this way.

-What do you feel Brian? Your stomach... does it hurts you?- he asks, taking a seat next to me.
-No, no dad, I think...I think it's the heat, or maybe the toolbox was too heavy, I don't know...-
-I know what the problem is Brian: the music- he says nervously, I knew that even today he would not have skimp me one of his telling-off about my life choices -If you weren't such obstinate about your want to make music, you wouldn't be like that now. You would have been a professor, you would have been a respected and serious university professor, married and with children, but no! You had to be a guitarist, you had to travel the world with your band and... and you had to cheat on the poor Amalia with who knows which one slut. Amalia who is such a serious girl, I... I really don't know what the hell was the matter with you, Brian. You are not the child I grow up and educated according to certain values, you are another person, you...-
-Are you done dad?- I ask him angrily, turning to him -Because if you have finished with your senseless suppositions I'll explain you what really happened. First thing: it's not music's fault if I got sick, the fault is of that damned vaccination needle. Second thing: the idea that I had to be a teacher was your idea and not mine. Third thing: the things between Amalia and me didn't work before I left for the tour in the United States and the rest, if you don't mind, are our business...-
-I don't want to know your business Brian- he interrupts me, he's fussy as never before -I'm just telling you what I think because I'm your father and I have the right to...-
-...you don't have the right to interfering in my life dad!- I exclaim aloud, but I Instantly regret this outburst of anger.

The gaze of Harold May petrify suddenly while a few drops of sweat run down his face that is wrinkled by time. I know that my father is not so old, but he is not even as young as when I was a child and this is what he doesn't want to understand: I'm not a child anymore.

-I'm sorry, daddy, I...I I shouldn't have screamed, sorry- I ask him to forgive me, he's my father after all.
-I realized that you have changed Brian, but I didn't think that...-
-You have changed too, dad- I continue -Ever since I came back home you hardly speak to me and when you do it, it's either to criticize me or to criticize the boys. I can't take this anymore, really. In a few days, as soon as I get better, I will leave. I already asked Freddie to help me look for an apartment- I tell him and his eyes narrow on me, he's worried.
-You... do you want already to go away?- He says to me in a low voice. His unexpected concern is a big surprise for me.
-Yes, I...I want to go away dad, because I don't feel accepted by you and this is something I can't stand, believe me- I conclude.

I bow my head and I try to grab the toolbox, but his trembling voice blocks me: - Me too- he whispers

-What?- I ask him, turning to him again.
-I can't stand this situation between us- he confess and he bows his head too -What do you think? Do you think it's easy for a father to live under the same roof with his only son and avoid him, like it was nothing?-
-No, I can imagine that it's not easy, also because you and I...-
-... you and I have always been a good team, it's right?- he comments and I can hear him laughs - We built so many things together: the telescope, the Red Special, the solar system model...-
-Roger disassembled it just this morning- I laugh and my dad laughs with me. This is a thing which has not happened for a long time -We can still be a good team, dad-

My father stops laughing and he sighs -I ... I Brian, I have to think about it- he replies -You know, I don't like the... the hasty decisions-
-I know it dad, but...but since I have been confined to bed, in the last few months, I...I realized that the only time we can be certainty of living fully is today, the only thing we can say with certainty is: now I am here. We don't know what it will be tomorrow, in two days, in a month. So, dad, don't think too much about it-

Mr. May sighs again. Maybe, after so long and so many days gone by without even looking each other, my words are making him think.

-Okay, I won't think so much about it- he answers me and he gets up from the bench - But now it will be better to go to the Hill's house. Jessica and her friends are waiting for us-

Yes, Jessica and her friends. Lilibeth. She too is waiting for me. I lift the heavy toolbox and I get up from the bench to follow my father to our neighbors'house, which is a few steps away from ours. We cross the wooden gate and we walk along the path that divides the garden in two parts: the sheets and rags hang out by Lilibeth this morning are still there, to dry in the summer sun.

-I'm about to see her, I'm about to talk to her, I...- I start to think and my anxiety spikes, it makes me shake more than I should- You have to stay calm Brian, you have to stay calm ...-

Dad gently knocks the door with the knuckles of his right hand, since there is no electricity the doorbell doesn't work. I stay behind him, but not so much, just enough to allow me to get used to the idea of having Lilibeth a few inches from me if she were to open the door. Fortunately, however, it is Jessica Hill who does the honors.

Jessica Hill was my forbidden dream when I was a teenager: long blonde hair, big blue eyes, candid angelic face and those feminine roundnesses that have never displeased me, unlike my friend Roger who likes skinny girls. I still remember when I asked her to go out with me, I was sixteen and she was fourteen, I was shaking like a leaf at the stupendous thought that she could tell me yes, and instead. And instead she returned the proposal back to the sender with an "I'm sorry, I'm already in a relationship" which was worse than a stab for my heart. Since then many things have changed, we grew up, we became good neighbors, good friends, we went out together for several times in the same group of friends. It was in one of these evenings that Jessica met Roger. She flirted with him shamelessly and, I have to admit it, this thing made me feel bad. But when Roger told her she wasn't his kind of girl, I thought satisfied to myself that life takes a toll to everyone, soon or later. After some time I met Amalia and the glossy dream of Jessica Hill dispersed in the depths of my mind like the gray smoke of my father's Marlboros in the London air. But it was long that Jessica wasn't to me the same girl who was when we were teenagers: she has became vain, superb, frivolous, pathetic, sometimes even vulgar. Even if her body still has those feminine roundnesses for which I look at her every time I see her walking on Walsham Road, now her white face is not as angelic as it once was, but it's covered daily by a dense layer of greasepaint and foundation. My father always tell that the fault is of some of her friends, because she is used to go with them in some disreputable places. But I know that, in the eyes of the upright Harold May, even a party between kindergarten children could become harmful for the psychic health of his sensitive and romantic only child.