Things Left Unsaid

Chapter 6

When Lima had gone to bed, I crawled off the sofa I had been decompressing on for much of the evening. I needed a drink. Something dark and with a burn.

Lima and I were living about a ten-minute bus ride from my usual haunts in Camden, there was one pub that I used to frequent a lot in my youth and I wanted to know if it was still around.I put on some lipstick to refresh my face and was on my way.

Twenty minutes later I was pushing the heavy wooden door to Gayle's, it was dark and cosy and the smell of stale beer and ale wafted towards me as soon as I stepped inside.

It wasn't packed, with people dotted around the corners of the room. The interior has undergone a renovation and now looked like a gentleman's drinking room with a modern twist rather than the rundown public house I had been used to.

I ordered a whiskey sour and when I went to pay, the bartender shook her head and nodded her head towards someone standing behind her at the bar.

I squealed, attracting the confused looks of the other patrons when I caught sight of my old friend. "Katz!" I said leaning over the bar to hug him.

"Harry, finally come to grace us with your presence?" he laughed, ruffling my hair. He was a man in his 50s, it was only the salt and pepper streaks in his hair that gave away his true age.

"I missed you so much Katz, I'm so happy to see you're still here!"

"Me too, kiddo. You back for good?"

"Yeah, for now."

"Alright, go on I know you're gagging for a tinkle on the ivories."

"Ah, you know me too well, Katz!"

I took my drink with me to the piano in the centre of the room. And started messing around with the keys. No one looked away from their conversations, it was a regular occurrence for the patrons to have a go on it, and two days a week Katz hosted an open mic night for emerging talent, it's where many people I knew in the London music scene got started and it was certainly how I got my start.

At 17, JP and I had lied to Katz about my age and procured a fake ID to get into the pub and start playing. Katz ran a tight ship and required a parent's permission before he let youngsters play at his open mic nights.

When he found out my true age, by accident instead of barring me he had become a mentor of sorts. My parents, my stepdad, in particular, hated Western music and found it a source of personal dishonour that I played in pubs across North London and would have never signed that permission slip.

I experimentally played a chord or two that had been looping in my mind all week. For some reason, I was able to play them on this old battered Joanna fluidly, whereas I had struggled endlessly with my Casio keyboard for months to even play a single note.

I took my phone out to record in case something sounded good and I wanted to replay it later. I took a large sip of my drink; feeling a pleasant and content buzz even though I've had the worst possible start to my day.

The words came out easier than I had expected them to: "You drink and you drink and get faded...You feel like that's your only option. And if it's too late, I understand..." I started; my voice gaining confidence and the words flowing like water down a smooth path.

"Sometimes it's too late to make amends. Just hear me out before you let it go. There is one thing I need for you to know..."

People had stopped their conversation to watch me on the stage. I raised my voice to give them a bit of a show for the rapidly developing chorus that was about to come.

The words swirled in my head like a visual, writing up an elaborate story and my fingers gave the story a soundtrack.

"Just don't have too much fun without me. Don't have too much, don't have too much fun...Please don't forget about me. Try not to love no one. Ah, try not to love no one."

I finished with a flourish, a long RnB run on the last words, to modest a reaction coming from the small audience. I grinned, feeling my heart leap in my chest with each quiet clap. I was so pleased, it had been so long since my creativity had been this easy to come by.

But it felt bittersweet like I had left my soul up on that stage and everyone could see the regrets in my life spelled out clearly. Shit, this is what I hated about performing, the vulnerability and the over-sharing.

I knew the words to the song came from the aftermath of seeing JP today. My emotions were all over the place, and my mind frequently wondered about him and his life and who was in it.

I couldn't fathom that tomorrow I had to go to work, sit outside his office all day and pretend like there wasn't history and unfinished business between us.

I stopped recording, quickly naming the file with the date and a keyword so I would remember.

"That was wonderful, Harry!" Katz came up to clap me on the back with a new drink in his hand for me, which I took gratefully. "Come, there's someone I want you to meet," he led me by the shoulder, his tall figure shepherding me forward to where he wanted me to go.

"Who?" I was curious.

"You're shopping for a new record deal aren't you? I've got a friend who's looking for new talent."

"I'm not an artist, I'm a songwriter, Katz."

"You can take that up with him, come along now," Katz insisted.

I sighed and followed along anyway.

On the way to the farthest corner of the pub, my eye caught a now familiar figure.

In the dim of the pub, barely illuminated by the Art Deco side lamps affixed on the walls, I could see JP spread out on an armchair. He was drinking alone, his tie and suit jacket long gone, a watch glinted on his wrist and his white shirt was rolled up his sleeves showcasing his muscular forearms. While he had always been tall and lean now he had the body of a grown man, the type that played vicious rugby on the weekends and wore the hell out of a suit in stuffy corporate meetings on weekdays.

I felt the heat of his eyes on me, despite the darkness and wondered if he had heard my song and what he was doing here.

Our gazes locked as I walked past him wordlessly, and afraid to breathe. I was dying to speak to him, yet I didn't want to utter any words.

What could I say? Sorry I wasn't mature enough to break up with you in person? Sorry, I ran away, and sorry I expected you to come after me. I had overestimated your affections. The familiar feeling of regret and anger swirled together in my belly.

I smiled brightly at the middle-aged man that Katz was introducing me to. A Simon from Sony, who had heard enough of my song to be interested. He wanted to hear more songs before he decided. It was something, a start. Exactly what I had come home for.

I left the Gayle's with a promise to keep in touch with Simon and to present him with more songs.

I had to get into my writing frame of mind, but I knew some of the deadlock had already been broken. The words were springing forth like a crack in a well, all I had to was dip into the pool of hurt I had been harbouring.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad facing JP every day, at least I'd get an album out of it, I thought sardonically on the bus ride home.

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Hey, y'all. Welcome back to the show! I hope everyone is doing alright.
The song above is Lost One by Jazmine Sullivan (because I cannot write lyrics/poetry it's not my bag at all) and it was perfect for this scene. The song is linked above too but you never know with Wattpad. Leave me your thoughts I'd love to know what y'all are thinking x