Songs About a Girl Read online

  I was standing by the drinks table, catching it all on camera.

  “We do!” chorused some of the girls, and Gabriel clicked his fingers. “Challenge extended,” he announced, gesturing for Yuki to pass him the skateboard. As he climbed on, the board wobbled beneath him, and he sniggered at himself.

  “How do you do this again?!”

  Yuki crossed his arms and tutted. “Dude, this is embarrassing.”

  “You just wait, my friend,” said Gabriel, looking up. “You just wait. Any minute now you’ll be staring at the greatest three-sixty flip you ever … whoooa!”

  The skateboard flew out from underneath Gabriel’s feet and skidded across the room. He tumbled to the ground, prompting a slow hand-clap from Yuki, and as Gabriel lay on the floor, short of breath and laughing, I zoomed in hard on his face, right into his eyes, and twisted the lens into focus.

  As I pressed the shutter, I wondered where in the world he came from. His accent was English, but he looked almost South American.

  “Well, I guess I was wrong,” he said, extending a hand toward Yuki. “Help me up, brother.”

  Yuki pulled Gabriel from the floor and dusted him off. The girls in the corner applauded and shouted, “We love you!!”

  “Yo, DJ, turn the music up!” called Yuki, pointing at the sound system. Nothing happened, and he cocked a single eyebrow. “Wait, there is no DJ. Who stole our DJ?!”

  One of the pluckier fans reached over and boosted the volume on the speakers, and Yuki clambered onto a nearby table. One by one, the girls followed his lead, jumping onto the furniture, dancing and singing along. I studied the room for a while, then began to move around the space, capturing little moments. Everyone was playing up for the camera, and the mood was wild.

  Snap—Yuki spinning a drumstick at a hundred miles an hour.

  Snap—Aiden, laughing at Yuki, who was juggling fruit.

  Snap—Olly and Gabriel, standing next to each other, but facing different ways.

  Snap—the whole room, taken from the corner, with Gabriel in the middle. He was ballroom dancing with a VIP fan who looked like she was about to burst with joy.

  Snap … snap … snap.

  This, I dared myself to think, might actually make a really great photo album.

  “Hey there.” There was somebody standing directly in front of me. Through the lens I could see the angular face of Carla Martinez, and I slowly lowered my camera to meet her eyes.

  “Um … hi,” I said, trying to step backward. She had me cornered.

  “Who are you?” She looked at me without blinking.

  I clipped the cap back onto my camera lens. “I’m sort of a … photographer.”

  She let this hang in the air for a few moments.

  “So are you, like, friends with Gabriel?”

  I pointed at my chest. “What … me? No. God. We just met.”

  She considered this. “Just seemed like, maybe, you guys knew each other.”

  Carla was standing a little too close to me. I could see the smooth landscape of her foundation and the dark, precise curve of her eyebrows.

  “No, really … we don’t.”

  Suddenly, as if someone had turned on a switch in her brain, she smiled. “I’m Carla.”

  “Oh, er … Charlie.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  A stiff silence settled between us.

  “So … you’re … here with Gabriel, then?” I said.

  She glanced briefly over her shoulder. “Yeah,” she said distantly. The smile was still on her face, but it had disappeared from her eyes. “I’m with Gabriel.”

  “Hey, guys.” Olly appeared beside us, holding a cold beer and wiping the back of his neck with a towel. “What’s happening?”

  “I was just getting to know your photographer,” said Carla, with her head cocked slightly to the side.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “We were, um…” I trailed off.

  “Do you guys want some food?” asked Olly. “They’re bringing out pizzas in a sec.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I should go, actually.”

  Carla pressed a hand against her chest. “Of course, you probably have school tomorrow.”

  “I doubt it,” said Olly, with a laugh. “Unless Caversham High turned into a convent after I left.”

  Carla’s expression soured. “What?”

  “It’s Sunday tomor—” Olly held up a hand. “Never mind. But, Charlie, honestly. You’re welcome to stick around.”

  “Um, yeah … th-thanks,” I stammered back, shoving my camera into its case. “But I should really head home.” I braved a glance at Carla. “It was nice meeting you, though.”

  “Sure,” said Carla, touching Olly’s arm. Then she turned and walked away, heels clicking across the floor.

  “You don’t have to leave on her account,” said Olly, watching her go.

  “No, it’s fine,” I said, pulling on my coat. “I have a curfew, anyway.” I winced a little as I said it.

  “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. We have a curfew too. Bed by two a.m. or we get told off.”

  “Rock ’n’ roll,” I said, and we both smiled.

  Olly took a sip of his beer. “You OK getting back? We’ve got drivers who can take you.”

  “Thanks, but my bus stop’s just outside,” I said, reading the clock on the wall. However I traveled, I’d be late getting home. “I’ll send the photos through later in the week, if that’s cool?”

  “Sure,” said Olly, flinging the towel over his shoulder. “And thanks again for tonight. Get home safe.”

  “I will.”

  As I was walking toward the door, the party bubbling noisily behind me, Olly spoke up again. “Charlie…?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  I turned round, and he tipped his beer bottle at me. “You did great.”

  I smiled. Though I would never have believed it a week ago, it was just possible he was right.

  Wrapping a scarf around my neck, I opened the main door, and it creaked loudly. Yuki spotted me from the drinks table and shouted good-bye, closely followed by Aiden, while Gabriel, obscured from view by Carla, raised a hand above his head.

  “Later, Charlie Bloom,” Gabriel said, as I slipped from the room.

  Out in the corridor, the party muffled behind me, one sound soared out above everything else.

  It was the smooth, measured arc of Carla’s laughter.

  * * *

  A light rain was falling as the bus wound its way out of town and back up the hill toward home. I was sharing it with four strangers, who were drifting off, one by one, as we drove deeper into the suburbs. Faint music played behind me, trapped in headphones. Raindrops quivered on the windows.

  I was sitting near the back, camera on, flicking through the photo roll.

  The first batch was from the makeup session. I’d been far too timid with the framing, but still, there was a nice shot of Olly smiling at his makeup artist, and another good one of Yuki singing into a can of hair spray, Aiden behind him, his face creased up with laughter.

  I decided to keep the photos of Gabriel’s empty chair, more for my own curiosity than anything else. Why, before the concert, had he kept his distance from the rest of the band? Was he just busy with Carla, or did he consider himself above his bandmates somehow? Gabriel West, The Star. The Main Attraction.

  My phone pinged.

  Saturday night has been duuuuull without u

  Make or break? :) I wrote back.

  But of course, replied Melissa. There’s some new girl with a shaved head who sang chasing cars. She sounded like a cat in a blender

  I laughed, and a man in a black hoodie glanced up from his phone.

  Gotta go, on a quiet bus … full lowdown tomorrow. Missed ya xx

  Missed u too *dies of boredom* xxxx

  I returned to the photo gallery. By the time we’d moved on to the dressing room, I was beginning to relax, and the boys were all playing up for the camera. One image showed Yuki playin
g conductor, his trousers pulled up high around his waist, with Olly and Aiden standing on either side, saluting him. Next came the balcony photos, various dramatic views of the boys from behind, with their devoted hordes far below, and two shots of their faces in profile. Then there was that odd moment—Gabriel and Olly standing side by side, arms draped across each other’s shoulders. Gabriel’s eyes were keen and focused as he waved at the fans, but Olly’s smile was tight, his expression locked in place.

  At the time, I thought I might have imagined it, but the evidence was right there in front of me. The second Gabriel arrived, Olly had tensed up. And that didn’t seem like Olly at all.

  Finally, the after-party. I’d managed to catch Gabriel midtumble on the skateboard, and a follow-up shot of Yuki helping him back up, their hands intertwined, muscles taut. Lots of pictures of Yuki juggling beer bottles, bananas, and shoes; Aiden singing to fans; and Olly passing out drinks, towel around his neck. Gabriel ballroom dancing with a fan, his hand pressed against her back, her face glowing as they spun.

  There was one more photo left in the series, one I’d never intended to shoot in the first place. Carla Martinez at the after-party, super close-up, glaring into the lens.

  I tapped a few buttons, and the picture was gone.

  * * *

  It was nearly eleven thirty by the time I got back to the house. Tower Close stood silent in the damp, misty air, cars glinting with condensation. A cat slunk behind a trash can.

  I was hoping Dad would be in bed, but the second I opened the front door, I knew there’d be trouble.

  “You’re late.” My father was standing in the hallway holding a work file. There were dark rings around his eyes.

  “Sorry, I … we lost track of time.”

  He looked at me with his brow furrowed.

  “Come on, Charlie. This isn’t like you.”

  In the kitchen, the empty container from a microwave-ready meal lay discarded by the sink, fork handle sticking out. The only sound in the house was the fuzzy white drone from the television.

  “I’m only twenty-five minutes late,” I said, hanging my coat on the rack. “I sent you a text.”

  “That’s not really the point.”

  I unraveled my scarf and draped it over my coat.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. But I’m home now. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

  “The big deal, Charlie, is that…” Dad stopped himself and swallowed. “It’s just us, in this house, and … you’re…”

  My eyes dropped to the floor, and Rosie’s words echoed in my mind. You have to understand, love, that you’re everything he’s got.

  “Look,” he continued, “I don’t mind you seeing your friends, but you’ve got exams coming up. You’re a smart kid. Don’t throw that away.”

  “I’m not throwing anything away, Dad.” I knew I wasn’t being fair, but I was tired. “You’re being dramatic.”

  Dad set down his file and, sighing, rubbed at his eyes with forefinger and thumb. “You know, sometimes, you’re just like your mother.”

  I took a step backward and felt the door handle in the base of my spine. “What…?”

  My voice was breathy, barely there.

  “Hang on,” said Dad, both palms raised, “what I mean is, you’re…” The house fell silent. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”

  “God, Dad … what does that even mean?”

  He clamped his hands behind his head, elbows sticking out on either side. “I’m sorry, kiddo, I didn’t mean to upset you. Really…”

  My eyes were fixed on the space between us: the black of the hallway, the familiar line of the floorboards.

  When Dad spoke, the words were brittle in his mouth. “I miss her too, you know.”

  I kept my eyes low. The curled wooden feet of the phone table. The corner of Dad’s shirt, untucked at the front. His ring finger, empty.

  “Let’s talk about this, Charlie. I don’t—”

  “I have to go to bed now,” I said, walking past him and climbing the staircase. He was still trying to find the words when I reached the landing, passed into my bedroom, and closed the door behind me.

  Ten minutes later, his door closed too. A slow, cautious click.

  Careful not to wake me.

  Though it was late, I didn’t feel like sleeping. With my bedside clock flashing 11:48, 11:57, 12:15, I sat curled up under the covers, legs to my chest, the photo of our family picnic balanced on my knees. As I gazed into this little piece of my past, Dad’s words crept over me like a ghost … a whispering on my skin.

  Sometimes you’re just like your mother.

  In the past ten years, I’d obsessed over every detail in this photo, trying to build a picture of her in my mind. There weren’t many clues, so I clung to the only ones I had. Mum’s T-shirt, for instance, had the phrase “Little Boy Blue” written across it, and years ago I’d asked Dad what it meant. He told me it came from the nursery rhyme, but that had never made much sense to me. Why would a woman in her midtwenties have a nursery rhyme on her T-shirt?

  I began to wonder whether it had something to do with this old folk song that was constantly stuck in my head, a Harry Chapin hit from the seventies called “Cat’s in the Cradle.” I would wake up sometimes with the song on a loop in my brain, and when we were tiny, Melissa and I used to march around the house singing it at the tops of our voices.

  In the chorus, the singer lists all these random things from childhood, and “Little Boy Blue” is one of them. It had to mean something. But when I tried explaining the theory to Dad, he told me to stop imagining things and to go outside and play.

  I hadn’t thought seriously about the phrase “Little Boy Blue” or that song for years. Then, one day last summer, I was in a clothes shop with Melissa, rifling through racks of strappy tops, chatting about nothing, when “Cat’s in the Cradle” came on the stereo. Instantly, a picture formed in my mind, like a cinema screen flickering on. I was in the back of the car and Mum was in the front passenger seat, Dad driving. We were on the motorway and it was dark and pouring with rain, and orange lights were dashing past outside the window. “Cat’s in the Cradle” was playing on the radio, and I felt warm, and safe. Like I was coming home.

  And that was all.

  It felt like a memory, though it could just as easily have been a dream. I couldn’t say for certain. Either way, all I had to do since was listen to that song, and the picture would come back to me. And sometimes, when I missed Mum the most, that was the closest thing to comfort I could find.

  It was way past midnight when I reached under the bed, pulled out Mum’s notebook, and began flicking through the pages, my eyelids growing heavy. The words swam and shivered in front of me, words that, over the years, had sunk into my memory like debris on the ocean floor.

  … Take me home

  I’ve been dreaming of a girl I know …

  … With a shiver on my skin

  I still remember everything …

  … She lives her life in pictures

  She keeps secrets in her heart …

  I pushed on, looking for one particular page.

  … One day she will run away

  When she doesn’t want to be found

  I’d be the one to keep her safe

  But there are too many ways to escape from this town …

  Sometimes, when I was feeling down, I would turn to this page and run over the words in my head, imagining what it would be like to step onto a train and disappear. This town, I always thought … it could have been my town. Our town. Reading had a huge train station, one of the biggest outside London, and its railway lines crept out across the countryside in every direction, like veins under skin. You could get pretty much anywhere in the country from here. There really were a hundred ways to escape from this town.

  I’d never actually do it, of course.

  Exhaustion curling round me like a mist, I left the notebook open on the pillow and slid beneath the duvet, clutching my family photo. The t
hree of us on our picnic, sprawled on a tartan blanket, Mum with her hair bunched on top of her head, Dad smiling at me in the sun. Young, bright-eyed, busy with his little family.

  I fell asleep with the photo in my hand.

  10

  The atmosphere in the assembly hall was sullen.

  Students were sitting with hunched shoulders, subdued, barely a whisper troubling the air. The room, as always, smelled faintly of French fries.

  Everyone knew why we were there.

  “You won’t be surprised to hear,” Mr. Bennett was saying, his foot tapping the lip of the stage, “that we’re extremely disappointed by the events of Friday night. What could have been a wonderful evening was spoiled by two students who clearly have no respect for the well-being of their peers.”

  Melissa cupped her hand to my ear and whispered: “Like I said, LOTS of vomming.”

  I shifted in my seat. As I gazed across the sea of heads in front of me, it seemed absurd that just thirty-six hours earlier I’d been taking photographs for one of the biggest bands in the world. I looked up at the stage, imagining that instead of heavy red curtains and a stack of broken tables, it was filled with gleaming instruments, a thundering drum kit, and an army of guitarists, colored lights flashing, fireworks flying. Thousands of fans screaming for Fire&Lights.

  “The good news,” continued Mr. Bennett, “is that we’ve identified the culprits, and they’re being punished as we speak. However, we’re going to have to think seriously about future school events if this is the way”—a collective groan from the assembly hall—“I’m sorry, but if this is what’s going to happen, we may have to rethink our upcoming events. And that includes the graduation ball.”

  Chatter broke loose among the whole of Year Eleven. Benches creaked, voices moaned and hissed, and teachers shushed from the sides. On the stage, Mr. Bennett waited patiently for silence. Turning around, I scanned the length of the back row, up and down the benches by the vending machines, and a small, hard knot formed in my stomach.

  Aimee and Gemma weren’t there.