‘Well why don’t you get a job?’
‘I have a job,’ said Alex with a hint of petulance.
‘Not stacking shelves in Kwik Save; a job that makes use of your music. What about Forsyths, that music shop on Deansgate?’
Alex pulled a face. ‘I want to play music, Mum, not sell recorders to ten-year-olds.’
‘Then do it!’ she cried. ‘I love you, Alex, but you have a God-given talent and you’re wasting it just sitting in your bedroom. It’s breaking my heart.’
They both looked at each other in shock. Maureen didn’t know where that had come from; it was almost as if she were watching someone else talking.
‘Sorry, love,’ she stuttered. ‘It’s just I’ve been so worried. I . . . I just want you to be happy.’
Alex cast his eyes to the floor. ‘I know, Mum,’ he said softly.
And as she closed the front door behind him, Maureen Doyle burst into tears.
Alex slunk out of the house feeling horrible. He knew how hard his mother tried. He knew how much she had sacrificed to send him to Danehurst – his scholarship had helped, but still there were books, instruments, extra tuition, school trips, not to mention all the other things like records and clothes a normal teenager needed when he was away from home. More than that, Alex had always felt the guilt of leaving Maureen to face life alone when she was still getting over the death of his dad. That must have been the hardest part for her. And now he had disappointed her again. She had so wanted her only son to go to the Royal Academy. ‘Your father would have been so proud,’ she’d told him, her eyes full of tears.
But right now, Alex was where he wanted to be. He almost laughed out loud at that. Macclesfield, the town he had spent his whole life trying to get away from, was the only place he wanted to be in the world. He looked at the grey street ahead of him, the graffiti-dashed walls of a deserted warehouse on one side, the black waters of the River Bollin on the other. To think he’d come straight here from the glistening blue waters of Angel Cay, with its crisp sheets and gentle breeze. But the very thought of the island still made Alex feel sick. He stopped on the little concrete bridge crossing the stream and leant on the railings, gazing down at the sluggish water, wishing he could turn back time. But time wasn’t like that; it had an annoying habit of just marching on, leaving you sitting there wondering what happened, just like the rusty shopping trolley stranded, wheels up, under the bridge below him as the river flowed ever on.
No, Macc might not be paradise, but it was where his roots were, like it or not. And anyway, if he was to leave, where would he go? He didn’t want to go to the Royal Academy to be surrounded by rich kids with their flute and violin cases – he’d had enough of posh people to last him a lifetime. And he didn’t want to live in London, where on any given weekend he might bump into Miles Ashford on a jolly up from Oxford.
He walked on, passing the only curry house in town, passing the Blue Anchor pub, which would be the scene of some ugly scuffles come chucking-out time. Still, the warm glow of the yellow plastic ship’s lantern over the door did make him pause. He reckoned his schoolmates Gaz and Dicko would probably be in there, downing pint after pint and making inept passes at Tracey the new barmaid. Maybe that was where he should be. It seemed to be enough for everyone else; why not him? He’d tried that when he’d first got back, tried hanging out with the old crowd. They’d all taken the piss royally, of course, mocking his slightly softened accent and asking him to play them something on his ‘fiddle’, but there had been affection and familiarity in their ribbing and Alex had loved the way they had completely accepted him back into the fold as if he had never been away. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? He had been away; he’d had a glimpse of the possibilities of life beyond the pub and the snooker hall and the football ground. He was unwilling to look back to the past, yet too anxious to face the future; that was the bald truth. Squirming, he pulled the collar of his suede jacket a little higher.
At Macclesfield station he hopped on to a train just as it was pulling out. He didn’t need to check the destination; every train went to Manchester. Finding an empty carriage, he pulled open his green Millets army bag and took out a can of beer and his copy of NME. Cracking open the can with a hiss, he flipped to the ‘Musicians Wanted’ classified adverts in the back of the paper. ‘Wanted: Guitarist for Faces-type band’ read the first one. ‘DO U WANT 2 B FAMOUS?’ He puffed out his cheeks. Yep, that I do, he thought. But was ‘Ziggy, 21, influences Green On Red, Theatre of Hate and Buzzcocks’ the right man to make it happen? Alex had even contacted a couple of the ads over the past few weeks. He’d got on well with a bloke called Matt who had a Stones-influenced band in Birmingham and invited him to
audition the following week. Alex had said he would think about it, but knew in his heart that he still didn’t want to leave home. Not yet, anyway. One day, yes. But not right now.
It was drizzling when he got into Manchester’s Piccadilly station, but he walked with a bounce as he headed into the city centre. There was a buzz in Manchester, an undeniable energy fuelled by acid house, Factory Records and the endless creative melting pot of people who were relying on talent, guts and determination to make it, not connections or money or a family name. It made you feel alive just to be walking on these wet streets.
Threading his way through the grey Victorian alleyways, he passed the Ritz and the Haçienda, ducking under a railway bridge and into The Boardwalk, a small black cave of a club where the ceilings were low and condensation dripped from the rafters. Tonight, as usual, it was full of students. Everyone was in baggy clothes – flared jeans, garish T-shirts, floppy hats; they looked like children wearing adults’ clothes. Tonight there was an unsigned band called Verve playing who he’d never heard of. The singer was gaunt and awkward-looking with an angular face, big lips and a long spindly body, like Mick Jagger stretched on a rack. But when he sang, he held the attention of the audience in the palm of his big hand. They were good, there was no doubt about that, and Alex felt a stab of unbearable envy. I want to be up there, doing what they are doing, he thought fiercely. This is what I’ve been looking for. It was the first real strong, visceral emotion he had felt since he had left the island; up to now he had only felt numb or sad.
He turned and pushed his way towards the bar. He really didn’t want to think about the island, not when he had been feeling so upbeat, but it kept popping into his head unbidden. It didn’t help that Miles kept sending him letters. Alex had never had seen Miles as the letter-writing type, but since Angel Cay there had been regular missives, each one sending Alex into a cold sweat, dreading news of a police investigation or some threat to keep quiet. They had been perfectly innocuous and chatty, however, talking about Miles’ new life in Oxford, even inviting Alex down during Hilary term, whatever that was, as if nothing had ever happened. He had no intention of taking up that particular offer.
He bought a pint of snakebite and went to stand at the back. He liked it there. He preferred to stay out of the way and watch the competition, noting their instruments and amps, how they played a certain riff or how a song was put together.
‘Good, in’t he?’
Alex turned his head to see a good-looking boy with dirty blond hair that fell over his ears.
‘What? Who?’
‘The singer.’
‘Yeah, he’s good.’
‘Great set so far. Lucky fuckers. If there’s A and R in the audience tonight, I bet they get snapped up.’
Alex shrugged. Their songs were great, but he thought he could improve them.
In Alex’s dream band, everything would be perfect. He’d spent so long planning it in his head, he just knew it would work. And all arrogance aside, he knew the songs he had written were every bit as good as Verve’s; in fact, he suspected they were better.
The lad next to him smiled cynically. ‘So you’re in a band then?’
Alex shook his head. ‘Not yet. I’m not even sure I want to. I kinda want to do my own stuff.’ He wondered why he was saying all this to a complete stranger, but the truth was he needed to tell someone what he was thinking or he would explode.
‘Solo stuff, eh?’ said the boy, nodding to the stage. ‘It’d be pretty fucking lonely up there.’