Leave Me Breathless

‘Time is an amazing healer.’ Molly takes my hand and pushes my glass to my lips. ‘And so is wine. Drink.’

I laugh – it’s genuine – and it’s just what’s needed in this moment in time. And once again I think of my sister. She was an expert at distracting me from anything that ever made me glum, not that there was much to make me glum back then. And when there was something – many things – to make me sad, Pippa wasn’t there. Because I left her behind.

‘To new beginnings and new friendships.’ Molly toasts us and immediately tops us up once we’ve both finished our drinks. ‘Right. Up you get.’

My eyes rise with Molly, my face blank. ‘What?’

‘We are going to show this pub how it’s done.’ She grabs my spare hand and wrestles against my instant resistance.

‘Oh no.’ I laugh, glancing around the bar where dozens of people are drinking and chatting. They look like they’re having a great time. Best not ruin it. ‘Molly, I can’t sing for shit.’

‘Neither can I.’ She winks. ‘Support your sista, Sister.’

Sister. I blink, seeing Pippa’s face. Her smile. Her tears from laughing at me. I so wish I could make her laugh again.

Molly stops struggling with me and starts walking back toward the makeshift stage. ‘What would the old Hannah do?’ she asks, and I frown around my smile. That’s easy. The old Hannah would never have been in a place that hosted karaoke in the first place – oh no. But what about the Hannah before the old Hannah? The old-old Hannah? The girl who whiled her days away painting and laughing. The girl who was so messy, Mum gave up on tidying up after her. The girl who would have danced up onto that stage with her sister and showed the world just how creative she was. What would the old-old Hannah do?

I grab the bottle of wine and take it with me, having a swig from the bottle before planting it on a nearby speaker. I join Molly on the stage and take a mike from her hand. ‘Let’s do this.’ I clear my throat and flex my neck. Old-old Hannah would own this moment. And then the intro begins and I throw a stunned glare Molly’s way. She just shrugs.

And the first words to Destiny’s Child’s ‘Survivor’ spring up onto the screen in front of me. All attention is pointed this way.

‘Fuck it,’ I say, grabbing the bottle and chugging down more wine. And I sing. Molly sings. We sing like our lives depend on it, and I’m guessing it’s a damn good job they don’t. But I keep telling myself that nothing could top the ear-piercing shrieks of Mrs Hatt and her appalling rendition of ‘What’s New Pussycat’. The closest I’ve come to expressing myself creatively since I arrived in town is in my painting. Quietly but messily. And privately. There’s nothing private about this.

Hi, Hampton. I’m Hannah Bright. I’m about to make your ears bleed, and I don’t give a flying fuck. Cheers.

As Molly and I inject some zest into our performance, practically the whole town is watching. But in this moment, now I’m in my stride, I’m oblivious to them all, my energy and focus set solely on the words I’m yelling at the screen with Molly and the odd twirl in between our lines.

We. Are. On. Fire.

At least, in our warped imaginations we are. I’m not sure the rest of the town thinks so – those who are here and those who aren’t, because I’m sure as hell everyone who stayed home tonight can hear us, too. I turn my attention to Molly and sing at her, bending at the waist as she laughs. And then her movements slow, and I find her face morphs into Pippa’s, and I’m thrown back fifteen years to the time she visited me at the university and we spent the night downing shots and hogging the karaoke in the local bar. We danced on that stage. She was Elton John, I was Kiki Dee. She was Gary Barlow, I was Lulu. She was Michael Jackson, I was Janet. We cleared the bar. We laughed until our bellies hurt. We wobbled home together, holding each other up. Neither of us could talk the next day. But we could still laugh, even with our killer hangovers, when we both woke up in my single bed with the microphones still in our grasps. Pippa mailed them back to the bar. I never went there again.

Soon after, I graduated. Then soon after that, I moved to London. And soon after that, it was the beginning of the end of my life.

I blink and find Molly, realising I’m still singing as she holds my hand, facing me.

And then the applause begins, and I laugh. I place the mike down and throw my arms around my friend, silently thanking her for talking me into doing this. Yes, it brought back memories, but they’re happy memories. And they’re one of the only things I have left. ‘I needed that,’ I say, pulling away.