You Don't Know Me Page 20

  When she’s finished, there’s a universal ‘wow’. We wave at her through the window and pour into the live room to ‘wow’ in person.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ Jim asks.

  ‘I wrote it a long time ago.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you sing it, girl? That’s what we’ve been looking for. That’s got the chill factor. Why have you been messing with all this rubbish when you can do that?’

  Rose smiles shyly.

  ‘Because I’m an idiot,’ she says. ‘I didn’t listen to . . . the people that know me.’

  She gives us a wonky smile.

  Jim looks confused for a moment, staring from face to face.

  ‘Hey! I remember you guys. You’re the ones from Killer Act. My daughter showed me on her laptop. What was that all about, then?’

  ‘Long story,’ I say with a sigh.

  ‘Sorted now, thank goodness,’ Nell adds.

  ‘Don’t believe everything you see on TV,’ Jodie concludes.

  He smiles. ‘Ain’t that the truth?’

  ‘Sasha wrote a song about it, actually,’ Nell says. ‘It’s really good. She’s been learning guitar. Go on, Sash! Why don’t you play it?’

  Rose turns to me, surprised, ‘You wrote a song? You play guitar?’

  ‘Not really,’ I say hastily, going pink. ‘I mean, I’ve started to write a few songs. I don’t really play guitar yet. I—’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ Nell says, smiling proudly. ‘Don’t be so shy, Sash.’ She turns to Rose. ‘You should hear the song, it’s wonderful.’

  Jim grins at me. ‘You’re a songwriter too?’

  ‘No! God – I wish.’

  I really wish. Suddenly, I really wish. Despite all the weirdness Rose described, I’d so love to be able to come to a place like this, and work with people like Jim.

  ‘Well, come on, play it, then.’

  Jim carefully considers his instrument collection for a moment, before handing me a battered acoustic guitar.

  ‘No. Really.’

  He’s a legend. I only know about six chords. This is silly.

  ‘No. Really,’ Jim says. He says it with a smile, but it’s the kind of smile an adult gives you when there’s actually no choice. ‘I’d like to hear your song.’

  Everyone stands back to give me space. Luckily they don’t disappear into the control room to watch through the window. I couldn’t bear that. I put the guitar on my lap and strum a few chords. It doesn’t look like much, but it makes the most beautiful sound. Jim sees my look of surprise at the sweetness of the noise I’m making and grins.

  ‘Yeah. I played that with Eric Clapton a few times. It’s a good little guitar. OK, we’re listening.’

  And so, on an instrument that has played alongside one of the greatest blues players of all time, I play ‘You Don’t Know Me’ – slowly, carefully and as well as I can. Goodness knows I’m not perfect, but I’ve kept the chord sequence simple so I can play it properly. I find it easier to sing when I’m playing, too. More than that, I’m singing my own tune, my own words. The emotion comes naturally, just like it did for Rose.

  ‘If you knew me,

  You would want to understand me.

  Don’t judge me, don’t hurt me, don’t wound me

  Get to know me.’

  Rose watches me intently. Of course, she’s never seen me play guitar seriously before. She’s never heard me sing my own lyrics, either, apart from a couple of verses of ‘Sunglasses’. It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking.

  When I finish, she looks at me with tears in her eyes. Rose always took things harder and felt things more deeply than the rest of us. From that point of view, nothing’s changed.

  ‘Oh my God, Sash,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  She looks bewildered. ‘I knew that people were mean to you . . . when I won. But . . . I had no idea, not really. It was bad for you, wasn’t it? For all of you.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ I say.

  There’s silence for a while.

  ‘You don’t know me . . .’ she murmurs, rolling the lyrics round her tongue. ‘Do you know – that’s exactly what I’m thinking when I’m singing that stupid song for the ad? Everyone assumes you’re happy but if the music’s not working you’re scared, and you’re so lonely sometimes you could curl up and die. Hey – do you mind if . . . ?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘May I play it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Nell gives a whoop of approval.

  ‘I mean, it’s your song,’ Rose goes on. ‘If you don’t want me to . . .’

  ‘No. Play it. Here.’

  I hand her the guitar. While she works out the chord sequence, I get my phone out of my bag and find the app where I finalised the lyrics. Jim makes a few suggestions for how to pull it together in the middle eight. He hands us all headphones, so we can hear the sound as it progresses, track by track. Using one of the keyboards as a drum kit (which blows Jodie’s mind slightly), he helps us lay the tracks down. Slowly, gradually, over the next forty-five minutes, I hear my song truly come to life.

  I think Rose expects me to mind that she’s singing my lyrics and playing my tune. I don’t mind at all. She plays so beautifully and sings it better than I ever could. Eventually, she moves from the guitar to the piano, transposing the tune for the keyboard, developing a left-hand bass part to give it a new dimension.

  The guitar is sitting there. I pick it up again. The sweetness of playing along to Rose’s lead is something I’ve never experienced before. It’s making music; it’s what Rose has naturally done all her life. Now I can do it too.

  Jim’s busy in the control booth, talking to the sound engineer, who’s just arrived. Meanwhile, Nell and Jodie start harmonising over the chorus while we play. Nell films some of the action on my iPhone, but when Rose needs it back for the lyrics, she points at her orange bag and Nell pulls out the smart new tablet. It takes beautiful video. Nell experiments with close-ups and long shots while we each do our part, making the song better with each new version.

  Finally, we hit on a mix that we’re all happy with. The creative tension that’s been building up in the room bubbles and fizzes, like lemonade when you’ve shaken the bottle. That was, I realise, the most fun I have ever, ever had. Including talking to Dan under the stars. Which probably means there’s something wrong with me, but whatever. I have to do this again one day. I don’t know how, but somehow I must.

  ‘Sounding good,’ Jim calls through to us from the mixing booth. ‘Do you want to do the vocals together?’

  ‘Why not?’ Rose says. ‘Is that OK with you, Sash?’

  Like I’d have a problem with recording my song with a number one artist.

  We squeeze into the special booth for vocals, standing round the mic to perfect the sound, while the others make faces at us through the glass. In the end, we get it in two takes.

  About A Boy

  It’s not until the early afternoon that I get the chance to talk to Rose alone. Jim, Nell and Jodie are examining the contents of the fridge in Jim’s enormous kitchen, and Sam’s talking techno-geek stuff back in the studio with Dave.

  Rose and I sit on the kitchen doorstep, where nearby pots of thyme and rosemary fill the air with the scent of herbs, and strolling chickens cluck contentedly in the yard ahead. She seems happy enough to be here, but she definitely looks thinner, close to, and still very pale and drawn.

  ‘Is there anyone actually looking after you?’ I ask.

  She yawns, stretching in the sunshine. ‘My aunt pops by to make sure I’m OK. Gran calls. But the team looks after me, I s’pose. I’m doing those runs. I’m on this special diet . . .’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean!’

  She yawns again. ‘I want to get healthy. But I might be overdoing it,’ she admits.

  ‘And . . .’ I hesitate. ‘All that sharing you have to do. In interviews. Talking about personal stuff. I can see you hate it.’

&nbs
p; ‘Oh God. You watch my interviews?’

  ‘Every one.’

  She shivers ruefully. ‘I hated talking about my parents,’ she confesses, pulling at a stray stalk of rosemary and playing with it. ‘But Linus said I had to. It was good that people were interested in me. It’s easier now: people talk about the music, mostly. But of course once that new song is out . . .’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She looks at me and smiles. ‘I’ll have to lie and say how much I love it. But at least you’ll know the truth. I miss times like this, Sash. Times when I can really talk.’

  She sniffs at the sprig of rosemary and tickles my nose with it. It smells like Mum’s herb bread. But I’m already thinking back to the studio, when Rose played her new song. If we’re really talking, there’s some more stuff I need to know.

  ‘Is there something you never told me?’ I ask.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About a boy. “Breathless” didn’t come from nowhere.’

  She avoids my eye. ‘Well, you know, it came from various places. Books and . . . stuff.’

  I just don’t believe her. Not any more. Songs can come from many places, but she didn’t get those emotions from books – I know it. This was something she lived through, I’m sure.

  ‘Uh huh. Books. And stuff. And that other song? “The Mistake I Had To Make”, wasn’t it?’

  She scratches at the gravel with the toe of her shoe and coughs a couple of times to clear her throat. ‘Er . . . ’

  I try to think through when she could possibly have had such an intense experience of love that I wouldn’t have known about. After all, I saw her practically every day until the fateful Killer Act audition, apart from . . .

  Yes! When I was away. With Dad.

  ‘Last summer,’ I say. ‘Did something happen then?’

  She winces, as if in pain. ‘It was a long time ago. It was nothing.’

  ‘I thought we were talking.’

  She gives a long sigh and waves a hand about, as if to wave the memory away.

  ‘OK. It was just . . . a mistake. A bad mistake. I was stupid. He had a girlfriend. It lasted six weeks, that’s all. It was a mess. Like I said, it was nothing.’

  It was so not ‘nothing’. As she fiddles with the poor stalk of rosemary, the misery of that memory is etched in every line of her face. It’s still there, still raw.

  ‘Oh, Rose. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. I don’t want people being sorry for me. Not even you, Sash.’

  ‘Who was he? Someone I know?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No one you know. Look, it was a stupid holiday romance and I took it too seriously. First love. I’m an idiot. But I got a bunch of songs out of it, so . . . hey!’ She gives me a weak smile. ‘Can we talk about something else?’

  ‘OK.’

  I’m still thinking of what that might be when a loud, shrill voice fills the kitchen.

  ‘Rose! Rose! Rose Ireland?’

  Rose flinches, guiltily. We turn round to see a small, thin blonde girl in a shorts and a T-shirt storm into the room. She stops briefly to say a polite hello to Jim, who’s casually making a salad for lunch, then homes in on the pair of us in the doorway.

  ‘Rose! There you are! I’ve been looking for you all day. Are you OK?’

  Rose smiles. ‘Absolutely fine.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone you were here?’

  ‘Because I was supposed to be here,’ Rose stammers. ‘It was on the schedule.’

  The girl flaps her hand in front of her face, as if to calm herself down from a panic. ‘Well, you didn’t tell your driver, so we didn’t know you’d come. We’ve been searching the grounds for you for, like, hours. I thought you’d had some accident or something. Then the costume designer’s assistant arrived to talk about the tour, and she’s been waiting, like, forever. I brought the car. If we shift, we can catch her before she goes, like, home.’

  She whips a BlackBerry out of her handbag and starts typing rapidly on the screen.

  ‘These are my friends,’ Rose says, although the girl hasn’t shown the slightest interest in us. ‘Sasha, this is Elsa.’

  ‘Hi,’ Elsa says, not looking up from her phone screen until she’s finished tapping.

  Elsa – the manager of Rose’s Interface page, her FaceFeed and her phone. No doubt whatever she’s typing in now is an insult to spelling and grammar. So this is the girl who ‘is’ Rose online. The thought of it makes me feel ill.

  ‘There. I’ve told them I’ve found you,’ she announces. ‘Sorry, Mr Fisher. I can bring her back later, but this meeting is, like, don’t miss. You know what I mean?’

  ‘What about her friends?’ Jim asks.

  ‘Who? Oh, them. They’ll have to see her another time,’ Elsa says, casting a rapid glance over Nell, Jodie and me. ‘If they call me I can fix something.’

  ‘We already did,’ Jodie says, not missing a beat. ‘Or at least, we called Rose. Did you forget to pass the message on?’

  Elsa ignores the dangerous edge to Jodie’s voice.

  ‘But it can’t be this week, because we’re back to London in two days, and then we’ve got more costumes and tour dates to sort out, and the ad to finish, and a slimming magazine. Everyone wants to know how Rose lost those pesky pounds! C’mon, Rose. I brought some water for you to drink in the car.’

  Elsa holds her hand out. Rose glances wistfully at the salad, bread and cheeses being assembled on the kitchen counters. It’s not surprising her ‘attractively curvy’ figure is rapidly disappearing. Rose hugs us all briefly goodbye, and heads off towards the waiting limo.

  ‘Living the dream,’ Jodie calls after her with a sardonic wave.

  The car disappears down the driveway in a spray of gravel.

  Living the dream.

  So Not Over Her

  The thing is, the rest of us are living one – or at least, we just did for one morning and part of the afternoon. It still feels dream-like as Sam drives us home through the lazy late spring sunshine, and we remember how Jim had to leave us for ten minutes over lunch so he could talk to David Bowie about something on the phone.

  We make a pact not to talk about it with anyone else. Only Sam has a problem with this.

  ‘How can I not tell my mates I actually played guitar with Jim Fisher?’

  ‘It was only the first two bars of “Smoke on the Water” and one of them was wrong,’ Jodie snorts. ‘And besides, what happened was . . . special. Just for us.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nell agrees. ‘The whole idea was to keep our heads down, remember?’

  With a grumble, Sam gives in. He drops Nell and Jodie off at my place, because Mum was experimenting with pistachio cake recipes for the café yesterday, and I happen to know there are a lot of samples that need eating up. Poor Rose; she loves pistachios. We’re in the middle of thirds when my phone goes. It’s Dan.

  ‘Sorry not to see you today. Look, Ed got some tickets for a gig in Bristol tonight. It’s a band from the uni who’re supposed to be pretty good. Do you want to come?’

  Oh my God. What is happening to me? I was thinking – on my second slice of pistachio cake – that my perfect day couldn’t get more perfect, and now it just did. Dan is totally inviting me out. This is a real date. What else could you call it? I try and play it cool.

  ‘Right. Sure. I’ll just see if I’m doing anything.’

  While he’s listening, I tell Nell and Jodie about the gig and ‘check I’m free’, to make myself sound to Dan like a girl with a massive social life who needs to juggle. Major mistake. Nell and Jodie’s expressions mirror each other exactly. They go from ‘Oh wow you got a date!’ to ‘Ooh – a gig, that sounds cool,’ to ‘Aw – can we come?’ with accompanying puppy eyes, all in the space of about three seconds.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ I mouth to them crossly.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Dan asks, sensing one.

  ‘No, it’s just my friends being difficult.’

  ‘They can come too. A
re they the ones from the band? Ed and Raj have been dying to meet them.’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ I sigh, glaring at Nell and Jodie, who are still doing their puppy eyes.

  ‘No problem. The boys’ll be pleased. We can give you a lift. Pick you up at eight?’

  ‘Sure. Thanks.’

  ‘Yes!’ Jodie shouts as soon as I’ve ended the call. ‘A gig! Just what I feel like. Now, what are we going to wear?’

  A couple of hours later they’re back at my place, armed with major wardrobe ideas, so we can all get ready together. It’s almost like the old days: the iPod jammed into the speakers at full volume, a playlist of Abba and Girls Aloud, jostling at the mirror to perfect our makeup and strutting around in various outfits. In the end, Jodie goes for her usual lumberjack shirt, but matched tonight with black shorts and fishnets disappearing into ankle boots, and we agree Nell looks fantastic in psychedelic flowery skinnies and a grey sequinned top that matches her eyes. I go for a simple, short lace dress. Very short, actually, but very demure at the top. With Nell’s help, I hold some of my hair off my face with clips decorated with little stars.

  All the time, Rose’s absence hovers around us like a hole in the air. It’s not the same without her perfecting her cat’s-eye eyeliner flicks, doing something unfortunate to her hair, then regretting it and changing it. Still, we’ve had more time together today than I ever thought we would. The buzz of that memory gives the evening a special, secret glow.

  The Call of Duty lot turn up in convoy to pick us up: Ed in the Land Rover, as usual, with Dan beside him and Cat in the back; Raj leaping out of his battered old Polo, eagerly holding the door open for Nell and Jodie, his eyes practically popping out of his head at the sight of Nell in her skinnies. In the back of the Land Rover, Cat eyes me with wary contempt. She’s in a short dress too – black leather and sleeveless, with a cut-out design, far more expensive than mine.

  ‘You look tired,’ she says.