Chapter 29

I awoke early on Saturday morning, took a quick shower, dressed, then got my guitar out and made sure it was roughly tuned up right. Then I gathered together my practice amplifier, and a spare set of strings and went downstairs to get myself some breakfast. Dad was already up and dressed when I got down and was already busy preparing food for us all.

I enjoyed Dad’s weekend breakfasts, they consisted of bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, black pudding, toast, mushrooms and orange juice.

He piled my plate with breakfast and placed it on the table.

“Eat,” he said, “I assume you’re getting fed all right in Manchester.”

“Better than all right Dad,” I replied, “the chef in the hotel has a Michelin star, and I’ve been out in the evening a couple of times with folks from the cast.”

“Good,” he answered, “your Mum is worried you might not be eating properly.”

“Well, you can reassure her that I am.”

“Are you wanting a lift with your gear when you go off to this rehearsal?”

“Please, Dad,” I answered, “it’s not that heavy, I could carry it, but it’s a bit awkward.”

“Well then if you’re a good boy and eat all your breakfast, I’ll take you,” he said.

“Dad, I’m not a little kid,” I complained.

“Son, let me let you into a secret,” he replied, “if your Mum and I live until you’re a hundred, you’ll most likely still be a little boy in this house.”

At least he smiled when he said it, and I think I understood. The rest of the family started coming down just after I started eating, and the conversation turned to what everybody was doing today.

Once I’d finished my breakfast and everybody else had been served, I gathered my things together and began to put them in Dad’s car.

As I stood outside waiting for Dad, Cal and her Mum came out of their house.

“Morning,” Aunt Mary called.

“Hi,” I answered, “just waiting for Dad, I’ll be there shortly.”

“You could come with us,” Cal offered.

“Thanks, but he’ll be out in a minute, and I’ve already got my gear in the car.”

Cal looked a little disappointed, but got into their car, and they set off just as Dad emerged from the house.

“Are you playing golf this morning?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he replied, “I should be finished around one or one thirty. You want me to pick you up then?”

“No thanks,” I said, “we’ll be long gone by then, I think the room’s only booked until twelve. I’ll ring Mum and ask her to pick me up.”

“Right then,” he said, “I don’t think she’s planning to go out, but if you get stuck, give me a ring and I’ll pick you up on the way home.”

We both got into the car and Dad backed out of the driveway and onto the road. Once we were on our way he turned to me.

“So, tell me about this Charlie,” he said.

“Nothing much to tell,” I answered, “she’s an actor, she’s been acting since she was about twelve. Her Mum threw a fit when she realised that the production company had put her sharing a suite with a boy, and she told her to get lost. Her problem is that her Mum is her manager and agent, and controls all the money. But, she’ll be eighteen soon, and once that happens her mother will be history. She’s nice, funny, and she’s a very good actor.”

“So basically, she’s stuck in Manchester and doesn’t even know whether she can access her own money?” he asked.

“That’s about it, yes,” I replied, “fortunately we can just charge meals to the room, but I don’t know what arrangements she has for anything else.”

“Well,” he said, “can I suggest that if it becomes an issue, you consider lending her what money she needs?”

“I’d already thought about it,” I replied, “I think that’s what I’ll do, or at least offer.”

“Offering’s all you can do,” he answered, “it’s up to her whether she accepts. But son, don’t make her a project. She needs to sort her own life out. I know you, you’ll move heaven and earth to help if you think she deserves it.”

“It’s all right Dad,” I said, “I know I can’t help everybody, and if there’s one thing the situation with Cal has taught me, it’s that I shouldn’t try.”

He took his left hand off the wheel and squeezed my shoulder with it.

“I think you’re growing up son,” he said.

“Thanks Dad,” I replied, “I appreciate your recognising it.”

Then I thought about how it would be nice if Mum could recognise it too.

“I just try to do what I think you’d do in the same circumstances,” I told him.

“I don’t always manage to make the right decision,” he answered.

“You did when you married Mum,” I replied.

He turned his head towards me, looking quizzical.

“You told me that story a while ago Dad, remember?” I asked.

“Of course,” he replied, “I did, didn’t I. I wouldn’t want that to get out.”

“It won’t from me Dad,” I assured him.

That’s good son, thank you.”

We pulled up outside the church hall and Dad helped me get my stuff inside, where the members of Cal’s group were just setting up.

There was Cal, who was the lead vocalist, Peter Travis on bass guitar, Brian Turvey on keyboard, me with my guitar, and another lad I didn’t know on guitar as well. Cal introduced us, his name was Dave Dickinson, and he wasn’t at our school, which explained why I didn’t know him. There wasn’t a drummer, at least not yet.

Cal called us all round her and started into a short talk about what she wanted from the group.

“Thanks all of you for coming, especially you David,” she began, “I don’t really have any firm ideas about what direction the group will take, I, well to be honest, I just thought it was something I should do, and went around looking for some others to join. David, here, is only joining us to help out, I’ve known him a long time, and he is a very good guitarist.”

“I only dabble these days,” I chimed in.

“Despite his modesty, he is very good, so I’m suggesting he plays lead, and you, Dave, play rhythm,” she continued, “anybody got any thoughts on that?”

“What sort of music are we going to play?” Brian asked.

“Current stuff, oldies, maybe some standards as well, whatever we want really. If any of us has a song they particularly like, we can give that a try,” Cal said, “I’ve brought three or four song books along for today, but I can get whatever we want from the library, either from school or the local town library.”

“Can we do some Quo?” Dave asked, and started to play the opening riff to ‘Rockin’ all over the world’.

I joined him and Peter joined in on the Bass. Brian started vamping on the keyboard and Cal started the vocal. I joined in on all the ‘Rockin all over the world’ lines, adding my bathroom tenor to Cal’s concert hall soprano, and we had a thoroughly good time belting the song out, even if there were a whole load of wrong notes and out of tune harmonies.

“That was good,” Cal said as we finished.

“No, it wasn’t,” Peter objected, “it was crap. We were playing in different keys and the number of wrong notes was horrible. And before anyone else says it, I’m aware that I played a lot of them.”

“Yes,” Cal agreed, “but it showed at least that we can all play.”

“Pretty badly,” Brian said.

“We’ll get better with practice,” Cal stated, “now which of us can read music?”

“You know I can,” I said, “but not sight reading.”

The others could all read ‘a bit’ according to them, so Cal dragged copies of sheet music out of the messenger bag she normally used for school books and handed them round. The first one she handed out was ‘Shout’ and old Isley Brothers rocker, covered by Lulu back in the sixties.

“Shall we all take five minutes or so, to read through, and maybe try the music out, then go for a full run-through?” I suggested.

“Great idea,” Brian agreed.

“Yes,” the others added one by one.

The room quickly filled with sound as each of us ran through the chords in the piece, and worked out where our melodic line lay In the meantime, Cal was off in a corner practising the vocal part. I caught her eye and gestured her over.

“How does this sound?” I asked and started to play the melody line of the song, it wasn’t difficult, like a lot of songs of the time, it only used three chords, C major, D major and G major.

She joined in with my playing, and the rest of them stopped. Just stopped and stood there listening. I joined in with the answer lines, and by the time we finished, the others were standing open-mouthed.

“Girl, you can really sing,” Dave, the newcomer said.

“Yes,” Brian replied, “she can. Amazing thing is I never realised David was that good on guitar. Yet another of his amazing talents.”

“Amazing talents?” Dave queried.

“You don’t know the story of David J Barker?” asked Brian.

“No what is there to know?”

“Well,” Brian began, “first of all, David is top of the class in school at every subject.”

“Not true,” I objected, “I’m bottom in Woodwork.”

“All right then, every academic subject, he’s just useless with his hands,” Brian continued, “Star player on the school rugby team.”

“You play?” Dave asked me, “which code?”

“League,” I replied.

“Then there was this last summer,” Brian continued, “when David spent the summer in California.”

“Doing what?”

“Making his first movie,” Brian answered, “and now he’s out of school, filming a TV drama in Manchester.”

“And you’re in what, year eleven?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“And already a film star,” he mused, “that’s impressive. When does your film come out?”

“The premiere’s on December 21st, and I think general release is the next day,” I informed him.

“So you get to go to LA or New York for the premiere?”

“No, just London,” I answered, “and I may have to do a few TV appearances to promote it.”

Wow,” he said, “when we moved here, I didn’t realise the town had its own film star. I thought the only famous native was Henry Moore.”

“David’s not famous,” Cal interrupted, “but I’m sure he will be one day.”

“More like infamous,” Brian added.

“Bloody hell,” Peter called from across the room, “Turvey just used a word with more than two syllables.”

We all laughed at that, and Cal called us together to try out Shout.

It went better than the previous effort. Still not good, but getting better, so we worked on it for an hour. Eventually it got to the point where it didn’t hurt my ears and we were actually beginning to sound like a group of musicians.

“Well,” she said as we finished, “that seems to be coming together nicely. I have a few more songs here, that I think we should all take home and practice as we can during the week and we’ll have another rehearsal here next week and see how we get on. I don’t think we’ll be taking any bookings any time soon, but I think we’ll get there. We just need to find a drummer.”

“I know a guy who plays,” Dave said, “Phil Brown. He’s supposed to be quite good.”

“Can you talk to him?” Cal asked, “See if he’s interested.”

“Yes,” Dave replied, “I’ll probably see him tomorrow.”

“That’s great, thanks Dave,” she said.

She took out the rest of the music from her bag and gave each of us a copy.

“It would be nice if you all knew the basics of these for next week, but I understand you may have other things to do. Especially you David, I know you’re pretty busy,” Cal said as she handed them out.

“I’ll do what I can,” I said, “I’ll be here next weekend, but we may be shifting up to the Lake District to start filming the following weekend. I’ll just have to come along and help out where I can.”

“Thank you David, I really appreciate it,” she said, laying her left hand on my forearm and leaning forward and kissing me on the cheek.

I looked down at her face and saw hope in her eyes. I sighed.

“I’ll help out all I can, you know that,” I said, “with everything.”

“What’s with those two?” I heard Dave as Brian.

“She used to be his girlfriend,” Brian told him.

“Used to be?”

“Yes, he went off to Hollywood in the summer, and she went to a music summer school in Munich. Something happened while she was there, and now they’re not together. He’s going out with Kathy Kearford now,” Brian explained.

“Mike Kearford’s sister?”

“Yes.”

“And what about her?” Dave asked, indicating Cal.

“Nothing, she’s single.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“You’re not thinking of trying for the job are you?” Brian asked.

“Well, she’s kind of nice looking, and bright, if she’s unattached I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” Dave concluded.

“Good luck with that mate,” Brian wished him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well for a start she’s a year older than you, and secondly, there’s only one lad she has any interest in, and she’s stood over there talking to him.”

“But I thought that they,” Dave began.

“They’ve been together since they were something like five. Something happened this summer, and it’s got the rumour mill at school working overtime, but the only people that know what are stood there. And, I think a couple of their closest friends.”

I smiled as I heard Brian say that and made a mental note to thank him later.

“That was an interesting conversation,” I said quietly to Cal, “I’d say he was going to make a try for you.”

“It’s a free country,” she replied, “he can try. He won’t succeed, but he can try.”

She smiled at me and walked away.

Not for the first time I watched her retreating back and wondered how I could get past the cheating and really forgive her.

I knew the obvious answer, that was to just do it, but it wasn’t that simple. And when I was being honest about it, the idea of bringing up someone else’s baby didn’t appeal too much to my masculine ego.