Only The Piano Player

Chapter 2

Copyright 2004, Mike Whitaker. All rights reserved.

I really thought persuading Dave was going to be harder than it eventually turned out to be. He tends to be kind of protective of things he sees as part of 'his' life, and I was expecting to have to use everything at my disposal, from the whiny, pleading baby sister approach to threatening him with another round of Mum nagging him to find a place of his own, but in the end he just shrugged and said "Sure. Could use another pair of hands."

He wasn't kidding. Saturday evening came, we left Shawn to cash up at the shop and headed round to the City Lounge in Dave's beat-up Cavalier, pulling into the last space in the cramped parking area round the back, next to an equally beat-up red Transit decorated with patches of rust-coloured primer. As we arrived, Matt and Darren were unloading a couple of speakers from the back of it, and the former gave me a cheerful grin. "Plenty of stuff to shift. And it's a pig of a get-in." I found out what he meant when, a rack of sound equipment in my arms, I got inside the back door to be faced by a steep staircase leading up to the venue proper, and a guy of about Dave's age, wiry, with short dark hair, coming down it two steps at a time.

"Hi. You gotta be Dave's kid sister."

I blinked, waiting for him to clear the stairs, and shifted the case to be a little more comfortable. "Yeah. Uh... how'd you know?"

"He said you might be coming. And you look like you're related to him. I'm Kev, by the way." He had an infectious, devil-may-care grin, and it was hard not to like him.

"I'm Ali. Hi." We squeezed past each other in the narrow lobby, and I wrestled the rack upstairs, emerging into the main room slightly out of breath, and dumping it with the rest of the gear that had already been brought up. I took a moment to take stock. Most of the activity seemed to be centred on the stage: it was littered with drum cases, and a tall (a head taller than Matthew) and somewhat older guy with an unruly mop of fairish hair was assembling the kit. I made the reasonable assumption this was Paul, returned his cheerful wave, and turned to head downstairs for another load.

"Hi!" It was Melissa, one of Darren's guitar cases in each hand, and it was kind of nice to note that she seemed genuinely pleased to see me. "Guess you liked the demo, then?"

"God, yes." I was in danger of starting to babble again, and I willed myself not to. "It... was great. Loved 'Winter Rose'."

She smiled warmly. "Good. We're kind of proud of it." A pause, and she looked around. "Everyone's here, I think. You been introduced?"

I relaxed - she did actually make that very easy - and smiled back. "Yeah. I pretty much figured out who everyone is, anyway." Any further conversation was forestalled by a yell from downstairs - Dave wanted a hand with the mixing desk. "Uhoh. See you later." I grinned at her, and headed on down.

Of all the Secret Muse gigs I've been a part of, this, the first, and one other stick in my memory the most. Like I said, Darren and Melissa alone were good, the band as a whole on the demo were better, but... On stage, they were just incredible. Paul was rock-solid at the back, ranging from subtle, delicate cymbal and brush work to carrying the band along with power and drive. Kev was definitely not the typical bassist standing off to one side and hardly moving. He rarely if ever, was still, except when he had to sing backing vocals, and his basslines were intricate, sometimes off the wall, but always perfectly suited to the songs. By contrast, Darren didn't move about much on stage, tied to the collection of effect pedals by his mike stand, a picture of intense concentration more often than not, wringing sounds from three different guitars through the course of the set.

Being a piano player, I chose a spot near Matthew to watch him, and while I did try and do that, I found myself drawn, spellbound, to watch Melissa, and I was by no means the only one. She owned that stage, from that first soaring vocal entrance in 'Close To The Brink', right the way through to the final chorus of 'Be Yourself', the last of three encores. 'Winter Rose' started off like the demo, one of the rare chances I got to watch Matthew's fingers as he played, but as it built became rawer, much more so, a poignant cry for help that turned into a scream, before fading away into a whispered plea. She found and held my gaze for those last repeated lines, and for a moment I was caught up in it, finding myself blinking back tears as the final phrase from Matt's keyboard faded into silence, before the spell was broken.

I was coiling cables afterwards for Dave (I'm one of the few people he trusts to do this the way he likes, but then he did make a point of teaching me when I first showed an interest in the things he did for a hobby) when Paul came over and introduced himself properly, and thanked me for helping out. I took an instant liking to him: soft-spoken, very laid back, warm and friendly. Which was more than could be said for their manager. Liam Fawcett was in his late thirties, and according to Dave had nearly made it with a local band about a decade ago - they'd had an album in the charts, and been idolised in the music press for a year or two, before fading into obscurity. This made him something of a name in the local music scene, and to be fair, he did have a lot of useful contacts, but... Something about him made me uncomfortable. Largely, I think, the fact that he had a habit of straying well inside your personal space. He was talking to, or perhaps at, me about the local music scene and his part in it, and I was nodding distractedly while fastening a cable tie round another of the PA leads. Then I noticed, behind him, Darren and Melissa engaged in something of a heated debate on stage as the former packed away his effects pedals. As I watched, Melissa turned, evidently angry, hair swirling about her shoulders, and stalked off stage, before she glanced up and caught me looking at her.

I looked away, a little embarassed that I'd been privy to their argument, and back at Liam, mumbling some vague agreement to what he said. Next minute, she'd inserted herself between the two of us, and was glaring up at him. "Quit hitting on her, Liam. She's working, and she's not available."

I blinked, surprised. "He..."

She didn't let me finish. "Yes he was."

Liam shrugged, grinned unrepentantly at Melissa, and then at me. "I can take a hint. See you around."

"Yeah." I stared after him for a moment, then turned back to Melissa, who was studying me. "I... hadn't noticed."

"Oh." Her expression softened a little, and she reached out and touched my arm. "He'll try it on with anything attractive and female. You qualify. Even if you don't think you do."

"I do?" I covered my embarassment by bending to retrieve the last of the microphone cables, shaking a couple of the kinks out of it and starting to coil it carefully.

She wrapped arms round herself, contenting herself with just a nod as she watched me. I fastened the velcro tie round the coiled lead, dropped it in the bag with its brethren, and knelt to fasten the zip. Taking the opportunity to study her discreetly while I did, I noticed she was tense, one foot tapping soundlessly, shoulders slightly hunched, worrying at her bottom lip.

Deep breath. "Are... are you ok?" She started a little, looked down at me, and I swallowed, pressed on. "Only.. I saw you and Darren arguing, and ... uh..."

She looked away again. "It's ok. Really."

Now, I might have been naive about Liam Fawcett in particular, and maybe being hit on in general, but I can tell when someone is being evasive. This time, though, I let the silence do the talking, watching her while I folded a mike stand. Her mike stand.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she licked her lips, dark eyes flicking up to me then down again. "We argue a lot. He... he frustrates me so much sometimes. He's such a perfectionist. Even tonight... I mean.. God. We got three encores. They loved us. And he's still not satisfied."

What do you say? I sure as hell didn't know. "Uh... I thought you were brilliant. All of you."

Or maybe I did. From the warm smile I got, I could tell she'd needed someone to say exactly that. "Thanks." It was heartfelt, and I could see some of the tension in her posture ebb away. "It.." A shrug. "It's ok. Really." This time I was more convinced. "It... it's just that he can really bring me down after a great gig." Those dark eyes lifted to me again. "You ever played with a band?"

I shook my head. "No. Jammed with my brother a couple of times, but..."

Perhaps I sounded wistful, because she slipped an arm round my waist and gave me an impulsive squeeze. "You will. I'm sure. And you'll understand."

Matthew's voice behind me made me jump. "Hiya. Enjoy it, Ali?"

"It was terrific. Loved it."

He smiled. "Good. I hate to break up your chat, but Kev wants to get the van loaded. Can you give me a hand down those bloody stairs with the synth? It needs to go in first." Melissa gave me another, almost grateful, smile, as Matthew and I went to shift the 88-key monster's big flightcase.

As we were negotiating the unwieldy keyboard round the bend in the stairs, I voiced something that had bugging me a touch. "Trish? Your girlfriend. She wasn't here?"

He shook his head. "Not really into the music. She doesn't come to all our gigs. Did our CD cover, though."

"Oh." I found that hard to understand, but... I guess if you're not a musician, it's different. "That's a shame."

He just smiled, a little sadly, and nodded.

The next three weeks passed in a whirl. Secret Muse gigged every weekend, often twice, and with Rich, their regular sound engineer, being away with his band in the States, Dave filled in for every gig. With help from me, of course. I knew I'd been accepted as part of the crew when Kev's post-gig round of drinks got extended to include a Glenlivet for me. Blame my big brother: he introduced me to decent whisky on my eighteenth birthday.

I got to know a little bit more about the personalities in the band over that time: Kev was a practical joker, full of laughter, pranks, and general madcap behaviour, daft things like giving Dave and me two ends of a string of four microphone cables plugged together to coil at opposite ends of the stage. I wouldn't have minded so much, but he got us with that one twice on consecutive nights! I'd promised myself payback sometime.

The butt of many of his jokes was Paul, who clearly didn't mind at all. Over the course of those gigs, I don't think I saw him get cross once, not even when Kev's tomfoolery knocked a cymbal stand over during setup. He just blinked, shrugged, and set it upright again, checking the cymbal for damage. Easy-going he may have been, but he was also the band's peacemaker, stepping in a couple of times when Darren and Melissa managed to draw Kev and Matthew into a heated argument during soundcheck. I watched, dismayed, the first time this happened, till Dave leaned over and murmured in my ear. "Don't worry about it. They're always like this - have been as long as I've known them." I can't say that totally reassured me, but I guess it did stop me worrying that the band was going to tear itself apart just after I'd got to know them.

Trish made it to a couple of the gigs, and we'd talked a little - nothing much, just idle nattering about pretty near anything but the band. I got the impression she wasn't hugely keen on Melissa - whether she saw her as a threat or something I wasn't clear - but she wasn't out to make a big thing about it. We got on OK, I guess.

At the end of those three weeks, the band were playing the Coach and Horses, the other big local live venue. It is (still) a great place to play for up and coming bands - regular gigs three nights a week, a stage, lights, its own sound system, and, wonder of wonders, it actually had a dressing room for the band. Even Trish turned up, and, not having to lend Dave a hand to set up the PA, I left him talking to the venue's sound guy, and helped Matt assemble his keyboards rig. We talked shop, mostly: I was growing to like him, and he was definitely not protective of his knowledge and talent, even showing me the piano intro to 'Winter Rose'. I glanced up at one point and saw Melissa watching with a smile.

Liam arrived just before the soundcheck, and leant by us at the sound desk to listen, thankfully out of my space. Afterwards, I went up on stage to tape down some cables that had been missed, and he came up to chat with the band. I wasn't listening, until Kev jumped up and punched the air with a whoop of delight, which was hard not to notice, since he narrowly missed treading on my fingers when he landed. At which point I stopped, unused strip of gaffer tape in hand, to listen in.

"..in five weeks time, " Liam was saying. "That's Saturday the twenty-fourth, at the Full Moon in Camden. Proper showcase gig. I've got three A&R people turning up so far, maybe more. So.. knock 'em dead." For once, Darren didn't have anything negative to say, just smiled. Even Trish looked pleased. I flashed Melissa a broad grin and a wink, used the stray strip of tape to gaffer the dangling lace of Kev's Reebok to the floor and stood up. She turned away, hand across her mouth to stifle laughter.

It was perfect. Liam headed off stage with a couple of words of encouragement, Kev made to follow him and just had enough time to realise something wasn't right before his balance deserted him, and he landed in a heap on his face at Paul's feet...

And lay there, motionless.

The laughter died after a few seconds: my hand went to my mouth in horror. Brilliant, Ali, just brilliant. Knock the bass player out cold twenty minutes before the band go on stage, why don't you? I swallowed, took slightly shaky steps across to him, and crouched. "Kev?"

Silence. I was uncomfortably aware of everyone watching.

"Oh God. Kev?" I reached out a tentative hand...

...to find my wrist grabbed, and Kev grinning up at me. "Gotcha." I wondered if the stage was fitted with a pantomime trapdoor that someone would kindly open and swallow me up.

Paul leaned over and patted my shoulder, consolingly. "We've all tried. No-one's ever managed to get the better of him."

It was an odd gig. Almost as if the band's minds were on the showcase in a month's time, not on the present. Even 'Winter Rose' wasn't up to the standard I'd grown to anticipate - Matt in particular seemed a little out of sorts, flufflng the intro he'd shown me earlier. The crowd didn't seem to mind, though, which gave credence to one of Paul's theories., that ninety-five percent of the audience won't notice ninety-five percent of your mistakes. They went off stage after 'Touch', the last song in the main set, to enthusiastic applause and yells for an encore. Yells and applause that dragged on for several minutes, then started to die into a few catcalls and whistles. From my position by Matt's keyboards, I could see Paul peering anxiously out of the wings, as Liam worked his way through the crowd.

"What's going on?" he asked, irritably.

"I don't know." I indicated Paul, who was beckoning furiously to him. Liam vaulted up onto the stage, had a brief conversation with him, in which I caught Matt's name, and then both of them came back onstage.

Liam stepped up to the mic, waved for it to be turned on. "We're really sorry, folks. But we have a technical problem backstage, so that's it for tonight. Again, we're really sorry."

Paul, meanwhile, had reached my side of the stage, and leaned down to me, looking pale and shaken. Amid the grumblings as the audience started to file out, he asked, "Where's Trish? Need her backstage, now."

"I.." Trish? Why? "I dunno. She's usually at the bar. I'll go find her." Mind racing, I pushed my way through the crowd, not averse to using an elbow or two or treading on someone's toes to make headway. Thank God. There she was, can of Pepsi in hand, talking to someone I didn't know at the bar. "Trish?" Something in my face must have alerted her to it being serious. "They want you backstage." She left her drink on the bar, and followed me back to the stage. Paul helped her up on stage, and they and Liam disappeared into the wings.

At a loss for what to do, I clambered up after her, and started slowly disconnecting microphones.

I was knelt on the floor, unplugging the keyboards from their power strip, when Melissa's voice from behind me said "Ali?" in a curiously choked tone. As I stood and turned, she rubbed a hand across tear-streaked cheeks and sniffed.

"Melissa? What...?" I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, and somehow, I knew what her next words were going to be.

"Matt's dead."