Page 190 of Playing By Ear

Martin woke up hating dogs for the first time in his life, so Layla’s bed was moved out to the corridor, where she slept with her muzzle pressed against the gap beneath the closed door, inhaling her best friend’s scent. The sight broke Jamie’s heart more than his father’s impending death ever could.

Late that night, Martin woke in a panic, calling out for Layla, with no recollection of banishing her. So the dog bed was merged with his again, for good.

Thursday, 12 May

Now that his father was “actively dying,” Jamie’s daily routine drastically simplified. He no longer needed to wake Martin to administer medications or keep track of which should be taken on a full or empty stomach. All the drugs keeping him comfortable were now in liquid form to squirt under his tongue.

“It reminds me of that carnival game,” he told Belinda that night as they sat with Perry and Lucy watching the Eurovision Song Contest’s second semifinal. “The one where you win a prize by shooting water into a clown’s mouth?”

She laughed as she elbowed him. “Don’t ever share that observation with Dad.”

“Maybe I’ll put it in a song. ‘The Clown Mouth Blues.’” He gestured to the TV, where another cookie-cutter pop tune was ringing out. “Gotta be better than this crap.”

“I love this one!” Lucy cried out from her spot on the carpet nearest the telly, then went back to singing the chorus in Bulgarian.

“Gonnae be up there one day yourself?” Jamie asked her.

Lucy nodded emphatically without taking her eyes off the screen.

“Too bad Dad won’t be around to pull strings with the BBC to get her in,” Belinda said.

“But you will,” Jamie said.

She glanced toward the stairs, barely visible through the living room doorway. Stuart was up with their father this evening so the siblings could watch Eurovision together—swooning, mocking, and arguing—just like old times.

“I’ll be around,” Belinda said in a low voice, raising crossed fingers, “but I’ll no longer be in the string-pulling business.”

He nudged her and whispered, “Does Stuart still not know about you taking the firm legit?”

She shook her head and pointed to the screen, where the next act was coming on. “Denmark’ll make the final for certain.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, this song is total jury bait.”

“No, I mean are you sure Dad and Stuart don’t know?”

“Abso-tively posi-lutely.” She pointed her chin at Perry, who sat on Jamie’s other side, eyes closed and headphones on, listening to an unofficial Eurovision live audio description. “Does he know about Operation Respectability?”

“It was one of the first things I telt him after coming out as a MacKray.”

She frowned. “Then he knows it’s a secret, right?”

“Obviously.” Jamie reached for another Empire biscuit from the box Rita had brought from her bakery. He held his breath as he took a bite, to avoid inhaling the lingering scent of latex gloves on his hands.

He had told Perry at the start that Operation Respectability was a secret, right? That day was a blur in Jamie’s memory, between the ankle injury, confession, recounting of Ritchie’s murder, dinner party, and Evan’s report.

Ukraine was next, and right from the off, Jamie understood what all the hype was about. Jamala’s “1944” was a goosebump-inducing song about Stalin’s ethnic cleansing of Crimean Tatars, the sort of song that made Eurovision worth watching,

Jamie would remind Perry later about Belinda’s secret. If she did go legit, maybe they could all remain together as a family. If not, then Jamie couldn’t stay.

Even if it tore his heart in two.

Friday, 13 May

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m trying to make up for that lost decade,” Jamie told Perry as they sat eating sandwiches at the terrace table outside, “even though in my head I know leaving was the right thing to do.”

“If you’d not left,” Perry said, “you may never have grown into the sort of person who could care for him like this.”