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‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘Turns out it’s karaoke night. Why don’t we give it a go?’
Gabby stared at him. ‘Uh-uh. No way.’
‘Why not?’
She waited as he ordered their drinks and accepted her gin and tonic with perfunctory thanks as they found a tiny unoccupied table. ‘Well, for a start, I can’t sing.’
‘Yes, you can. I heard you in the shower this morning and you sounded fine.’
‘That is completely different. I will not stand up there and make an idiot of myself.’
‘So there isn’t even a tiny bit of you that wants to do it?’
‘There is a tiny bit of me that wishes I was the sort of person who wants to do it, but I’m not. End of.’
‘We could do it together.’
‘Is this why you brought me here?’
‘Yes. I even brought this to help you.’ He showed her the herbal anxiety remedy he’d picked up on their way out. ‘Obviously you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. But I think you do. Maybe years ago you didn’t just suppress grief and anger... Maybe you supressed a bit of the real you, as well.’
Her forehead creased in a frown. ‘And maybe that bit is so buried it can’t be retrieved. Because I really can’t do this.’
‘What’s holding you back?’
‘Fear of making a fool of myself—fear of being watched, noticed, the centre of attention.’
‘But if you do it—face that fear—you’ll feel good.’
‘Possibly...’ The admission was quiet and wrenched out of her.
‘Then let’s do it. After all it’s only five minutes of your life. In five minutes it will be over and we can leave the pub, never to return.’
‘OK. Sign me up.’
The words were blurted out, and she looked as if she regretted them instantly, but he was out of his seat before she could recant.
They waited, and listened to the two people before them. He watched as she tw
isted her hands together, ran her finger through a splash of water on the table to make a pattern, picked her drink up and put it back down again untouched...
‘This is nuts. Why can those people just stand up and sing and I can’t?’
‘You can.’ He stood up. ‘Come on. We’re up next.’
It was only as he ascended the stage that it occurred to him that he hadn’t thought this through. He was going to have to read lyrics on a flickering screen from the stage, which in essence made this on a par with public speaking. It also meant it would be harder for him to help Gabby. A co-singer who couldn’t read was hardly ideal.
He muttered a curse under his breath.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
Gabby looked white-faced with anxiety as it was, and he reached out for her hand, tried not to wince as she squeezed it. Somehow he’d have to wing it—hope he knew enough of the lyrics to manage.
The music started and Zander gave himself up to the whole experience—after all this wasn’t public speaking. It didn’t matter if he tanked. But the words on the flickering screen were hard to decipher, and eventually he resorted to la-la-la in place of the words.
Gabby had remained silent, but as she realised his predicament she turned, glanced at him, squeezed his hand even tighter, then turned back towards the audience and began to sing. Softly at first, almost as if she were trying to prompt him, and then her volume increased—and then her foot started to tap to the rhythm and she began to belt it out!
