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Taylor was singing a response to Jamie, had to be, they had to be together. She put her whole self into each phrase, each note, and extended them to Jamie in acknowledgement, in love. They’d waited a long time to find each other and yet they’d been side by side the whole time, never seeing the other clearly, never hearing them.
How did that happen? How did your senses let you get so twisted up and wrong-headed; lead you to be stupid when you should be cautious, still when you should move, passive when you should fight?
Avoid when you should risk.
Taylor and Jamie were taking a risk. Damon had come to fight for her and she’d sent him away.
She needed to get out of here. The song was over, Angus was on the mic, telling a joke, making people laugh, thanking them for coming. Georgia eased out of her corner and threaded her way towards the door. Angus introduced the band. He started with the ring-ins, old friends from uni. Then he threw his arm around Jamie and the room cheered. Sam belted out an unaccompanied solo on his kit and Taylor took a bow.
She’d made it halfway to the door.
“Most of you are regulars so you’ll know Damon, AKA The Voice, Dystopian Conflict’s Captain Vox.” She stopped dead and a man behind her grunted, and physically moved her to the left so he could pass by. She turned to scowl at him and had a clear view of the stage.
Angus said, “You won’t know he’s recovering from throat cancer.” A wave of murmurs rippled through the room, welding Georgia to the spot. “Tonight is his first time back on stage, first time singing again after two lots of surgery and extensive therapy. He’s promised me one song only. Please be generous in welcoming our very dear and dangerous friend, Damon Donovan.”
Applause, whistles, shouts. She watched as Taylor led Damon into the light and he took the mic. Angus crushed him in a hug. Sam kicked up the drumbeat. The piano followed. Train’s Drops of Jupiter. Damon lifted the mic.
She started pushing. She needed out, out. This was a song about discovery and letting go, about hope and loneliness. There were too many people between her and the door.
He said, “This one is for Georgia.” And there was no way out. She was trapped between her heartbeat and her horror. She spun back towards the stage. She couldn’t see him. But she heard him, oh, she heard him. That first stanza of song, his voice achy, reedy. His uncertainty broadcast to the whole room. Then the second, firming up, registering louder, more secure, but still cloudy. She moved against shoulders and backs, around tables. The other instruments filled in, the atmosphere swelling with the sound of strings.
He sang the chorus and his hesitancy disappeared, his voice low but steadying. Her breath seized. Her indecision died. He’d said words like these lyrics in her ear and he’d said them with love, when he knew he was going to send her away, to save her from the worst of him.
It was wrong, dumb, hurtful, selfish.
It was love.
She had to see him, touch him, know him again. She’d find a way to fix it so he learned to trust her always, ask her always to stand with him. And she’d learn to risk, to speak up, to trust him back.
Now she moved towards the stage, but people who’d had tables were standing. She had to weave in and out to keep her eyes on Damon, to see him light up the room. He had his arm flung wide. His head tossed back. There was a line in the song where the music dropped out to let the voice dominate. She held still and the scratchy rawness of his vocals might have turned her into crystal, they shivered up her spine and through her brain.
She would never make it to him, never get to stand in front of him, reach for the back of his hand, let him know she could hear him calling to her. She started pushing.
On stage, Angus backed up against Damon, bass slung low, and they leaned hard against each other. Damon sang a line about best friends sticking up for each other. There wasn’t much of the song left and he’d be finished, leave the stage. She was nowhere near the front of the room and she’d left a trail of elbowed ribs and stepped on toes.
Arms from behind, but not to shove her aside, to hug. “Georgia!” Heather with tears in her eyes. They held on to each other as the crowd picked up the final bridge and sang along, as Damon delivered the last lines and dropped his head in acknowledgment of the applause.
He took his glasses off and swept the audience with a roving glance that knocked the breath out of her. She was incapable of letting him go. She loved him and she would not let either of them make that into a disability.
37: And Beyond
That was harder than he’d thought it might be. And then easier, easier than he had the right to hope it could be. A shaky start, unexpected nerves, a dry mouth, a cough he didn’t need anymore. But the music, the piano, the strings, a rare satisfaction. He couldn’t not open up and let go, test the glue on his wings, and with that song, a prayer that as he let Georgia go she’d find her own way safely. There was a kind of closure in that. A beginning too.
If he could grab hold of it.
He sat on the old couch in the green room and collected himself. A few minutes here with Mel and then he’d go rejoin the world: sit at the bar, listen to the guys, talk to some folk. Maybe fake reluctance if they tried to get him to sing again.
He sipped a hot lemon and honey drink, Heather to thank for it, and tried to make out the song playing. Something pop, sweet. That English dude, Olly Murs, Dear Darling. That wasn’t on the set list and who was singing? He got up and opened the door and Holy Mother of, that was a car crash. He’d heard more musical cat fights. Jesus. He moved out into the bar area, keeping the wall behind him. Angus had mentioned doing requests but not crap karaoke.
A hand to the back of his. Taylor hanging off his shoulder. “Are you hearing this?”
“My ears are bleeding.”
“No, listen, really listen.”
“The band sounds great, you should keep the piano.”
Taylor smashed her head against his arm. He listened.
