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it was not even worth pretending that the bike was fast, so he settled for a safe ride through the woods and out to the main road, turning right and heading toward the village of Tall Stennington.

  An occasional smudge of snow still lay like roadkill on the verge, grubby and sad now that the rest had vanished. It was cold, the sky was clear, there was no breeze, Nikki felt her cheeks freezing and her eyes watering, and she loved every minute of it. Leaving the house and the woods behind, seeing the first buildings ahead-Bar None and the village garage-gave her a thrilling sense of freedom, as if she was leaving responsibility behind as well.

  Jazz tried to squeeze some more power from the bike. They screamed over a little stone bridge and into the village square, past the few shops and fewer shoppers, past the monument to the town’s war dead, the old church and the youth center. Then they exited the village only a minute after entering it. Fields opened up on either side, heavy hedgerows flashing by, Nikki glanced back over her shoulder. She wanted to stay there. She wanted to sit in Magenta’s, the village cafe, drink coffee for a couple of hours, smoke some cigarettes and chat to Jazz about the painful few days they’d had away. Maybe she’d even tell him some more about Brand, her idea that the big man had been trying to pull her from the car, hug her out into the snow with him, instead of climb into warmth and safety.

  “There they are!” Jazz shouted. Nikki turned forward again and they bashed helmets. The bike

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  swerve and wobbled, Jazz revved down and braked, and for a terrible few seconds Nikki knew that they were going to crash. But somehow Jazz pulled them around into a skid instead, locking the front wheel and turning them a full one-eighty, spraying Jesse and Mandy with grit from the side of the road.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  “Sorry,” Nikki said.

  “Hey, cool spin!” Jesse ran to the bike and clapped Jazz on the shoulder.

  “Looked more like an almost fatal accident to me,” Mandy said. She was leaning picturesquely against The Hall.

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t dream of giving you the satisfaction.” Jazz kicked down the stand and he and Nikki dismounted.

  Nikki was shaking slightly, from the cold and the fear and the pleasant thrill she felt at having her friends around her once more. She was more keen than ever to pick up her bass and start strumming. It would end in shouting and arguments-every jamming session did-but that was just the way things went. Besides, as Jazz always told them, any good band worth their salt fell out all the time. Just look at Oasis.

  “Hi Mandy, Jesse.”

  “Nikki. You look scared shitless.” Mandy was puffing casually and in a precisely choreographed manner on her menthol cigarette. Everything Mandy did was intentional, each expression and comment analyzed and probably rehearsed in front of a mirror. The same age as Nikki, she was

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  more aware of herself as others saw her than anyone Nikki had ever met.

  “Just glad I get to climb off Jazz’s big chopper for a while.”

  Jesse sniggered, too loud and for too long. The other three all privately agreed that he was still a virgin, though he professed to having “done” Emily Walker at her brother’s wedding party the previous summer.

  “Have a good holiday?” Jesse asked. He scratched his face as he spoke, picking at a fresh slew of whiteheads.

  “Shit, thanks. I’d tell you all about it but I wouldn’t want to bore you into a coma.” Jesse nodded, still stared at her, still picked his spots. Nikki wondered whether Jazz ever noticed the looks Jesse sometimes gave her. She hoped not. They didn’t need another wrench in the band’s cogs.

  “Hey,” she said, “I hear you guys have written anew song!”

  “It’s great!” Mandy produced a folded sheet of paper from her pocket, waving it open and handing it to Nikki with a flourish.

  “You do the lyrics again, Jesse?”

  He nodded shyly.

  “What’s it about?”

  “Read it and see,” he mumbled.

  Nikki glanced at the paper. Mandy’s scrawled notes and attempts at musical arrangement promised hours of arguing and snapping back and forth this morning, but Jesse had printed his lyrics clearly enough. She scanned them, then read them through a second time, feeling a flush

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  of jealousy. Jesse could write. Angry, scared, silent, shy, introverted … maybe it was a good thing he had never been laid.

  Perversely, Nikki was pleased for Jesse that his talent made her jealous. “This is fucking great,” she said. She smiled at him.

  “It’s pretentious crap,” Jazz said.

  Mandy lit another cigarette. “I like it.”

  ” ‘Course you do, you bloody wrote-“

  “I did the lyrics,” Jesse said.

  Mandy held Nikki’s shoulder. “Your Jazz thinks we should do a cover of Creeping Death instead of the new song.”

  Your Jazz. Nikki hated that. And she hated those voices, being raised even before they’d strummed their first note of the day.

  She closed her eyes and waited until the argument had reached a crescendo before shouting: “Shut the fuck up!”

  They all looked at her, a different form of hurt on each face.

  She nodded at The Hall, saw that Mandy had borrowed her dad’s car to bring their kit, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get inside and start playing. Drown out all the strangeness of the last couple of days.

  Sweet … fine … honey …

  “Let’s do both songs,” she said. Ever the diplomat.

  The Hall should really have been named The Shed.

  The band went through the main door, past the toilets and into the hall-there really was

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  little else to the building. A rear room had once been used as a bar, but it was now boarded closed and accessed only from outside, home to a dinosaur lawnmower that Warrington used two or three times each summer to tidy up the roads leading into and out of the village. The local council carried out the bulk of the work, but never to Warrington’s satisfaction. His own gouging attempts made matters worse, but the villagers turned a blind eye. “What did he charge this time?” Nikki asked. Mandy grunted. “Bottle of Scotch.” “Hope you bought him the cheap stuff.” “Took one from my dad’s stock,” Jesse said. “He’ll never miss it.”

  Nikki smiled. Warrington was probably holed up somewhere even now, pissed to high Heaven and cursing the very youth he profited from. There was probably a lesson to be learned from that, but she wasn’t sure what.

  They set up their equipment, each of them performing familiar tasks and entering their own private world for a few minutes. Jesse unpacked his meagre drum kit, Mandy set up her microphone and the two small speakers she jokingly referred to as her PA, Jazz removed his guitar from its wooden case, polished it with his sleeve, almost cooing over its shine as he wired up for sound. Nikki looked around as she plugged in her bass guitar and monitor. She knew them all well-they were, she supposed, her best friends-but even if they’d been strangers she could have summed up their personalities from the way they touched their gear, how they moved as they

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  clicked sockets and trailed leads along the front of the old box-staging units.

  Jesse’s slow, ponderous movements and the gentleness with which he fixed each drum-quietly, so as not to attract too much attention-testified to his shyness. Nikki had always felt herself drawn to him, but more as a sibling than anything else. If she’d had a brother, she liked to think he would have turned out like Jesse. His coyness was a symptom of his inherent selflessness. Or perhaps a cause.

  Then there was Mandy, singing louder than was necessary to set the microphone volume. The opposite of Jesse, she demanded attention, and if she did not receive it naturally she forced it upon herself. I’ve fucked a sheep, she sang, I’ve fucked a goat … Then she did doh-ray-me, slipping on the final high note and bending over into a forced cough to provide an excuse, then continuing with that when she realized it was someth
ing else which would turn heads, then pouting and strutting when it did not work … And yet, Nikki really liked Mandy. They had been friends for a long time, and as they grew into their teens together Nikki began to see the taller, prettier girl for what she was: a loser wearing a winner’s medal. Mandy was quite intelligent and came from a wealthy background, but despite all her show and tell she was destined for a life of mediocrity. There was nothing really to her. Nikki knew that friendship based on pity was wrong, but then she’d remind herself that not many people understood Mandy. Maybe not even Mandy herself.

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  And then Jazz. Pompous, funny, arrogant, romantic at times. He wore his guitar slung low over his shoulder, smiled at Nikki when he played, pursed his lips as he launched into a solo, then exaggerated the pose when he saw others watching him, smiling at their smiles. Knowing, behind all the bravado, that they were actually laughing at him … and not really caring. Some people thought Jazz was thick as shither dad included-but Nikki knew the truth: his confidence was so sincere that he was simply happy to laugh at himself.

  “Let’s hit it,” she said. As usual she took on the role of band leader without anyone complaining. Even Mandy would shut up and let Nikki run things for a while, just until the arguments kicked off. But hopefully they had a while to go now before that happened. Nikki had a few days of shit to play away.

  “Fuck it,” she said, “let’s do Creeping Death to clear the cobwebs.”

  Mandy hated the song, she made no secret of that, but she loved The Rabids. They all did.

  They played badly, but sounding like they meant it.

  The Rabids went through Creeping Death three times, and each time Mandy sounded more and more pissed off. That was good. It suited the song. But after the last chord of the last run-through she stormed to the toilets, slammed the door and stayed there.

  “We ever have a gig it’ll be the shortest in history,” Jesse said.

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  “We’d better do the new song, I suppose.” Jazz was sweating, his long hair dark and knotted where he’d been swinging it around his shoulders. Nikki was constantly amazed at how it avoided his guitar strings, but she had to admit it looked pretty cool. Jazz, however, now looked freaked and dizzy. That’s why he wanted to do The Origin of Storms. Nothing to do with Mandy. He was tired.

  Jesse went to fetch their moody singer and, pleased at the attention, she deigned to come out and perform the new song. They played it five times before it even started to come together, then they took a break for a beer and a smoke. As usual, Jazz had brought some pot. As usual, Mandy snorted her derision.

  “Weed!” she hissed.

  “Resin,” Jazz said.

  “Not it. You.”

  Nikki sat back and listened, leaning into Jazz’s embrace as he made a great show of smoking. The tangy cloud built around them and she tried to pick out tempestuous shapes where it floated around the smoke alarm on the ceiling. If that went off they’d have to get a broom to smash it in. Not as if anyone would hear it from where they were now; The Hall was half a mile from anywhere. And anyway, likely as not its battery was dead.

  Brand would be tall enough to reach it. He could stand there in The Hall on tiptoes, stretch up until his fingertips just brushed the base of the dusty alarm, nudge up an extra half-inch to crack the casing. Even though the ceiling was

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  almost twelve feet high she imagined him doing it, filling The Hall with his presence and his build, casting out the tainted air because he did not want it, did not need it, to breathe and be and belong.

  He was the first thing she had thought about that morning, the last thing she would think about tonight. Jazz felt suddenly cold next to her, a distant heap of flesh she had nothing in common with. Another puff of smoke billowed into her vision she felt him slumping down some more.

  “You smoke any more and you won’t be able to play,” she said.

  ” ‘Course I will! I’ll be a speed demon, baby.”

  “We’re not playing thrash now, you know. Jesse and Mandy’s new song doesn’t need some doped out psycho …”

  He sat up and she felt the hurt as he stared at her, glassy-eyed and white-faced. He never liked to admit that the cannabis made him feel ill, sick, cold and sweaty. He thought it was too cool for that.

  “Nice to see you back from holiday, too,” he muttered. Then he stood and picked up his guitar, scratching out a few angry chords, distorting them as his own senses were distorted.

  “Fuck!” Jazz shouted. He threw the remains of his spliff at a dusty window. It hit the glass and spewed sparks in death.

  “Sorry, Jazz,” Nikki said, but he spun around and shook his head.

  “No, there was someone out there watching us,” he said. “Scary bastard. Big.”

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  Brand …

  “Great, now you’re hallucinating,” Mandy said through a nasty smile. “Was he dressed as a Mars Bar, this big scary bastard?”

  Jazz shook his head, exasperated. “Really. There’s someone watching. Just startled me a bit, that’s all.” He took a step towards the window to try to regain some sense of cool, but only one step. Whatever he’d seen really had shocked him.

  “Let’s go see,” Mandy said.

  Brand, Nikki thought. I imagined him and now he’s here, watching me through a window like he has been since we picked him up. A shiver crawled down her front and into her groin as she thought of undressing before her lit window, wondered what he’d been doing as he was watching…

  Mandy strode across the dusty floor, giving her behind a little twitch for Jesse’s and Jazz’s sake, and pushed her face up against the glass. Nikki could see her breath condensing on the panes. It was still cold, and although The Hall had an old gas heater, none of them felt brave enough to light it. They all shared a fear of seeing The Rabids become famous in flaming, gas-fuelled death.

  “Nothing out there,” Mandy said.

  Jazz had barely moved. “You sure? I saw this face looking in, can’t you see in the dust on the window? Where he was pressing his face-“

  “Oh my God!” Mandy screamed, staggering back, one foot kicking at the heel of the other and dropping her heavily onto her rump, coughing up a cloud of dust from the floor. Air

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  whooshed from her chest as she hit the boards, and her hands slapped down with a painful smack.

  “What?” Nikki shouted. What, a tall man all in black … ?

  “Arsing us about,” Jesse said.

  “What’s out there?” Jazz shouted, almost screamed. His guitar still hung comically from around his neck but both hands had gone up to his mouth in an unconscious gesture of shock and burgeoning panic. A dropped facade, once again.

  “Arsing us about,” Jesse muttered again. The sound of a snare drum being tickled added a bizarre background theme to the proceedings.

  Mandy’s shoulders began to shake with laughter as Nikki stepped forward.

  “Bitch!” Jazz hissed.

  “Told you she was arsing us about.”

  “What was the fucking point in that? I did see someone, you know…”

  “Mandy, for someone so stunningly beautiful you’re such a childish little girl,” Nikki said, and Mandy’s shaking stopped, shoulders still high, tense. Nikki could almost see the muscles knotting in the other girl’s arms and neck. “Oh shit, Mand,” she muttered, wanting to tell her sorry, forget it, but those words would just not come. Hardly ever for anyone, and especially not for Mandy. Stuck-up bitch.

  “Well I’m going outside for a look,” Jazz said. If he expected a reaction he was disappointed. Nikki glanced at him and raised her eyebrows, as if to say why bother, but he’d said it now.

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  Blustered up by Mandy’s mockery, he could not back out. He unslung his guitar, laid it gently in its box, lit a cigarette-just plain tobacco this time, Nikki noticed-and went slowly for the doors.

  “I’ll come,” Jesse said.

  “Cheers, mate.” />
  “Me too,” Nikki said. She tried to convince herself it was for Jazz, to show solidarity with him in front of Mandy. But it was more for Brand, who may be out there even now watching through another window, imagining her undressing at night, perhaps wishing he’d tugged that little bit harder when he’d tried to haul her from the car…

  So what if he was a stranger, tall and scary and antagonistic, warm when it was cold? So what if he wanted a moment of their time? As far as Nikki was concerned he’d already had that from her. And besides, she could handle herself.

  The three of them left The Hall and stood outside on the gravel, kicking at weeds, avoiding dog shit, looking around and wondering who would be the first to venture around the corner of the building.

  The Hall backed onto a field, and in between stood an explosion of a hedge, a great overgrown mass that hadn’t seen the business end of a saw or pair of shears for decades. Brambles mixed with hawthorn; nettles nudged their way past dock leaves; an old rambling rose grew thick and gnarled, rejoicing in its wildness; dead trees rotted down while others struggling heroically to push their way up to the light. Even as a kid Nikki had played in there on occasion-hide and

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  seek, or just plain hide-but now it held no nostalgia. Only a strange sense of foreboding, a fear that if she went back in-the place where she’d been a child before growing up, before discovering herself as a woman and not just a little girl-she would see or feel things she did not like.

  “I’ll go this way,” she said, heading for the corner of The Hall nearest the road. Safe that way. Besides, that was the side Jazz reckoned he’d seen the face, so in a way she was the brave one.

  “I’ll take a look around back,” Jesse said.

  Jazz shuffled from foot to foot, puffing at his cigarette, kicking an empty snail shell on the ground and crushing it slowly beneath his boot. “I’ll just wait here,” he said.