Wasted by Nicola Morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

hand, and then plays an impressive series of chords on his bass guitar. Jack helps her get her mic at the right level and asks if she is OK. She nods, unable to speak. He picks up his guitar. He wears a thick, red sweat band round his forehead, holding his hair off his face. Jess takes in his prominent cheekbones, his angular boniness and firm chin.
    They start with the songs Jess and Jack practised the night before. Jess quickly comes to love the sensation of the others around her, all working together without edge. She relaxes into the feeling of singing with a band, and it is as though she has done it before. It is better than being in her bedroom on her own, pretending, or in the school music department singing over a backing track. This is so real it is almost touchable.
    She tunes into their wavelength easily. Nearly two hours pass; the songs become familiar. She adds her own flavour to them. Sometimes they argue a little about details. All of them are serious musicians; there is no weak link, no difficult ego.
    â€œWhat about your song?” asks Ella, at one point.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œJack said when he first heard you, you were singing something and you said it was your own.”
    â€œThe Colour of Loss”. She is not ready. She does not have her guitar.
    Rubbish, they say. She can use Jack’s. He hands it over. Chris and Ella sit on the ground. Jack steps back into the shadows. She has no choice. She fiddles with the tuning pegs a little. It does not, in fact, need tuning but she is playing for time. Tries out a few chords, shifts into a comfortable position, foot on a stool, leaning over the guitar. Tucks a strand of long hair behind her ear. Closes her eyes and takes herself away and into the song.
    At one point, she forgets the words, hesitates, stumbles, but no one moves. The song continues. Although she wrote the lyrics, “loss” is not something she often thinks about. The only things she believes she has lost are her father and a hamster that died when she was five years old, but neither of these losses has seemed to hurt her deeply. Not in any damaging way. There are no scars that she can see. But everyone can imagine loss and grief, and her song taps into that. She is not thinking about the meaning while she sings, only the colour of it, the pearliest blue.
For grief can be beautiful
, she thinks.
It is not always dark
.
    â€œI didn’t mean to lose you,
I’d have done it on a different day,
If I had known
If I had known another way
I’d have breathed a longer breath
Walked a twisted path
Danced a slower beat
Laughed a softer laugh
If I had known
We had no other day.
And then again I’d say
I only need a sadder song
And you’d be gone.
For there is no other way.”
    *  *  *
    The words on their own, written down, are nothing much. But when the music fills them and her voice gives them life they become stronger than all those things. When she finishes, there is silence. And then sounds of admiration. She smiles, blushes.
    â€œYou have to play that,” says Tommy. “Doesn’t she, Jack? At the next gig. On her own?” There is a murmur of agreement.
    Jack is still in the shadows. He is bending down to pick something up. There is a long moment when he says nothing. Then, “Definitely. Let’s take a break, shall we? Anyone want tea or anything?” And he leaves the garage with their requests.
    Outside, Jack stops. He takes some deep breaths. Jess’s song has corkscrewed its way inside of him. He had not properly heard the lyrics before, being struck only by her voice, and now the words have churned something deep in him but he cannot quite say what.
    Jack goes into the house. He is on his way to the kitchen but in the hall he stops. Sunlight is shafting through a circular window halfway up the stairs and dust swirls in its beam. For a few measureless moments, he does not feel his body. He is outside, watching himself