Delivered by Sylvia Hehir

Author:Sylvia Hehir [Hehir, Sylvia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913510138
Publisher: Garmoran Publishing

Ten

I hurried along Great Western Road and got to Kelvinbridge as Alec was coming up the escalator from the subway. He had a large rectangular holdall on his back.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Long story. I’ve had to borrow a keyboard off Nigel.’

‘How?’

‘Gavin stuck a knife in his left palm this morning cutting bread for toast. It’s not too deep. He didn’t need stitches.’ Alec was panting between each sentence as we hurried along the road. ‘But he can’t play tonight.’

‘Shit. Is there anybody else?’

‘No. Pecker phoned around. I’ll have to do what I can on the keyboard.’

‘Oh, good idea. Gavin will be pissed off though.’

‘You can say that again. Something is bugging him. It was carelessness with the knife. And he’d been slagging people off all morning anyway.’ I didn’t ask whether my name had been mentioned in the general slagging off.

I leaned on the bell when we got to Gavin’s. Craig let us in but didn’t say anything. He turned on the spot and we followed him down to the flat.

Gavin was sitting on the sofa, his left hand bandaged and his arm in a foam sling against his chest. I was about to say something to Gavin but I could see that Pecker was in a foul mood. His cheeks were bright pink and his hair stood up on end from where he kept clutching it with his hands.

‘As if last night wasn’t bad enough, now we’ve got this,’ he said waving an arm in Gavin’s direction. ‘We need to get this gig flawless. A lot of the future dates are dependent on how you do tonight.’

It was bad enough Pecker shouting at us like we were kids, but then Craig put up his hand, asking permission to speak.

‘What?’ Pecker yelled at Craig.

‘I think it would be a good idea to order some pizzas in now. Then we can get on with—’

Pecker’s cheeks went deeper red and I thought he was about to burst a blood vessel but he pulled himself together. ‘Fine. Do it. Do it now. But you don’t get to eat them until this set is perfect.’

‘Absolutely. Understood,’ Craig said, tapping his phone.

As if in reply, Pecker’s own phone started ringing. ‘What?’ He shouted into it. Then, ‘Do I have to do everything myself?’ he went on, berating the person on the other end.

There was a collective sigh as Pecker barged his way out of the overheated room, but the atmosphere was still tense.

We started the set from the top. My fingers were like lumps of meat on the fingerboard, I could hear the bum notes as I slid around trying to get my tuning. I glanced around – nobody was paying attention to me – and from what I could hear, the others were having their own problems with getting notes right.

Steve cracked the first: ‘Fucksake. This is a simple tune. I’ve heard better at primary schools.’

Gavin took a deep breath from his place on the sofa. I suppose it was doubly bad for him with us having to rehearse in his flat, especially when the mess up was partly his fault.

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