Rattled by Ellis Gunn

Author:Ellis Gunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2022-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Getting married

I’m twenty-two and I have a job as a youth worker in a community centre in Wester Hailes, a housing scheme in Edinburgh. One of my colleagues, Graham, is a drummer in a band. He mentions they have a gig in one of the pubs in the Cowgate and asks if I want to go along.

The pub is a bit of a dive, the sort of place where your feet stick to the floor from all the spilt beer and you can smell the men’s loos if you stand at the wrong end of the bar. But there’s a big room through the back where bands play, sometimes really good bands. Once, by accident, I saw The Clash there. They were huge at the time, but for some reason they’d decided to travel by foot around Britain, busking in the streets and playing the occasional impromptu, unadvertised gig in a bar. I just happened to be there at the right time.

Graham’s band isn’t The Clash, but they’re good. The lead singer looks (and sings) like Ian McCulloch from Echo and the Bunnymen, leaning into the mic, eyes closed, intense and moody. The bass guitarist turns out to be a girl I went to school with. Her fluid basslines hold the music perfectly, but for the entire performance she sits on a stool facing the back of the stage so all the audience see is her long blonde hair and the dark hunch of her shoulders. I think this is insanely cool. It’s not about how I look, she seems to be saying, it’s about the music. Just listen.

The lead guitarist is the one who captures most of my attention. Like the lead singer, he seems intensely serious, completely absorbed in the music. He looks down at his guitar, his blond curls flopping forward into his face, lips pouting in concentration, long fingers rippling across the strings. Mostly it’s his eyes. Sharp blue with dark lashes. He looks up from his guitar only once, and when he does his eyes look straight into mine.

After the gig I help the band pack up and then we sit down for a drink. The guitarist (whose name is Alex) sits across the table from me, speaking to the bass player (Shona). I feel self-consciously uncool, my clothes not understated enough, my hair too frizz-ended and indefinite. I’m not surprised that neither Alex nor Shona seem to notice me. I think of saying to Shona, Hey, didn’t we go to the same school? but I don’t have the nerve to speak to either of them. They seem to come from a different world, one where nobody talks about school or breakfast or work or anything mundane. They’re so deep in conversation that I start thinking they must be together, but when I get chatting to Graham about the gig, he mentions that Shona is in a relationship with the lead singer, Ewan, who has been absent since the gig finished. Alex is single! Quick fizz of excitement.

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