Page 46 of Before You Say Goodbye

“Find me someone else with the talent and time to fill in at short notice and I’ll do it.” Larry shrugged.

Bowie spoke up. “Marley could.”

Larry shook his head. “No.”

“Oh, come on, Larry, it was years ago,” Bowie said.

“I don’t have a choice.” Larry held his hand up.“I put him on stage, I’m finished. You both know it.”

Autumn had no idea what they were talking about, but she saw Marley clench his fists and jaw. Bowie and Larry winced at each other.

“You three!” Marley shouted at the offenders.

Bowie sighed. “Marley—”

“You’re ruining the whole fucking thing for everybody. For Larry, for the audience, for your fellow cast members, who are working their backsides off to put on a good show. Get down here and watch them, and if you don’t think you can join in like the professionals you’re supposed to be, piss off somewhere else.”

The rest of the ensemble ran through the closing number again. Marley filled in for the curly-haired man. He did a good job of hiding his hurt. His performance was captivating, but Autumn could see from the stillness in his eyes that there was something lurking just beneath the surface. Bowie saw it, too. Every time his eyes landed on his brother he flinched.

Autumn wasn’t sure if it was public humiliation or a desperate need to prove they could do it better than Marley, but the three under-achievers upped their game after that. Bowie had been promising the cast they would know when they’d nailed it. It was late in the evening before that happened. They launched themselves into each other’s arms in congratulations. Autumn stood up to applaud them. She was genuinely impressed. She had never seen so much talent in one place. Solos and duets were layered with intricate harmonies and combined with rhythmic melodies and acapella sections. Performers ran on stage and then off again, dancing and singing their hearts out to a song it was obvious they loved. Even the choreographer with anger issues seemed appeased. Bowie and Marley embraced, and the cast swarmed around them. Autumn had never felt pride like it. Their difficult morning was long forgotten, though the words Bowie had said to her had not been far from her mind all day. He loved her. This wonderfully talented, passionate man was in love with her.

Despite their utter exhaustion, Larry persuaded them to stay for a drink. Someone offered to pick up beers and snacks, and they moved backstage into an enormous dressing room. Autumn sat cross-legged on the floor between Phil and Clara, away from Bowie. She wanted to give him a chance to catch up with his friends. Sipping contentedly from her bottle of beer, she talked about how they’d met, her love of writing, and what it was like to live with the Whittles.

“They’re the most gloriously eccentric family I’ve ever met,” Clara said. “I loved them. Their mother is such a doll and their dad is just the sweetest man.”

Autumn couldn’t agree more. In the weeks she’d been living in the family home, she’d bonded with Bowie’s parents in a way that secretly rather alarmed her. True to their word, they’d treated her as one of their own. Autumn cooked and shopped and watched trashy television shows with Emma. Some evenings — usually when Autumn was feeling a little down — she offered to brush her hair for her. Soon, Autumn was dismayed to find she was craving this kind of attention from Emma constantly. It made her feel safe. Bowie’s mother was a sweet-natured and demonstrative woman, quick to hug and kiss, and her love for her children knew no bounds at all. She existed for them all, and Autumn felt lucky to be part of it.

Ben was even more adorable. He had brazenly become like a father to her. There was no discernible difference between the way he treated Bluebell and Maddie and the way he was with Autumn. She’d found they had so much in common. They both read widely, wrote for pleasure and loved to discuss the news, from politics to economics. He gave her his favourite reads when he’d finished them, told her off when she was being unreasonable, and put his arms around her when he knew she needed to be comforted. At first he had been reluctant to express his affection for her physically, but following a frank and opendiscussion about it one evening over a bottle of gin, Ben now hugged and kissed Autumn without hesitation, just as he did his daughters. She’d once accidentally called him Dad, and he had been visibly thrilled; he had encouraged her to continue to do so, if she wanted to. Autumn had politely declined, citing her respect for his children. She was sure that her slip of the tongue, while lovely, had come as a consequence of the fact that five of the eight people living in the house called him Dad. She didn’t tell Ben that, though. He enjoyed feeling like a father to her. Like the rest of the family, he knew nothing of her troubled background, only that Autumn never mentioned her family, and that they were not aware that she was back in England.

The long and short of it was, Autumn knew Bowie’s parents cared for her very much. He’d told her once that they were concerned about what she might do once he’d gone.

“There’s no pressure, Autumn. You can stay here or you can go wherever you need to go. Do whatever you need to do,” Bowie had said in bed one morning. “But you should know that they love you and they’d be very happy for you to stay.”

Autumn hadn’t answered. She hadn’t been able to. Not only because she was completely overwhelmed by the idea that they cared for her so deeply but also because she’d managed to block out of her mind the fact that Bowie would be gone soon, and his candour had taken her breath away. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She had no idea what a loss so monumental would do to her and didn’t want to commit herself to anything.

She would think about it only when she needed to.

* * *

One post-rehearsal beer became two, followed by three, four and five. By the time she stepped outside at midnight for a cigarette with Marley, Autumn was drunk. She was completely intoxicated by the atmosphere backstage and she really didn’twant to go home, but she could sense that the frivolity was drawing to a close. The cast and crew had a show to open the very next night, and Bowie was obviously completely exhausted. She was distracted enough that she didn’t want a cigarette, but this was important. Despite her excitement about the spontaneity of their gathering, Autumn had taken time out between conversations to check on Marley and had spotted a sombre expression across his face more than once that evening. This was the first opportunity she’d had to ask him about it. She forced the tipsy grin off her face.

“You OK?” she asked him, nudging him affectionately.

“I’m fine,” he said.

She let him wallow in silence for a few seconds. Marley had a habit of saying he was fine at first but, if she let him stew for long enough, he usually revealed the truth without further prodding.

Eventually, he sighed. “I fucking love the stage.”

“Well, yeah, that’s pretty obvious,” she said warily, conscious that Marley was already fragile. “Do you want to talk about this?”

He took a long drag on his cigarette, staring at her intently as he did so. He seemed to be searching for her understanding.

“I want to talk to you about it,” he said. “But I can’t fully explain it to you because it isn’t actually my story to tell.”

Autumn stayed silent. She nodded, acknowledging his predicament, and waited.

“I totally lived for it when I was younger. It’s the only thing I ever really loved to do. The band was OK. At least it gave me the chance to make music and play. But performing on stage was taken away from me. Today, doing this, I’ve somehow managed to forget about the fact Bowie will be gone one day, and it’s allowed me to focus on the only other thing I really love.”

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