Page 38 of Days You Were Mine

‘I took a risk on you, Luke, didn’t I? Giving you your own label to run when you weren’t yet twenty-six?’

‘You did. And I appreciate it.’

‘I’ll cut to the chase, shall I? We had a directors’ meeting. The accountants were in, and two of the directors – I won’t name names – were in favour of closing Spirit down. Cutting our losses, as it were.’

‘Michael …’ I try to speak but the words won’t come out.

I have dreaded, projected, catastrophised about this possibility endlessly. Take Spirit away from me – my own label, the thing I care most about in the world (aside from Hannah and Samuel) – and I hate to think what I would do. Spirit is my sanity, my security; it gives me a blueprint of how to be.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Luke. You have my support one hundred per cent. All I’m saying is you need to close the deal with Reborn. You’ve got them on the hook and the whole of the industry wants to sign them. Be the one who does.’

‘What if I can’t?’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. We need a little triumph here.’

It’s after five when I call Steve Harris, the band’s manager, a miserable, diminutive Scot whom nobody likes.

‘Luke! How’re you doing?’

He is uncharacteristically warm and I realise within a few seconds that, like everyone else, Reborn have been whiling away their Friday afternoon in the pub.

No is not an option when Steve says ‘Come and join us?’ even though I’m due home at six for Alice (Hannah is working late again). I tell myself I’ll only stay for one, and if I get a cab, I’ll still make it back in time.

But I hadn’t factored in the drunkenness of the band, who are in an optimum state for me to make my pitch. Steve stands up and embraces me and the rest of them follow suit, hugs all round.

‘Shall I get us a bottle of champagne?’ I say.

Drinks are always on the record company, and with a fledgling band, champagne never fails to impress.

The lead singer, Daniel, follows me up to the bar.

‘It’s good you came,’ he says, while I put in my order for not one, but two bottles of champagne. ‘Thing is, we all really like you, but we’ve had a pretty incredible offer.’

‘I heard. But I have an idea that could really transform this next album into something pretty epic.’

With the champagne poured, matching ice buckets to emphasise the flashiness, I outline my plan.

‘Your songs already have an edge of disco,’ I say. ‘I think we should amp it up, a full-blown disco record but reworked for the twenty-first century. Your lyrics, your political message, only come through on second or third hearing. It’s subliminal, and that way we reach the masses, the people who don’t think they care and then find out that they do.’

‘I like it,’ says Daniel. ‘I like it a lot.’

‘Like it?’ shouts Bex, the bassist, slamming down her glass so that champagne slops out onto the table. ‘It’s genius!’

I refill everyone’s glass and bask a little in the acclaim. I feel almost light-headed from the spectre of success. No one is saying it, but I can feel how close I am to clinching this deal.

It’s only when I’m on my way home in the back of a cab that I register the travesty of my lateness. It’s already past seven o’clock. Hannah will be furious; she reminds me on an almost daily basis that we must never take advantage of Alice.

I’m just about to walk through our gate when the sight of anavy-blue Golf parked up outside the house stops me dead. My mother’s car. I stand there staring at it, frozen in the horror of the moment, champagne fizzing in my veins. How can I have allowed this to happen? I remember now that my mother is on her way back from a painting trip and said she might spend the night. And I, stupid moron that I am, have forgotten. My heart bangs against my ribs as I slot my key into the lock and push open the front door with no idea what I’m walking into.

My two mothers are sitting together at the kitchen table.

‘There you are, darling,’ says Christina. ‘We were starting to get worried. Has something happened at work?’

‘Hi, Mum,’ I say, my voice fading on the word. ‘Alice, I am so sorry. I tried to call but my phone was flat. I had a last-minute meeting with Reborn. It feels like they’re going to sign to us and it was impossible to get away without seeming rude. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

‘It’s fine, Luke. I understand. Samuel is asleep in his cot. Your mother’ – she says the word evenly, but to me it is laced with pain – ‘put him down ten minutes ago. I was just about to leave.’

‘It’s been so lovely to meet your au pair,’ says my mother, and instantly the term seems insulting, belittling. ‘I do think you were sensible finding someone a bit older. You don’t mind me saying that, Alice, do you?’ Christina laughs but Alice doesn’t.

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