He lingered at the bar, making himself available for the elusive Richard Eason, but after a while it was pretty obvious he wasn’t coming. Will tried to shake off the bleak mood descending on him. He gathered up the drinks and took themback to his bandmates. The guys were on a high, but Will felt flat as they clinked bottles.All that effort for nothing. Reu was talking ten to the dozen, delivering his post-gig analysis with Matty nodding intently. Will had never heard Reu say that many words in one go before – his first proper gig had brought him out of his shell. Will didn’t join in, just drained his beer.
Will felt weird, like he wasn’t really there, like he was falling backwards. He looked around. The headline band’s fans were shuffling forward as they came on stage; Izzy was talking into her friend’s ear; Aidan and his mates were chatting to some girls at the bar.
A passer-by interrupted him, ‘That was amazing! What a voice!’
Comments like that kept coming. One guy even congratulated him at the urinal, which was awkward, but as the evening wore on, Will was slipping into a gloomy hole.
At the end of the night, Izzy came to say goodbye.
‘See you soon?’ she purred.
Behind her, Aidan was making his way towards the exit, a giggling girl in tow. What the hell?
Izzy stood on tiptoes and whispered something unintelligible in his ear.
‘Huh?’
‘When will I see you again?’ she asked.
‘Sorry, excuse me a minute.’ He wanted to catch his brother before he left.
Will elbowed his way through the crowd, and out onto the street in time to see Aidan climbing into a black cab.
As the cab trundled past, Will got an excellent view into the back, where Aidan was snogging some random blonde.
‘Fucking arsehole,’ Will muttered, his fists clenched tight by his sides.
Chapter 22
April 2016
Liv
Aidan Bailey has the same blue eyes as his brother, although his have more wrinkles at the edges. He invites me and Tumi into the house and leads us to the kitchen, where he introduces his mum.Theirmum. In a strong Irish accent, she offers us tea and as she fills the kettle, Aidan takes us through a door off the kitchen.
‘This is the garage where Will used to write,’ says Aidan. ‘We’ve bricked up the garage door, but otherwise it’s exactly as it was when he worked on his music in here.’
A row of guitars perch on stands, and above them is a shelf filled with notebooks. An old leather sofa covered with a throw sits nearby and Persian rugs line the floor. It’s cool in a grungy sort of way.
I get chills. Will Bailey wrote some of my favourite songs in here. I feel his presence.
‘It’s great you’ve kept everything as it was,’ says Tumi.
‘There’s more stuff in there.’ He points at two huge black trunks with metal trimming, the kind bands use on tour.
‘Can we take a look?’ Tumi asks.
‘Sure.’
He opens the latches and lifts the lid of the closest trunk. It’s filled to the top with boxes of all different shapes and sizes. He opens a random shoe box at the top and inside is a pile of letters tied with string.
‘There are letters, notebooks, concert flyers, set lists, lyrics,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry it’s not organised. We’ve all tried to go through it over the years, but… it’s too painful.’
‘It’s not a problem, as long as you don’t mind us looking through it,’ says Tumi.
‘All I ask,’ says Mrs Bailey, carrying in a tray of tea and biscuits, ‘is that you’re careful with it.’
She places the tray on a wooden crate beside the sofa.