Checkmate (19 page)

The rain finally stopped spitting on my hood. I shook my head and then pulled my hood down. The sun was already out, shining gleefully through the remaining grey-white clouds. But I was soaked. My socks felt damp and my back felt unpleasantly warm and clammy but I wasn't sure if the rain had found its way past my hood and down my back or if it was just perspiration. I unzipped my coat, welcoming the fresh breeze blowing round me. The pavement glistened from the downpour and rain raced along the gutter into the open mouth of the drain at the side of the road.

School was over for another day. In a few more weeks, junior school would be over for good. Soon I'd be starting at senior school and I was actually looking forward to it. I really couldn't wait. Neither could Mum. She was almost as excited as I was.

'Hi, Rose. Wait.'

I turned to see Tobey chugging up behind me. My heart sank like a fossilized poo. What on earth did he want? The last time we'd been together, we'd ended up having a big argument. And the time before that. And the time before that. Tobey and I did nothing but clash like angry cymbals these days. Tobey fell into step next to me. He was wearing jeans, a T-shirt with 'Whatever' written all over it in graffiti-style writing and a denim jacket.

'How did you do at your Heathcroft High interview?' asked Tobey.

I shrugged and carried on walking. 'OK, I guess. They offered me a place.'

'Same here,' Tobey told me. 'They offered me a full scholarship.'

'Congratulations. Is Heathcroft High your first choice?'

'Of course. Why? Isn't it yours?'

'It wasn't, but it is now,' I admitted. 'Mum's keen for me to go there. She says the headmistress Mrs Paxton is fantastic.'

'How does she know?'

'Mrs Paxton was a teacher at the school when Mum was there,' I told him.

Tobey was stunned. 'Mrs Paxton must be ancient.'

'Oi! My mum isn't that old,' I replied. Although I must admit, I'd thought exactly the same thing when Mum told me about the headmistress.

'It'd be fantastic if we were in the same class,' said Tobey.

'Yeah,' I said dryly. 'Because we really don't see enough of each other as it is.'

The look on Tobey's face made me instantly regret what I'd just said.

'Are you trying to tell me something?' Tobey asked quietly.

'No, Tobey. It was a joke. You do remember those, don't you?'

Tobey forced a smile. 'Even if we are in the same class, that doesn't necessarily mean that we'll be sitting next to each other.'

'Tobey, read my lips – it was a joke.'

'Maybe it'll be a joke when it grows up,' Tobey suggested.

'Pook off!'

'Charming! You'd better not let your Nana Jasmine hear you use language like that.'

'Pook doesn't mean anything,' I replied.

'Tell that to your nana when she hears it. Besides, it's the context that counts,' Tobey informed me loftily.

Sometimes he was so ruddy smart, he was almost unbearable. Tobey had spent years telling me tale after tall tale just to prove how ruddy smart he was. And I can't even remember all the times I'd got into trouble for believing him.

But not any more.

I'm eleven now. Not some kid who believes everything she's told. And certainly not from Tobey Durbridge, thank you very much. If Tobey told me blood was red, I'd deliberately cut my finger to check first.

'I hear Ella was being her usual self today,' said Tobey.

I shrugged. I didn't want to talk about Ella Cheshie. It was bad enough having to put up with her during school without talking about her after school as well. It's funny-sad about Ella and me. She was my good friend for a while
–
until the first time she came round my house to play. After that she didn't talk to me for ages and was always partners with someone else when we did games or dance at school. I tried my hardest to be friends with her but she'd barely even speak to me. And once she found new friends she started being nasty to me. She'd do things like come up behind me and mess about with my hair and call me a spaghetti head or string hair just because my hair just hangs and is really limp. But when it's just me and her and no one else around, she calls it blanker hair. That really made me mad the first time she said it. I pushed her against the wall and she tripped over. Then she ran over to Miss Gardener and told on me. Tell-tale, snitching poo-head! I guess snitching runs in their family. Miss Gardener sent a letter home and Mum had to come to the school. Mum hardly said a word in the head teacher's room and she was silent in the car all the way home. I thought when we got back, Mum would scream at me. But all she said was, 'I'm very disappointed in you, Rose.' She shook her head and looked at me with that look she sometimes gets that makes me feel like a maggoty piece of rotting meat. Then she went out and I didn't see her for the rest of the evening.

Ella still calls me spaghetti head but only when she's got her friends around her. She's too scared to do it when we're alone. I still get angry when she calls me things like that, but I don't want another letter going home. And that's not all. Whenever I answer a question in class, she pulls stupid faces and she doesn't particularly mind whether or not I see her. Silly cow! And she's going to Heathcroft too – worst luck.

The strange thing was that as Ella got nastier, her brother Lucas got nicer. Mum and I sometimes saw them at the shopping centre. Mum and Nichelle would nod politely to each other without saying a word and Ella just ignored me or looked right through me. But not Lucas. He was different. Every time he saw me
–
which I must admit wasn't very often
–
he'd say hi or smile or wave or something. They were the strangest family. It was really hard to know where I was with any of them. They were what Nana Meggie called 'too now and then'. I knew that Lucas was already at Heathcroft but he was in the year above me.

'Is it true Ella made you cry?'

'No way,' I flared up. 'Ella couldn't make me cry in a million years.'

'You make it sound like no one could,' smiled Tobey.

I thought about it. 'No one could,' I decided.

'What a load of crap. Anyone you care about can make you cry.'

'No, they can't.'

'Yes, they can,' Tobey argued. 'Even I could make you cry.'

'I thought you said only those people I care about could do that,' I said.

Tobey glared at me, then marched off. I opened my mouth to call him back but then decided against it.

After all, he started it.

I carefully applied my burgundy lipstick. I could hear the crowd in Specimens, laughing and loud, even through my closed dressing-room door. Here I was, back in a restaurant-bar, but not as a customer. I was about to do the one thing I'd promised myself I'd never do again. How I hated singing in public. The memories of my short stint as a singer with Jaxon, Sonny and Rhino were still raw and sore. And now I didn't even have the luxury of a band to back me up and stem the feeling of isolation singing in public gave me.

But money talked.

And it hadn't spoken to me in a long while 'cause I was almost stony broke. Even though my mum is paying Callie Rose's school fees, I'd insisted on paying for everything else myself. But the uniform and the school meals and the books and stationery on top of my normal bills had eaten large chunks out of my savings. And now that Sonny and I were no longer working together, money was too tight to even mention. I spent most of my pregnancy without two pennies to rub together. I wasn't about to go through that again.

Nathaniel Ealing, the Cross owner of Specimens, had advertised for a singer for Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays in his restaurant. Someone to play the piano mostly, but sing old favourites occasionally and definitely when requested. Just the sort of thing I loathed.

But thou shalt pay bills!

The dressing room wasn't too bad, a little bigger than our bathroom at home. And there was a plug-in heater in one corner which actually worked. The walls were an uninspiring pale green colour. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling but at least there were decent lights around the mirror. I surveyed my face critically. My lipstick needed some gloss on top of it. And another layer of mascara ought to finish the job. I was just giving my hair a final pat when the door opened. Nathan, the owner, popped his head round the door. He was a tall man, taller than me by at least a head, and he wore his designer suit with a casual style, like it was no big deal. He was extremely good looking and what's more, he knew it, but it didn't rule his life. He wore his hair very short and had pure honey-brown eyes, framed under strong, straight eyebrows and full lips which curved easily into a smile. I'd watched him as he greeted his guests, flirting with the women and making the men feel like he was one of them and not just the owner of one of the most successful scenes in town. Nathan knew every aspect of his club, from how many bottles of ginger ale he had in stock out the back, to when the electricity bill was due, but for all that he wasn't afraid to delegate. I guess that's why his manager, Ron, told me that Nathan was a great boss to work for. Nathan gave one hundred per cent and he expected and got no less from his employees.

'We've got a good crowd tonight,' Nathan smiled. 'Ready, Sephy?'

'As I'll ever be,' I told him, adding, 'And you wouldn't like to knock before you open that door, would you?'

'Sorry!' Nathan grinned at me and shut the door on his way out. I stood up and checked out the dress I was wearing. It was a slinky black and silver creation with a slit up one side and not really my style but as Nathan had pointed out, a venue like his needed its singer to stand out, not fade into the furniture.

I headed out the door and down the narrow, badly lit corridor to the bar. The Specimens entrance opened straight onto the bar, but all the customers had to do was veer to the left to get to the restaurant. The restaurant where I was to work occupied its own discrete area. Each table in the restaurant was adorned with a crisp, white tablecloth. On the tables, the crystal wine glasses shone and the wall lights around the restaurant were so ornate in their workmanship that they wouldn't've been out of place in my mother's house. Even the bar wasn't the 'spit and sawdust' type of effort that was typical around this area. Although the bar itself was made of granite, the rest of the place was all glass and chrome. The bar and restaurant were separated by a semi-frosted glass wall and door. And somehow the whole thing worked. And I wasn't the only one to think so, judging by the crowds in the bar and the restaurant, which was already three-quarters full.

Because of the location of the dressing room, I had to duck and weave around the bar customers to get to the restaurant. I finally sat down at the piano, but my thoughts weren't on my new job. They were with Sonny. As always. What was he doing now? Proving that he didn't need me as much as I needed him? Professionally speaking, of course. Personally speaking, I didn't need anyone.

So why was there such a hollow feeling inside me? A raging emptiness that was eating me up from the inside out. And whose fault was that? As I played the intro to my first song, that one phrase kept playing through my head.

Whose fault was that?

I hadn't seen Sonny in months and I missed him so much. More than missed him. And he wasn't the only one I missed. Callie Rose was eleven, nearly twelve. And what did I really know about her? Not as much as I should. Some mother. Scared to feel, scared to touch, scared to give. Scared, scared, scared. The first chance I got, I'd tell Rose the truth. No more running. I stopped playing the intro to
Loving State of Mind.

Sing something else, Sephy.

Sing from the heart, sing how you feel. Or are you too afraid to do even that?

'Persephone, is something wrong?' Nathan appeared from nowhere to ask.

His voice made me jump. I'd forgotten where I was. I took a quick look around. Nathan wasn't the only one who was giving me strange looks.

'I'm fine, Nathan,' I said. 'Sorry.'

'Can I get you a drink, or anything else?'

'No, I'm fine. Honestly.'

I began to play the intro to
What I Haven't Got –
a song I really wished I'd written. Even so, this was a song I could sing with everything I was. No hiding, no evasion.

I
woke up this morning
The way I went to sleep
I know that what we did last night was
My way of counting sheep

I'm scared when we're together
Afraid to be alone
Your love is such a wonder
And in your arms I'm home

But your love will never hold me
Why can't you understand?
What I haven't got is
The nerve to love one man

I know there's something missing
But I just can't track it down
So I wear my 'I don't care'
Like a smile upon a clown

I laugh when we're together
Nothing ever seems quite real
'Cept when the night surrounds me
And fear is all I feel

Your love will never hold me
Why can't you understand?
What I haven't got is
The nerve to love one man
What I haven't got is
The nerve to love
(The nerve to love)
The nerve to love
Just one man

I finished on an improvised instrumental ending, hitting the final chord as I hummed into the microphone. The applause wasn't rapturous but I didn't get booed off either. I started playing the second song. I could've sung but I decided to leave this one as an instrumental. I hadn't done this in a long time and I didn't want to exhaust my voice. I had to pace myself.

My mind went back to Sonny. I'd got him and me all wrong. I expected the way I felt about him to be exactly the way I felt about Callum. I hadn't allowed for the fact that I'd grown up in the meantime. And it'd taken a lot of painful thinking to realize that I did love Sonny in a way that was equal but different to the way I loved Callum. Maybe part of me thought I'd be betraying Callum by allowing myself to love someone else so I'd convinced myself that I was incapable of loving anyone except my daughter.

Maybe it wasn't too late. I just had to pick myself up, take a deep breath and revive myself. All the parts of me that stopped me functioning, just let them go. Drop them, leave them behind and keep moving. I'd spent long enough standing still. First thing tomorrow, I'd phone Sonny. Not to give false hope but with the promise that he'd get
me
this time, all of me. I smiled, actually feeling hopeful inside. A weird and wonderfully warm wave I hadn't felt in so very long. Still smiling, I looked around the room.

Sonny was looking straight at me.

My heart bounced. I almost stopped playing. Where had he sprung from? It felt like I'd conjured him out of thin but welcome air, just by thinking about him. I beamed at him as I carried on playing, so happy to see him. I tried to tell him with my expression and smile what I'd never been able to say to him before.

Hello, Sonny. Yes, it's me. And I'm here for both of us, if you still want me. I've spent so long mourning the past that I almost missed my present. But not any more. So here I
—

Sonny wasn't alone. A beautiful Nought woman with jet-black hair leaned across to whisper something in his ear. I didn't miss the way her hand rested possessively on his arm as it lay on the table. I didn't miss the way she glanced at me before turning her full attention to Sonny as she whispered. I turned back to my piano.

Just keep playing, Sephy.

Whatever happens, just keep playing.

I worked for the next half an hour, singing a couple of songs but just playing the piano for all the others. And I made sure to sing into my microphone and not look around at anything or anyone. When at last it was time for my break, I announced I'd be back in fifteen minutes and headed straight for my dressing room.

Didn't quite make it though.

Sonny was waiting for me in the staff corridor.

'Hello, Sonny,' I said, slowing down when I caught sight of him.

'Hello, Persephone.'

God, he looked good. He was wearing a navy shirt and matching trousers. He'd had his hair professionally cut by the look of it instead of popping to the barber round the corner from where he lived the way he usually did. In fact, it wasn't just the haircut that was working. He'd had his eyebrows trimmed and his hair highlighted, I think. Funny what a little tender, loving care and a top ten hit song could do for you. Sonny had moved from 'OK, with an onion and salt', gone straight past fit and was now in the super-fit category.

I smiled with embarrassment. Goodness! I sounded like my daughter!

'I hate to be a jobsworth about this, but customers aren't allowed back here and I have to change for my next set,' I said, in what I hoped was a light tone. 'Besides your . . . your girlfriend will be missing you.'

The word stuck in my throat like a wedge of dry, crumpled printer paper.

'I told her I wanted to have a word with you,' said Sonny.

'Oh yes? What about?'

'How are you?'

'Fine.' I shrugged and tried to move past him but Sonny stepped in front of me, barring my way. And the corridor was so narrow and he was so broad that there was no way I could get past, short of flying over him.

'How long have you been singing here?'

'Tonight's my first night.' I painted on the happiest, most cheerful smile I could dredge up.

Sonny looked down at me. I looked up at him and for the life of me I couldn't think of another thing to say.

'D'you and your girlfriend come here often?' Rats! I couldn't believe what I'd just said. 'Scratch that. It's none of my business.'

'Sherona's never been here and it's her birthday so . . .' Sonny shrugged away the rest of his sentence.

'Is she enjoying herself?'

'I think so. She says you're a good singer but you don't have much presence.'

I raised my eyebrows. 'D'you agree with her?'

'Well, you're coming across as if you're not really enjoying yourself,' said Sonny.

'Hence the reason you came back here?' I realized. 'Well, I'm fine. And tell your girlfriend that I'll try to do better when I go out again. Excuse me.'

I scooted past Sonny before he could realize what I was about to do. I headed into my dressing room, shutting the door behind me. It opened again almost immediately.

'Did you forget something, Sonny?'

I watched as he shut the door before leaning against it. And he didn't once take his eyes off me. He was making me nervous.

'How's Callie Rose?'

After a moment's pause, I decided to be truthful. 'She's missing you.'

'And what about you? Are you missing me too?'

No way was I going to answer that one. Not when he had a girlfriend in tow.

'How come you never phoned me?' asked Sonny.

'You didn't phone me either,' I pointed out. 'Mind you, after seeing Sherona and her pneumatic boobs, I can understand why.'

'You're the one who dumped me, remember.'

'I didn't dump you, I just didn't want to get married.'

'And I didn't want to spend the rest of our lives together going absolutely nowhere. Staying still wasn't good enough for me. It shouldn't've been good enough for you either.'

'Well, you got over me PDQ.' I smiled sweetly. 'Off with the old, on with the new.'

'PDQ?'

'Pretty damned quick.'

'Are you jealous?' asked Sonny.

"Course not,' I lied. 'Besides which, Sonny, it really isn't any of my business. Not any more. Now, if you'll excuse me.' I put my hands behind my head and pulled at the zip of my dress but my dramatic attempt at dismissal backfired when it got stuck after only a few centimetres. I tugged and twisted but the damned thing wouldn't work lose.