Dream On Page 16

  "That's not all she is," said Glenn. "We can improve on the voice. But I think she's got it."

  Ed Campion nodded. "Have to say I'm with Shelley on this one. If we do put her through, she's going to have to pull something pretty special out of the bag next time round."

  Half an hour later they had selected their thirty solo artists.

  "Right, now the bands," said Ed, as Pink Hair handed him another selection of Polaroid photos. He leafed through them, and laughed. "Okay, guys. What do we think about Thor?"

  ***

  The minutes ticked by, so slowly.

  At last, at seven-thirty, Pink Hair appeared once more, holding a piece of paper.

  She smiled around the room and asked for silence; she hardly needed to. Nobody felt like talking anymore.

  "Here we go then," she said, and reiterated that, out of all those who waited, thirty solo acts had been chosen to go through to the next round, and just ten bands. As for the rest, the producers of the show thanked them for taking part in the Raw Talent experience, but regretted that their journey had come to an end.

  "Blah blah blah," said Ritchie. "I tell you, I'm not doing this again; I'd rather be at work. This is more nerve-wracking than standing on a four storey roof in a howling gale."

  "Let's all hold hands, it's good karma," said Melodie.

  "Okay!" said Pink Hair, and coughed. "Off we go. The names I read out will be the forty acts we want to see again tomorrow." She looked down at the piece of paper. "Will Corrigan ... Womankind ... Kirsty Craig," she read, taking her time between each name, so much time that the wait was almost painful. "Athena ... Sarah King ... Wonderwall ... Kai Alexander ... Ariel Swan ... "

  Ariel put her head down, still gripping Dave's hand on one side and Ritchie's on the other, and tried in vain to hold back the tears. She'd done it. She'd got through another round. She had a real chance, now, at getting on the show, at getting the public to vote for her. At getting noticed, someone seeing her who might think, hey, I've got to give this girl a recording contract!

  Twenty-five left to go. Then fifteen.

  "Town and Country Club ... Danny Coldham ... Melodie Joy Valentine ... "

  Melodie dropped the hands of both Shane and Boz, and raised her arms in the air, clasping her hands together as if she were at football match. "Yess!" she whispered, looking straight ahead.

  In front of them, Will Corrigan was comforting a sobbing Laila Grace, whose name had not yet been called.

  Five to go.

  "Peaches ... Natalie Garcia ... Thor ... "

  Dave looked at Ariel, threw his arms around her, and wept.

  "Aye, I suppose even Vikings have their soft side," said Boz, wiping his eyes.

  ***

  They went to The Lorelei again, this time without Laila Grace, who'd gone home in tears.

  "Poor old Laila," said Ariel, as they sat down. "Could have been any of us."

  "Well, no, it couldn't," said Melodie. "She didn't have that killer urge."

  Ariel laughed. "I haven't got that either! I'm just lucky they like what I did."

  "Don't sell yourself short," said Will, sitting down next to her. "You deserve it, you're really talented."

  "And how would you know that, exactly?" said Dave, "I mean, she is, but you've never even heard her sing."

  Will held his hands up. "Whew, sorry, mate. I just meant that she must be, to have got this far."

  Dave noticed Ariel glance at Will, who gave her an almost imperceptible nod and wink; yes, he knew the score, and yes, Dave had clocked him. What did the smarmy fucker think he was, stupid? Then Will turned to his other side and started to talk to Ritchie about his Stingray, instead.

  "The last forty!" said Melodie. "Isn't it just fantastic? All of us!"

  "Aye, pet, I still cannit believe we all made it," said Boz, and they clinked glasses. "Hey, I got talking to the A&R fella's assistant earlier. Knows a few people I've played with. It's a small world, this one of rock 'n' roll, isn't it?"

  "Yeah!" said Shane. His phone bleeped yet again; he looked at it, read a text, sat there, deep in thought, for a moment, then answered with the tap of a few keys, and put it away.

  "Kerry?" said Ariel.

  "No," he said, and grinned. "Chick I was talking to earlier, from one of those girl bands - she didn't make it! Called Cecilia. She's into Bon Jovi; her brother's in a tribute band. Think she wants some of my bad medicine!"

  "Let's hope she goes down in a blaze of glory!" said Ritchie. "Mega!"

  "Yeah, but Shane, you give love a bad name," said Ariel, laughing.

  Boz held his hand up. "Okay, let's stop now, with the Bon Jovi puns, shall we?"

  "Only because you can't think of one!" said Ritchie.

  "Don't need to, man," Boz said. "I'm in a position of superiority because I'm paying for everyone's bait tonight, okay?" He winked at Melodie.

  Dave Bentley wasn't in the mood for making puns, or jokes of any sort. He went to the gents, came back, and, yes, just as he'd suspected, that Will creep was talking to Ariel again. His Ariel. Just as he'd had a good feeling when he first got the idea for Thor, he had a bad feeling about Will, and it was making him feel very, very uncomfortable indeed.

  They started walking back to the Travelodge at about ten-thirty; everyone agreed with Dave that they shouldn't 'tie one on' that night, much though they were all in the mood to celebrate. Dave just wanted to get back to the Travelodge so they could get rid of Will.

  Boz caught up with Dave, Ariel, Ritchie and Shane, who had been walking slightly ahead of him and Melodie.

  "Ritchie, mate," he said, slinging an arm around his shoulder. "How do you fancy bunking up with Shane tonight?"

  "You what?" said Ritchie, a look of horror on his face. They all stopped.

  Boz winked at him. "Change of sleeping arrangements. The Boz Man has got it all sorted." He looked at Dave. "I imagine you and Ariel wouldn't say no to a room to yourselves, right?"

  "Well, yeah."

  "Okay," said Boz. "So, you go and sleep with Ariel in the girls' room, Ritchie takes your bed next to Shane's, and Melodie - "

  They all turned to look at her. Melodie was leaning against a wall, looking up at the night sky, pretending to be oblivious to the whole conversation.

  "You sneaky Geordie bastard," hissed Shane. "Some mate!"

  Boz slapped him on the shoulder. "You've either got it or you haven't, man! Mind you, she says she'll be wanting to go back to her own room by six tomorrow morning to get ready for the last audition, so you'd better make sure you're up and decent, Bentley!"

  He walked back to Melodie, put his arm around her and kissed her.

  "Fuck!" said Shane. "How did he manage that?"

  Ariel laughed. "Well, what do you expect? You're getting texts every five minutes from that poor little Kerry, and boasting about chatting up the Bon Jovi girl - it's not exactly the way to a woman's heart, is it?"

  The started to walk off, leaving Boz and Melodie in mid snog in a shop doorway.

  "I thought if she saw that loads of other birds were after me, then she'd think I must be something pretty good, and fall flat on her back." He folded his arms. He really did, Ariel thought, look a bit miffed. Probably just his stupid ego, she decided.

  "It's words like 'birds' and phrases like 'fall flat on her back' that are the key to your lack of success, I think," said Ariel. "You're such a prat sometimes, Shane."

  He looked at her, for once not smiling. "Yes, so you keep telling me," he said, and stalked off ahead of them.

  "Oh dear," said Ariel.

  "I think he really likes her, actually," said Dave. "For all his talk."

  "Well, perhaps he ought to change his modus operandi, then," said Ariel.

  Dave looked at her. "I love you," he said.

  I want to make him happy, she thought.

  "I love you, as well," she said.

  ***

  Janice Brown remembered, at ten o'clock that night, that Dave would probably have texted her
to tell her whether or not he'd made the final cut. But when she looked at her phone, the only text was from Max Stark, saying how much he'd enjoyed the previous evening.

  Walking up the stairs to bed, she reflected that she'd received the text she wanted, after all.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Raw Talent ~ Day Three

  "I must say, I'm surprised about you and Boz," said Ariel, at six thirty that morning, as she washed some of Melodie's cleansing mousse from her face.

  "Are you?" said Melodie. She drew back the shower curtain and wrapped herself in a huge white towel. "Why?"

  "Oh, well, I just didn't think he'd be your type, that's all."

  Melodie reached for a wide toothed comb by the basin, and started to run it through her wet hair. "He's funny," she said. "Makes me laugh, and I find that accent so sexy." She stopped for a moment, and winked at Ariel. "And he's got quite a few contacts in the industry, too!"

  Probably a few less than he's told you, Ariel thought, but she decided to say nothing.

  ***

  "I think we ought to lose the Viking gear," said Ritchie, during the pre-performance discussion in the room he and Shane had shared the night before. The room hopping had become so complicated that Dave couldn't work out in which one he was likely to find his own clothes, Viking or otherwise.

  "You what?" he said.

  Ritchie shrugged. "We're serious musicians, aren't we? Well, they've seen the Viking bit. Let's go out there and just do the music, today."

  "It's not a bad idea," said Boz. "Ring the changes, and all that. Don't get boring."

  "But it's who we are!" said Dave. "It's the whole point of Thor!"

  "Isn't Thor about the music? We don't want to be seen as a novelty band." said Ritchie.

  "Agreed," said Boz. "I'm starting to feel a bit of a twat in that helmet, to be honest."

  "Yeah, you look one, as well," said Shane, without smiling. "But, yeah - I wouldn't mind being able to keep my jeans on, I have to say."

  Dave sighed, and lay back on the bed. "Okay. So I'm outvoted. But hear me out on this one, then. We agreed we'd do 'Valhalla' today, didn't we?"

  "Yeah."

  "I don't think we should. I reckon we ought to do 'Saved'." He sat up. "Look, we did the stomping guitar riffs and up tempo thing with 'Stampede' yesterday, didn't we? I reckon if we're going to ring the changes, we don't want to do another one. That Ed Campion, the programme producer, he didn't see us 'til yesterday. He doesn't know what else we can do. A power ballad like 'Saved' is going to show we're more versatile."

  "I see what you mean," said Shane.

  "Incorrect," said Boz. "They put us through yesterday because they liked what we did. I say we should do more of the same."

  "Let's vote on it," said Ritchie.

  The vote went three to one to the power ballad.

  "'Saved' it is, then!" said Dave, rubbing his hands together.

  "And we can wear jeans and leather jackets." said Ritchie. "Fucking excellent. It'll be the first time I haven't felt like a right dildo in about four months."

  "What made you change direction?" asked Glenn Hunter, as soon as 'Saved' had come to its emotional end.

  "Well, we didn't, really," said Dave. "That's always been one of our most popular songs. It's on the CD."

  Glenn nodded. "Mm. Yes. It was good, don't get me wrong, and you guys can certainly play, but I - well, you're not the band I put through yesterday. The Viking vibe - I like that, it's different. It's got mileage. The song you did, what was it - " he looked down at his notes.

  "'Stampede'."

  "Yes. I thought that was excellent. Good old fashioned hard driving rock 'n' roll. Dave's voice is made for rock - you're better than you realise, mate. But then you come in today and you've metamorphosed into Foreigner. I just don't get it, that's all."

  "I liked this one better," said Shelley Mayes.

  Dave smiled at her. "We wanted to show you our versatility, that we're not just one trick ponies."

  Glenn grinned to himself, looked down at his notes and shook his head. "You've been watching too much Simon Cowell - "

  "I've never watched any Simon Cowell, I - "

  Glenn looked up at him. "You're a rock band. You're good at what you do. I get that all rock bands sometimes do the ballad stuff, though, personally, I'd rather hear Aerosmith sing 'Love In An Elevator' than 'I Don't Want To Miss A Thing'. But look - don't worry about what you think we want. You have to be true to yourselves. If you want to dress up as Vikings, fucking do it! Just don't try to change in an effort to find the right 'formula'. It doesn't work.

  "Told you," said Dave, on the way out. "Should have kept the gear on, shouldn't we?"

  "Hang on a minute. Whose idea was it to do the poxy power ballad?" said Ritchie.

  "Oh. Yeah."

  ***

  Ariel had chosen to do an acoustic version of Madonna's 'Crazy For You' that she'd been working on; it was very different from the original and she was pleased with it.

  Unfortunately, Melodie had decided against the expected more raunchy number, and was doing the same song.

  This was purely coincidental, and both regretted very much that they'd made the same choice, but neither was willing to change.

  "They're mates, aren't they?" said Glenn Hunter, after Melodie had finished her performance. "Melodie and Ariel Swan. D'you think they're in competition with each other?"

  Shelley Mayes gave a snort. "Two pretty, ambitious women who can both sing? Of course they're in competition with each other!"

  "Whoops," said Glenn Hunter.

  ***

  At the beginning of the day, Ed Campion himself had come out and thanked them all for taking part, then told them, the last forty, that the final decision about the fifteen acts who would go through to the live shows would be made the following week. He knew what it was like when you were waiting for a decision like this, he said, so he wouldn't keep them hanging on; if they were successful, they would receive a phone call from Rachel Mackie, the programme researcher, between six and seven o'clock on the evening of Friday, January the twenty-fourth. Thus, after their performance today, they were free to leave, and he wished them all the best of luck.

  Thor, Ariel and Melodie were all relatively subdued on the way home; they were exhausted after the events of the past few days.

  "It's certainly been an emotional rollercoaster, hasn't it?" said Melodie, as she looked out of the window and watched the sky darken.

  Ritchie laughed. "Where did you get that from? American Idol? You'll be talking about having been on a 'journey' next!" He looked across the gangway. "Won't she, Ariel?"

  Ariel wasn't listening. She was gazing out of the window.

  "What are you thinking about, darling?" Dave asked. "You're so quiet!"

  "Oh, nothing much," she said. "I'm just tired."

  Dave felt sick. He remembered Janice asking him the same question, a few months ago, before she'd found out what he was up to. He'd replied in exactly the same way, but he'd been lying to her; he'd been thinking about Ariel.

  Ariel was actually thinking about something she and Will Corrigan had been talking about, rather than Will Corrigan himself. She wasn't sure what to do.

  Of course, her decision rested completely on whether or not she received a phone call, next Friday.

  Shane's phone bleeped for the fourth time since the beginning of the journey.

  "Kerry or Bon Jovi girl?" asked Dave, as Shane looked at it.

  "Three - one," he said.

  "Well, I hope you're going to reply to both of them," said Ariel. "Oh - sorry, sorry. Sorry, Shane. None of my business. I'll stop getting on your case, okay?"

  Shane smiled at her, though not in his usual boyishly charming fashion. "That's okay. You're right. I should." And he walked off down the gangway and out to the luggage area; they could see him talking on his phone, and laughing.

  "What's going on with all the secret smiles, all of a sudden?" said Ariel.

  "He's
up to something," said Ritchie.

  Dave thought so, too, and it made him feel uneasy.

  Reliable though his intuition always was, this time it was not giving him the full picture; alas, he remained completely unaware about the ways in which the lives of all of them were about to change.

  ***

  The following Saturday morning in the Sunrise Café.

  "It's going to stay quiet today, I reckon," said Max, at about eleven forty-five. "Bad weather means one of two things; everyone comes in while they're shopping, to get out of the cold, or they all just stay at home in the first place. I think today's the latter; I can always tell."

  "Do you want us to get on with some cleaning, or something?" Janice said. "I could get all that condensation off the inside of the windows."

  "Oh no!" said Lisa. "Can't we just sit and read the paper? Have an easy day?"

  "I've got a better idea than that!" said Max, and rubbed his hands together.

  "What?" Lisa leaned forward, expectantly.

  He took his keys out of his pocket and dangled them at her. "You're in charge!"

  "What?" she said, again.

  Max smiled at her. "Kim will be in at twelve. I'm sure you'll be able to cope between you; oh, and you can cash up and lock up, too; you know how to do all that, don't you?"

  "Yes, but - "

  "The money goes in the safe in the office, you can ring me in case of an emergency; I'll only be five or ten minutes away. If it's really quiet you can close at four -and you know where the panic button is if anyone tries to turn the place over, too, right?"

  Lisa took the keys from him and frowned. "Do you think anyone will? Try to turn the place over, I mean?"

  "Unlikely," Max said. "Statistics show that fewer crimes are committed when the weather's really bad. All the villains will be in the snooker club trying to rob the fruit machines."