Maybe Tomorrow (part 2)
The sun burst from behind a cloud, and the rain-specked windows of the tour bus flared into a wall of solid light. Stretched out on one of the long couches, Danny raised an elbow across his face and groaned. “Never again.”
Doug crinkled his eyes as Danny writhed in front of him, then went back to staring through the window at the hotel entrance. “Here they come,” he said.
Below their feet, a series of thumps and scrapes came from the luggage compartment, followed by a rubbery clunk. Harry appeared at the curtained doorway, poured himself onto the couch across from Danny and buried his head in his arms. Tom followed, grim-faced. He let Harry’s day bag thud on the floor beside his head and sat down in the middle of the back seat.
The coach juddered as the engine started, then settled into a faint vibration. The speaker in the ceiling crackled. “All set?”
“Yeah, thanks Jim.” Tom's voice was loud enough for the driver to hear even without the intercom, and he smirked at the whimpers that followed. “Sorry about the hold up. Whenever you’re ready.”
The driver chuckled, and a moment later, the bus pulled smoothly away.
“We should’ve saved them some breakfast, eh Dougie?”
“Yeah. Those eggs were really nice, and the fried mushrooms, and the bac-”
“Shut up or die…”
Doug grinned at Tom, then turned back to the window, narrowing his eyes as the bus turned in the sunlight.
“Tom?” Danny’s voice was quiet. “Got any headache stuff?”
Tom sighed and reached for his bag, unzipped a side pocket and brought out a red cardboard box. “Don’t do the crime if you…” He leaned across and reached into the bin above the drinks cooler. “They're fizzy ones. No cups, sorry.”
“Fuck.”
Doug turned back from the window. “Put them in water bottles”
“Huh? Oh, I see.” Tom reached into the cooler and took out two plastic bottles of water. “Here.” He chucked one into Doug’s lap, followed by a couple of foil wrappers. “You sort out your dying bride over there while I do this idiot.”
“My what?”
Harry turned onto his side. “A little respect for the sick, if you don’t-” The bus lurched, prompting two soft moans.
“You had no sympathy for me.” Tom clamped the bottle between his legs, broke the tablets and dropped the pieces into it. “And I’ve got the fucking flu.”
“Fucking flu!” Doug sniggered. “Tom's got an STD!” He answered Tom's glare with a smirk, then twisted round, held his bottle up to the window and watched the city pass through the fizz. “That's cool.” The fizzing subsided, and he uncurled and padded across the lounge to Harry. “Here.”
The drummer opened one eye, pushed himself up to sitting and reached for the bottle. “Cheers.”
The bus braked sharply, sending Doug stumbling against his hand; the bottle squirted into Harry’s face and down his front.
“You idiot!” Harry wiped his chin. “You fucking idiot! Look what you've done.”
“Sorry, lads,” the intercom crackled, “some pillock pulled right out in front of us.”
“Fuck,” Harry muttered, swatting at the spreading wetness on his clothes. Tom laughed, while Danny managed a chuckle around his bitter drink.
“At least it’s only water.” Doug turned and headed back towards his corner, flopped into it and pulled his legs up to his chest.
“It’d better fucking dry before we get to… wherever it is.” Harry took a mouthful from the bottle, glaring at Doug, at Tom, at Danny. He emptied the bottle, wiped again at his clothes, then lay back down and closed his eyes, muttering.
Outside the coach, offices and shops turned to rows of houses, to industrial parks and building sites, and finally to open countryside. Doug stood and headed for the narrow corridor. As he reached the curtain, he turned back to Tom.
“Can I borrow your phone?”
“Uh…”
“Mine got…” Doug's eyes flicked to Harry, back to Tom, then to the window. “It’s not working. It’s all right, I’ll swap the SIMs.”
Tom reached into his pocket, then handed Doug his phone. “Don’t worry about that. Just, no more pictures of your… of yourself, all right?”
Doug waggled his eyebrows and turned away.
Tom sighed, then reached into his pocket and called after the bass player. He held out a well-folded piece of paper and pointed at Harry. “It was on his floor.”
Doug took it, nodded, and disappeared through the curtain.
The tour bus was a sleek double-decker. Downstairs, the front half looked like any coach, with a driver, a door and a few rows of seats, although these were deeper and far more comfortable than most coaches on the motorway. Behind the seats, a curtained doorway led to the side entrance, a tiny toilet, an even tinier galley, and the stairs to the upper deck. At the top of the stairs, a narrow gangway led forward past four pairs of pigeonhole bunk beds, through another curtain to “Tom's office”, an oval table surrounded by leather seats and tinted picture windows. The rear half of the top deck was the lounge: couches lining three walls, a drink cooler, snack cupboard and fridge, and pride of place, a games console and a huge plasma screen.
A hundred miles into the journey, the two corpses had recovered enough to put the console to good use.
“Hah!”
“That’s three in a row. Tom, you suck.”
“And you swallow. I told you, I’m not well.” Tom set down his controller, slid back along the couch to the cooler and rooted around inside it.
“Best four out of, erm…” Danny’s eyes turned to the ceiling.
“Seven, you muppet.”
“Oh, right. Best four out of seven?”
Tom shook his head. He settled down next to the window and closed his eyes. “Later.”
Danny and Harry shrugged, then grinned at each other. “Dougie.”
Harry stood and headed forward. The bunks were empty, except for clothes and assorted guitars. Tom's office was empty, so he turned back and crept down the stairs. He put his eye to the gap in the curtain and scanned the seats. Right under his nose, in the rear aisle seat, Doug was sitting cross-legged, holding a few sheets of scribbles and crossings-out in his lap, while in his hand, a pen drummed idly on his thigh as he stared out the window.
Harry smiled.
“Pugsley!” He leapt off the staircase, landed with a thump and began scruffing Doug’s hair.
“Aw…” Doug lifted an elbow and pulled away.
“Less of that,” came a voice from the front of the cab. “Or you'll get out and walk.”
Harry looked up, grinned at the reflection of their driver in the mirror. “Sorry, Jim.”
“You’re alive, then?”
“Just about. You good?”
Jim nodded.
“When do we…?”
“Stopping for lunch in about an hour, hour and a half.”
Harry nodded before turning his attention back to Doug. “Come on, upstairs and get a thrashing.” He loomed over him for a moment, then nudged a shoulder. “Come on!”
“Can it wait? I’m trying to…”
Harry blinked. He crouched down beside the seat. “I wanted to see you. I haven’t talked to you prop-”
Doug sighed as he smoothed the papers on his lap. He reached into his pocket and held out a phone. “Can you give this back to Tom?”
“Pugs…” Harry’s jaw dropped a little. “Look, I…” He reached out, put a hand on Doug’s shoulder and tried to slide it across his back.
Doug sighed again, pocketed the phone and gathered his papers, uncrossed his legs, ducked around Harry and scooted up the stairs.
Harry followed. He caught up with Doug on the top step, smiled and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Doug heeled round. Without a glance at the drummer, he rolled into one of the bunks and pulled the curtain shut.
Harry reached towards it, hesitated, then turned and slowly descended the staircase. When he reached the lower deck, he stood at the curtained doorway and gazed down at the seats.
“Everything all right?”
“Huh?” Harry looked towards Jim’s mirror. “Yeah. A bit tired. We’re all a bit tired.”
“All those late nights and wild parties, eh?”
“It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.”
The driver's sunglasses nodded in the mirror,
Harry sank into the nearest seat. The leather was still warm, and smelled faintly of bass player. He settled back and turned his head towards the window.
The coach stood on its own at the edge of the car park, quiet except for the soft purring of the air conditioner. Above the rumble of the nearby motorway, a lone pigeon called, “Who are you? Who? Who?” over and over. A sudden hiss of compressed air, the door slid open, and six feet pounded up the narrow steps. As four carried on towards the rear of the coach; the other two shuffled forward and stopped beside one of the bunks.
A hand tapped on the walnut panel just above the curtain. Below, the coach’s engine started and the door hissed shut.
“Pugs?” Harry crouched down, wobbling a little as the coach rolled over a ramp and picked up speed. He spread his feet, steadied himself, and pushed aside the curtain with a hand clutching a white paper bag. “Brought you some-”
The bunk was empty.
Harry stood, checked the rear lounge, then headed forward to Tom's office and pushed his head through the velvet curtain. Doug was hunched over the table, writing.
“Hi,” Harry said softly. Doug carried on writing. Harry held out the paper bag “We brought you some lunch.”
“Just a sec.” Doug’s pencil stopped for a fraction of a second, then resumed its scrawl. He glanced up, then at the bag. “Thanks, could you…?” He pointed at a space on the table.
Harry set the bag down. “Pugs, I…” He watched the pen obliterate a block of writing, bit his lip, then pulled back through the curtain.
“Thanks, uh…” The syllables followed the drummer down the corridor to the lounge.
Tom glanced away from the plasma screen as Harry flopped onto the rear couch.. “Everything OK?”
Harry shrugged.
“It’ll be all-”
“Woohoo!” Danny pounced, and the screen filled with flame and smoke.
“Aw, come on!” Tom’s head swivelled between the screen and Harry three, four, five times, then gave up. “You’ll pay for that, Jones.”
Harry turned to the window, pulled his legs up onto the seat, and watched the countryside pass by.
⇐ Part 1 - Part 3 ⇒