Maybe Tomorrow (part 3)
“Eleven-thirty-four, eleven-thirty-six. Must be the next one... Eleven-forty. What? Oh. Eleven-thirty-eight. At last.”
A grey leather suitcase and a battered sports bag landed with a thump on the carpet next to the door, and a moment later, a guitar case settled beside them. Tom took the white key card from between his teeth, slotted it into the lock, and turned the handle. As he shoved the door open with his knee, he turned and called back down the corridor.
“Dougie…”
A dozen paces away, on the other side of the corridor, the bass player’s head turned.
Tom beckoned with a hand. “Can I have my phone? I need to call Gi and find out when her train gets in.”
“Huh? Yeah, sure.” Doug shrugged off his backpack and let it slip to the floor. He trotted along the carpet and reached into his pocket.
“Dougie, is anyth-”
Along the corridor, the lift pinged and rattled open.
Doug glanced towards the sound. “Thanks,” he said, dropped the phone into Tom’s hand, and scurried back to his room, speeding up as Harry and Danny drew nearer.
“Hey hey!” Danny grinned at Tom, his eyes sweeping the distance between them. “Won’t you be lonely up there?”
“Luck of the draw. Anyway, Gi's coming. Just hope we're far enough away from your snoring to-”
“I don’t snore!”
“Hah!” Three voices sounded at once.
“Well, it never bothers me.” Danny dropped his bags and began rooting in his pockets for his key.
“You muppet, that’s cos- Ah, forget it.” Harry turned and started across the corridor. “Pugs…”
Doug swiped his card in the lock. Nothing happened.
“Dougie, please, I…” Harry's voice reverberated in the corridor. Tom and Danny stopped and turned to look. Harry glanced at them and his face began to colour. He lowered his voice. “I thought, maybe…”
Doug tried again. The card wedged itself into the slot. Grunting, he tugged at it.
“Let’s do something. Grab something to eat, find a cinema, or a club, or…”
The card came free. Doug turned it between his fingers and tried again. The lock clicked and a green light came on. He pushed the door open.
“Come on, Dougie, it’s been ages. Just us two.”
Doug shoved a foot forward to prop the door and bent down for his bag. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t be, there's…” He glanced up, blinked and shrugged again. “Not now.”
Tom and Danny frowned at each other.
Harry reached for Doug’s shoulder. His forehead creased as the boy ducked and turned away. “Just dinner then. Call me when you-”
“I need…” Doug let out the rest of his breath. “Sorry. I, you… some other…” He hefted the backpack onto his shoulder. “Maybe tomorrow. OK?”
He pushed forward into his room. Harry stepped back and watched the door ease itself shut.
“Don’t worry, mate,” Danny said. He nodded at Tom, who nodded back and disappeared into his room. “You know what he’s like when he gets an idea.” He unlocked his door, picked up his guitar case.
“Yeah.” Harry turned back to his own door and reached into his pocket. “Yeah. I do.”
Danny tapped, listened, shrugged, and tried the handle anyway. The door to Doug’s room swung open. “Eh up!” He padded into the room, stopped by the bed and turned a full circle. “Doug?”
He spied the open balcony door and moved towards it.
“Doug, you all right, mate?”
For a split second, the younger boy's head appeared at the sliding glass door. It disappeared again, and slowly, the door began to close.
“Hey!” Danny leapt across the room, grabbed the door and brought it to a halt. He frowned as a heavy sigh drifted in from outside. “Come on, mate, talk to me.”
Another sigh, and Doug's head reappeared. “About what?” He stepped back and stood with one foot in the room, the other on the balcony, flakes of ash dropping from the cigarette in his hand.
“About what’s crawled up your arse and bit you.”
Doug turned his face towards the building across the street, then turned back outside and leaned on the top of the concrete rail. Danny followed him out and watched as he drew on the cigarette, held in the smoke, and let it trickle from his nostrils.
“Thought you were quittin.”
Doug snorted. The motion loosened a clump of ash, and he bent forward and watched it fall until it was too small to see. “I am,” he said, and squinted at Danny from the corner of one eye. “Two steps forward, one step back. This is my step back.” He took another drag and went back to staring across the street.
Danny stepped out onto the balcony, folded his arms on the rail and let his eyes drift from window to window in the building opposite. Beneath them, a siren and blue flashing lights moved right to left as an ambulance wove a narrow path through the matchbox cars. “Good job it's me and not Tom.”
The cigarette burned out in Doug’s hand. He flicked the butt over the edge, watched it fall towards the empty pavement, put a hand into his pocket, thought better of it and crossed his arms instead.
“I won't tell him.” Danny took a sideways step and reached across Doug’s back. “Not easy, is it? Tryin to give up.”
Doug grunted and pulled away.
Danny shrugged, replaced his arm on the rail and turned his attention to the traffic. Five cars passed below, then one pulled into the hotel. Another five passed, another one pulled in. He tilted his head. It happened again, and again, and-
“How do you…?” Doug cleared his throat. His head was bent forward, staring at his fingers as they tangled themselves in his wristbands. He closed his eyes. “I feel like…”
Danny tried again with his hand. This time, Doug shifted towards it. The older boy pressed harder, flattened his palm, and started to move it in slow, tiny circles.
Doug sighed and nodded. “When I was little, nine or ten... We were on holiday. In Greece.”
Danny's hand kept moving. Small circles.
“At the beach, there were these, like rock pools.” Doug puffed his breath out through his nose.
Slow circles.
“There were these, in one pool, these little starfish things,” He straightened a little, freed a hand and measured one between his thumb and index finger. “And I thought, maybe there's more in the next one, further out. I waved at Mum, but Jazzie was in a strop, and… Anyway, it was empty. But there was another pool a little further away.” He turned his head halfway toward Danny and managed a tiny smile. “And then I climbed a few rocks and found a big pool, and there were loads of them. Big spiny ones, smooth ones, and they were moving around. Eating.” He held up his hands and they turned into starfish wriggling on the ends of his arms, crawling over the seabed high above the street.
“It grabs a clam…” One starfish flattened and folded double; the fingers of the other quickly surrounded it and started to pull it open. “And it puts, it's like a tongue, but it's its stomach, inside out, and pushes it into the shell. That's how they eat.”
Doug put his hands back on the concrete rail. “They were so cool. I wanted Mum and Jazzy to see. But when I looked, between me and the beach, there was water, all around, everywhere.”
Danny’s hand stopped.
The sun disappeared behind a cloud. Doug shivered, took a couple of long breaths, pulled away and went back into the room. Danny slid the glass door to, and sprawled in the armchair.
“How do you…?” Doug sat on the end of the bed and studied the mirror on the dresser opposite him.
“How do I what?”
Outside, another siren grew loud, dropped in pitch and faded away.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Danny scratched his ear, sat up and looked around the room. He nodded at the papers on the table. “How’s the song?”
“Huh?” Doug turned towards him. “Oh.” He shrugged.
“Play it for me.”
“I’m too, it’s too fucked up right now. Need to work on it some more.”
“Right.” Danny shifted forward in the seat, smiled, and let it fade. “Leave you alone?”
Doug nodded, and watched the other boy amble across the room and reach for the door. “Danny?”
He turned.
“Thanks.”
Danny nodded. “Maybe catch you later, yeah?”
Doug returned the nod and raised a hand halfway to a wave. As the door closed, he lowered his arm, slid off the bed, and stood staring out the window.
He shut his eyes and let his head thump a deep note against the glass. “One step forward.” Thump. “Two steps back.” Thump. “You are so. Fucking. Stupid.” He turned back into the room, sat at the desk, picked up a pencil and began to search through his papers.
The knock on the door was quiet enough to be startling. Doug’s head snapped upright. His pencil dropped onto the paper, rolled across it and fell to the carpet.
“Come in?” he whispered, then rolled his eyes and said it properly. “Come in.”
The door opened, but it was a few seconds before a forehead and two blue eyes appeared in the gap.
“Harry.” Doug turned back to his papers.
The gap widened. The drummer inched into the room, one hand behind his back. Doug tilted his head left, then right, leaned sideways and began searching the carpet under the table.
“Pugs.” Harry took a tiny step forward as Doug groped under his chair. “Can I…?”
Doug grunted, grabbed his pencil and pulled himself upright. He turned towards Harry and waited.
“I, uh…” Harry’s eyes flicked around the room: the dresser, the curtains, the rumpled spot in the middle of the bedspread. He checked the corridor behind him, took another step into the room and swallowed. “I got you something.” The hand came out from behind his back, holding a plain blue plastic bag pulled tightly around a box.
Harry edged to the table, set down the box, and nudged it forward.
Doug lifted the bag and peered inside. He gasped, and sat back open-mouthed.
“I figured it out,” Harry said, staring at his feet. “You kept borrowing…” He stole a glance at Doug’s face. “I wanted to get the same one, I tried, but…” His hand waved circles in front of him. “They don’t make it any more. This was the only, the closest… It’s all I could find. Sorry.”
Doug’s head began to turn from side to side.
“Please Dougie, you know me, I get carried away-”
“You didn’t need, you shouldn’t-”
“I broke it. I had to fix it.”
Doug reached into the bag and brought out a box covered in photographs of smiling people holding mobile phones. He traced the logo with a finger, turned the box over and gave it a little shake before righting it again.
He puffed out his breath and raised sad eyes. “You aren’t making this easy.”
“Let's… what?” Harry stepped forward. “Have you eaten yet? We could go, grab something…”
Doug shook his head.
“A pizza, or… there’s a Greek place around the corner.”
The bass player set the box on the table. He closed his eyes and shook his head harder.
“Please, Dougie!” Harry’s voice cracked. Doug flinched.
Harry stammered for a moment. “Please, I just want to make it right. I want us to be OK again.”
Doug reached towards the box and picked at the seal with a fingernail. He began turning it in his hands. “I’m not… it wasn’t… I’m not angry with you.” He swallowed, lifted a hand to his forehead and ran the knuckles over the furrows there. “I mean, I was. I told you to stop, all of you. You didn’t listen, you never, nobody ever listens.”
Harry slumped and hung his head.
“But that was yesterday. It’s not your fault. You’re Harry, you get this, it’s like a switch, and you…” Doug smiled as his hands lifted from the table in a mock explosion. “You do. It's what you do. It’s one of the things I…”
The smile faded, and he cleared his throat and moved his hands back onto to the box. “You really didn’t have to. It’s great. Thanks. But...” Again he cleared his throat. “I’ve got to try and…”
Harry’s shoulders sank lower. He turned and took two reluctant steps towards the door.
“Harry…”
The drummer’s foot stopped in mid-air. He lowered it to the ground.
“It’s not you, it’s-”
“Oh, fuck off!” Harry snapped upright, his cheeks flaring red as he glared over his shoulder. “You fucking dare say that.” He reached the door in three strides and grabbed at the handle.
“No, Harry, wait, that didn’t…” Doug pushed himself upright, caught his foot on the table leg and stumbled against the dresser. “Ow! Fukkit!”
Harry let go of the handle and turned round.
Doug sat on the bed and rubbed his knee. He took a deep breath.“I mean... You guys, all of you, I never know why you do it. But you-”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“You're right. I’m nothing without you. And I’ve got to, before you…”
Harry turned. “Dougie, I didn't mean-”
“It’s like I’m... I don't know, fucking Icarus, or something.”
“What?”
“You won’t always be around.”
“But I-”
“You won’t.” Doug shook his head. “You won’t. It’s not a bad thing. It's not.” He stared into the mirror. “Like, Tom’s got Gi. It’s just a matter of time before he’s a real dad instead of practising on us.”
Harry smiled. “On you, you mean.”
Doug's mouth flickered. He tilted his head towards the door. “Danny... one day, he will find ‘the one’, and there will never be a luckier girl. And you…”
“But-”
Doug's hand went to the edge of his face and began to pull at his hair. “You’ll meet someone amazing, who’s smart and fit and funny and… everything you want. And it'll be like, you could go out tonight, meet someone, and... she’ll be your entire world.” He dragged a few strands towards the corner of his mouth, released them, and started to bite at a thumbnail.
Harry turned and pressed his forehead against the wall. “I wouldn’t do that. You're-”
Doug's hand went back to pulling at his hair. “I wouldn’t stop you.”
“Fine.” Harry thumped his head against the wall. “Fine.” He spun round and pulled the door open. “I give up. See you round.”
Doug watched the door close, turned back to his desk, and picked up the sheet of paper. He read through the writing, crumpled it and dropped it in the waste bin. He sat motionless, then he pushed himself up, hauled open the door to the balcony, and stumbled out into the dusk.
⇐ Part 2 - ⇒Part4