All the Small Things (part 21)
Doug's hand twitched, and the glass splinter caught on his skin.
He hissed, shifted his hand and tried pulling at a different angle. The barbed edge tore the wound a little wider, his fingers lost their grip and the tweezers slipped away.
“Stupid fuck…” He wiped his fingers on his shirt, picked up the tweezers, stabbed into the wound and jerked the splinter free.
He dropped splinter and tweezers on the table, squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath.
After a moment, he opened his eyes and inhaled. He peered at his foot, wriggled his toes, probed with his fingertips around the wounds and then over the rest of the sole.
“Get them all?” Harry pulled out a chair and sat down.
Doug nodded, and reached for the plasters.
Danny sat up and shrugged the crick out of his neck, looked round, focussed on Tom and put on the lopsided smile of the last guy to get the joke. He started singing quietly.
“Now I start to wonder why you shrug me off when I say hi…”
Tom stood, white-faced, staring at his arm.
“I'm all right.” Danny got to his feet, took Tom's elbow and drew him towards the bed. “It's OK. Come on, sit down.”
“Danny, I'm sorry, I…”
“I know. My fault, should know by now, shouldn't I? Good job it were only my head. Might have hurt else.”
Danny shifted from side to side and slipped his hands under his thighs, then looked closely at Tom's face. “Did you sleep last night?”
Tom rested his hands in his lap, watched them, then took a deep breath.
“Not really.”
“Well,” Harry said, “that was one hell of a wake up call.”
Doug stared at the plasters on his foot, rocking with every breath.
Harry looked at him, the creases in his forehead, his narrow eyes, the puffed lids and blue shadows. He slid a hand across the table and rested his fingers on Doug's wrist.
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
Doug raised his head halfway. His eyes flicked towards Harry's, down to his wrist, then back again and held. He let out his breath.
“Not really.”
“This is where you tell me I'm wrong, I'm being stupid and it'll all be all right.”
“Would you believe that? I bloody wouldn't.”
“Then what?”
“I don't know.” Danny shrugged. “I do know one of us can't carry everything. Not even Superman.”
He scratched his head.
“One of us falls down, the rest help him up. We figure it out from there.”
Tom said nothing. Danny's hand drifted onto his back and began to move up and down his spine. Tom stiffened.
“Sorry.” Danny tucked his hand back under his leg. “So we've recorded, what, six? How many more do we need? Same again?”
“At least. A few more would be better.”
“And how many have we written? Feels like tons.”
“Not sure.” Tom gestured towards the laptop and the papers on his desk. “I guess there's another ten or twelve. Sixteen. Maybe a couple more.”
He blushed. “But they're not all… you know…”
Danny rolled his eyes, but nodded. “All right, we'll sit down together later and go through them. Pick em, tidy up ones we need to, put the rest away 'til after we're done in the studio. All right?”
Tom hesitated, then nodded.
“What's wrong, Dougie?”
Doug stared at the table.
Harry sighed. “Last night. I'm sorry.”
“S'all right.”
“No, it isn't. I shouldn't have taken it out on you. It wasn't your fault. It's just…” Harry looked down, shook his head. “I'm sorry.”
He ran his fingers back and forth along the bones in Doug's hand, then covered it completely.
“If you…” He shifted in his seat. “Look, if you can't sleep, if you ever need to, like the other night… I won't mind. Well, unless I've got a girl with me.”
Doug wiggled his eyebrows and smirked.
“No way.” Harry pulled his hand back. “No fucking way. You get your own.”
Doug picked up one of the backing strips from the plasters, ran a finger over the waxy paper, and started to roll it into a cylinder.
“Papers. You know what?” Danny said. “I've got more money now than the whole rest of my life, and the joke is, I'd play for nothing. Well, you know what I mean. So I tell myself the pay is for signing autographs and getting my picture took and letting people make up stories about me. Papers? Fuck em, I don't care.” His mouth tightened. “Long as they leave my family and my friends out of it.”
His face cracked into a grin. “Besides, every time it happens, I learn summat.” He made quote signs with his fingers, deepened his voice. “A valuable lesson.”
“Like…?”
“Don't wear socks in bed with a lass. Look under her chin, make sure she really is a lass…” He winked. “Best if you do that one first.”
“You idiot.”
“I've never seen you like that.” Doug stopped fidgeting and looked up.
Harry reached for one of the scraps of waxed paper and started folding it. “Can we not talk about it.”
“But…”
The scrap crumpled and dropped onto the table. “Please, Dougie…”
Doug nodded, and pulled the scrap into his pile. “Last night was so weird.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Did Harry say anything to you?”
“Harry…” Danny stared out the window. “I dunno. Something on his mind, pissed off with the rain… I doubt it's you, he yelled at all of us. Reckon you were just nearest target.”
He reached across and lifted Tom's guitar into his lap, strummed a half dozen chords. “Ought to set him on them lawyers. They'll never know what hit them.”
He stopped to tune the D string. “No. Best not. It'll upset Dougie.”
“What? Why?”
“Cruel to snakes.”
Tom shoved with his shoulder. Danny laughed, righted himself and shoved back. After a couple more rounds, he flopped onto his back.
“I bet Harry has some wicked ideas for songs.” He turned his face towards Tom. “Not now though. Next album, eh.”
Harry chuckled and leaned back. “Sounds like I missed out on all the fun.”
Doug stood a tiny paper cylinder on its end, tutted as his finger bumped it over, and stood it up again. He reached for another, then a third.
“Oh come on. If it was me, Tom and Danny, you'd be laughing your head off. How long was the power off?”
Doug stared at him.
“I was in a strop. Had the lights off anyway.”
He watched Doug knock down the paper skittles and set them up again.
“Danny's had an idea. So you can eat when we've got an appearance.”
Doug flicked a paper ball at the skittles. It flew over them. Harry bent down and picked it off the floor.
“Football, cricket, most sports, they have this diet before a big match. Lots of energy, digests fast, so they aren't playing with full stomachs. We thought…”
“Dougie. Mr. Douglas.” Danny looked around the room, spotted the Avril Lavigne poster and began picking out Complicated. “You ever watched skaters? Oh, course you have. Spending hours, jumping off walls and things, trying to do perfect double-twisty six-thirties-“
Tom sniggered. “Three-sixties?”
“Yeah.” Danny waved his hand. “Them.”
He picked up the riff again. “Most times they land on their arse or their elbow. Their mates have a good laugh, but then one says put your foot further back, another says jump earlier. And they get right back up and try until they do it. And if they do get hurt bad, break something…”
Tom nodded, and looked towards the window.
“Dougie's a lot tougher then he looks,” Danny said. He stopped playing, and scratched between his shoulder blades. “It were a nasty shock, seeing him like that. But we're watching now. Bruises are mending. He's had a few nights sleep. Harry and me have an idea for getting him eating. We'll get there. He'll be OK.”
“I guess I could try it.”
Doug slid off the table and hopped a couple of times before testing his weight on his injured foot.
“Why don't you crash for a few hours?”
“What's the time?” Doug looked at the clock, then limped towards the door.
“Dougie…”
“I need to do something.”
“Can I help?”
Doug shook his head.
“Sure? I'm not doing anything.”
“No, it's… I'll be all right. See ya.” He disappeared into the hallway.
Harry stared after him.
Danny replaced the guitar in its stand, stood and moved toward the door.
“I'll leave you to it. Gonna try to get some sleep?”
He looked at Tom, returned his nod, then stopped beside the memory wall, started looking at the photos. At first, he couldn't see anyone he recognised, then suddenly his mum's face appeared. And there were Tom's parents, their sisters, the Busted lads mooning, Harry asleep in a taxi.
He pointed near the top corner. “Why is Dougie green?”
Tom shuffled over and stood beside him. “Neon sign. He said it made him look like an iguana.” His gaze drifted over the pictures, stopping here and there.
Danny watched the slide-show of expressions on Tom's face. A fond smile. A little shake of his head. A tiny frown that turned into a chuckle. A smirk and a quick glance sideways at him. A grin, with dimple. His eyes shimmering with water, and a whispered “oh”.
He followed Tom's eyeline to the block of four photos, looked closer and remembered. The booth at Earl's Court station, last summer, the weekend Tom had a visitor.
Harry stood by the sink, swished a mouthful of tea from side to side and set down his mug, drummed a few bars on the edge of the counter, turned and strode towards the fridge. Halfway there, he stopped, turned back and reached for the bread, picked it up, then tossed the unopened bag back onto the counter, crossed the room and leaned against the table.
His knees began to shuffle back and forth, trying to coax his hips and feet into joining them. He went to jam his hands into his pockets, realised his boxers didn't have pockets, and pushed them inside the waistband instead. He spun round, pulled them out, went to the back door and pressed his nose to the glass, then twisted the key and the handle. The door groaned on its arthritic hinges and rattled open.
He stepped out onto the patio, stood looking around the garden for a moment, then up to Tom's balcony, up at the sky. His knees started to twitch again, and he began to pace back and forth.
“Call her. Tell her you want-”
“I can't.”
“Phone broken?”
“What if she says no?”
Danny shrugged. “Then you'll know.”
Tom turned back to the photographs. He pointed to one of them being loaded into a roller coaster. “Remember that? Florida?”
“I'd be bricking myself in case she said yes. Change a lot of things…”
“You and James were so sick on that one. Was it five times you rode it, or six?”
“She's a lovely lass. You're good together. You'll make it work.”
“Y-you and Harry, trying to…” Tom swallowed, bit his lip, tilted back his head. “Trying to feed Dougie to the killer whale.”
Danny walked to the doorway, paused and looked back.
“Don't spend the rest of your life, 'I wonder what she would have said?'”
He lolloped down the stairs, leaving Tom staring at the photos from the booth at Earl's Court station.
“Want to get on front page of the Sun?”
Harry started, and spun around to see Danny leaning against the door post.
“What?”
Danny nodded toward the bottom of the garden. “Paper razzies. Bet there's a hundred of them down there. Go wee in the hedge, give em summat to do.” He winked. ”You'll make ten million girls happy. And a million boys.”
He laughed at Harry's gesture, then tilted his head.
“I needed to stretch my legs, get some air.” Harry started pacing again.
“Kettle's on. Want toast?”
Harry nodded, trotted back into the kitchen and pulled the door closed. It made even more fuss than it did about opening.
“Better out when it isn't pissing down, eh?” Danny loaded the toaster.
“About that… sorry, Dan.”
“Is it serious? Can I do owt?”
Harry shook his head. The kettle boiled and clicked off.
“How's-?” they asked together.
“He's…” They smiled.
“You first,” they said.
⇐ Part 20 - Part 22 ⇒