Girls Just Want to Have Sun (The Girls #1)

Chapter 1

Less than two years after my mother’s death, my father has taken to wearing a shirt and tie with his jeans, dyeing his grey hair the colour of hummus and, rather awkwardly, ‘dipping his toe’, as he calls it, into a lady called Madge.

They met at the local hiking club where they bonded over a shared love of walking across lumpy fields with a biting wind scraping across their faces like sandpaper.

And even though they have only been going out for five minutes, with my poor mother still warm in her grave, Madge has invited him to spend a few days exploring what the Lake District has to offer by way of a romantic minibreak.

He has stopped by my house to inform me of this latest development in their relationship.

‘Connie, loneliness and grief can eat away at your mind,’ my father says hesitantly as he flicks a shy look over to Madge waiting for him in the car.

‘Madge thinks we both need to move on, love. Meet new people. Try new things.’

It would certainly explain the goatee. She’ll have him manscaping next and growing a hipster topknot, but seeing his face all lit up with nervous excitement makes me feel he might have a point.

My last boyfriend ran screaming for the hills as soon as my mother became sick, and the nearest I’ve come to having a romantic relationship since is watching the Bridgerton buttocks scene on a continuous loop.

‘I’m fine, Dad,’ I say. ‘I have my career to focus on. I don’t need to “try new things”.’

He leans in to hug me. He must be nervous because he has pickled himself in Eau Sauvage.

‘Go and have a lovely time,’ I say, trying not to be tearful at seeing him open the car door ready to drive off with a companion who isn’t my mother.

I stand in the doorway staring sadly after them until my phone bursts to life.

‘Just in time,’ I say to Nancy, my agent at We’ve Got Talent.

I’m desperate for extra singing work now that my temporary day job as a data input cleaner – could anything sound more glamorous?

– recently came to an abrupt and unexpected end.

Nancy has been my agent for the last six years.

I’m not sure where to start. With my disappointing part-time singing career?

With my father hurtling his way to the Lakes to do the deed with his new girlfriend?

With my two newly engaged BFFs about to tie the knot and set up home together?

Or with my poor mother dead and buried instead of living her life with me at her side?

‘I’ll just stop you there, Connie, pet,’ she says in her husky, twenty-cigs-a-day voice. ‘It’s about the gig for tonight. Wait…’

While she pauses to take a few puffs of her ciggie, I take the opportunity to blink away the tears.

I’ve just remembered something very important.

Nancy is not a huge fan of her artists sobbing down the phone about things that go wrong in their personal lives.

As if to prove the point, she lets out an exasperated sigh.

‘I hope you’re not crying? Jesus, it’s not even wine o’clock.’ Nancy tuts loudly. ‘Well, it is if you’re me.’

She cackles. It’s never too early for a pint of wine in her world.

‘No,’ I croak, taking a deep, calming breath. ‘No, I’m fine.’

‘Connie, love, you better not make a mess of this gig tonight. You know Sheila is a personal friend of mine. It’s her wedding anniversary and I have promised her a magical, uplifting, happy evening…

not some depressing Billie Eilish-fest,’ she says.

‘Speaking of which, please do not wear those cheerless black robes of yours. It’s a party, not a witches’ coven.

You’re the singer so I expect you to bring some sparkle.

Can you do that?’ Nancy carries on before I can try to deny that I have indeed been using my repertoire of tear-inducing songs to encourage audiences to share in my ongoing grief.

‘You sound upset to me. If you’re not up to it, just say. We can’t have a repeat of?—’

‘I won’t let you down! I’ll be fine. I promise.’

The following morning, I’m practising my singing scales in the kitchen with a wooden spoon and trying to forget the whole strenuous evening before when my phone pings with a notification that I’m tagged in a photo.

I make the mistake of looking at the latest We’ve Got Talent social media post. As I scroll through hideous photos of myself on stage, my two live-in flatmates-cum-therapists, Liam and Ged, are absolutely no help whatsoever.

They have heard me whining and have come to my immediate aid, because as well as being very caring friends, they are also experienced musicians.

After we all graduated with our music degrees, Liam began working as a music teacher while Ged became a music producer, which makes them an excellent sounding board because they are very talented but also incredibly nosy.

They’re newly returned from their dreamy getaway to a spa hotel in Northumberland that had a rose petal and jasmine-scented hot tub with disco lights and a built-in glitter cannon.

They have been full of tales of Ged’s elaborate wedding proposal involving strawberries dipped in chocolate, couples’ vision boarding, and bubbles squirted in places they probably shouldn’t be.

It is bad enough trying to be happy for my dad without my two best friends gearing up to leave me behind too.

I am twenty-seven years old, my commitment to fast fashion and bottomless brunches is almost impossible to underestimate and I spend my weekends singing covers in old men’s social clubs.

I am very clearly not living my best life.

Ged looks at one of the photos I’m tagged in and gasps. ‘When did you get punched in the face?’ He flicks his finger back and forth across the screen. ‘Sorry, false alarm. Stage lights can be so unforgiving.’

‘You look divine, darling,’ says Liam hurriedly. ‘Very…’

I watch him struggling to find the right word as he points to the photo of me with one eye half shut, mouth wide open and a chin that has disappeared into my neck.

‘…invested. Yes, that’s it. Invested.’

‘Were you singing Adele again?’ asks Ged.

I nod.

It has been viewed thousands of times and received 420 likes. Huge, huge embarrassment. I could do without these off-putting images of me floating around on the internet. I’ll never get hired again at this rate.

‘I’ll ring Nancy,’ I say, jabbing at my phone, ‘and ask her to take the photos down.’

‘Oh, Connie, it’s you,’ says Nancy, sounding disappointed.

‘Hi, Nancy. Just a quick call to see if you can take those awful photos of me down, please. Especially the ones where I have a face like a melted welly. And, on a more positive note, I’m available for work next weekend.

I did my new set at the party last night,’ I say, choosing my words carefully.

Nancy is very astute. I will stick to the facts.

‘Sheila said she’d never seen or heard anything like it. ’

A silence hangs in the air as I hear Nancy taking a long drag on her cigarette.

Pah, pah, pah.

‘You did the dreary songs again, didn’t you?’ She exhales loudly into the phone.

Christ.

‘Yes, but they loved them. Even the men were bawling their eyes out at my “Pie Jesu”.’ I can hear myself flapping. ‘That’s what good singers do. They move people. It’s an art form.’ I’m on rocky ground here. Very rocky.

‘Yes, love. You were being paid to move people,’ Nancy says stiffly, ‘to move them onto the dance floor, not have half the guests wailing into their drinks. Sheila’s refusing to pay up, and you’ve put me in a very difficult position, Connie.’

My mind flicks back to Sheila yelling at the DJ to hurry me off the stage and him blasting out dance tracks before I’d even finished the final notes of ‘All Out of Love’.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I’ll have to let you go.’ Nancy’s gravelly voice sounds flat.

I take a beat to understand what she’s saying. She’s known me for years. I sang my way through university for her. She found singers to cover for me when my mother was ill, and in turn I dropped everything to cover for her whenever she needed me to.

‘You just haven’t got what it takes any more, pet.

Recently I’ve had nothing but complaints that you look and sound like a wounded animal.

But good luck with your Royal Northern Sinfonia audition.

Is it today? You’d be a perfect fit for that sort of hoity-toity singing.

Lord knows you’ve tried hard enough to get in. ’

And while I’m sure she has a point to a certain degree – I may have lost my passion for singing and getting crowds going – singing the lead in an orchestra choir and following in my mother’s classical singing footsteps is the only link to her that I have. I will never stop trying.

‘Connie, your phone’s ringing!’ yells Ged that evening. He and Liam have retired to the safe confines of the kitchen while I howl the place down in the living room. My audition for the Royal Northern Sinfonia could only have been worse if I’d shat myself on stage and thrown it at them.

It’s Nancy.

‘Good Lord, you’re not crying again, are you? Honestly, I’m amazed you’re not in some permanent state of chronic dehydration. It’s very ageing, you know.’

‘No. Hi. No. I’m not crying. I’m just?—’

‘Well, whatever, listen to me carefully. I’ve had a cancellation.

Total nightmare. Our most popular tribute act, Ted Sheeran, has broken his chin on one of those electric scooters and you’re the only singer I know who is available and desperate.

I’m going to give you one last chance to redeem yourself. ’

I am desperate. Everyone in my life is moving on except me. I wipe the tears from my cheeks.

‘I’ll do it,’ I shriek. ‘Whatever it is, I’ll do it.’

‘Okay. Ring Jezebel Music. Ask to speak to the boss. Say I gave you her deets and you’re the replacement talent.’

Nancy texts me the details and I ring the number. A woman picks up.