His friend’s new girlfriend
his friend’s new girlfriend
‘Who’s ready for the best fucking night of their lives?’ says the lead singer.
They don’t know the name of the band. Ryan says that most of the acts that play here are doomed to fail.
Not to flame out spectacularly in a frenzy of smashed guitars and on-stage fist-fights, but to simply become another entry on a list of long-forgotten band names that were once yelled out from this stage.
She suspects he’s bitter about the demise of his own band, but he might have a point.
The lead singer has taken his top off and is leaping about with the microphone cord looped around his knuckles, but the maxed-out speakers make it hard to decipher the lyrics, and it’s difficult to see his face beneath the blaring spotlights.
The guitars are going for it, though, and the bassline has a satisfying crunch.
If it’s not the best fucking night of their lives, it should at least be a good one.
They’re at the usual place, coats and bags in their regular booth, crowded into that same Hoxton back room where all the gigs take place.
Seb and Clara dance to the music, his face against her neck, one of his hands snaking around her ripped T-shirt and holding her close.
Smudge sways next to them in a pair of neon-green shutter shades, dancing with himself.
Nimesh and Ryan are arm in arm, attempting to sing along to a song they’ve never heard before.
She’s behind them, because she actually wants to watch the show.
She met Ryan in the Vans shop on Carnaby Street a couple of months ago.
She was trying to sell him some shoes, and he was trying to woo her with a monologue about the MGMT tune playing over the stereo.
Once he’d realised that she knew more about music than he did, she couldn’t get rid of him.
She has a theory that you can tell everything you need to know about someone from their music taste.
Ryan’s is as neurotic as the man himself, a self-conscious mix of unlistenable bands he thinks might be the next big thing.
Nimesh’s, by contrast, is a carefree catalogue of upbeat indie.
Smudge’s is filled to the brim with anxiety-inducing nu-rave glitch-pop that sounds like it was made for a Game Boy Color.
Seb is harder to place. Tonight, his shirt bears the legend ‘Black Flag’, and she can’t help thinking that he looks like a young Henry Rollins.
‘We’ve been—’ says the lead singer from the stage, but she’s missed the name again because she’s halfway to the smoking area.
It’s freezing outside, and Clara seems cooler than ever, chewing the cords of her American Apparel hoodie as she talks about the tattoo design of hers that Seb has just had inked.
An old statue, with its face melted off.
Clara says she hates the taste of cigarettes, but loves smoking areas because she likes to talk, to hear people’s stories.
Ryan’s girlfriend hasn’t known her long, and is already infatuated.
Did you know that Clara works in films? That she’s making her own new short, and that she’s already enlisted a small army of amateurs for it, aspiring actors and would-be editors, hopeful composers and set stylists in-waiting?
Seb might be laconic, but he’ll be the first to tell you these things.
Their favourite topic is each other, and even now, Clara keeps steering the conversation back to her boyfriend.
He’s in pre-production on a real, big-deal film.
Clara has seen him in costume, in all the glory of his billowing shirtsleeves.
What’s more, he can perfectly execute the saxophone solo in INXS’s ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ in mime.
And he cries every time there’s an advert on TV with a dog in it.
‘He only drinks Guinness,’ Clara says. ‘Even at gigs. Out of a plastic cup.’ She mimes being sick.
The boys have come out to join them. Ryan kisses her, while Nimesh squeezes Clara by the shoulders. Smudge is still inside, in love with the sesh.
‘I’ve got really into Foals recently,’ Ryan says, turning the conversation back to music.
Nimesh nods drunkenly. ‘It hurts like a bitch when they kick you, though.’ He hiccups. He only gets one weekend off a month, and is drinking two to everyone else’s one.
Ryan’s girlfriend scans the smoking area, sees Seb rolling a cigarette for one of the bouncers.
He seems to know everyone here, and everyone here seems to like him.
On his way back, he pats someone’s shoulder, fist-bumps someone else.
He hands Ryan a proper cigarette pilfered from the bouncer, and Ryan kisses Seb on his bearded cheek in gratitude.
Seb puts his arm around Nimesh, asks him about his night.
Clara looks impatient for him to get to her. She wants him all to herself.
‘Hello, trouble,’ he says, greeting her with a kiss.
She smiles, her eyes remaining closed. He takes his place behind her, lets his heavy arms hang over her shoulders. She holds on to his forearms, sways from side to side.
‘What are we talking about?’ Seb says.
‘Baby horses,’ Nimesh says.
‘Clara was just telling me about your film,’ Ryan’s girlfriend says.
Seb rolls his eyes, says that no one wants to hear about that. He goes to roll a cigarette for himself, but he’s used his last filter, so he tears a strip off an old train ticket in his wallet and twists it into a tight little cylinder.
‘What are you working on at the moment, Clara?’ Ryan asks.
Clara shakes her head, as if there’s too much within it to put into words.
‘This new short,’ she says. ‘It’s early days, yet.
I still need to finish writing the thing.
’ She watches Seb pinch his cigarette together, tuck it between his lips.
‘Then there’s the day job. I’m actually helping to produce the film that this guy is in. ’
Seb blows out a cloud of smoke.
Clara turns to Ryan’s girlfriend, speaks excitedly. ‘He’s so good,’ she says. ‘He wasn’t at first, but he is now. I’m so proud of him.’ She squeezes Seb by the arms. ‘My big project.’
Nimesh laughs. Ryan asks another question.
Only Ryan’s girlfriend notices Seb’s expression, the manner in which he clenches his jaw, narrows his eyes.
The way he shakes his head, stubs out his cigarette before it’s finished.
When they return to the bar, Seb presses on ahead.
He’s nowhere to be seen after they’ve downed their J?gerbombs, or even when they’re once more in the thick of it, a new band seamlessly replacing the old one, Smudge struggling through the crowd to get to them, blinking dazily through the plastic bars of his glasses.
‘Ben Morris surfacing,’ Ryan yells.
Nimesh embraces Smudge like they haven’t seen each other in years.
Ryan takes his girlfriend by the waist, nods towards the crowd.
Nearby, Clara spins on her axis, spots Seb near the exit, beckons for him to join them.
He doesn’t come. She goes to him. The music plays out, and it’s love, and it’s noise, it’s art and it’s friendship.
It’s something altogether more primal, more profound.
It’s all here, and it all swirls under the sweaty lights, becomes muddled, gets confused.
She can see Seb and Clara, distant and indistinct, heads pressed together in the corner of the room.
Clara’s face is contorted, her words coming quickly.
Seb runs his fingers through his hair in frustration.
‘Are they arguing?’ she asks Ryan.
‘Seb never argues with anyone,’ Ryan shouts, not even looking. ‘It would be like fighting with a fridge-freezer.’
But she knows what she’s seeing. And she knows that something is shifting, when Seb storms out and Clara follows.