Chapter Eleven
The school had used the word "suspension" like it was a reasonable solution. Like the way to make Mo behave in school was to… not have her in school at all. Iona wasn’t at all sure she agreed with the theory, but then, she hadn’t been consulted, had she?
"It wasn't even that bad," Mo said from the passenger seat, arms crossed, staring out the window with the intensity of someone who knew they were in trouble and had decided to be angry about it instead of sorry.
"You wrote something on the bathroom wall."
"I didn't write anything. I drew something."
"What did you draw?"
Silence. Oh God. Iona had a feeling that she might know what Mo had drawn.
"Mo."
"It was artistic."
"It was a penis. Wasn’t it?"
Mo said nothing, but a slight smile crept around the corners of her mouth, and Iona had to bite her tongue to stop herself laughing.
She gripped the steering wheel and counted to ten. Right. She could do this. "You're coming to rehearsal with me. I can't leave you home alone right now, and I'm certainly not rewarding you with a day off."
"I don't want to come to your stupid rehearsal."
"Good. That makes both of us unhappy. We can be miserable together."
The rehearsal space looked exactly as depressing as usual, but on the bright side, at least today she didn’t have enough energy to be worried about what Maeve might do.
She parked badly and didn't care. Mo trailed behind her with the enthusiasm of a prisoner being led to execution, phone already out, headphones in, the universal teenage signal for do not speak to me.
Cam was already there, perched on her drum stool, and she lit up when she saw them. "Woah, don’t tell me we get BOTH Faith women today. Must be my lucky day."
Iona gritted her teeth. "She's been suspended from school."
"Brilliant," Cam said, with far too much delight. Iona glared at her. "Sit anywhere you like, Mo. This is going to be educational."
Mo's expression suggested she would rather chew glass.
Ellie arrived next, bass case over her shoulder. She nodded at Mo with the easy acceptance of someone who had three teenagers of her own. "School trouble?"
"Bathroom vandalism," Iona said.
"Huh. Could be worse." Ellie set her case down and flexed her fingers, rolling her wrist in a way that seemed almost unconscious.
Then the door opened, and Maeve walked in. Which suddenly brought home a fact to Iona that was both obvious and yet completely overlooked. Maeve didn’t actually know about Mo’s existence.
Maeve’s eyes swept the room, landed on Mo, and stopped. "Who's that?" she asked, frowning at Mo who was bent over her phone.
Iona cleared her throat. "Um. My daughter," she said. "Mo." She whistled loudly.
Mo pulled one earbud out. Stared at Maeve with the blank assessment of a teenager sizing up an adult and finding them wanting. "Hi."
"Hello," Maeve said. She frowned even harder. "How old are you?"
"Fourteen."
Maeve thought about this for a second. "Shouldn’t you be in school then?"
"Nah," said Mo, fiddling with her earbud and looking Maeve up and down. "Shouldn’t you be in rehab?"
"Mo!" Iona said, shocked.
"What?" said Mo. "You said she was an alcoholic."
“I…"
"It’s fine," said Maeve, with a sniff. She turned back to Mo. "She’s right, I am. Rehab’s a long time ago now though. Now I just… don’t drink."
"Right," Mo said, looking just the tiniest bit impressed. "Sounds tough."
“It is." Maeve put her guitar case down. "It’s been a while, though. Doesn’t get easier, just gets… more normal. And I’m pretty sure you should be in school. Even I know that much."
"I’m suspended," said Mo.
Now it was Maeve that looked the tiniest bit impressed. She gave a nod. "It happens." Then she started to tune her guitar.
Mo put her headphones back in.
Iona sighed. "Sorry about that. She's fourteen. Everything everyone does is wrong."
"Really?" Maeve said. "I don't remember being like that at fourteen."
From across the room, Cam snorted so hard she nearly fell off her stool. "Are you joking? Maeve, at fourteen you once told a teacher that his lesson plan was 'so boring it made you want to scrape your eyeballs out' and almost made him cry."
"His lesson plan was boring."
"You rubbed olive oil over a blackboard so the chalk wouldn’t work."
"That was just clever."
Ellie was failing to hide a smile. "You also got suspended yourself. Twice."
Maeve shrugged. "I did." She looked over at Iona. "And when did you get a daughter? Just pick her up off the side of the road or something? Find her in a daughter shop? How did that happen?"
"The usual way," Cam said. "Presumably." She lifted an eyebrow at Iona then sighed at Maeve. "Alright, maybe we should have a quick catchup here. You missed a lot while you were off being a hermit."
"I wasn't being a hermit," Maeve said, looking stung.
"You lived alone in the Scottish Highlands for fifteen years."
"That's not hermitage. That's sensible housing choices."
Cam ignored her. "Right, well, first, Iona and Shepherd got married."
Maeve's head turned toward Iona so fast Iona heard something click. "You married Shepherd?"
"Years ago. We divorced. Amicably."
"You married Shepherd Nixon. Our agent."
"Former agent. And yes."
"And divorced him."
"Also yes."
"And had a child with him." Maeve gestured toward Mo, who didn't look up.
"Correct."
"You married Shepherd." Maeve said it like she was trying to make the words make sense.
"Is that really so surprising?"
"He wore boat shoes. Unironically."
Iona sighed. "Can we maybe have this conversation later? When there's less of an audience?" She gestured toward Mo, who was still lost in her phone.
"She also married someone called Calinda," Cam added helpfully. "That one only lasted a year. Calinda was a fashion editor. Very glamorous. Mo still hasn't forgiven Iona for letting that one go."
Maeve was staring at Iona like she'd announced she'd spent the last decade as a circus performer. "Two marriages?"
"Can we please rehearse now?" Iona asked.
"Yes," Ellie said firmly. "Let's do that."
They set up. Maeve took her position at the microphone, still looking at Iona with an expression that suggested she had many more questions. Iona picked up her guitar and tried to focus.
They ran through one of Maeve's songs. It sounded better than yesterday, but that wasn't saying much. The bass line was steadier, Cam was mostly keeping time, but there was something missing. Some spark that wouldn't catch.
"The bridge still isn't working," Iona said when they'd stumbled to a finish.
Maeve's jaw tightened. "The bridge is fine."
"It's too static."
"I feel like we've had this conversation."
"And you didn't listen."
"I listened. I disagreed."
Iona set her guitar down. "What if we tried the variation I suggested yesterday again? Just to see?"
"No."
Ellie and Cam exchanged looks. Even Mo had pulled out one earbud, watching the exchange with the first sign of interest she'd shown all morning.
Maeve crossed her arms. "The song is structured the way it's structured for a reason."
"And what reason is that?"
"Because I wrote it that way."
"That's not a reason. That's stubbornness."
"It's artistic integrity."
"It's stubbornness dressed up in a fancy coat."
Maeve's eyes narrowed. "You're very opinionated for someone who spent the last fifteen years getting married."
"And you're very rigid for someone who claims to be creative."
They stared at each other. Iona kept her expression pleasant, her voice light, because she knew from long experience that nothing infuriated Maeve more than someone who refused to rise to her bait.
"Fine," Maeve said finally, through gritted teeth. "Show me again."
Iona picked up her guitar and played the alternative progression. She watched Maeve's face as she played, looking for any crack in that stony expression.
There. A flicker of something. Interest, maybe. Or just irritation. Hard to tell with Maeve.
"It's not terrible," Maeve admitted, which from her was practically a standing ovation.
"High praise."
"Don't push it."
They ran the song again with the new bridge. It still wasn't quite right, but it was closer.
Ellie reached for her water bottle. It slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. She stared at her hand for a moment, flexing her fingers, then bent to pick it up.
"Butterfingers," she said lightly. "Didn't sleep well last night."
Then another voice piped up. "You sound shit," Mo announced from the wall.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"Mo," Iona said through gritted teeth.
"What? You do. It's boring. There's no energy." Mo shrugged, already putting her earbuds back in. "I'm going outside. The acoustics in here are giving me a headache."
She walked out before anyone could respond, the door swinging shut behind her. Iona closed her eyes and counted to ten again. "I'm so sorry," she said finally. "She's fourteen. She doesn't have a filter."
"She's not wrong, though," Cam said. "We do sound a bit shit."
"Cam."
"What? We're competent. We're technically fine. But we sound like we're going through the motions." Cam twirled a drumstick between her fingers. "We need to find the spark again. Whatever made us sound like us. Especially if we’re going to do a show."
"A show?" Maeve said, turning to Cam.
"Yeah, didn’t I say?" Cam said. "I talked to Shepherd. He's agreed to represent us. Provisionally. As long as we do a trial show. Open mic night at a club in Manchester. Prove we can actually perform in front of people without falling apart."
"When?" Iona asked.
"Couple of weeks. Plenty of time to get our act together." Cam's phone buzzed, and she glanced at it, smiling at something on the screen before tucking it away. "Same time tomorrow?"
IONA WAITED UNTIL everyone had left, then went to find Mo, who was sitting on the kerb outside, kicking at a loose piece of tarmac.
"That was rude," she said.
"It was honest."
"Honesty and rudeness aren't mutually exclusive."
Mo shrugged. "She's weird. That Maeve woman."
"She's not weird. She's just…" Iona searched for the right word. "Private."
"She’s weird."
Iona sat down next to her daughter on the kerb, not caring about the state of her jeans. "She's been living alone in Scotland for fifteen years. She's out of practice with people."
"That's sad."
"Is it?"
Mo considered this. "Yeah. Kind of. Also, a bit pathetic."
"Mo."
"What? It is. You can't just hide from everything forever. At some point, you have to actually live your life."
Iona looked at her daughter. Fourteen years old, all sharp edges and attitude, but occasionally saying things that cut right to the heart of something without even knowing she was doing it. "You're right," Iona said. "You can't hide forever."
The question was how to make Maeve see that. How to get her to loosen her grip, stop trying to control everything, trust the rest of them enough to actually collaborate. Because right now Maeve was holding on so tight that nothing could breathe, not the music, not the band, not any of them.
And if Iona couldn't find a way to crack that open, the whole thing was going to suffocate before it even got started.