Chapter Forty-Nine Mo
Chapter Forty-Nine
MO
Mo sat cross-legged, bare foot, eyes closed, on the floor of his home studio. His head was bowed, headphones on, his fingers plucking the strings of his guitar. A notepad and pen lay on the floor beside him as he hummed under his breath.
The left speaker lifted from his ear and then smacked back onto his head with a thwack.
‘Ow!’ Mo pulled the headphones down to hang around his neck and glared at the culprit. He’d been too absorbed in the song to notice Mav had even entered the room, let alone that he’d gotten close enough to mess with his headphones. ‘What?’
‘I’m leaving now to take the next lot of stuff to the flat,’ Mav said, squatting to look Mo in the eye. ‘I might stay there tonight and then come back and get the rest tomorrow. That cool?’
Mo looked at his little brother. The excitement of moving into his own place was buzzing around him. Fuck, he was going to miss him. ‘All good.’ Mo lay the guitar on the ground beside him. ‘Need a hand?’
‘Nah, I’ve got it.’ Mav’s grin sobered and he punched Mo lightly on the shoulder. ‘You okay? It’s good to see you up and about finally.’
‘Yeah. I’m sorry. The last couple of weeks have been a write-off.
’ That was an understatement. He’d been totally checked out, drowning inside his own head, since he’d confided in Netta on Christmas Day.
But something had shifted, letting just enough light in through the boggy blackness for Mo to see how stupid he’d been to cut her off the way he had.
It seemed hitting rock bottom after his call with Rhona the other day—letting himself cry for the first time in years and acknowledge the full depth of his pain—had been what he’d needed to start rising slowly back towards the surface.
It was still a way off—he was still in the deep end—but his legs were beginning to feel like they might be able to kick again.
Mav dropped his butt to the floor and sat opposite his brother. ‘It’s understandable, bro,’ he said. ‘I feel like I don’t know the whole story, but being sacked and your lady leaving are probably more than enough to sink you into a pit of shit.’
Mo smiled wryly. ‘She’s not my lady.’
‘Really? Because I’ve never seen you so mopey about a woman before. I know something happened at Christmas. When you came back, she was gone and you were an emo. Was it a sex fest?’
‘No!’ Mo couldn’t help but grin at his brother’s turn of phrase. ‘We slept together, but it was more than just sex, it was—’
‘The beginning of a beautiful love story?’
Mo wasn’t sure if Mav was joking or not. ‘Mate, that’s the thing,’ he said, holding his brother’s eye for a second before shifting his gaze to the window. ‘I think it could’ve been, but I fucked it up—monumentally—and now she’s on the other side of the planet.’
‘How monumentally fucked are we talking?’
‘It’s at a similar level of fuckedness as my career.’ Mo retrieved the guitar and hugged it to his body. ‘I’m so sorry about the expansion, Mav. I’ll make it work. I just have to figure something out.’
‘We’ll work it out together, mate,’ said Mav. ‘What are you going to do about Netta, though?’
‘I’m working on something,’ Mo said, tapping the guitar. ‘It might be too late, but I reckon I’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘Mate, are you writing her a song?’ Mav’s face creased in delight. ‘Is Morrison Maplestone writing a love ballad?’
Mo shifted on his cushion. ‘I wouldn’t say it’s a ballad …’
‘Are you reinventing yourself as the next Bublé?’ Mav wriggled quickly backwards to avoid Mo’s boot collecting his knee.
‘I’m just trying to tell her how I feel,’ Mo said. ‘And that I’m an idiot for letting her go. I don’t know how else to do it.’
Mav was silent for a moment. ‘I mean, some people would just, like, call or text or something …’ The jokey edge left his voice as he looked at his brother with admiration. ‘Seriously though, I’m proud of you, man. It’s not easy to put yourself out there. You really like her, huh?’
‘I think—’ Mo shook his head, leaving his sentence unfinished.
Mav poked his brother’s knee with his index finger. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think … I think I might more than like her.’
Mav puffed his cheeks out and widened his eyes until he looked like a demented puffer fish. ‘You’re in love!’
‘I—’
‘No—you said it!’
‘No, I didn’t.’
Mav rocked back, his hands tucked under his knees, and grinned at his brother. ‘You did. You said you more than like her, and that means L. O. V. E.’
‘Are you sure you’re really thirty-four?’
‘Whatever, old boy.’ Mav smirked as he stood. ‘Good luck with the song. And Play On will play on. There’s no way I’m letting that expansion die. We’ve worked too hard for it.’
Mo smiled and nodded. ‘You’ve done such a good job, Mav.’
A flash of pride flitted over Mav’s face as he turned to leave.
‘Mav.’ Mo swallowed hard. ‘Wait a sec.’ He stood, meeting his brother eye to eye. ‘I love you, mate.’
‘I love you too, bro.’ Mav pulled Mo into a long hug, thumping his fist on his back.
Mo knew in that moment, with startling clarity, that he had to tell his brother the truth about why Netta had turned up in his life. He had to tell him about the diary and about their mum. All of it. Mav wasn’t a kid anymore. He should know the truth. Mo just had to find the right time to do it.
Mav gave him one more squeeze and released his grip. When he met Mo’s gaze, his eyes were wet. ‘Thank you, so much,’ he said. ‘For everything.’
Mo watched his brother leave and the stillness of the empty house settled around him like autumn leaves.
The house would be a lonely place without him.
And he’d been right: Mo was in love with Netta.
He’d already known, deep down. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it, the weight of what it meant feeling too heavy to add to everything he was already carrying.
The space and time between them felt endless and impenetrable.
His silence since she’d left had made the void even more vast, and hers, while it had twisted his heart and head, was understandable. She wasn’t stupid.
He had to get her back. Until today, it had seemed impossible to even try.
Even more impossible that she would still want him.
But pockets of light had begun reaching him now—the blessing of a little time and solitude and, weirdly, the relief of knowing he didn’t have to deliver the album anymore—and a kernel of hope had urged him into the studio, his need to tell her what she meant to him the first skerrick of creative inspiration he’d had for a long time.
He knew he still had a long way to go to reach the surface, to be able to breathe properly and swim to land.
He knew the way he’d been feeling was about way more than Netta, the roots of his heartache reaching back decades into his past. He hadn’t yet sought therapy, as Rhona had suggested.
Therapy was a one-day-maybe kind of situation.
Talking about his mum felt too big right now, the wound still too fresh to poke, even thirty years later.
And really, what could any shrink possibly say that could change what he’d done to his mum, anyway?
But this song for Netta? He could do that right now.
He needed to tell her how he felt the way his blood needed oxygen.
He just hoped she’d want to hear it.