Chapter 9 After the Bitter End #2
“I might need a pair of sports sunglasses,” I say jokingly to Brandon, trying to mask how exposed I suddenly feel.
“That could be arranged,” he says, his smile fading slightly as he studies me properly. “But you don’t need them.”
I lick my lips nervously and drop my gaze to my food.
Sean comes by to check on us.
“You going to get up there and impress your girl?” he asks, nodding to the stage.
I tuck my chin, suddenly very interested in my drink, but the heat climbs anyway.
Brandon, mercifully, deflects. “Certainly. As soon as I’ve had my shamrock cake.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sean mutters, storming off.
A few minutes later, someone turns the volume up, the speakers near us bursting with noise, but we still manage a few half-shouted exchanges between bites of food.
Brandon tells me Sean’s forty-five, though he insists the man’s been in a permanent argument with life since the day they met.
“Sean and my father worked in construction,” he explains. “My father’s retired, and Sean quit due to a bad knee. So he runs the pub instead.”
I glance dubiously towards the bar, where Sean is glowering as he takes someone’s order. “Because he’s such a people person?”
Brandon chuckles. “As you can see.”
Between jokes and music, I learn he was born in London but grew up in Whitstable, and that after a flashy career, he came back to the sea—and the people—he missed. He has no siblings, and his parents are off caravanning somewhere in Scotland.
I’m not one for shouting over music, but Brandon asks about Mum and Ellenor—questions that are easy to answer.
A little flushed, I unbutton my jacket, but the room still feels too hot. I’m conscious of my red dress, but I’m soon forced to drape my jacket over my chair. I feel Brandon’s gaze linger—then it’s gone.
Without warning, the speakers crank up, loud enough to make me flinch.
Apparently, someone’s decided louder is better.
Conversation becomes impossible, even shouting across the table.
Poor Brandon has the worst of it sitting directly in front of the blaring speaker, grimacing with a hand covering his ear.
Brandon says something, but I can’t make out his words. He stands, rounds the table, and leans close to my ear. “Either the band are nitwits, or Sean’s turned the sound up to spite me.”
I nod distractedly, hyperaware of his closeness, the warmth of his breath near my ear.
“Shall we go?” he asks, straightening.
I polish off my drink and stand, a rush of giddiness washing over me. I probably didn’t need that extra vodka in my system. I’m far from drunk, but the warmth in my veins is enough to muddle things a little.
“Hardly classy,” Toby whispers.
I shove him out.
My ears ring as we leave the pub. Outside, the night air is cool. Through a gap in the buildings, I catch a faint glimpse of the sea—a blanket of silver in the dark.
I throw caution to the wind and ask, “Would you like to walk down?”
“Of course. I was just about to suggest it,” Brandon says easily.
We follow a narrow lane to the empty beach. The crescent moon slips through wisps of cloud as we near the shingle. I pull my jacket back on, my shoes sliding on the uneven stones.
We walk in companionable silence, the dark sea calm beside us, the town casting just enough of a golden glow to see by.
Ahead, the path gives way to a weathered boat ramp made of old stone—a ‘slipway,’ Brandon calls it. Two narrow tracks flank the slope, each etched with deep rectangular grooves big enough to swallow a foot.
“It’s not in use anymore. They used to haul oyster boats up here,” Brandon explains. “Watch your step.”
I tread carefully along the stone-and-granite curbs, avoiding the slippery tracks glistening with sea mist. Something about the abandoned structure gives the beach an eerie kind of charm.
“Is it ancient?” I ask.
“Not quite. Late 1800s, if memory serves.”
“So, no Roman soldiers dragging boats up here?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Shame. Well, maybe it’s haunted?” I ask, half-hopeful.
A smile ghosts across his mouth. “If you like.”
“Or used by pirates.”
“Quite possibly.”
We face the dark sea. A breeze rolls in, seeping through my jacket and playing with my hair. I breathe in deeply, eyes drifting shut for a moment.
With the gentle rasp of water over stones and the wind on my face, I feel my senses awakening. The repressive numbness I’ve been dragging myself through ever since my breakup with Toby loosens its grip a little.
“I can’t get over how beautiful it is here,” I murmur.
“A little quieter than Manly Beach,” Brandon notes.
“True.” Even when the waves weren’t crashing against the shore, Manly was always buzzing, day and night, full of voices, music, and a vibrant energy that never really stopped.
Out here on the beach, I can barely hear the hum of cars and distant voices.
“It feels like another world. Like it has its own kind of magic.”
“I’m pleased you think so.”
“It must’ve been nice, growing up here.”
He puts his hands in his pockets. “It was. We visited London often, so it was a good place to return to. You learn to love the quiet.”
“Especially after a big career in music?” I venture.
“Yes. As you can imagine, there was a lot of travel involved. Plenty of late nights in hotels and days spent on the road with bands.”
“Lots of parties?”
He snorts softly. “Naturally. But mostly endless meetings to coordinate events—the noisy kind that overload the senses. There’s always someone shouting at you when you’re near a stage.
And there was paperwork, of course. I was good at it, but in the end, that life wasn’t for me.
Never a moment’s peace. I only kept it up for the artists. ”
He says it quietly, eyes faraway.
My stomach tightens. Back at the cottage, he spoke of the woman he lost. I know I should leave it alone, but something about the way he opened up won’t let me. Perhaps he needs to talk about it.
“Earlier, you spoke about Natalie,” I begin, hesitating when he tenses. “Was she in music too?”
He doesn’t answer straight away. He bends to pick up a small, flat stone and skips it. It glides across the water, once, twice…five times.
“Nice,” I murmur.
“Thank you.” A pause, grief flickering briefly in his eyes. “She was a musician, but we kept our relationship a secret.”
A musician? Someone famous, perhaps, or why else would they keep it a secret? My mind flicks to my father’s old emails, the artists whose names kept surfacing, most of them British. No Natalie comes to mind.
“What was she like?” I ask gently. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Not at all. She was…brilliant. Her strength was in the way she made you feel something. Rough around the edges, even when the notes weren’t perfect. The studio could polish things up, but the part that mattered—the part that hit you in the chest—that was all her.”
“She embraced it,” I realise.
“Yes,” he says. He falls quiet, deep in thought.
“If you ever want to talk about her…I don’t mind.”
His gaze flicks to me, then away. He clears his throat. “Yes, well, thank you. But enough about that. We’re here for you. Tell me about your music.”
“I’ve always strived for excellence. Especially at uni. Fallen short, of course, but…I tried.”
“Perfectionism is the enemy of creativity.”
“I’m not a perfectionist,” I say immediately.
He glances over, waiting for me to say more.
And it occurs to me, then, that perhaps I am, but it hasn’t always been that way. “I used to play just because I loved it. It was the one thing that made sense. After Dad died, music helped me feel closer to him.”
Brandon meets my gaze, steady and sincere. “It must have been a difficult time when you lost him.”
“Yeah…Mum stopped working for a while, and Ellenor buried herself in work. I moved on campus, but I was lonely—I wasn’t much fun to be around, and I couldn’t concentrate in class.
Kept bombing assessments. I even stopped writing songs.
Anyway…then I met Toby.” I fold my arms against the memory.
“We were together for three years. He took music very seriously—he was a violinist.”
“I think I know the type,” he says dryly, though he doesn’t smile.
“Everything with Toby had to be done his way.” I pick at a button on my jacket.
“Polished, even when no one was watching. I thought it meant he cared enough to push me. It’s thanks to him I didn’t drop out of my course.
Plus, I kept telling myself that once I graduated, things would be better, and I’d finally write songs again. ”
“But then Toby got me a job in one of the Sydney ensembles and…I just did that instead.”
Brandon studies me for a moment. “You know, you give him a lot of credit,” he says softly. “But getting through the Con and, I dare say, landing that job—you did that. Not him. I imagine there was an audition.”
I blink, thrown. I’d almost forgotten about the audition. Toby’s reminders of how he’d ‘pulled strings’ and ‘put in a good word’ are far more prominent in my mind.
“I auditioned on my Cole Clark,” I suddenly remember.
“I was meant to use a classical guitar Toby had borrowed—he was furious. He said an orchestra would never take me without a classical guitar.” I snort softly.
“Turns out it was a contemporary ensemble. A steel-string was exactly what they were looking for.”
“You were right not to bend for him.”
I look down. “It wasn’t like that,” I say. “He just didn’t want me to mess up my chance.”
I brace myself for Brandon to contradict me, but instead he asks, “How did he take it?”
“Well, he wasn’t happy with me. Didn’t talk to me for days.”
Like so many other occasions, I finally caved, crying and apologising until he could play the hero and console me. I don’t have the stomach to tell Brandon that, though.
“Was that often the case?” he asks delicately. “Him not being happy with you?”
I draw a slow breath, eyes tracing the ripples of dark water near our feet. “Nothing I did was ever enough.”