Chapter Seven, Part 5

The Beat Goes On
by Adele Minchin

(Page 5 of 7)

"Well, you're my best mate, and call me a softy, but I thought that seeing as you haven't managed to get a fix of him at school all this week, you might need one — and soon."

Without a moment's hesitation, I grabbed my coat. "I love you. Let's go." I jumped up, kissed Sarah on the forehead, and was practically out of the door before she had time to put her shoes on. But I stopped sharp before I got outside.

"Hold on — do I look all right? What if he thinks I'm stalking him? He's not going to want to talk to me on his big day. He probably won't even remember me. This is stupid. My hair's a mess. We'll just go and hang around at the back of the crowd, okay? We'll check it out from a distance." Sarah stood at the front door staring at me like I was mad. "What's up?" I asked.

"You're unbelievable. Calm down. You look great, and we'll just go and hang out for a while. See what happens, okay?"

When we got down to the park I was relieved to see that gathered around the skateboard ramps was quite a big crowd that I could easily get lost in. Gangs of cute-looking boys with goatees, wearing big baggy skatewear and benny hats, were stood around comparing one another's Day-Glo motifs on the bottoms of their boards. We spotted Jamie and his mates and went over to them. I just wanted to see Darren once and told myself I'd be satisfied with that. Jamie must have been talking to me, because the next thing I knew Sarah was kicking my foot to try to get my attention and explaining to Jamie that I had a crush on some sixth-former and wasn't worth talking to because he wouldn't get any decent conversation out of me.

I started to think that I was turning into a bit of a loser spending so much time thinking about this guy I'd only spoken to a few times. Just as I was about to suggest to Sarah that we go home and do something more productive with our Sunday, like paint our toenails, I saw Darren step out onto the top of the skateboard ramp. He was wearing a navy blue T-shirt that showed off his swallow tattoo and baggy Diesel jeans hung low on his hips so you could see the top of his Calvin Klein's. I decided I wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't take my eyes off him. As he soared down the ramp and leapt in the air, swinging his board around 360 degrees before landing, my stomach did somersaults with him. The sun was out, the crowds were cheering, the atmosphere was electric. And I was mesmerized.

"Pick your jaw up off the ground, Leyla. Show some dignity," Sarah said, bringing me back to reality with her sardonic tone.

"Wow!" was all I managed to say.

"You've lost it, you know. You've well and truly lost it. I've never seen you like this about anybody before."

"Shut up and let's get closer to the front. They're announcing the winner."

Sure enough, Darren won the championships and was paraded in front of the crowd on the tops of his friends' shoulders, brandishing a shiny trophy. I watched in awe before realizing that Darren was in fact waving at me. He gestured to his friends to let him down and walked over to me with a huge smile.

"We must stop bumping into each other like this. What are you doing here? I didn't think you were the skateboarding type, or is it another of your tricks, like being able to spin the discs?"

"Sarah wanted to come down for some reason. Her brother Jamie told her about it and she thought it would be cool, so she dragged me along. I was having a perfectly peaceful Sunday at home before she hauled me down here." I could feel my cheeks burning up and I imagined Sarah throwing back her head with laughter at the bullshit I was spouting.

"Well, I'm glad you came. Did you enjoy the show?"

"Yeah, it was cool. Where did you learn all that stuff?"

"Just knocking around the park for years watching the other kids. Mucking around, testing things out, you know." He looked around to see where all his mates were. People kept coming up and congratulating him. I didn't want to keep him from his moment of glory and started to go, but he stopped me and said that he just had to find Gary and Dean, and then wanted to know if I'd like to grab a Coke and go for a walk?

"I'll just have to find out what Sarah is up to," I said, trying to sound as cool as possible.

"I'll meet you at the amusement arcade in five minutes," he said, then staggered off into the crowd with his board and trophy.

Sarah was waiting for me with her arms folded, tapping her foot impatiently. "So you spoke to him. Are you feeling faint from the excitement? Do you need to sit down?"

"He's asked me to go for a walk with him, and you're coming too."

"No way. Uh-uh. You've got to be joking. I'm not playing gooseberry to anyone."

"You have to come. He'll be with his mates. He's just gone looking for them. Come on, Sarah, you're a total pro at these sorts of things. You can talk the hind legs off a donkey."

"Oh, thanks a bunch. So I'm supposed to entertain everyone on your behalf, am I?"

"No, I don't mean it like that. I mean you can break the ice. Abuse them about their goatees or pick a fight about Converse versus Nike trainers. Anything."

"Okay, okay. I'll come, but if he's not with his mates, I'm out of here. Right?"

"Okay, it's a deal."

We made our way over to the amusement arcade and found Darren with his two friends eating chips and taking turns on the Alpine ski simulator.

"Haven't you had enough of bombing down vertical slopes for one day?" Sarah asked Darren in a bored and unimpressed tone. I could tell she just thought he was showing off again.

"Funnily enough, I hate heights, but I think everyone should take the risk of falling at least twice a day. Don't you agree?" Darren smiled at her, waiting for a response.

I was expecting some immediate sarcastic quip from Sarah, but she stood contemplating him for a moment, trying to sum him up. You could see her turning her thoughts about him over and over in her head. I could tell she couldn't quite make him out, and an awkward silence grew. I was glad when Darren suggested we make a move. "Let's go for a walk. I'm sick of this place — it's full of kids."

We started off all walking alongside one another in a gang, talking about teachers and school, as that was the common ground between us all. I stayed close to Sarah and hid behind her jokes. Then Darren asked me if I still played the drums.

"Yeah, I still bash about. I've got my own kit at home, so I play around a bit. I'm not very good, but I do love playing them."

Sarah overheard me and interrupted. "She's brilliant. Don't listen to a word she says about just bashing around now and again. She's too modest for her own good. Honestly, she spends hours practicing and has got a real talent for it. It's her life's passion."

Darren seemed genuinely interested, and pressed further. "Wow, that's amazing. It's so good to have something that you're really passionate about. You don't see many girls playing the drums, do you?"

"No, you don't, but there's no reason why they shouldn't. Girls just aren't encouraged to play them. I had to really fight to be allowed to play the drums at school. My mum and my music teacher were horrified. They thought I should be learning something more traditional and more becoming to a young girl, like the cello or the flute."

"So what made you want to play them in the first place?"

"I saw a band in concert on MTV one day and they had a girl drummer who was the coolest person I've ever seen and I decided there and then that I wanted to be just like her." Darren and I had fallen into step beside each other while the other three walked on ahead.

"I'd love to hear you," he said. "I play the guitar. Hey, we're practically a whole band. Out of everything I do, music is what I love the most. Skateboarding is just a bit of a hobby, you know? Just mucking around. But music is different."

"I don't do anything else except play the drums. My family thinks I'm a total weirdo. Sarah is very supportive and encouraging and everything, but I don't think she really understands or believes that I'm totally serious about making a career and a life out of it. All I want to do is be in a band and play the drums. Full stop. Nothing else. But most people find it difficult to imagine that dreams like that are possible, especially when you live round here where most girls are pregnant and engaged before they're twenty and a career at the bank is seen as a major achievement. I mean, each to their own and all, but I want more out of life than that. I don't want to be stuck in Bury for the rest of my days, getting old before my time, watching my dreams slowly fade away."

"It's easier said than done, though. You hear of so many people who all started out with these amazing dreams of becoming a footballer or traveling around the world or writing a book or whatever, and they all get to a stage where they've got to make a few decisions about their future and they suddenly become gripped by this fear and doubt. It's easier to just get a regular job, settle down with a nice girl, and work on a healthy bank balance. It's less effort and hassle, you know."

"I'm not just some naïve little kid with my head in the clouds — I do know that I've got a hell of a long way to go. It's going to take more hard work than I can imagine to achieve even a fraction of my dreams, but if I want it enough then it'll happen. I'm convinced of that."

"Well, good luck to you. I'm doing my guitar exams at the moment, and it's so much hard work that sometimes I just feel like jacking it all in and going down the pub with all my mates like any other normal eighteen-year-old."

"Where are you doing your exams?" I asked him.

"At the music college in Salford. I taught myself to begin with, but then I decided that I really wanted proper guitar lessons so that I could learn to read and write music and know exactly what I was doing when I was writing songs on my own."

"Apart from at school, I've only ever played on my own at home in the garage," I told him. "I've never really had an audience. I'm ready to start playing with other people now, though — there's only so much you can do on your own. Funnily enough, I've just had a really cool offer this weekend to get involved in some music workshops, teaching drums to a group of people who have never played an instrument before. We're probably going to write some music as well. I'm really excited about it."

Darren and I strolled through the park chatting comfortably about music, the bands we liked, the clubs we'd been to, the gigs we'd seen. My worries of not feeling confident or comfortable enough to talk to him were gone. Sarah was in the distance now, going as high as she could on the swings with Gary and Dean, and I didn't feel as though I needed her as my social crutch anymore.

"Look, there's the bandstand," Darren said, pointing at the crumbling domelike structure with the rusty ornate railings in the middle of the park. Many a brass band had entertained a parkful of summer picnickers from that bandstand. It hadn't been used for ages, though. An orange cordon was wrapped around the railings and a sign warned people to keep off the stage area because of subsidence.

"I'll race you there," I said, speeding off and getting a head start. Puffing and panting, I ducked under the cordon and ran onto the stage. It stank of urine, and there were empty condom and cigarette packets scattered about. Half-drunk bottles of strong cider stood at attention on benches that curved around the length of the semicircular stage. Darren eventually caught up with me and climbed inside the dome.

"Ugh, gross, it stinks in here," he said, turning up his nose.

"You'll play in worse places than this one day, when you're starting out, doing the pub circuit with your band," I joked, but I was half serious.

"No way. I'm going straight to the Albert Hall, darling."

Striking rock-star poses, jumping around playing air guitar, Darren and I pretended we were on stage at Wembley Stadium playing to a hundred-thousand-strong crowd. When we stopped to catch our breath, Darren put his hand on my shoulder and leant on me. His touch made goose bumps appear all over my forearms and down the back of my neck. Mucking around so much, I'd sort of forgotten how much I actually fancied him. But seeing him so close to me and feeling his touch made my heart beat faster. I stopped laughing and couldn't take my eyes off him. I didn't want him to ever move his hand from my shoulder. I don't know whether he sensed what I was feeling or whether he could read my mind, but he moved his arm farther along my back until it was around me and my head was resting against his shoulder. He squeezed gently, and slowly brought me round to face him. He was looking at me with a soft, warm smile. I didn't feel awkward or shy anymore. I didn't feel like I wanted to crawl out of his grip like I had done with so many boys before — the kind of boys who would just grab you, snog you, and go straight for your tits so that they could return to their mates bragging that they'd got to "second base." This felt different. I looked into his big green eyes and felt calm and happy. I put my face closer to his, and kissed him on the lips.

We held each other tightly and didn't speak. I didn't want to talk; any noise would have broken the moment. It's funny how you want those moments to last forever. But they always have to end. We heard Sarah and the others heading toward the bandstand, shouting our names.

"I really like you, Leyla," Darren whispered in my ear before the others interrupted us.

I looked him right in the eye and flashed him a big cheesy grin. What was the point in staring at the ground and being all coy about it? I felt great — he had made me feel great — and I didn't want to hide it. In fact, I wanted to run around the park and shout it to the whole world, but Sarah appeared and reminded us it was time to go home for our Sunday dinners.

Copyright © 2001 by Adele Minchin

About the Author

Adele Minchin has worked in public relations for four years, first at Campaign Against the Arms Trade and currently in publishing. She is a volunteer at Body and Soul, the self-help organization that supports adults and young people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. The Beat Goes On is her first novel and, shortly after its first publication, won the Branford Boase Award for fiction in the UK. Adele Minchin resides in London, England.