Dead in Time

Chapter Fifteen

Day dumped his Telecaster off on Cris and left, abrupt and hot on Inez’s trail. Leon didn’t know why he kept dragging her down here. She didn’t care about the music. Cris put the guitar aside, clapped his hands, and looked around the room with a glassy and slightly desperate optimism.

“Let’s take a lunch break, huh? What do we say, boys? Who feels like Chinese?”

A half-hearted murmur of assent sounded from the remaining bits of the band, and the sound engineer cleared his throat, a crackle across the com.

“Uh… ’scuse me? I’m still on the clock, right? ’Cos, y’know, it’s an hourly rate, man, and—”

“Yes,” Cris snapped. “Fine. You can wear a party hat and order triple prawn balls for all I care. Just…. God. Play me back that last take, will ya?”

Leon sighed and slipped out, glad to leave the clunking drumbeat and the mistimed riffs behind him, discordant reminders of failure and stubborn pride. Charlie started to hold forth about how much better it would be if they did it his way, or even better dropped the song altogether, because it just didn’t have the character the new album deserved and, incidentally, had anyone heard what he’d been working on at the weekend? Leon grabbed an abandoned soda on his way out into the corridor and rummaged in his pocket. He’d been necking Tueys on and off since before the session started and he thought twice about swallowing the last one. It nestled comfortably in his palm, its little blue and red jacket cheerful, like a child’s sweet. He knocked it back with the dregs of flat soda and tried not to listen to Damon’s voice, faintly strained and out of tune on the tape.

Sometimes I dream about it baby
I dream dream dream it better
Better better better than it ever was with you….

The door closed on the sound.

Voices. Funny things, when you thought about it. He could hear two of them now, echoing along the corridor. Day and Inez. Leon realised, with slight concern, that he was about to walk into one of those marital… thingies. He loitered at the corner, stuck somewhere between forward and back.

“I don’t know why you even bothered to ask me!”

Inez sounded angry, her voice rising in pitch. From Damon’s tone, Leon guessed he’d have his hands up in that semi-innocent, soothe-the-beast pose.

“Baby, I’m doing what you wanted, ain’t I? I’m working. All the new material, the… commercial stuff. We done Supersonic, Pops—we’re doing this German crap next month. I thought you cared about that. You said—”

“I said you should be pushing yourself more, not pimping yourself! Have you even seen what you look like?”

Leon winced. This didn’t sound like it would end well. Also, the Tueys were kicking in harder. He took a last swig from the soda can.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How much of my eyeshadow are you wearing?”

“What?”

“You heard. Anyway, I was there when you were putting it on this morning. You look like a complete—”

“Hey, hey… all this shit is an allusion, baby. I—”

Inez loosed an exasperated sigh.

“It’s an il-lusion, you prat! Christ, Damon…. You look like an idiot, you sound like an idiot, and I don’t want to waste one more minute of my day listening to the four of you having a pissing contest over some stupid song that’s still going to sound bloody awful when you’re done!”