Of all the songs on The Joy Detergents imaginative yet somewhat limited set, Plectrum Heart was probably my favourite. It was the only one that didn't include the words 'I was like' in at least two of their verses, and the one where the lead singer whipped his sweat-roped hair about the least.
The stage - which was actually just a glorified platform made out of plywood - was set against the back wall of the pub. I watched on from the bar as the lead singer drew his hands across his face, as though he were drawing a mysterious veil over his eyes.
"You strummed too hard on my heartstrings," he sang, his voice low and husky. He sounded as though he needed a throat lozenge.
"Bloody awful," Trevor grumbled into his pint. It was the singular most insightful thing I'd ever heard him say. The audience, not that there was much of one, either ignored the clamour or drank until it sounded like birdsong. "Absolute drivel."
I checked out of the conversation just as Trevor launched into an elaborate, burp-ridden account of his own musical tastes. My gaze wandered.
Debbie was standing not too far from the edge of the stage. She was wearing a baggy black t-shirt with a snarling wolf depicted on the front, and wore her hair in straight midnight sheets. She was staring up at the lead singer with a look of wonder in her eyes.
He was the guy that she'd been pursuing the past month. The one that I'd stored away in my mental archive of Debbie-drivel and plucked out only hours ago.
"I think I might be a genius," a voice drifted over my shoulder. I turned to see Bev standing behind me, propped in the doorway to the kitchen. She had a towel draped across her shoulder and an expression of pained self-gratitude on her face.
"Please, enlighten me." Bev and I had switched the polite relationship that existed between employer and worker, full of pleases and thank yous and well-mannered enthusiasm, for the fond derision that we now, had months ago. Sometimes, I thought that perhaps she was my true-born mother and that there was a mix-up at the hospital when I was born.
"Well, this band might be worse than the devil's alarm clock, but at least the custom is drinking their way towards sweet deafness," Bev said, nodding her head at Trevor. He was leaning against the bar, his eyes closed, and woke himself up with an explosive snore.
"Oh, that reminds me. I've been meaning to ask you something."
"No."
"What? You haven't even heard the question yet."
"I'm ninety-five percent sure that the answer will be no."
I blew air coolly through my lips. "You're doing that thing where you're awkward on purpose, aren't you?"
"That, as well as generally asserting my authority," Bev smiled, displaying a row of uneven teeth. "Clean my shoes, kiss my feet, all that malarkey."
"You couldn't pay me enough money to go anywhere near anybody's feet, not even my own," I said, with a shudder. "Are you going to hear me out or not? It could end up making you money, you know."
"Well why didn't you say that in the first place? Go ahead."
I took a deep breath in through my nose, felt the beer-incensed air fill my lungs. "Ok, there's this new guy at school and-"
Bev's face lit up. "Is he with the new family in town? The Burrs?"
I winced back my surprise. The magpies really had been hard at work, I thought to myself. "Uh, yeah. Anyway, this new guy - the Burr kid - he's in my class, and I got to talking with him and it turns out he's a musician. He plays guitar, writes his own material, and he was wondering if he could get a chance to play here."
Bev looked dubious. "They can play guitar, Saffy," she said, nudging her head at the stage. Plectrum Heart was reaching an ear-piercing crescendo, and the lead singer dived into an extravagant bow that swept his hair across the floor. "They write their own material. What makes you think this boy will be better?"
"I have more musical talent in my little toe than those guys," I said, gritting my teeth together. "Besides, Jet is sensible. It seems like something he's really passionate about. Just give him a chance, Bev. Please?"
Bev turned abruptly away from me and took to scrubbing viciously at the bar. "I've seen that look before, Saffy Sweetman. So, he's sensible. Is he also tall? Handsome? That's all you need these days, out there in the big world. But not in here. Not in my arena. In my arena, you need substance."
I scrunched my face up in frustration. "Substance?" I hissed, jabbing my hands at the stage. "They have about as much substance as-"
Bev whipped around to face me, her cheeks tinged with pink. "Have you heard him play?"
I flinched. "Well, not exactly, but-"
"Then how do you know he's any good?" She stood there, her meaty hand placed expectantly on her hip, and waited as I lulled into silence. "You don't want to go messing about with those sorts of boys, Saffy."
"With what sort of boys?" My voice was getting shrill.
"The ones that will use you!" She drew up close, so that I could see the veins in her eyelids purpling over. "The pretty ones that don't have to work as hard as the rest of us! The ones that will take your heart and stomp all over it, Saffy. Those are the sorts of boys I'm talking about. They don't like girls like us."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Bev's lips drew into a straight, narrow line. "You know perfectly well what I mean," she said, and then she lowered her voice as though she were about to utter an obscenity. "Big girls. These sorts of boys don't like big girls."
I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth and bit into it until the pain began to plead with me. A taut silence stretched between us. Bev's face was red with passion, but she looked sort of uncomfortable, like she already regretted what she'd said.
"Um," I said, quietly. "I don't know what's happened to make you have such a cynical outlook, but I barely know Jet. I've spoken to him twice. But he's a nice guy, from what I can tell. All he wants is a chance, and I said I'd run the idea by you. That's all."
Bev looked down at her feet, and I sighed.
"Look, it's not a big deal. You can say no if you want to-"
"Tell him he can have a slot a week Friday."
Bev's sudden change of heart tripped me up, and I stumbled over my words. "What?"
"He can come and perform." Bev shrugged her shoulders, placed each of her hands on the edges of her grimy towel. "If you have confidence in him, then that's good enough for me. Tell him he can have five songs, and I'll pay him according to what I think of it."
I wasn't sure whether to remain calm and composed or unleash the squealing inner delight that bubbled up at the bottom of my stomach like a geyser. I went, in the name of professionalism, for the former. "Thank you so much, Beverly. You won't regret it."
"You better hope I don't, and don't ever call me Beverly again," she grumbled, casting me a stern look. "Listen, you can have an early night, if you want. It's starting to get quiet; I can handle closing by myself."
"Really? Are you sure?" I glanced at my watch. It was nine-thirty, a whole hour and a half before my shift was meant to wrap up. I could get home and slip into my pyjamas and catch up with Netflix.
"It's my pub, Sweetman," Bev reminded me. "I was closing up long before you and Harriet came along, you know."
"You're amazing," I said. I wanted to hug her, but I thought better of it.
"Truer words have never been spoken. Now get on your way. I'll see you in a couple of days."
I turned and skipped - well, it was more of an ungainly gallop - towards the backrooms where I pegged my coat and bag at the beginning of each shift. I wrapped myself up, slung my bag over my shoulders and re-emerged into the bar just as The Joy Detergents set about dismantling their set.
Debbie, who was twirling a ribbon of liquorice-black hair around one of her fingers as she chatted with the main singer, noticed me and tore herself away. When she reached me, just as I was edging around the bar, her eyes were sparkling with enthrallment.
"So, what did you think?" she asked me. "Weren't they great?"
I looked at her as though she'd popped an extra head. "Ok, did you sneak some vodka into your coke when I wasn't looking?"
She ignored me. "His name's Stuart. He has a pet ferret, and a tattoo of a burning skull on his left bum cheek."
"And you know this, how?"
"He told me," she sighed blissfully, and then winced as she noticed the bag slung over my shoulder. "Oh, are you leaving? I thought your shift didn't finish until eleven?"
"Yeah, Bev's letting me go early. Are you coming?"
Debbie glanced over her shoulder. Stuart winked at her from between the stiff sheets of hair that fell along each side of his face. "Uh, I think I'll hang around for a little while. Stuart will walk me home."
"Debbie, I don't know..."
"Just go, I'll be fine."
I gave him an uncertain once-over. "Ok, well, if you're sure. Give me a text when you get home, ok?"
Debbie rolled her eyes at me. "I will, mummy. I'll see you tomorrow, ok?"
We hugged and I called goodbye to Trevor as I breezed out the front door. He answered with a grunt-like snore. My eyes flashed across the noticeboard, still a makeshift shrine to the four missing people across the county, and then I was outside.
The night was still and crisp. The heavy rainfall from the day before still hadn't dried up, and the path was riddled with swollen puddles. I decided to walk home. My dad wouldn't be happy when I turned up without having called him: he'd been a paranoid mess ever since these disappearances started spiralling out of control.
I pulled out my phone. It was to be my company for the walk home, but instead Bev's words sliced across my mind's eye.
These sorts of boys don't like big girls.
I felt a sudden weight at the bottom of my stomach, like I'd swallowed a bunch of pebbles and it was tugging my innards down. Bev was right; of course she was right. I had no idea if Jet was a good musician or not. He'd named his guitar Esteban, for crying out loud.
The only thing that I was going by was his indubitable good looks, and the fact that he'd given me the time of day whereas most people would just swat me away like a persistent gnat. I wanted to make him smile, to feel like I'd done something for him. I was swiftly becoming a trembling gelatinous mess after only speaking to him properly twice. What on earth was happening to me?
I trampled across the main road and pressed the button on my phone, my good mood suddenly flaking away into the night. The screen lit up. There was a notification waiting for me. I clicked on it, opened the notification up.
A picture appeared, its contents horrifyingly familiar. I would have recognised that body anywhere, its spherical shape, the skin rendered a sallow grey by the blare of the camera-flash.
I could feel the colour draining out of my cheeks. She'd posted it online. Carmen had posted it online for everybody to see. Jet would see it. Debbie would see it. Damn, even the teachers would see it.
You better watch out. Her words rattled around my head. I was focussing so much on trying to block them out that I didn't even pause to consider the possibility that I might throw up, which was beginning to seem quite likely. Don't think you can get away with laughing at me.
A whimper broke out from between my lips. I wanted to snap my phone in two and cast it into a river, as though it were some sort of portal into a land in which that reality existed. If I destroyed the phone, with that sickening picture staring up at me from the screen, I destroyed the reality.
I slowed to a pathetic traipse. I wasn't in the mood to get home fast anymore, not to the place where my parents could scour me for information like orang-utans picking the fleas out of each other. I needed to be alone.
And alone I was, even as the girl with the fiery hair stepped out of the undergrowth that bordered the path to join me. She was wearing the same leather jacket that she always wore, the same bewitching smile. But I was still alone, at least to the eyes of any passers-by.
"Everything alright, Sweet-pea?"
"Don't call me that," I muttered.
"Why not? I think it's kinda cute," Mona said.
"It's what my dad calls me."
Mona's expression softened. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know what's happened."
I snorted. "So it's even gotten into the hands of the dead? Wow, I really did underestimate this town's ability to spread gossip like wildfire."
Mona fell silent. Even though we'd only known each other for a couple of days, she knew that this was a big deal. Speechlessness wasn't a common occurrence around her. I just couldn't un-see that marshmallow body, the same marshmallow body that everybody else would see. Was that what people saw when they looked at me?
"Listen, do you have to go home right away?" Her eyes sparkled in the murky lamplight.
I hesitated. My shift wasn't supposed to finish until eleven. My dad wouldn't be driving to pick me up for at least another hour and a half. With so many people going missing lately, my parents were being extra vigilant about how I got home from my night shifts.
"I have time, I guess."
Mona clapped her ghostly hands together. They made no noise. "Great! Fancy keeping a dead girl company for a while? We could go hang out in an old park like kids our age are supposed to do."
"Kids our age?" I flicked an eyebrow at her.
Mona diverted her gaze, as though she'd accidentally given away an important piece of information. "Sure. I'm seventeen, just like you. With the miniscule exception that I'm timeless."
I didn't answer, the tears frozen at the corners of my eyes.
"So, what do you say?" Mona began to drift on the breeze, summoning me with wide arms and a flutter of the eyelids. She was leaning out over the open air, the bottom half of her body distorting like smoke. She reminded me of the figurehead at the front of an old ship, beckoning and seductive. "Follow me. I can help you forget."
I glanced around, unsure what exactly I was looking for. A reason not to go after her, perhaps.
Finding nothing, I followed.
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