Chapter 60

Friday 3rd December 1999

I woke up on the morning of the talent show in a haze of dread. Despite the fact I’d come to terms with it happening, and was certainly used to the idea of being on that stage, sat at that piano and performing the piece I’d put together… I felt so far out of my depth. The prospect had been trundling closer day by day, and now it was looming so large over me that I couldn’t see anything else.

Figuratively-speaking, of course, because I had 20.20 vision as I sluggishly clambered out of bed and began my school-day morning routine as though nothing was different from any other day. And one lesson after another came and went like normal. Only my free periods seemed any different, and that was because I had at least one friend with me each time asking me how I felt and if I was excited and exactly what time it would be. Fortunately, I had the excuse of getting some work done to shield myself from a constant barrage of reminders. Not that there was any chance of me forgetting.

3pm came in due course, and we all met up outside of school like usual. While Dakota, Bao, Zahid and Kitty went the normal route, ready to welcome Saoirse as she’d flown in earlier today, Kendal drove me back to mine so I could change out of my uniform and into the tuxedo I was wearing for the show (I know, I know, ridiculously fancy). With that and a quick snack to keep my stomach filled, I was back at school before 4pm.

“Good luck! Break a leg!” Kendal urged me while hugging me tight – she’d actually stepped out of her car along with me just for the sake of that. “You’ll knock it out of the park!”

“Thanks, I hope so…” I uttered despite the fact I really wanted to sound even a little cheery. She moved back, and offered up a hand for a high-five which I reciprocated gratefully.

“See you later!” she concluded, waving brightly and then hopping into the driver’s seat and taking off, down the road and away to Dakota’s.

I stood on my own outside the school gate, in slightly-fading light, a handful of hours away from the performance. The short journey from there to the main hall had the feeling of a death row march. Whatever sullen expression I walked inside with certainly wouldn’t have matched the glitzy makeover that the hall had undergone: a big “Grandoak Talent” banner, flanked by bunches of balloons, fancy decorations running along the walls. For all that, though, the chairs hadn’t yet been set out for the audience, as teachers and students alike milled about to continue glamming the place up. Naturally, I quickly took to helping out.

Steadily, more students showed up, and the seating got set out, and then we were doing another run-through, with full lighting and the atmosphere of this being the real thing. And after twenty-four other performances, it was my turn.

6:04pm, less than three hours until the actual show. Barely an hour and a half until I’d be there, doing this in front of a huge audience, and what the hell was I doing anyway? I’m nothing special. My piano-playing isn’t anything special. I’ll invariably mess up, I was thinking with so much certainty.

I stepped onto the stage as the piano was wheeled on to meet me. The spotlights honed in on me; I squinted out past them, to the couple-hundred seats lined up down below, mostly unoccupied save for some of the teachers and most of the students who had already performed. They’d all seen this before, at least. But for all the people coming to watch, this would be their one and only time. Do-or-die. I had to put on a show for them. Like the thing I’d composed was up to scratch.

And all the seats seemed to be filled now… surely, I figured, a trick of the light…

Except no, these were very real. As my eyes adjusted, I could see every last seat occupied by a pitch-black figure, all of them wearing the same white mask emblazoned with a sinister laughing face. They were looking my way, waiting for me to make my move, ready to cackle should I fail.

I knew that, because, of course, they came from me.

“Yep, got it in one,” Harmony’s voice confirmed from across the stage.

“It was pretty obvious…” I grumbled, keeping my eyes on the phantom audience just to be safe.

“Now that you know where your enemies come from, sure,” she chirped. “You see how much you all give me to work with?”

“I’m sure ordinary people feel like this too…”

“Even so, this is one of a thousand things I can pick out from your head…”

She entered my peripheral vision, hovering about to my left like a ghost.

“Please, Harmony, go away,” I growled at her.

“Oof, no need to be so grumpy with me…”

That was followed up with a gleeful giggle, so she did recognise what a stupid thing that was to say.

“I don’t have the time for this and I don’t want to start fighting monsters when I’m already dealing with this performance…” I scowled, briefly, at her, before turning my face back to the stock-still phantoms, convinced they would move without warning.

“Alex, come on,” Harmony sighed airily, “if this is how you’re feeling, how are you ever going to perform? I’m helping you out-”

“You’re helping yourself, as usual,” I scoffed. (If I’m coming across agitated, it wasn’t purely agitation… I was nervous and scared and just a little panicked.)

“Alright, fair, let’s call it a mutually-beneficial arrangement,” she purred without missing a beat. “On your part, you get to deal with your issues here. Face them, head-on. Not just by doing the thing you’re supposed to do, but by fighting against the fear.”

I looked out across the audience, dozens upon dozens of empty black eyes staring up at me expectantly, and I could feel them waiting to cast judgement upon me for so much as moving.

It would take me a while to fight them all single-handedly, unless I pulled out some kind of blue explosion to take them all out at once… and that wasn’t bound to hit all of them, anyway.

No, there was a better way of doing this, I realised, unable to help but smile a little as it came to me.

I summoned my sword and donned my Painter clothing. The phantom audience fidgeted a little, murmured in gibberish.

“Ooooh… this is why I love the six of you…” Harmony whispered in intense anticipation. Seeing inside my head, she knew what I’d conjured up. I was glad that she approved; her denigrating the idea would’ve broken my stride.

I turned my back to the audience, reached towards the piano with my sword and tapped it lightly with the tip of the blade. A blue glow momentarily embraced the instrument, then faded down yet faintly remained. I took to the bench, leaning the sword against the body of the piano, and poised my hands over the keyboard. For a few moments, I processed what I wanted to play… this was no longer a final run-through, it was opportunity to get over my fear as thoroughly as possible. I’d start off with something else to find my groove.

My fingers hit keys, the phantoms made more hushed noise, and strands of blue light began to rise up from the body of the piano. I played on, improvising gently to begin with, something light and ethereal, as the piano responded with more blue ascending, steadily taking more defined shapes, glowing tendrils of different dispositions moving through the air.

For all the attention I was paying to my performance, I couldn’t say how the masked figures below were responding, not even if they were still muttering amongst themselves. The most I could do was glance up at the constructs manifesting alongside the music now and then, watching them steadily move out across the hall.

Gradually, I was no longer worrying about the monsters watching me. The more I played, the more I found myself lost in it; it wasn’t a performance, it was me and the music. Nothing else really mattered. I amped things up, going a little jazzier, faster, and the blue responded by becoming more energised. I finally looked quickly at the audience, illuminated by the glow, apparently silent once more (I couldn’t hear anything past the music, anyway). As I turned my head back to the keyboard, I glimpsed Harmony watching on with an impressed smile.

I know it’s not the most extraordinary thing – not me slicing my way through dozens of masked phantoms like some kind of legendary samurai – but it felt magical, and it felt right. My impromptu performance went on and on, as blue light danced around, and I dove into the tail-end of my actual piece with more vigour than I think I’d ever experienced with it.

Harmony made her way over to me, and pressed her hand to my chest.

“Good job,” she told me while I played the final few notes. My Painter costume dissolved and I looked out at the audience in time to see the blue aurora collapse and descend upon the fading phantom audience. Everything transitioned back to normal, teachers and fellow performers returning to place, applauding me. Harmony and my Lokon sword had both vanished too. With barely any time to readjust to normalcy, I stood up, bowed, and departed the stage.

6:09pm. I was feeling a lot more confident now.

The dry run concluded not long after, and a final few checks got performed while a couple of the teachers brought us some pizzas and the like. The audience was allowed in at 6:50pm, and the show began bang on time.

What followed was quite the emotionally-complex hour-and-a-half. I’d expected a fairly tense stretch during the actual show, but it wound up being just like all the run-throughs before… quiet chatter backstage the whole way through. That made things more relaxing, as we talked about things and continued working through the food. Each performer would be informed that their turn was coming shortly and would step aside to be ready; once they’d had their go on-stage, they’d return and dive back in to the chatter.

All that said, there was still an air of nervousness, especially early on. Naturally, that gradually depleted itself as one person after another returned having finished their performance, but I think all of us waiting our turns were holding that worry inside of us all the same. Someone had had the foresight to take down the clock in the room, but I continued to torment myself by checking my watch regularly, and for all the relief that conversation provided, the wait was like lying on a bed of hot nails.

Eventually, my turn was almost here. I was called over to wait in the wings while Megan from Year 11 sang Dream a Little Dream of Me. My heart was pounding and my breathing was shaky, but there in the back of my head was that brief time from earlier, where I played away in front of something much scarier (physically if nothing else) than the audience out there now.

Megan finished and bowed, the audience applauded, and she made her way into the wings.

“That was amazing,” I whispered to her; she beamed a “thanks!” back to me as she passed.

Mrs Bampton took to the stage.

“We’ve got some more music for you now, an original piano composition by Year 13’s Alex Matthews!”

She looked to me. This was it.

I strode onto the stage amidst a light, welcoming applause and an audible “WOOO!” from Kendal. The piano got whisked on-stage and I settled into place.

No turning back.

I turned to the audience, barely able to see anyone clearly past the glare of the spotlight.

“Just want to say – hooo man there are so many of you –”

That earned a laugh, which somehow eased my nerves a little.

“- I wrote this for my awesome friends, and my girlfriend who’s the reason I’m up here…”

And that got a small chorus of “awww”. All the songs and stand-up routines (and Ricardo’s magic) must have warmed this crowd up something fierce.

“And I hope you all enjoy it!”

That seemed like more than enough. I focused on the piano, took a deep breath, and then pressed the first key.

… ladies and gentlemen, something happened here.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve performed in front of other people. Even before the rehearsals and the audition, I’ve played in class, and the others had me play the day all this began…

But this. On-stage, under the spotlight, in front of that big audience, it was something entirely different.

I played my piece from beginning to end, without fault, and I could feel the audience’s appreciation… I was living that performance in a way I never would’ve imagined. Those few minutes of my life were exhilarating, almost liberating.

The end of the piece came, the final notes sounded out, and the audience applauded. I took a brief moment before rising, bowing, looking out again and this time spotting my parents in one area, and Dakota, Bao, Kendal, Zahid, Kitty and Saoirse all grouped together elsewhere. And with that, I headed back off-stage in an adrenaline rush.

Everybody else backstage had to endure me bouncing up and down giddily for the next ten minutes.

Before I knew it, the whole show was over; we all headed back on-stage for a final bow, and then went backstage again for an official wrap. After that, we all kind of trickled out to reunite with friends and family from the audience, which, in my case, involved Dakota running right for me, into my arms. I span her around for good measure.

“That was incredible!” she grinned at me. “I knew you’d be brilliant!”

“Thanks and thanks and aaaah man!” I spluttered, before everybody else caught up.

I won’t go over every word of congratulations, not that I could be certain of it all since it was such a buzz of excitement.

“Alright, are we done here?” Bao asked at some point, a little absent-mindedly.

“Yeah, let’s roll,” Zahid nodded.

“‘Let’s roll’…?” I repeated, thrown by that. Surely, it being 9pm at this point, we’d all be heading back home?

“Y’know how I like surprising people…?” Dakota began giddily.

“What’ve you done…?” I asked her, perhaps a tiny bit concerned.

“Maaaaybe organised a little after-party at mine…”

“Come on, Mozart,” Dad spoke up, “you’ve got to tell us the way to Dakota’s.”

“I’m coming with you…” Kitty added. “Not enough room in Kendal’s car…”

(I’m still not certain how they all got here in the first place…)

We shuffled our way out (me saying some goodbyes as we went, and some praise directed at Ricardo as we passed him), divided ourselves up across Kendal’s car and Mum and Dad’s, and made the short journey to Dakota’s…

Which was decked out with some decorations too. I was suddenly embarrassed by the amount of fuss I was receiving…

It wasn’t anything big, thankfully. Just us all eating some food and chatting away – I never expected the day to have quite so much eating and talking – and the slightly-surreal experience of my parents meeting Dakota’s mother…

“He’s a wonderful young man,” she declared at one point. “I couldn’t be any prouder of my girl for having found a boy like yours.”

“Thank you,” Mum smiled. “We feel the same way about Dakota.”

“Although we weren’t impressed at first when we learned he was flying to Ireland on Christmas Eve just to confess…” Dad added, eliciting a loving giggle from Dakota.

“Aah, it reminded me of my Elliott,” Saoirse chuckled fondly. “The kind of crazy thing he would’ve done for me.”

My heart sank a little thinking about Christmas. Dakota would surely be whisked away again, and we’d miss our first anniversary together…

Dakota must have noticed the look on my face, as she rubbed my hand and then stood up.

“Speaking of which… Mam, I was wondering if I could spend Christmas here this year? Maybe fly out to see you on Boxing Day and stay for a bit?”

“I don’t know about that…” her mother mused, in such a way that I couldn’t decide if she was genuinely uncertain or subtly refusing.

“It’s only fair since Alex didn’t get to spend Christmas with his family last year, plus it’s our anniversary on Christmas Eve, and it’d be easier for Kitty-”

“And she could come over to mine for Christmas, if Mum and Dad are alright with it…” I added.

“If we vote on it, I’m in favour, just so you all know,” Bao spoke up.

“I’ll have to give it some thought,” Saoirse sighed. “You know your cousins will miss you?”

“I’ll find a way to make it up to them! Maybe even visit them all in the new year!”

That would mean travelling around a not-inconsiderable stretch of Ireland to see all of them…

“You’ve been giving this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”

“Had to be prepared, didn’t I?”

“Aaaand this is why she’s the leader,” Kendal concluded.

The after-party lasted until close to midnight, where self-dubbed “Kendal’s Flash Cabs” set off with Bao and Zahid, and Mum and Dad insisted we were to leave too while Kitty headed off to bed. Of course, with Saoirse over, I couldn’t spend the night with Dakota… so I was trying to make the most of our farewell. Arms around her, innumerable kisses, and a strong desire to simply stay that way forever. But more importantly…

“Thank you,” I said in hushed tones. “For having faith in me…”

“Someone has to, if you won’t,” she countered with a smile. “You’re welcome, Alex. I’m so proud of you… you were the best out of anyone tonight.”

“You’re biased,” I asserted before kissing her again.

“Sure, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Goodnight, Alex. I love you.”

“Love you too. Sleep well.”

“Have nice dreams,” she wished me, which wasn’t quite the norm for her.

“Of playing piano…?” I asked.

And then she whispered in my ear things I won’t dare repeat. I had very nice dreams after that.

What a day, though. As I climbed into bed, the day finally done, I realised just how big an achievement this really was for myself. I’d woken up dreading the day, and I fell asleep in love with playing music on stage in a way I couldn’t possibly have dreamt of.