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       Chapter Twelve

      Cordelia’s son, Randall Muir, set down his pride-and-joy guitar before picking up the pint of cider he’d been nursing for the last hour. He had to go easy on the alcohol if he was serious about getting up to jam with the rest of the musicians in the bar. Tonight, for the first time, he would have the confidence to go through with it. Last time he’d failed to play when nerves had got the better of him. He’d drunk far more than intended then had to perform an Olympic-style sprint to the men’s toilets to lose the contents of his stomach, before staggering home with a mouth tasting like rotting apples. His mother had pretended not to notice, presenting sympathetic eyes and changing the conversation away from what he’d been up to.

      The great Cordelia Muir would not judge. She wouldn’t tell him off. Even asking where he went in the evenings was a habit she’d foregone in order to avoid another steaming row. Since his father had died, his mother had tried stepping into the breach with clumsy good intent, embarrassing Randall beyond anything he felt a teenage boy should have to endure. She attended football games when every other mother knew to stay away, shouting and clapping encouragement throughout. She phoned the parents of girls at school he admitted liking and invited their families for Sunday lunch. Cordelia had even tried talking to him about porn, only to end up lecturing him about respecting women. She’d even insisted on providing packets of condoms when he went away for a weekend with his classmates, forgetting them initially, then shoving them through a car window so everyone had seen. Cordelia Muir was all things to all people. Randall just wished she would get it through her intellectually gifted brain that she would never be his father.

      His older sister had cried dutifully at their father’s funeral, all the time thanking God, Randall thought, that their precious mother hadn’t been the one taken. What Randall knew was that life would never be as good as it had been when his father was alive. There had been boys only camping trips. There had been nights staying up late watching movies his mother would never have approved of, with a few beers sneaked in for good measure even though Randall had been well underage. There had been jokes about sex instead of talk of honour and compatibility. There had been jokes, full stop. His father knew that when he was upset, he needed to be punched on the arm and made to laugh, not to sit down and express his feelings. His father had put Randall first, before all those children in Africa with whom his mother concerned herself so absolutely. Crystal, the clean water charity his mother ran, was more her baby than Randall ever had been.

      Since his father had died, Randall’s guitar had become his life. His father had taught him the basic chords when he was just eight, sitting Randall on his lap and covering his son’s fingers with his own. A year later he’d given Randall a guitar for his birthday. From that moment on it had been his most treasured possession. Now Randall dreamed of joining a band, touring, hearing his first record on the radio. But the bands at his school wrote navel-gazing dirges of love and longing. They sang in mournful voices with arranged harmonies – not the sort of music that got Randall out of bed in the morning to practise chords until his fingertips bled. He wanted to explode with sound, to have it thrum through him like a raging beast. The Fret was the first place he’d found where he could stand up, plug in his amp, and jam with whoever was there.

      The bar was the type of place the girls at his school would hate, with enough tattoos on show to qualify the venue as a base for a motorbike gang. Randall loved it. He didn’t have a tattoo, and never would if his mother had anything to do with it, but his new friend at The Fret had suggested a henna tattoo strategically positioned so his mother wouldn’t see it. Tonight he was ready to show it off. He’d left home sweltering in a sensible parka jacket, a V-neck sweater, and an Oxford shirt. Round the corner from the club he’d stripped off, pulling a denim jacket over a black t-shirt then shoving his good clothes into his rucksack. Guitar over his shoulder, he’d swaggered into The Fret ready to play and was rewarded for the first time with a brief nod of recognition from the doorman. Randall felt a foot taller just walking through the door.

      He identified a free table at the back, furthest from the stage, set down his rucksack and guitar then made for the bar. The girl serving didn’t seem to remember him, but then Randall had never seen her smile at anyone. Her severely contracted pupils told a story of opiate abuse that Randall longed to ask her about. He wanted to know what it was like. Not from an educational pamphlet or a teacher, with their particular bias and spin, but from an actual user. Why should he be lectured on the dangers of drugs by someone who had never used them? The bar girl had a scar that ran from shoulder to her elbow, tracing a line down the back of her arm that kept Randall awake at night writing fantasies in his head.

      ‘What do you want?’ the barmaid asked.

      ‘Um, sorry, what?’ Randall said, feeling his face burning and grateful for the lack of natural light.

      ‘I said, what do you want? Biff, turn that fuckin’ amp down would you, my friggin’ ear drums are already bleeding!’ she yelled.

      ‘Vodka,’ Randall said. ‘Double, neat.’ No one had ever asked him for ID in The Fret. As long as you could pay, you were assumed to be of age. The girl slammed a full but heavily finger-marked glass down in front of him. Randall pushed his money across the bar and tried a smile, but she had already turned away. It must be tough on her, he thought, doing such a physically demanding job. The club didn’t close until 3am and she would be on her feet all that time. One day, he decided, he would stay until the very end and offer to walk her home. She should have someone to look after her.

      Carrying the glass back to his table, Randall checked that no one was watching as he withdrew a Coke from his rucksack and topped up the drink. Vodka made him gag if he drank it neat but this way he could tolerate it. There was no way he was going to order anything as pathetic as a vodka and Coke from the bar, though. That wasn’t what real men drank. His father had favoured port after dinner, single malt whilst watching television, and cider on sunny afternoons when they’d stopped at a bar during a walk. His family had done a lot of hiking, and whilst Randall could have done without the endless lectures from his mother about birds or geographical formations, his father had made it fun with tales of youthful exploits. Randall remembered their last hike as if it were yesterday. If they could eat only one dessert for the remainder of their