Eighteen months later

 

Her suitcase seemed small and insignificant, standing by the front door, Roy’s leather jacket draped over the top. Jane had been sitting at her kitchen table waiting for the taxi to take her to the airport. She was flying out to New York to join Silas at the opening night of the American leg of their new tour, the biggest to date.

As predicted, Wild Dogz had become interstellar rock sensations. Astral Scream was the biggest selling metal album of all time and had broken into the mainstream. Wild Dogz t-shirts and merchandizing were netting the record company a small fortune, and selling out in record stores across the world. The European leg of the Astral Scream tour had been extended three times, and Silas and the band had crossed the Atlantic dozens of times over the past eighteen months.

Jane had tried to keep up. She and Silas had finally become lovers after the Birmingham show. She attended as many gigs as she could reasonably fit in around her work at the supermarket. It had been an exciting, crazy time, and she had been giddy with the exhilaration of backstage passes, and the press of the media throng.

Behind the scenes meanwhile, there was very little glamour. She hated the drugs and the groupies, the hangers-on, the phony friends who minced around and hung on to Silas’s every word, and most of all she hated Mo, who sneered at her at every opportunity. She enjoyed the company of John, Dewey, Bobo and his girlfriend, Mel, but found Mikhail a bit of an oddball with a penchant for barely legal teenagers. There was no doubt he was a phenomenal drummer, however, and there was no way Jane would have voiced her concerns.

She was determined never to become a divisive influence.

Instead, she made sure she was there when Silas wanted her to be. Sometimes she watched the gig from the auditorium, other times she hung back in the wings, staying well out of the way of the crew, and sitting on a stool that Dewey would find for her. Once the show finished, Jane let Silas do all the press and meet and greet stuff that he needed to. Sometimes there were parties – even fun ones – and she and Silas would drink and dance and mingle.

When the parties backstage were merely gatherings of the supposedly great and the good, or even worse - those that thought they were, she would escape with Silas and they would walk for a while, grab something to eat or drink, and then head back to the hotel to hang out. Some nights he would practice his Spanish fingering on his trusty guitar, and she would lie on the bed listening to him playing the same bars over and over, remembering the first night, that wonderful night when they had stumbled upon the Spanish bar. She would smile, and be lulled to sleep by his gentle humming, secure in her love for him, and his for her.

She couldn’t go everywhere with him. She had her job. He wanted her to give it up, however she felt it was early days in the relationship and she didn’t want to burn all her bridges. Besides, he had very little money – in terms of ready cash. The record company tended to pay for everything, and she didn’t want Silas to arrange all her flights and travel arrangements through Mo. The less she had to do with that sleaze ball, the better. Her wages from the supermarket couldn’t cover everything, and occasionally she had to reluctantly borrow money from her mother or Terri, or Terri travelled with her, seemingly content to spend time in Dewey’s company. They were sweet together, although terribly mis-matched, the glamourous goth girl with the razor sharp haircut, and the scruffy roadie with an unkempt beard.

When Silas and the rest of the band had travelled back to the USA to work on new material for the next album and prepare for a world tour, Jane hadn’t seen Silas for nearly four months. His phone calls had become sporadic because he was holed up in the studio till all hours of the day and night.

She missed him terribly.

At Terri’s suggestion she had booked this trip to the States. She was flying solo, intending to surprise Silas when she reached the venue. She’d bought the flight on her credit card and taken extended leave from her job, half-expecting never to return to it. Being apart from Silas was too painful. It was time for them to be together, properly, whatever that actually meant.

Jane had been saving up a number of her rock and music magazines especially for the long journey. She was unused to flying long haul, and was worried about becoming bored. She flicked through the magazines on her kitchen table, wondering if she needed all of them, or whether she should just take two or three.

Jane’s eye drifted down the small photos on a gossip spread - backstage at Lollapalooza. Lots of metal bands, including Wild Dogz had been performing there. And there he was - Silas with his arm wrapped around an impossibly tall and glamourous blonde woman, clad in leather from head to toe. Jane’s hand trembled as she lifted the magazine from the table to read the small text. “Silas Garfield, the scorching lead singer and songwriter of red hot metal band Wild Dogz will soon be off limits to his many thousands of hungry female admirers. Silas and his supermodel love Nyree Seager-Lowe, are expected to announce a date for their forthcoming nuptials after a whirlwind romance. Knowing Nyree and her love of the band’s backstage shenanigans, the ceremony will be anything but understated.”

Jane dropped the magazine in shock. Nuptials? As in a wedding? The magazine had that wrong surely?

Jane walked out into the hall and studied her suitcase absently. She needed to find Silas and ask him to tell his PR to put the record straight. Whomever Nyree might be, she was not Silas’s love. Jane was.

She patted her suitcase, as if to offer reassurance that they would be leaving shortly. Her carry-on bag was still in the kitchen. She returned to the table there, saw the magazine again, her brain struggling to process the image. She opened her bag, checked for tickets, her purse and passport.

Silas didn’t know she was coming. He hadn’t asked her to come. Hadn’t invited her. In fact, she hadn’t heard from him for a few weeks. It had seen odd that he hadn’t been in touch, and that contact between them had been reduced significantly recently, although he’d explained that away by pleading his busy schedule. Now that she thought about it, the silence spoke volumes, didn’t it?

She’d wanted to surprise him, but the surprise was hers.

She’d been taken for a fool. The strength in her legs ebbed away and she thought she would faint. She buckled to the floor, her chest spasming with pain. “No,” she whispered. “No.”

Outside, the taxi was hooting to let her know it had arrived.

Inside, her heart was breaking.