Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(95)
Rosie and I were there to see a new glam-rock band called Lipstick On Mars that she had heard was good, plus whoever else happened to be on. We were drinking the finest German white and dancing ourselves dizzy—I loved watching Rosie dance, the swing of her hips and the whip of her hair and the laugh curving her mouth: she never let her face go blank when she danced like other girls did, she always had an expression. It was shaping up to be a good night. The band was no Led Zeppelin, but they had smart lyrics, a great drummer and that reckless shine that bands did have, back then, when no one had anything to lose and the fact that you didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it big didn’t matter, because throwing your whole heart into this band was the only thing that stopped you being just another futureless dole bunny moping in his bedsit. It gave them something: a drop of magic.
The bass player broke a string to prove he was serious, and while he was changing it Rosie and I went up to the bar for more wine. “That stuff’s poxy,” Rosie told the barman, fanning herself with her top.
“I know, yeah. I think they make it out of Benylin. Leave it in the airing cupboard for a few weeks and away you go.” The barman liked us.
“Poxier than usual, even. You got a bad batch. Have you nothing decent, have you not?”
“This does the job, doesn’t it? Otherwise, ditch the boyfriend, wait till we close up and I’ll take you somewhere better.”
I said, “Will I give you a smack myself, or will I just leave it to your mot?” The barman’s girlfriend had a mohawk and sleeve tattoos. We got on with her, too.
“You do it. She’s harder than you are.” He winked at us and headed off to get my change.
Rosie said, “I’ve a bit of news.”
She sounded serious. I forgot all about the barman and started frantically trying to add up dates in my head. “Yeah? What?”
“There’s someone retiring off the line at Guinness’s, next month. My da says he’s been talking me up every chance he gets, and if I want the job, it’s mine.”
I got my breath back. “Ah, deadly,” I said. I would have had a tough time getting delighted for anyone else, especially since Mr. Daly was involved, but Rosie was my girl. “That’s brilliant. Fair play to you.”
“I’m not taking it.”
The barman slid my change down the bar; I caught it. “What? Why not?”
She shrugged. “I don’t want anything my da gets for me, I want something I get myself. And anyway—”
The band started up again with a happy blast of drum overkill, and the rest of her sentence got lost. She laughed and pointed to the back of the room, where you could usually hear yourself think. I got her free hand and led the way, through a clump of bouncing girls with fingerless gloves and raccoon eyeliner, orbited by inarticulate guys hoping that if they just stayed close enough they would somehow end up getting a snog. “Here,” Rosie said, pulling herself up onto the ledge of a bricked-up window. “They’re all right, these fellas, aren’t they?”
I said, “They’re great.” I had spent that week walking into random places in town, asking if they had any work going, and getting laughed out of just about every single one. The world’s filthiest restaurant had had a kitchen-porter gig open and I had started getting my hopes up, on the grounds that no sane person would want it, but the manager had turned me down once he saw my address, with an unsubtle hint about inventory going missing. It had been months since Shay let a day go by without some line about how Mr. Leaving Cert and all his education couldn’t put a wage on the table. The barman had just taken the guts of my last tenner. Any band that played loud and fast enough to blow my mind empty was in my good books.
“Ah, no; not great. They’re all right, but half of it’s that.” Rosie motioned with her wineglass to the ceiling. Galligan’s had a handful of lights, most of them lashed to beams with what looked like baling wire. A guy called Shane was in charge of them. If you got too near his lighting desk carrying a drink, he threatened to punch you.
“What? The lights?” Shane had managed to get some kind of fast-moving silvery effect that gave the band an edgy, sleazy almost-glamour. At least one of them was bound to get some action after their set.
“Yeah. Your man Shane, he’s good. He’s what’s making them. This lot, they’re all atmosphere; knock out the lights and the costumes, and they’re just four lads making eejits of themselves.”
I laughed. “So’s every band, sure.”
“Sort of, yeah. Probably.” Rosie’s eyes went sideways to me, almost shyly, over the rim of her glass. “Will I tell you something, Francis?”
“Go on.” I loved Rosie’s mind. If I could have got inside there, I would happily have spent the rest of my life wandering around, just looking.
“That’s what I’d love to do.”
“Lights? For bands?”
“Yeah. You know what I’m like for the music. I always wanted to work in the business, ever since I was a little young one.” I knew that—everyone knew that, Rosie was the only kid in the Place who had spent her confirmation money on albums—but this was the first time she had said anything about lighting. “I can’t sing for shite, but, and the arty stuff wouldn’t be me anyway—writing songs or playing the guitar, nothing like that. This is what I like.” She tilted her chin up at the crisscrossing beams of light.