Hidden Depths

in Ponteland. Gary’d seen him once in a bar in town and thumped him. The bloke hadn’t made a fuss but Gary’d been done for breach of the peace. He’d been drinking a lot when that happened. He wouldn’t react in the same way these days.

He’d idealized Emily and frightened her away. Who could live up to that? It wasn’t the skinny lad’s fault.

Now Gary never drank when he was working. If you worked in an office, you wouldn’t sit there with a bottle of wine on your desk. That’s what he told the other guys who sat in the cramped bit of corridor they called an office. Behind the scenes at the Sage was more like working in a submarine than a flash new music venue. All pipes and wiring and grey gloss paint.

He took his work seriously. It had always been the one thing he’d been good at, the one thing to hold him together. When his parents had bought their place in Spain, they’d said he should go with them too. There’d be plenty of work, they said. All those bars. Lots of them would have live music and they must need someone to do the sound. But he’d decided to stay in Shields. He had his flat there and his contacts. His birding friends. The chance to pick and choose the sort of gigs he wanted to do. He’d given up that flexibility now that he’d decided to take the job at the Sage, but he told himself he didn’t regret it. Not really.

He walked up the steps of the small hall and swiped his pass at the door to get into the backstage area, then made his way down to the techie office. Neil, who was in charge, was leaning back in his chair thumping away on his computer.

‘That offer of a permanent job,’ Gary said.

‘Yeah.’ Neil didn’t even bother to look up from the screen. He’d asked Gary loads of times before and the answer had always been ‘no’.

‘I’ve decided to take it.’

That got his attention. He swung his chair back to upright and his hands stopped moving. When he turned towards Gary his face was a picture. He jumped to his feet, took Gary’s hand, slapped him on the back. Gary found himself grinning. But when he walked away, he was shaking. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d done.

Now he had this picture of how things would be. Him and Julie living together in that house in Seaton. It would be a good place to live. Not too far from the coast when the wind turned east and the migrants came in. Not too far from the tower for sea watching. He couldn’t rush her, of course. Not now that she was so upset about Luke. But he thought she’d come out of the tragedy whole. She was a strong woman. She wouldn’t be changed by it. And he’d be there to support her and see her through.

He wasn’t sure how he would have coped with a stepson. Would Julie have expected him to be like a dad? He didn’t like to admit it, but he wasn’t sorry Luke was dead, not really. It would have been a complication. Julie was always going to put the boy first. It was an awful way to look at things, but he couldn’t help it. That led him to think of Laura. He pictured her as he’d last seen her, standing on the pavement outside the house in Seaton, watching him drive away. Weighing him up. That was how it seemed. He saw her in the short black skirt, the white shirt. He tried not to think of her in a sexy way. She’d be like a daughter to him if he got it together with Julie, and that was just vile. But something about her – her youth or her energy and defiance had got under his skin. Sometimes he thought he was haunted by Laura as much as he was by Julie. Perhaps it was safer not to consider moving into the house in Seaton until Laura had grown up.

There was still half an hour before he needed to start work and he went outside for air, walked to the front of the huge curved building and looked out over the Tyne. His parents had left for Spain because they couldn’t stand the weather, but he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. He was proud of the city. He liked telling people he worked at the Sage. To his right and down by the river was the huge bulk of the Baltic Gallery. He remembered it as a decaying warehouse, kittiwakes nesting in the cracked stonework, its facade covered with bird muck. When it had first opened, he’d gone with Samuel Parr to see the Gormley exhibition. He wouldn’t have wanted to go on his own. He was only comfortable backstage. But he’d loved the sculpture, all those figures of twisted metal, fine as spun sugar. Gary had found it odd to be there with Samuel, who was recognized by some of the staff. He was part of the Tyneside arts mafia, the set Gary despised as an alien race when they came into the Sage.

The river was at full tide, moving sluggishly, almost on the turn. On the north bank people were spilling out of the bars. He heard a line of melody, which faded before he could place it, the blast of a car horn. The low sun was reflecting from all the glass and turning the water red. Would Samuel or Clive or Peter Calvert find it strange to see Gary at his work, sat behind the deck, in control of the sounds coming out to the audience, making a difference, a real difference to the experience they had in the brilliant space? They knew him only as a demon sea watcher. They’d been friends for years, but really they knew very little about each other’s lives. They knew he’d fallen for Julie, his childhood sweetheart, with her smile and her easy, comfortable body. They’d never guess he dreamed of the teenage Laura in her short black school skirt. They believed they were the closest of friends, but they all had secrets they would never share.

His mobile beeped to show he had a text message. It was from Julie and he felt a shock of guilt, physical. His face was hot as if he was blushing. What are you doing tonight. He pushed away his daydreams about Laura then and answered immediately. Working. Wont be finished til midnight. He had to wait so long for the reply that he’d almost given up. Perhaps she’d been offended, seen it as a rejection rather than a statement of fact. He should have taken more time to compose it. He fretted, putting together another message in his head. It was time for him to go in and do the final check. He always switched off his phone when he was working. Her reply came as he was walking back up the steps, with his back to the river. Ill come and meet you. See you then.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Julie felt that if she didn’t get out of the house she’d scream. She’d stand at the top of the stairs and fill her lungs and open her mouth and the noise would be so loud that you’d hear it at the end of the road. Her mother was still there, cleaning. All day there was the hum of the Hoover, the background stink of bleach and polish, so it didn’t even feel like Julie’s house any more. And when she wasn’t cleaning Mrs Richardson was talking, trying to prod Julie back to life with sharp words and guilt. As if there wasn’t enough guilt around already. Julie had always found it easier to get on with her father. If he’d been there instead of her mother, they could have got pissed together. He’d have sat beside her on the sofa, watching the music channels on TV, telling his old stories about the musicians he’d known, holding her when she wanted to cry.

She couldn’t tell her mother to leave. She thought she was being useful and it would hurt her. Then Julie would feel guilty all over again. So all day she tried to make up an excuse to get out. She concocted a story about being invited to Lisa’s house. Lisa would cook her a meal and Julie would stay over in the spare room. Julie’s mother approved of Lisa, who worked as a secretary for a big firm of solicitors in town. Then Julie went out into the garden and phoned Lisa on her mobile. On the other side of the horses’ field they were cutting grass. She watched the tractor moving backwards and forwards, regular and mesmerizing. She could have watched it all day, but her mam would never have allowed it. She’d see it as idle and self-indulgent and would find Julie something useful to do.

‘If my mother phones, I’m at your house, but I’ve fallen asleep and you don’t want to wake me.’

Lisa was a good mate and didn’t ask questions. She would have cooked Julie a meal and drunk wine with her and let her cry. But Lisa lived in a smart new flat on the front at Tynemouth and it had never been the sort of place where Julie had felt able to kick off her shoes and relax. Telling all these lies made Julie feel like a teenager again. By the end of the afternoon she was exhausted by it all. But she was a little bit excited too. She’d known all along that what she really wanted was to see Gary.

She had a shower before she went out, stood in the bath where Luke had been lying. Before, they’d had an old shower curtain, with pinkish spots of mould along the hem, but the police had taken that away. Her mam had been to Matalan to get another. Julie drew the curtain and shut her eyes to wash her hair. It was the first time since Luke had died. Until then she’d used Sal’s place when she wanted a bath. She took her time getting ready, make-up, a splash of perfume. It wouldn’t make her mother suspicious. She was of a generation when women didn’t go visiting without making a bit of an effort.

Laura was in her room. She seemed to live there these days, only came out to eat and wee. Julie thought