I gasped. Because how was that even possible? I mean, seriously, what were the chances?
I reached for the remote and turned up the sound, and, yes, it was definitely Billy singing. He’d ditched the shiny green overalls and was wearing leather trousers and a dark-green satin shirt, but there was no doubting it was Billy. The song was more jingly-jangly guitars than the rock songs he’d liked in the old days, but it was good, it was catchy. I liked it.
Lou started to cry, so I jiggled him and asked him to keep it down at least to the end of the song. I remembered Mum saying that Billy would be famous one day, and I felt proud because I knew him and then silly for feeling proud, because, after all, what did it possibly have to do with me?
Transfixed, I stared at his gyrating leather-clad hips, his chest hair and new beard. I tried to listen to the lyrics, stupidly hoping they’d be about me. But Billy was singing something fun and vacuous about strawberry lollies and cherry-stained lips, lips that definitely had never been mine.
As the song approached the end, the title scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Billy and the Argonauts: ‘Cherry Lips’ (Island Records).
Island Records!I thought.He’s been signed to Island Records!I wondered if he’d met Grace Jones.
The song started to fade, and Billy began to blur so that soon Kylie’s lithe body had replaced his.
I reached for the remote and switched the TV off so that I could think. But think about what, other than the fact that what had just happened was so absurd as to be dreamlike?
I’d just given birth to a baby that looked like Rob, and I’d been specifically thinking about the fact that Lucy quite clearlydidn’tlook like him. And like a twisted message from the ether, her probable father had appeared on TV – a sexy, nightmare vision designed to mess with my mind.
A nurse came in ten minutes later and I realised I’d dozed off while breastfeeding. ‘Everything OK?’ she asked. ‘You look a bit funny.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Just tired.’ Thoughtireddidn’t really cover it. I was so exhausted I was barely conscious.
As she turned to leave, I asked, ‘Have you…? Sorry, but have you heard of a group called the Argonauts? A pop group?’
She thought for a moment and then shook her head.
‘Billy and the Argonauts?’ I offered.
Another shake of the head. ‘Jason and the Argonauts, maybe,’ she said. ‘But I think that was a film. Why?’
‘No reason,’ I said. ‘I think it must have been a dream.’
* * *
The very first day I was able to, I dragged Lucy and Lou down to Woolworths.
Lucy was in a good mood. She associated Woolworths with Pick’n’Mix, which she loved. But Lou, who was six days old, screamed all the way. And I do meanallthe way.
I was suffering from months of compounded sleep deprivation by then and that simple walk to the high street felt like climbing Everest.
The only comfortable sleeping position before the birth had been on my back. Any other configuration had made my spine hurt. But sleeping on my back made me snuffle like a buffalo, to the point where my own gasps and grunts would wake me up every time. Add to that the constant pressure massive Lou had been putting on my bladder, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I hadn’t slept more than an hour straight for at least the previous three months. And as anyone who’s had a baby will know, the birth didnotusher in a period of calm serenity.
So I was shattered that morning,utterlyshattered, and Lou’s screams grated on me like broken glass. Sometimes the force and pitch of his tantrums could make me break out in an actual sweat, and that morning – with him being in a carrier, his mouth mere inches from my ears – I arrived at Woolworths drenched in my own icy sweat.
‘Do you have anything by a group called the Argonauts?’ I asked the young spotty guy behind the counter, shouting to be heard over Lou’s screams. I was fully expecting him to sayno such band,revealing that it had been a dream. After all, I’d listened to the radio pretty much constantly since leaving hospital, and Radio One didn’t seem to have heard of them at all.
‘The Argonauts?’ he said, wrinkling his nose and frowning momentarily at the back of blue-faced Lou’s head. I realised I was embarrassed to say the full name.
‘Billyand the Argonauts?’ I said doubtfully, barely mumbling the word ‘Billy’.
‘Oh, yeah. Of course.A Bit of Argy-Bargy. Thirty-four,’ the guy replied, shooting another disapproving glance at Lou.
‘Thirty-four?’ I repeated. ‘Thirty-four what?’
‘Album chart,’ he said. ‘It’s thirty-four this week.A Bit of Argy-Bargy. But REM are better if you ask me.’
My heart sped up a bit at the realisation I hadn’t dreamed this after all. I eased the pushchair along the racks of albums, but Lou was writhing in his carrier, gasping between shrieks, while Lucy was doing her best to worm her way out of the pushchair, her eyes fixed on the multicoloured sweets across the way.
‘You’ve got your hands full there,’ the lad said, his disapproval shifting to far-more-appropriate pity as he slid out from behind the racks. ‘Here, let me help you.’
