NOW
The Verve: ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’
I’ve always known music can change your life. I just hadn’t realised it was about to change mine so dramatically on an otherwise ordinary December afternoon.
It was already getting dark as I stepped out of the gift shop, the dusk creeping over the rooftops like reaching fingers, smothering the violets and greys of the day even though it was not yet 4 p.m. A streetlight flickered on as I turned a corner, casting orange smudges onto the frosty pavement, and I stomped my feet, trying to warm my numb toes.
I swerved to avoid a small gathering on the pavement outside the Fat Cat café, impatient to get home. But as I passed, the opening notes of ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ by The Verve rose above the heads of the crowd and I stopped for a moment, drawn in. I loved the song, and I listened, mesmerised, as the busker plucked out the familiar melody.
And then he started to sing, and the whole world ground to a halt.
Because I knew that voice.
I knew it.
On shaking legs, I pushed past a couple of women to the front of the crowd to see the singer more clearly. He had a beanie pulled tightly over his forehead and he was turned slightly away from me, his mouth pressed against the microphone. But I didn’t need to see his face to know who it was. My heart hammered as I waited, concentrating on breathing in slowly, sucking air into my lungs and pushing it back out again. I’d forgotten all about the cold now; all I could focus on was the man singing in front of me.
Then he looked up, and my heart stopped.
It was him.
It was Adam Bowers.
I felt frozen, and I stood, locked in the moment, unable to move even though every single part of me was telling me to go, to get out of there. I hardly dared to breathe.
Then the song ended, there was a smattering of applause, and I came to my senses. And, before he could notice me, I turned and fled, ignoring the tuts as I shoved past people in my haste to get away. I ran all the way down the high street, past the shops and cafes and crowds and out to where the shops thinned and the terraced houses of the estate began. Only then did I stop, my lungs burning and my pulse thumping. I felt dizzy. I bent over and placed my hands on my knees while I waited for my breathing to return to normal, and then looked around me. I’d come further out of town than I’d intended so I started walking slowly back the way I came, trying to arrange my thoughts into some sort of order.
Adam Bowers.
What the hell was he doing back here after all this time?
Why was he busking?
Why did I care?
Rattled, I pulled my bobble hat down over my ears and tugged my scarf tighter, watching my breath rise in puffs in front of me as I marched along the pavement. I felt shaken, as though the world had tipped upside down, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. I hadn’t seen this man for almost two decades, but I’d thought about him many times. As I walked, my footsteps tapping out a rhythm on the pavement, memories flooded into my mind without warning.
Adam on stage, singing to me…
Adam playing his guitar in the park…
Adam’s lips brushing mine…
Adam lying next to me, my skin burning beneath his touch…
Adam leaving, not even glancing behind as he walked away from me.
I stopped, pushed the memories away. Stop it. I couldn’t do this.
When I looked up, I was almost at my best friend Sam’s house, so I hurried the extra hundred metres to his front door and pressed the buzzer. Seconds later a tinny voice came over the intercom.
‘Speak.’
‘It’s me.’
‘Come up.’ Sam buzzed me up and moments later I found him standing in his doorway in nothing but a towel, his bare chest glistening with drops of water.
‘I was just out of the shower,’ he said, rubbing his hair with a smaller towel and showering me with droplets at the same time. He looked sheepish. ‘Sorry.’
