‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘So … am I invited to this shindig?’ He quirks an eyebrow.
‘Well, I’m going to need a date, right?’
Cam smooths a hand just under Anika’s ribcage, moving her a little closer to him. He drops a soft peck on her temple. ‘Mm. Well, if it doesn’t clash with the European press tour, I’m there, so fingers crossed for this weekend.’
Anika tenses. The film is releasing across other markets over the next few weeks, but she hasn’t really thought about the fact that would mean Cam travelling. The party wouldn’t be the same without him there …
The lights in the bar suddenly dim and a spotlight settles over a small stage in the corner of the plush bar area. Anika looks over at Cam, surprised, but then Tina trots back over to them. ‘I forgot to tell you guys,’ she says in a lowered voice. ‘There’s some live acts from the art school playing here this evening. This is gonna be the early set. I heard them soundcheck and it was surprisingly good. I reckon you’ll like them, Neeks. Could be good for the new job, you never know.’ She nudges Cam with a friendly elbow. ‘Or, hey, maybe they’ll get a spin on your show, eh?’
As three performers step onto the stage, Anika stops mid-sip of her drink, staring. A girl with jagged, bleached ice-blonde hair is making her way behind the drum kit in a comically huge Bretontop and pale-blue ripped jeans, her clear-frame glasses reflecting the pink-purple lights trained on the stage. To one side, a young man with a buzz-cut, an auburn handlebar moustache and huge black stretchers in his earlobes is putting the strap of an electric guitar over his shoulder.
And …
In the centre of the stage is a tall mixed-race boy. With unruly curls and blackline tattoos running the length of his thin arms under a sleeveless Miles Davis T-shirt, he adjusts the microphone. Beside him on a pedestal is a laptop and drum machine. The mic feeds back slightly as he grips it, tipping it towards his mouth a bit more.
‘Easy. How are you lot doing?’ he says in a bored tone that hides a slight shake of nerves. ‘We’re Kwesi. But, um, that’s Rita.’ He points at the drummer. ‘And that’s Fante. I’m Kwesi.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s like a Sade thing, get me?’ He laughs softly into the mic, then turns to his bandmates, who smile back.
Shit.
Anika is certainthisshould have fallen under the ‘no surprises’ clause in the diary, but there he is. Her half-brother. Standing on a stage about to begin his performance. He’s looking down at his shoes, gripping the microphone and moving it in short sharp shakes in time to Rita counting them off for their first song. When he moves his head back up, his eyes are closed, so Anika just stares at him. The song is a blistering punk tune supplemented with pounding hip-hop beats. It’s fantastic.
‘Bloody hell,’ Cam says, beside her. In the corner of her eye Anika can see him straightening up in his seat, but she barely notices, unable to remove her own gaze from the mesmerising performance.
Her brother’s voice is pure and melodic, cutting through the significant noise, his eyelids squeezed shut with a passion that wasn’t evident a moment earlier. A couple of minutes later thesong crashes to an end, and Cam claps loudly alongside the few other students and stylish types dotted around the bar space. He even lets out a whistle, which is what draws Kwesi’s attention over towards them. The younger man’s eyes lock with Anika’s and he squints a bit, holding up one long-fingered hand to shield his gaze. The other hand still grips the microphone.
‘Oh.’ His voice echoes around them through the mic, and then Kwesi seems to remember where he is. Still looking out at Anika, he says, ‘Er, this one …’ He pauses and huffs a cynical laugh, though his eyes seem confused and hurt when he glances back over at her, like he did the last time she saw him all those years ago in the record shop. She swallows guiltily as the dark centres of Kwesi’s pupils seem to harden and he looks away. ‘This one’s about my dad.’
Her heart pounds at double the speed of the trip-hop-inspired melancholic song that the band begins to play. Kwesi’s eyes squeeze shut again, but she can feel the unspoken connection reaching out to her across the room as he sings lyrics about loss, family and identity – cryptic explorations of the man who was such an enigma in both their lives. The music and her brother’s voice invade Anika’s bones, and she fights with everything she has not to let tears escape as the music envelops her.
It’s almost impossible when Kwesi begins to sing the song’s final refrain:
I got everything else
But who am I?
I got everything else
But who am I?
The words she told him, all those years ago:you got everything else. The anger she felt then rushes back unbidden, because it doesn’t feel any less true. It seems he got music in the end, too. She wants to argue with him, to justify herself, to explain that she was struggling then. That she’s still fighting for controlevery single day, a day at a time. That it took her thirty years to answer that question he’s asking himself in the lyric –who am I?– and that before she finally figured it out, she was scared, angry and passive. And yet her feelings of anger scuffle wildly with the sorrow and joy and beauty and fear of her brother beingtherein front of her again, singing such an incredible song about something shared between the two of them.
Kwesi holds the final note of the repeated phrase long after the other instruments ring out. Then he opens his eyes again, his gaze training straight back on Anika. There are more people coming into the bar to hear what’s happening, and, as the band goes into their next tune, a small group of young women move to stand in the space between the stage and the stools where Anika and Cam are sitting.
‘They’re fucking good, yeah?’ Cam leans closer to brush her braids aside and speak into her ear, pressing a kiss next to it after he does so. Anika nods mutely, still transfixed.
Three songs later, they’re beginning to wind up their set.
‘OK, boom. This is the last one from us,’ Kwesi says, his voice still languorous but more confident-sounding. ‘Like I said, we’re Kwesi. Check out our SoundCloud and all that good shit. Speaking of which, this one’s called “Good Shit”.’
A surprisingly funky groove starts up, and Anika turns to signal the bartender for another drink. She has no idea what to expect once Kwesi leaves the stage – it’s not like he hasn’t seen her there. The band are most likely going to be in the bar area after their set. ‘Er, do you want another one?’ she asks Cam with urgency in her voice. He gives her a curious look and shakes his head, gesturing to his two-thirds-full glass. She orders a G&T just as the band wrap up. The applause is more raucous now, in keeping with the performance they’ve just seen. A part of Anika is incredibly, overwhelmingly proud.
Yet, other than the trepidation over what might unfold in thenext few minutes, she’s baffled at how this could have happened at all.Must have missed something in the diary.Taking a long sip of her drink while the bartender waves away her card – apparently Tina has sorted them out with a tab – Anika turns back around, watching tentatively as Kwesi’s band pack up so that the next act can make their way to the stage. Should she tell Cam why this has suddenly turned weird? She doesn’t really have time to ponder it further though, because the small crowd of girls parts and suddenly her brother is standing in front of her.
‘Er, hi,’ he says.
The newly adoring fans eye him silently.
