‘Actually, really well!’ she says brightly. ‘How about you?’
‘Out like a light,’ he fibs. Yet he feels surprisingly perky as he showers quickly and carefully manoeuvres Doris out of the campsite. It seems to be a muddle of ring roads and roundabouts until the town finally opens out into its docks.
Through the open driver’s window, Shane catches the sharp, briny, unmistakably fishy smell. It’s not unpleasant. This is a working town – no longer thriving, as he imagines it was when his dad lived and worked here, but still chugging along. They pass stout brick warehouses and a sagging terrace of shops, and park up close to the docks.
‘Wow, look at that!’ Josie exclaims as they climb out of the van.
Following her gaze, Shane takes in the sight of the tall, imposing red-brick tower. ‘D’you remember that?’ he asks.
Her clear blue eyes catch the morning sun. ‘No, I don’t. But we didn’t do much sightseeing back then, did we?’
‘Not that I remember.’ He smiles and with no further discussion, they drift towards a little wooden-fronted café with a couple of tables outside, where they have a second coffee. Fat gulls shriek overhead, and boats bob gently on their moorings. ‘So, I guess we’d better find it,’ Josie announces.
‘You mean the venue? The Laughing… Herring, was it?’
‘Haddock.’ She grins and pats the canvas bag slung over her shoulder. ‘Ready for our photo shoot?’
‘Oh God.’ He sniggers. ‘Do we really have to do this?’
‘We do!’ So off they go, with Josie leading the way with her phone map on this cool, breezy morning, and quickening her pace as the illustrious venue comes into view.
Without warning, a memory smacks him squarely in the face. For a second, he’s no longer a middle-aged man with two teenage kids and an ex-wife and a special relationship with the Belarusian String Orchestra. He is twenty years old and has just arrived here in Ravi’s uncle’s massive car.
Ravi isn’t dead. The cancer that cut her big, beautiful life short doesn’t even exist. She is brimming with life, bossing him and Josie about, having booked their gigs and had fliers printed and even T-shirts made, for crying out loud. T-shirts with their faces on them, from a drawing she did! She’s made him look like Stig of the Dump, but he doesn’t care and wears it anyway. He’s not bothered about his ‘image’ (a word frequently bandied about by Ravi) and anyway, he has bigger things to worry about. Although pretending that everything is in hand, he is worried about setting up his drum kit in an unfamiliar venue, and what the locals will make of their ramshackle brand of indie pop.
Josie is nervous too. She’s admitted it to him, secretly (‘Don’t tell Rav!’). Shane also knows that she only settled on playing bass because she’d found one languishing among the frilly lampshades and Cliff Richard records in a charity shop. He was there with her that day. ‘A bass? You sure?’ he’d asked her. She’d laughingly said that, with four strings rather than a guitar’s standard six, it was bound to be easier.
He flinches now as she touches his arm. ‘Look at this place,’ she murmurs.
‘Jesus,’ he breathes. The pub appears to be leaning tipsily into the street. Its painted sign – a cartoon fish clutching a tankard – is bleached almost to invisibility.
‘Classy,’ she says, turning to him with a smile as she pulls out the Polaroid camera from her bag.
‘You’ve put the film in?’ he asks.
Josie chuckles mockingly. ‘No, I thought I wouldn’t bother,’ she retorts, and he tries to laugh off his embarrassment.
‘She could have left us a digital one,’ he jokes.
‘Yeah. Bit thoughtless,’ Josie adds with a wry smile. A silence hovers and he sees her eyes fill with tears and is overcome by an urge to hug her. ‘Poor Ravi,’ she adds softly.
He nods, not knowing what else to say. Josie examines the chunky device; it seems like an ancient artefact now. ‘C’mon, then,’ she says, brightening. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘Okay!’ Subconsciously, he straightens up and stands tall, ready for the paparazzi. She flops an arm around his shoulders, the simple act causing his heart rate to quicken, like when that kid came into his shop and fiddled with the metronomes, setting them click-clicking a manic beat.
‘It doesn’t have a selfie function,’ Josie announces, holding the camera at arm’s length.
‘So how do we know if we’re in the picture?’
‘We’ll soon find out!’ Her cheek is up against his now, their faces touching as the wind whips at her fine blonde hair. Shane feels as if his heart could burst. ‘Smile!’ she commands, and he grins like a maniac as she presses the button and the picture slides out of the slot. Moments later, they are studying the photo as the image appears.
As he looks at it, he can hardly speak.
Him and Josie in the bleached, bluish tinge of the Polaroid print.
The two of them, just as they were. Before everything happened and he never saw her again, until Ravi died. Ravi who’s brought them back to The Laughing Haddock on this blustery afternoon.
Josie smiles, tilting her lovely face towards him. ‘Like it?’
