CHAPTER 1
YESTERDAY’S WISDOM
TRACK 13 | SWEETHEARTS INSIDE AT NIGHT
I wrote ‘Yesterday’s Wisdom’ in 2015 and released it with my fourth studio album: ‘Sweethearts Inside at Night’. I wasn’t initially sure if I’d put it on the album because it didn’t quite fit the vibe, but I needed Grampy to know how much he means to me.
Okay,fine. I can be honest. Being tongue deep in Benji Robert’s throat wasn’t my best look.
But, in my defence, the entire night wasn’t my finest hour.
And it’s not exactly my fault that him and Caro haven’t announced they’re separated yet. That they’ve been too cowardly to disappoint their adoring fans.
‘Sienna!’ My mum’s shrill voice echoes through the dense air like a tuning fork before she’s even taken her key out of my front door. She over-enunciates the final ‘argh’ as she’s done since I was a child, always striving to be the poshest-sounding inhabitant of the council estate.
My breath hitches, the thumping of my heart echoes in my ears and blocks out my entourage’s noise – a team of people fussing around me, touching my hair,brushing make-up on my cheeks, spraying perfume at my nose. All before I’m allowed to get in the car.
I need to clear my throat, but I keep the lump lodged there for a moment longer. The moment I make a noise, all of this will stop. I’ll have to leave the house, get in the car, prepare myself for a live tele performance, and I don’t know if my legs will carry me for that yet.
‘Sienna…’ My mum – who became Mauve, over-pronouncing the ‘Mow’, since I outgrew ‘mummy’ – prompts.
I know that she’s seen the papers. The photos online. The videos on social media claiming that my career is ‘over’. I know she’ll want to have words about what I did last night. I had advanced warning that the pictures were going to be published. We couldn’t stop them.
My body rejects my brain and clears my throat against my wishes. My team steps back, leaving room for Mauve to re-open the front door. I force a smile at each of them individually – some of them even smile back.
I can sense they’re here. Men with cameras. Long lenses ready to capture me in my worst moments. I don’t have to turn around to know they’re hiding in the bushes at the front of my house like snakes in the grass, blending in among the shrubs.
What are they hoping to capture?
Devastation? Regret?
My security guard, Dennis, walks in front of me before I climb in the back of Kareem’s car. James dabs my face with an orange sponge and Dina touches up a dislodged auburn curl before the door finally shuts. Kareem starts the engine, and I think I’ve managed to make a lucky escape before Mauve jumps in the seat next to me.
This hour-long drive is going to be a demonstration of my expertise in Tuning Mauve Out.
I haven’t let her come with me to things like this for years. Not since 2016, when she was overheard by a journalistasking me, ‘should you really be eating that now you’re getting older?’ I was twenty-two. She said she was only trying to look out for me, but it made the front page of the paper. It was a lesson for us all: even the walls have ears.
I have learned to tune her out. To let her say what she has to say into the abyss. I’m not a teenager anymore. I don’t need her with me for work appearances.
I clear my throat again, silently cursing the fact I was stupid enough to get a cold right as the new album came out, meaning all the promo was done with a slightly nasal, hoarse voice. My voice hasn’t fully recovered, even though the blocked nose and the cough is long gone. Istilldon’t know how my voice is going to sound when I sing at the end ofEric Lancaster’s Laughstonight.King Regardsis an easy enough song to sing if I don’t do the ad libs I’d planned on the final chorus.
I hate disappointing people.
I try not to think about the fact that this is my first official appearance since Grampy’s death. Grampy had been to most of my performances since the start of my career. I spent hours in his company before taking the stage, neither of us talking in the lead-up to a show so I could rest my voice. We’d enjoy a silent game of charades – a pre-performance ritual for me to be with Grampy.
I’ll have to find a new ritual now.
He died not long after I finished up the tour last year, so I’m lucky that I’ve been given the space in my schedule to grieve, to breathe. But going back to work officially tonight, after releasing an album earlier this week for the first time without Grampy listening to it first… it’s hit me like a ton of bricks.
The whistle of the wind through the small gap in the back window of the car swirls around my head, a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
‘Sienna.’
I startle at the sound of my own name even though I know what’s coming.
‘I would really like to speak to you about those pictures from last night,’ Mauve says, her voice blurring with the volume of the radio.
I silently pray that Kareem will turn it up to drown her out even more.
