Eleanor let her arms drop on the table, as the group went to drink a cup of tea. She was muttering curses. "Gossip. I tell you what is gossip. They are keen on downplaying. Bunch of bastards!"
"Ell, we can’t take this for too long.", Mary said. "One day we must tell them."
"Over my dead body, Merry Mary! I am not Noel Gallagher. I am not proud of this mess. I won’t give in. Not that easily! If they think that I am giving up...they are so wrong, Mary, so wrong."
Mary sighed. "Oh Ell. You want to hear the truth? Sometimes I think I am the one who should leave."
Eleanor looked to her, red at first, pale at second. "What do you mean?", she managed to speak.
"What I meant. I can’t take this life anymore. I can’t stand seeing you crying on the corners and seeing Britty faint because of that fucking heroin. I think that I am lost in this crowd. I think that I should leave. I’ve been thinking about it for all this time...yeah, I think I am quitting you, Ell. Quitting the Five-Piece for sure."
Eleanor crossed the few inches between them and stared at Mary’s face. "How lovely! You bastard!", she yelled, in a voice that wasn't angry - it was almost furious. " Is it like this that you want to help me? Is it?"
Mary looked away, and Eleanor shouted even louder. "C’mon, Mary, look to me. Look to me! Do you think that is easy, child? Do you think it’s easy to me to handle all of this? C’mon! Tell me, damn it, tell me!"
She grabbed her friend’s collar, now shouting as loud as her lungs permitted her, straight into her face. "Listen here, O’Connors, I didn’t walk all this way to give up now. You hear me? I didn’t get spanked, smashed, tortured, to let all of this go away now! Damn it, Mary, why can’t you help me instead of pulling me down!? Why!? Tell me!"
She suddenly realised what she was doing and let her friend go. "Damn it, sorry, Mary. Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t...I ..."
"Let it be, Eleanor. You are right.", Mary managed to say. Silence crossed the room. "You know, Ell, people tell me I am the tough girl. And here I am, chickening out while you stay here, alive. You don’t know the meaning of surrender. That’s why you are what you are. I envy your courage.", Mary finally said, while Eleanor landed on the neartes chair.
Eleanor didn’t answer. She was crying again. "Don’t envy me, Mary. Don’t envy my weakness. But I am seeing all my life slip away...and I have to shout. Someone must hear me."
The door knocked. It was Hari. " ‘Scuse, galls, but they are calling you...you have to be on the studio... Ell, are you all right?"
"No I am not, but I will be in some seconds.", she said, her voice rising in confidence. She turned to Mary, eyes sparkling in anger "You’d better think about what I said, O’Connors."
With such a ending phrase, she left the place, stepping the stones of the floor so hard that it gave the impression she was going to dig a hole on them.
"What’s up?", Hari asked.
"I said a stupid thing and paid the fee.", she said. "I am the tough girl, but the dull one too."
"I never thought you were dull"
"Sometimes I act like one.", she laughed. "Have you ever heard me playing a guitar? It’s a sight. You are going to laugh a lot. That's the prove you need to confirm my theory"
"You are telling this because you never saw me picking up a bass. Man, I do act stupid. My business is to play a guitar, decidedly!"
"What about a place changing? You play the guitar and I take my keyboards again.", she said, and Hari noticed she wasn’t kidding around.
"You are telling me you want me to join the band?!?"
"No, because you’ve been part of it all along. What I am asking of you is to you to take your place at once."
Mary looked straight to him, and he squirmed from her look. "Lord! I cannot do it?"
"Why not?", was the Heavenly Man’s answer.
"You want me to play with them? Man, I am going to have to leave!"
"The decision is on your hands only, Winston. Do what your heart tells you to."
Hari looked to Mary. Waiting for one answer. He couldn’t help remembering the day she cried, when Daniel McGuire invaded Mohammed’s house, ‘in it for the kill’.
She was devil-daring.
And she was so hopeful. And hope could mean so much when it was all you got.
"I...I don’t know, Mary. I gotta check if I can. If I remember how to."
"Well, OK. Hari, promise me one thing here, where nobody hears us.", she said. "Promise me you will stand by Ell’s side. Don’t let her fall. You know...over all those years she’s been praying for you to come back. She’s never believed in anybody. Not even in James. She’s been always afraid that someone might drop her away."
Hari opened up the door. "Have my word. I am here now.", he said, regretting saying those words. He knew he wouldn’t be around for too long again. But for now, for today, it was more than sufficient.
"I know, Hari", she answered. "And now, let’s go."
They all laughed of the lyric, and then she switched to The Five-Piece’s first hit, I Remember
She looked to him, unsure she should pick up that fight. She took a long breathe and started.
Hari laughed, and picked right from the chorus:
He got offended at that. Britty was always the daring woman, but that time she was abusing of his patience. "Gimme the guitar, Eleanor Rigby", he asked. He gave an evil look to Britty as he started to take notes away from the instrument.
"Here we are, fellows! 3, Abbey Road!", Sarah Fade-in shouted.
"You could be a little bit mild next time, Fade-in!", Mary shouted. "C’mon, Winston, let’s get moving. Get this groupie away from your lap, what the reporters will think of us!?"
Everybody laughed of the shameful position that Eleanor, "the groupie", was at - she landed at two inches from Winston’s face, all but sat down on his lap, with the guitar between them. She was as red as a peppermint, not daring to look to him. Without saying a word, she grabbed the guitar and moved away from him, outside the car. The cold wind brushed her face. Hari was as red as she was.
"What a shame, Mary Jane", he said, mocking of himself, as the group entered the studio.
"Home, home and dry, like a humming bird I will fly.", she hummed. "That does it, folks! We’re at the place we belong again."
Hari cringed when he entered there again. So strange how a feeling can win him every time he entered that place, being a person or a spirit. He had really good days there. Crazy days, golden days. He smiled, strongly and happy for being at home again. This time, he meant it. He was the music, the story. If he could tell Eleanor who he was, and what that place really meant to him!...If he closed his eyes, he could hear George or Paul playing and picking up each other over a wrong tune or a mistaken lyric, and Ringo, always the peacemaker, trying to clear up the situation so the session could go on at once. Mr. Martin behind the huge mixing table, having to deal with all the crazy ideas he or Paul had. At least Paul knew what he wanted on a song, while him, on the other hand, never knew how to explain what he heard on his head.
Music is a dream, he once heard Mr. Martin say. And it was true.
"Where’s Britty?", Danny asked as he took place behind his drummer kit. Hari woke up from his daydream.
"Here, Danny Boy!", she shouted from the studio’s door. "And let’s get rocking, if you please!"
Hari took a good look at the bass player. Was there something wrong with her? There WAS. Her eyes gave it all away. Red, dusty. Sparkles of brown sugar. Hari decided to let that river run, to see what happened. How far the addiction was with her?
The band took position, and started with a sad but moving song, No longer seeking heaven. Then a medley of some oldie stuff - Love Uber Alles, Admit Defeat, Farewell, I Remember and a mocking cover of Won’t Get Fooled Again, by The Who.. It was moving, touching, good stuff. 100% Five-Piece Band, the thing that made them the band that they were. But there was something that wasn’t matching. Britty was sweating bullets, losing notes, trying to follow on but unable to do it. During the bass solo of Admit Defeat she ate some notes, and everybody looked to her as if the mistake was mortal. She didn’t care. She didn't even notice the killing looks.
The medley finished and Mary looked to her band mate. "You OK, Brit?"
"Better than you, you can bet. C’mon, guys, what’s the next?"
"Should we rehearse Gone To The Edge?", Danny asked. It was Brittany’s number. She answered, even though a bit tired.
"Yes, we should. I wanna see how my voice is. Gimme the signal, please!"
The signal - a guitar introduction - was given, and she started.
She voice was bone-crushing, as usual. It was her way to sing that song. But something was going on. She simply couldn’t play. Her hands were shaking terribly, as if she was scared with the sound of her own voice at the studio’s echo. However, she went on with the second part, the chorus.
When she pronounced that "again", she lost the grip on the bass suddenly. Her legs didn’t hold her up and she dropped on her knees on the floor, half-unconscious. "Help me, I think I am not well...", she whispered, some seconds before losing her mind for sure.
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