The dressing room smells of sweat. She watches the famous singer, perched on an armchair at the far end of the room, eating a sandwich with almost theatrically slow, exaggerated chewing motions, leaning forward and cocking his head sightly as someone speaks to him. At this proximity he looks almost elderly. Stiff, grey hair, drooping skin. In the chair next to him a young woman in a baseball cap fusses over a little dog. The man talking to the singer, she notices, is also famous from somewhere.
It’s a large-ish room with no windows, posters for past events on the walls. Groups of people standing around in small groups, chatting, drinking. It strikes her that there are too many of them in here, that they’d struggle to make it through the only exit in an emergency. She is feeling gassy and possibly a little bit drunker than she’d like. A creeping sense of absurdity as she looks around the room. What are all of these people doing in here? What are their roles in all of this? The din of raised voices, a buzz generated by a roomful of people who secretly are thrilled by being in proximity to someone famous.
A table near the door is laden with large aluminium catering platters — sandwiches, fruit, pastries. Cans of beer and coke, bottles of wine and juice. This is where Bryan stands, a few feet away, holding an unopened can of beer in each hand, listening and nodding along to something being said to him by a balding man wearing thin-rimmed glasses. He looks anxiously over at her and then back at the man and then gestures with his eyebrows for her to come over.
This is my friend Aisling, Bryan says to the man. The man looks at her with a strangely amused expression. Are you Irish? he asks. He has an American accent.
No, I’m English.
That’s an Irish name you got there.
I know.
Bryan is chewing his thumbnail now, trying not to smile.
Are you a musician? the American asks. She can smell his leather jacket.
No.
She’s a very talented musician, Bryan says, trying to hand her one of the beers.
She waves a hand. I’ll be back in a minute.
She makes her way along the narrow backstage corridors, up a steep set of stairs to the bathroom. When she comes back, Bryan is sitting with a woman she recognises as the bassist, the woman who played cello in the encore. She is probably in her mid-forties, with short pink hair. The two of them are laughing about something.
Ash this is Emma. Emma, Ash.
Emma is cradling a glass of red wine. She squeezes her hand. I asked him who the beautiful girl is, she says, watching her sit down. He tells me you were at music school together.
Oh yeah, she says, opening another can. Yep. Sixteen-odd years ago.
Is it sixteen years now? Bryan says. Jesus christ.
Oh god, Emma says, laughing, I just have to ask what Bryan was like in his twenties, but I think I already know. She laughs, looking at him.
Bryan pulls his lips over his teeth and rubs his chin in the way he has always done when feeling uncomfortable. The hair around his mouth is now mostly grey. She can’t stop herself from smiling. Well, she says. Let me think back for a second here. I mean, he liked the pints. That’s how we became friends fairly quickly.
Yeah. And I bet he was a bit of a shagger as well, wasn’t he?
The three of them laugh, but she can see that Bryan is almost panicking, patches of red flaring on his tattooed neck.
Well listen, she says, raising her palms. I was in a relationship at the time. So I wouldn’t know. But I do think he might have broken a couple of hearts, actually.
Emma throws her head back, laughing gleefully. I knew it! I knew it.
What do you mean? I did not.
I think maybe you did, Bri. You were just too into your work to notice.
Bryan finishes his beer and crushes the can in his hand. He’s smiling faintly, but his eyes are directed at the floor.
In seriousness, she says. I actually learned a lot from Bryan back then.
Emma produces a winebottle from somewhere near her chair leg and refills her glass. You learned a lot from him?
Yeah, she says, fiddling with her rings. I did.
Did you play together?
No, I mean. Just, uh. Just, like, his dedication? I don’t think I’d ever met someone with such clear focus. Everything he did was directed at getting better at this one particular thing. He was obsessed. Productively obsessed. And I wasn’t like that, I had very scattered energy. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do because in part I sort of wanted to do a bit of everything. And there was Bryan, he was just always practicing, studying. I learned a lot from that. He made me think differently about trying hard. Working hard.
Bryan nods deeply and scratches his eyebrow, smirking. You know you don’t have to be nice to me because of her, he says. I deal with her shit all the time.
She shrugs and turns to Emma. Alright fine, she says. He was a complete pisshead. And a massive shagger.
I can just see it, Emma says. She smiles at the pair of them for a long moment, swirling her wine.
Twenty minutes, guys, someone shouts from the doorway. Twenty minutes!