The Dying Fall
Chapter 11: Music-making
Song for this chapter:
Chapter 11: Music-making
The address Nano had given Carrie took her across town to an old estate of narrow brick-built terraced houses. The building Carrie found herself standing outside was semi-detached with an alley running down one side of it that housed the communal bins and provided access to the cul-de-sac behind. Like most of the other houses on the street, the windows on each storey were hung with greying net curtains and the paint on the front door was faded and scratched. Carrie had second thoughts as she stood in the rain on the pavement opposite. She was about to cross a boundary from which there would be no returning. Producing a track was a whole other class of criminal behaviour from the illegal activities she’d dabbled in so far. Her sister and father had paid high prices for lesser crimes. It seemed downright ungrateful, even disrespectful, to push her luck this far. It was as if she were daring fate to come and stop her. And yet, despite this foreboding, here she was, standing outside the address Nano had given her, at ten o’clock on a wet and cold Sunday morning.
Shoving her hands into her pockets and decisively rolling her shoulders back, Carrie crossed the road to the front door of the narrow house. She rang the bell and stepped back a pace, half-hoping and half-dreading there would be no response. When the door opened, Nano stood on the other side, his usual smirk spreading over his face as he realised it was her under the hood of her waterproof coat.
“Good timing,” he said. “Coming in?” he added, as Carrie remained on the pavement.
“Are you alone?” she asked. It had suddenly occurred to her that she knew nothing of Nano’s living situation and that she might encounter the curious gaze of a housemate or two.
“Are you worried that I am or that I’m not?” Nano replied.
Carrie decided not to answer that and instead stepped into the house. She pushed back her hood as Nano closed the door and glanced around her at the thin paint work of the hall and the rug that poorly covered a worn patch in the carpet.
“This way,” Nano said.
He led her past the narrow stairs to a door at the end of the hallway. There was a bookcase next to the door, filled with books and a few ornaments. From the layer of dust on the shelves, it was clear the contents were rarely disturbed. It was Nano’s turn to hesitate as he rested a hand on the door. Carrie realised he had as many doubts about letting her into his private space as she did about entering it. A slightly sick anticipation wriggled in her stomach.
“This is me,” Nano said, pushing open the door.
To Carrie’s surprise, the door didn’t open onto a room but onto a set of descending stairs, dimly lit by a bare bulb that dangled from the low ceiling.
“Better shut the door behind you and mind your head,” Nano said as he took the stairs ahead of her. Carrie did as he instructed and followed him down into a spacious basement, kitted out as an open-plan living space, with a kitchenette in one corner, a small double bed in another, and an old two-seater sofa and a couple of beanbags in the middle. At the far end of the basement, towards the front of the house, there were a couple of tables pushed together, which were covered in electrical equipment; and running along the left-hand wall, a set of long, metal shelves, stacked with boxes of various sizes. A hint of grey daylight filtered through a couple of narrow windows in the top of the outer wall, offering a view of the concrete floor of the alley at the side of the house. Carrie could hear the rain pattering on the bins outside and the gurgle of water as it overflowed from a drainpipe. There were a few lights in the ceiling above the kitchenette and siting area, but the rest of the space was lit by a few standing lamps and a string of white lights that ran over the top of the shelving. On the one hand, it was a gloomy place to live; but on the other, there was something homely about it, perhaps because of the untidy scattering of personal items amongst the functional furniture.
“This is where you live?” Carrie said as she looked slowly about her.
“Yep,” Nano replied casually. “Though not officially, of course.”
“What do you mean?”
“Officially, this residence has only one tenant, and that’s not me. Officially, I’m registered as living elsewhere.” Nano began tidying odds and ends off the sofa, and rearranging the cushions.
“Where?” Carrie asked.
“With my family in Greenwell.”
“How long have you been living here?”
“Since I left school.”
“Why didn’t you stay with your family?”
“It works better this way—I’m closer to work, I get my own space, and my mum gets a little bit extra from her Shared Tenancy Benefit to spend on the kids.”
“The kids?”
“My siblings.” Nano gave Carrie a questioning look and shrugged, a couple of dirty mugs in one hand and a rolled blanket in the other. “Wanna take your coat off? There are pegs at the foot of the stairs.”
Carrie watched Nano toss the blanket onto a beanbag and then carry the mugs to the kitchen sink before she unzipped her coat and hung it on a peg. Hugging Savannah’s journal to her chest, as if this might hide its existence from Nano, Carrie wandered back to the sitting area.
“Have a seat,” Nano suggested as he joined her. He pulled up a wooden chair that had been positioned under one of the windows and sat opposite Carrie as she sat on the edge of the sofa. “Are those your notes?” he asked, nodding at the journal.
“Business first,” Carrie said, realising that sharing Savannah’s journal was a bigger emotional step than she’d anticipated and she needed a few minutes to prepare herself.
“All right then,” Nano agreed. “What have you got?”
“Not much,” Carrie admitted as she took out her cloth bag and handed it over.
Nano took out his notebook from the pocket of his jeans and jotted down the contents of the bag: some silver contacts from the controller module of an old washing machine; some gold stripped from the circuit board of a fancy coffee-maker; and a small quantity of the usual copper wire. Once he had made his notes, Nano handed Carrie back her bag, stood up, and walked to the metal shelving. He put the scraps in a paper bag inside one of the smaller boxes and then took out an envelope, which he brought over to her.
“Here’s your payment for last week’s gear.”
Carrie took the envelope, checked the receipt inside and counted the cash before putting it all in the green bag and slipping it back into the waistband of her jeans.
“What’s that on the table?” she asked, indicating the far end of the room as she still hugged the journal to her chest.
Nano glanced over his shoulder and then grinned. “That’s the stuff that’s going to make your track. I’ll show you…”
Carrie got to her feet and followed Nano to the end of the basement. As she approached the mess of electrical wires, screwdrivers, a soldering iron and various components, amongst which she identified circuit boards, connectors, batteries, motors and graphics cards, she noticed there was a laptop, connected up to an external hard drive, a keyboard and the screen of a desktop computer.
“I’ve been building this for about a year,” Nano explained as he switched the laptop on. “It’s nearly finished—there are a few things I have to tweak to run the production programme Gubbs gave me, but then it will be ready to make as many tracks as I like.”
“Where did you get all this stuff?” Carrie asked, running a hand over the components.
“I told you, I have contacts.”
Carrie guessed Nano’s landlord, happy to flout the tenancy laws, probably didn’t care what his unregistered tenant was getting up to in his basement. A thought suddenly occurred to her and she gave Nano a keen look.
“Who is the official resident of this house?”
Nano caught her eye and then his gaze drifted quickly away to the laptop. “Dryce,” he replied.
Carrie’s eyes flicked upwards, as if they might see through the concrete ceiling. “Dryce lives here?”
“He owns the place,” Nano said, leaning forward to tap on the keyboard.
Carrie felt an icy shiver of alarm run down her spine. “You live in Dryce’s basement, as well as work for him?”
“Officially, I work for his brother-in-law at the Distribution Centre.”
“When?” Carrie asked incredulously.
“Officially? Every day. In reality?” Nano shrugged a shoulder. “Not very often.”
Carrie watched Nano for a moment as he played with the laptop and realised he’d been uncharacteristically open with her. He’d invited her into his personal space and answered every one of her questions without his usual evasiveness. Obviously, he knew she couldn’t go blabbing his secrets to anyone, even if she’d wanted to: just knowing the information he had given her would incriminate her in his illegal activities, not to mention bring her own to light. Carrie hoped Nano wasn’t going to expect the same level of honesty from her.
“So, how does it work?” Carrie asked, shuffling forward so she could better see the laptop screen.
“Gubbs has given me a basic music production programme that he got from another mixer. When I’ve made the last adjustments, and I can run the programme fully, it should mean I can lay down a track with synthesised instruments and pre-stored beats, accompaniments and effects. I should even be able to record and upload some of my own sounds—provided the parts last and I have enough RAM… and the software doesn’t glitch.”
“I’m guessing you specialised in electronics and computing at school?”
Nano straightened to face Carrie, a smile hovering at the corner of his mouth. “I’ve got to put my education to use somehow.”
“Why don’t you work as an Eco-technician? It’s well-paid and you wouldn’t have to live in your boss’s basement.”
“Why aren’t you on an Eco Ministry degree scholarship?” Nano asked. “You wouldn’t have to steal scraps from the recycling plant for extra cash and could buy more buds with your savings.”
“Fair point,” Carrie conceded, wondering what had possessed her to start sounding like her mother.
“So,” Nano said in a tone that made Carrie’s stomach drop to the soles of her feet. “If you still want to make a track, you are eventually going to have to share what’s in that notebook with me.”
Carrie looked down at the journal in her arms and then reluctantly placed it on the table. She turned to the back pages and the most recent draft of the lyrics she’d been working on and her notes from the music theory book. Folding her hands into the cuffs of her jumper, Carrie watched Nano read through the lyrics, his mouth moving silently. When he finished, he gave her a curious look.
“This just came out of your head?”
“Not all of it,” Carrie replied.
With hands that were a little unsteady, she turned to the front of the journal and showed Nano the page she’d taken her inspiration from. Nano ran a hand over the scribblings as he read them and then turned to the back of the book for a moment before returning to the front of it. A look of uncomfortable realisation crossed his face and he met Carrie’s gaze with quiet understanding.
“These are Savannah’s notes?” he said.
“Yes,” Carrie replied, her voice breaking a fraction over the word. She swallowed and continued as indifferently as she could. “I found the journal recently and I already had this tune in my head and it just seemed to fit to those words…” She shrugged as she stared at Savannah’s notes. The numbness that usually enclosed her feelings about her sister had alarmingly begun to fade and the last thing Carrie wanted was to expose her grief right here and now.
“Savannah always had a way with words,” Nano said. “Especially if they were sarcastic or insulting.”
Carrie scoffed. That was true. Savannah’s tongue could sting as much as it could soothe. She was always ready with a cutting remark or a humorously astute observation.
“So, what about the melody?” Nano asked. “Is that finished?”
“Mostly.”
Nano leant against the table and folded his arms. “Go on then—let’s hear it.”
Carrie looked bemused. “How?”
“You have a voice, don’t you?”
“I can’t sing.”
“You sang well enough in the woods.”
“It’s not going to sound right,” Carrie warned, turning to the back pages of the journal to find the lyrics. She didn’t really need to look at her notes—this song was as part of her as her bones—but she needed something to distract her from Nano’s listening presence.
The acoustics of the basement gave some body to Carrie’s wafer-thin voice as she sang aloud, for the first time, her completed song. Even though her voice embarrassed her, her creation brought her a spark of confidence. The performance might have been lacking, but the melody carried itself and she knew the thing she had given life to was good. When she finished, Carrie lifted her gaze to Nano and saw an expression on his face she was all too familiar with.
“Shit, Carrie,” he said. “That refrain has been stuck in my head for weeks and now I’m pretty sure it’s going to ruin me. We’ve got to get it out of your head and onto the laptop.”
“You can surgically remove it, if you like,” Carrie replied. “It’s driving me crazy.”
Nano smiled a little. “Ever just want to stand in the middle of the street and give a rendition to the world?”
Carrie half-laughed. “Frequently.”
“Well,” Nano said, unfolding his arms and pushing away from the table, “Save the urge for when you come here. We’ll get your song on a bud and then you can keep it in your pocket.”
Carrie frowned to herself. It hadn’t really occurred to her that she’d have to come back for repeat visits. Of course, it was perfectly logical that it would take some time to produce the track, but she hadn’t really factored in spending a lot of her free time with Nano in this basement.
“Want a drink?” Nano asked, walking towards the kitchenette.
“Thanks,” Carrie replied, collecting up the journal and following behind him. She returned to her seat on the sofa with the journal open on her lap and Nano soon joined her with two bottles of flavoured water.
“We need to make some notes,” he said, grabbing a pen from a box on the floor and sitting next to Carrie on the sofa.
Nano offered her the pen but she pushed the journal into his lap. He watched as Carrie opened the bottle of water and took a long swig before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.
“We should start with the intro,” she said.
“Okay,” he agreed, dragging his eyes away from Carrie to the journal. “What’s the overall tone you’re going for?”
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It was only when Carrie glanced across at the basement windows, and saw the twilight outside, that she realised how fast the time had passed without her noticing. It seemed only an hour ago that Nano had made her a sandwich, but now her stomach was rumbling in anticipation of her next meal. Carrie looked back down at the scribblings in the journal and at Nano, who was tapping his fingers rhythmically on his thigh as he skimmed their notes. Nano had walked her through how the laptop was set up and how the programme worked in laying down a track. All that was needed for the equipment to work properly were a few more items from the Plant. For the first time, Carrie felt an eagerness to get back to work. There was only one question she had now that needed answering if this song was ever going to become a reality.
“Who is going to sing it?” she asked abruptly.
Nano looked up and flashed her a smile. “You don’t want to do it?”
“No.”
“Want to come to a soundclub this evening?”
Carrie looked suspicious. “What’s that?”
“It’s just a few people who get together, hang out and get high—invitation only.”
“What’s it going to cost me?”
“Nothing. You just bring a bud to share and something to drink.”
“There’s no way I’ll be able to sneak out this evening.”
“So don’t go home,” Nano suggested, as if it was the most obvious solution in the world. “We can pick up some chips on the way to the soundclub and be there hours before curfew starts.”
“I haven’t got a bud on me,” Carrie said.
“I have a great DANCE COMP you can purchase at a reasonable price.”
“No chance,” Carrie replied, perhaps a little too quickly. She’d heard some of that compilation when she’d taken Meg up on her offer to hang out on Friday evening. The DANCE COMP had been good—almost too good to bear. The last thing she needed was the temptation to blow the cash she had made on possessing it herself. She still needed the money to pay towards the utility bills.
“What’s that look?” Nano asked as he caught her unintentional flinch.
“Nothing,” she replied. “I’ve already heard that COMP, so I’m good.”
“Where did you get hold of the DANCE COMP?”
“Meg shared it with me.”
Nano wrinkled his nose in a sneer but Carrie could tell he’d been worried for a moment.
“I don’t know how she affords to buy so many buds,” Carrie added, sliding the journal from Nano’s lap onto hers.
“Like you, she doesn’t always pay with cash.”
“What does she pay with?”
“Bits she picks up from work.”
“Like what?” Carrie asked in surprise. “Drain cleaner and disinfectant?”
Nano cocked an eyebrow. “No—things like watches, pocket phones, jewellery and small-scale tech.”
“She steals?”
“So do you.”
“Not people’s personal property. I take the junk they’ve thrown out.”
“You steal the state’s junk,” Nano corrected. “Technically, that makes you the worser criminal.”
“Actually, I think that title is reserved for you.”
“You’re well on your way to catching up.”
Carrie scoffed. “I don’t have a bud to bring,” she said again. “So I’ll have to give your soundclub a miss.”
“I’ll loan you a bud for the evening,” Nano said. “But you’re paying for the chips and drinks.”
Carrie looked at him and sucked softly on the inside of her cheek. “All right,” she agreed after a pause. “Where’s the soundclub?”
“Gubbs has a friend who works at the theatre—he’s going to let us in after closing. They have a pretty nice soundproofed space and surround sound.”
Carrie felt her stomach flip as the ghostly buzz of the undersound hummed from the core of her body to her fingertips and the top of her head. “So, what are we going to do about a singer for the track?” she asked.
Nano smiled. “I think you’ll find the answer to that this evening.”
Next weekend: Chapter 12—Soundclub
Author’s Notes:
Nano and Carrie re-defining friendship as nominating each other for biggest law-breaker. No, you’re going to prison for life without parole.
Chapter 12: Soundclub , coming next weekend.
PJ