tighten. “I thought . . .” she sniffed and took a deep breath, blinking rapidly to force the tears away. “I thought you were different. I thought you were a decent bloke. When I spoke to you in the bar that time . . .” she trailed off and scrubbed away a tear from her face with an angry swipe. “Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. I know what kind of man you are now.”
*****
Urvi
“There’s a problem and you are going to solve it,” Kira told me with a cheeky smile on her face.
“What are you on about, Kira?” I asked as I arranged more weird and wonderful canapés on trays. Rich people sure liked gross food – the smell of these fish eggs was enough to make me want to barf. I couldn’t imagine putting them in my mouth. Where were the sausage rolls?
“You’re going to sing!” Kira stood back and threw her arms out wide, a huge smile on her face.
I rolled my eyes. “Will you shut up and help me with these, loser.”
“Hey, stop mucking around with that fishy crap and listen,” she said, grabbing my wrists and sending a couple of fish egg covered mini pancakes flying across the kitchen. “There’s recordy type peeps out there. I know cause I’ve been listening all night. You said you want to sell your compositions? Well, here’s your chance.”
“I’m not going to go in there and start singing like a crazy person, Kira.”
“They had a band booked for tonight. One of those Nora Jonesy type deals. Totally up your street. Not drum and bass or anything. But they’re stuck in an airport somewhere on the other side of the channel so there’s nobody to do it. I told one of the executive types about you and how you’re a music scholar at the Royal Academy and he was all over it.”
“He was?”
“Er . . . yeah, sure.”
“Kira, if this is bullshit then I’m – ”
“Go and get changed out of your god-awful uniform, put some makeup on, wear my top I left on the bed for you with your jeans, and none of the guests will be any the wiser.”
I sighed and then bit my lip. What if I was throwing away an opportunity? I couldn’t afford to do that. Nobody who hoped to make it in the music industry could.
Jack
“Is this thing on?” a female voice echoed through the salon and I turned to see the pink-haired girl tapping on the microphone and deafening us all. She beamed as the room fell silent.
“Well helllooo ad-type people! I hate to interrupt your wheeler-dealering but I think you’ll bow down and thank me in the end. I give you music scholar and up-and-coming singer-songwriter - the beautiful Miss Urvi Radia.”
Pink-haired girl extended her arm to the piano, which was set on a small stage on one side of the room. Urvi was sitting in front of it looking mortified and shooting a death glare at pink-haired girl who flounced over to her, kissed her on the cheek and fixed her mic into place.
“Jesus, who is she?” Mike Davies, one of the executives at Sky, breathed as we all watched Urvi take in a deep breath and then let it out slowly as her fingers settled over the keys. Her eye were smoky and she was wearing her signature multiple necklaces with a black lace low-cut top, black jeans and bare feet resting on the piano peddles. Her hair fell in shining dark waves down her back, small twists at the side holding it away from her beautiful face.
As she played the first few chords and the sound echoed around the room her eyes closed slowly and she started to sing. Her voice was natural and clear with a soothing, raspy quality in the lower notes. I’d never heard anything like it. And I’d never heard the song before but somehow it felt almost unbearably familiar. I had intended the other band I’d hired to be background music, but Urvi just commanded attention. The room was totally silent other than the almost ethereally beautiful sound of her voice. She was singing about having lost something precious in order to chase a dream, and the haunting sadness of her words combined with the extreme beauty of her voice actually brought a lump to my throat. She didn’t even look real sitting up there. It was like she was an angel sent down from heaven to sing for us mere mortals.
The sound went right