Maid for Advertising - Susie Tate Page 0,5
They’d want me to move home. They’d try to make me give up my music and I just couldn’t. Not now I had a taste of my dream.
“I’ll tell them when I’m ready to tell them, Kira. Stop pushing me,’ I snapped, but regretted my sharp tone instantly. “I’m sorry. I know you care about me like a rabid badger and I appreciate it. But please just let me have this morning without thinking about my chuffing parents or diabetes for once. Agreed?”
“Alright, love,” she said. “I’ll drop it for now. And you’re right: I’m totes rabid.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I made a point of getting my kit out as she took a seat opposite me with her tea and then set about plugging in the lancet to prick my finger. “See,” I told her, holding up the meter. “Seven point zero. Perfect control.”
Kira might have only been a medical student, but she was clued-up enough about diabetes to know that one random good sugar reading did not guarantee perfect control, not by a long shot. But she smiled anyway and ruffled my hair before getting up to make her toast.
“I’d better get a wriggle on if I’m going to get this composition done by tomorrow.”
“Ah,” Kira bit her lip and rubbed the back of her neck. “I might have said that – ” The front door crashed open, making me jump in my seat as I hurried to clear away my diabetic paraphernalia.
“Festival peeps!” Two lanky, bearded, man-bunned lads came bursting into the flat. “Ah! The musical prodigy.” One of the men slid across the floor and then fell to his knees in front of me, lifting both hands and bowing down to me like I was a goddess to worship. The other man fished a flute out of his belt loop and played me a little tune.
I turned wide eyes to Kira and pulled a face.
“Meet the Ferret’s Testicles,” she said and I blinked at her. “They’re headlining Bunt Fest this year.”
Kira ran a small hippy festival every year. It was called Bunt fest after Libby’s mother-in-law Bunty, who allowed it to happen at her huge plot of land in Richmond. The whole thing was completely fabulous and very Kira.
“Er … hi,” I said, giving them a small wave and a bemused smile.
“We’re sorting out the staging and stuff so you’ll need to be involved too chicky,” one of the lads said.
“What?”
“In the staging for Bunt Fest,” Kira told me. “You’re performing this year. You promised me last week.”
“I did?” My eyebrows shot up and I took a step back. “I don’t remem - “
“It’ll be a blast, Prodigy Girl,” the more unkempt member of Ferret’s Testicles added. “You’ll smash it. No better audience than them.”
My stomach hollowed out and I pressed my lips together. Performing to crowds was not my idea of “a blast” - I just didn’t have the confidence yet. I grabbed my bag and started backing away to the door.
“Well, sorry,” I said, “but I’ve got loads to sort this morning and I –.” Before I had the door fully open Kira was right in front of me holding out my diabetic kit. I must have left it on the side, again.
“You’re on the programme Prodigy Girl so you’ll have to stop being such a cockwomble and suck it up. But I need you to survive to make it there, okay?”
*****
“Hello, Urvi?”
I startled in my seat at the deep voice pronouncing my name just right. After I’d found this small café I’d become so engrossed in my lyrics that the outside world had faded away. Having a piano and my computer helped when I was writing but I could manage the lyrics without if I needed to. I’d always been able to see music – almost as if it were colours dancing through my subconscious. It was a shock to be dragged back to reality. My eyes lifted slowly from some expensive leather shoes, up a perfectly tailored light grey suit, past a crisp white shirt and blue tie and to broad shoulders and, finally, to a lightly stubbled face. I felt my heart clench in my chest. Jack’s blue eyes were locked on me and his lips were tilted in a small smile.
“I . . . er . . . hi!” I stumbled over my words, scrambling to sit up in my chair. His head tilted to the side in an obvious attempt to read what I was writing and I flipped my