Songs for Abrielle Read online

  1

  The cute blonde girl across the hotel bistro knows who I am. I can see that. She is watching me, pretending to be reading that magazine but she is watching me. I wonder how did she find out where I would be staying? How long has she been here or has she just hit it lucky by staying in the same place as me? She is a fan, that much is obvious. She has the style notes to a T. The kind of jackets I wear, men's vintage and often retro. Her hair, wild and uncompromising. Her hat, a washed out cadet cap. Its flattering but sometimes a little scary.

  My name is Delta Di Noia. I have the not so unfortunate pleasure of being a singer. A solo artist. I have my band, all men. They are my family. A bunch of hairy, basically unwashed, smelly men but they have my back. Most of the time. It has always pissed them off when I get more attention or see more action than they do but on the whole they are like brothers to me, we have been together a good while now. For the most part they can't see how I manage it, or that's what they say when they are moaning that eighty per cent of our female following are there for me, but I tell them, is it my fault that women would often rather have a slice of me than them?

  I put it down to the spotlight being on me. That and my obvious charm, I'm joking. Seriously I am not one to blow my own trumpet, I am more than brim full of insecurities let me tell you, but I have seen my fair share over time. My life style has made it easy too. Always moving on, always new fans around the corner. New fans and people who have never heard of me. That whole incognito thing appeals to me the most. I like the opportunity to be the me that is rarely seen. The real me I like to think. I haven't really slept around that much, well maybe in the early days and seriously I can't remember the last time I truly got to be the real me with anyone.

  The fan across the way is still pretending to read her magazine. I swear she hasn't turned a page in ages. I wonder what she is waiting for. Me? I'm waiting for coffee. I could take it in my room but sad as it may seem I like the company of strangers. I like to be amongst a crowd. Lost in a crowd though and sadly today I am not lost. I have a fan. Please don't let her be a stalker or a crazy needy lunatic. I am not ready for that today.

  The waitress is coming at last. Now she has eyes I could stare in to, lose myself in. Deep, deep chocolate. Long lashes. She is slender, lithe, beautiful and totally oblivious to who I am. I guess I have a niche appeal, I don't know. I have enough success for me. The coffee is good, another bonus. As I look up from my cup I realise that the fan has moved. She is nearer now. A few seats nearer, still pretending not to be looking my way. Am I that intimidating? The band boys would say yes I guess.

  They don't get it at all, my band. They say I'm skinny, I dress like a boy, my hair is unkempt. What's to like? Hey!, I say, London-Italian, what's not to like? If you got it, you got it, ain't nothing you can do about it.

  The fan is moving nearer, I can see her out of the corner of my eye. Any decade now and she may get up the courage to speak to me. I concentrate on the coffee and the chocolate eyed waitress. I bet she is married or dating a muscle bound sports player? Still no law says I can't look or imagine what she looks like under that ditsy little uniform they have got her wearing. Suddenly the fan is next to me, confidence secured.

  “Delta Di Noia?” she says in a rush of feigned surprise “I thought it was you!”

  “It sure is” I say, lowering my sunglasses to get a better look “It sure is.”

  “I was wondering if I could trouble you?”

  “Sure” I say again, promising myself I will brush up on the chit chat and all the time mentally preparing the let them down gently and back away slowly speech, “Go ahead.”

  “I was wondering if you could give this to your drummer, Dave?”

  Its only now I see that she is clutching a painting, a small painting,

  “I did it for him. I love him you see. You are all brilliant. Don't get me wrong, I love your music but I just LOVE Dave. Would you give it to him? Please?”

  I take the painting before she starts to beg. They are going to love this, the boys. One up to them on the tour already. Dave gets fan art, that will take a while to live down. “Sure.” I say again, beginning to realise that it isn't my witty repartee that bowls them over. “I will pass it on.”

  “Its got all my social media addresses on the back if he wants to get in touch.” She says before giving me that “Gee I wish you would just offer to take me to meet him.” face that I have seen so many times before,

  “I'm going to the gig tonight.” she adds hopefully,

  “Great.” I say before taking the picture and standing to leave,

  “Oh wait, can I have a Selfie? Please. My friends will be so so jealous.”

  2

  The gig is going well, the crowd are receptive, really in to it. I love it when I can see people singing along to the old stuff. It gives me hope that we have a solid fan base. Don't get me wrong I love the publicity and attention a new hit can bring but the old songs are my friends. They are pieces of my heart wrapped in a melody and scattered for any one to collect. I sound like a sop at times don't I? I'm not. I don't consider myself a hearts and flowers kind of girl but that doesn't mean I don't have a sensitive side. What musician can honestly say they don't pour their heart out when they write? I nurture my lyrics, hone them and craft them, love them and tend to them before sending them out in to the world like bewildered children. Where they will go and where they will lead me remains a mystery. I take nothing for granted even still. We have been doing okay for quite some time now and I am very grateful but I will never take it for granted. Ever.

  Like I was saying it's a great crowd. I can even see the artist fan from the hotel Bistro. She is wedged at the front and she hasn't taken her eyes off Dave all set. Not for me to say if he will act on her obvious devotion. I am am in no position to judge. I have taken my fun where I can. Do I believe in “the one.”? I did, once, although I think maybe I found her and lost her again before I had the chance to know for sure. I hope that if there are such things as second chances I would have the sense to see “the one. for what she was if she stepped in to my path. I have never talked this way with the band. This part of me and my thinking is for me and me alone.

  We are reaching a mini set of older songs. Songs I wrote when I was young. Songs I wrote in heart break. Songs for Abrielle.

  If there is such thing as a first love, Abrielle was it for me.

  Like I said before I am a Londoner of Italian extraction. My mother and father ran a business in London and as much as it was a family affair, when it came to summer holidays they wanted as few of us under their feet as was possible. This summer it was my turn to be sent to Scotland where my grandparents had settled. I wanted to go because I wanted to get away from having to work all summer and I wanted to stay because I didn't want to leave my friends. They packed me off for what to me seemed like it would be an eternity. I was sixteen.

  3

  I went by train, resenting every mile that it took me away from home. If I had known then what that summer was bringing me I would have been the happiest girl alive but I didn't and resentment filled me to the point of anger.

  I trudged around in a gloom for the first few days, not engaging with any one or anything that my grandparents suggested. They were staunchly Italian as you would expect and socialised mostly with other Italian families in the area. There was social club that they all liked to meet up in to dance and reminisce about Italy. One Friday night the pull of live music won me over and I deigned to join them for once.

  The band was so so. It wasn't really the kind of thing I was into back then and I tolerated it rather than enjoyed it for quite a while. It was hot and very smoky inside the club and I decided to go outside for some air. I went to sit on the car park
wall. It was that funny half light that summer nights bring you. You can hear voices but you can't quite make out more than shapes in the gloom. I could hear some lads kicking a ball around in the park over the fence but I couldn't see any of them. The weather had been extremely hot, unusually so for Scotland, since I arrived. The heat had nothing to lessen my temper and disgust at being separated from my friends for the summer. London seemed like a million miles away. I even wished I was back at school just so I could see them all again and trust me school really wasn't my bag at all. That particular day as I remember it had been a scorcher, it was still hot now and showed no signs of cooling.

  I sat on the wall listening to the thump of the bands bass. I was already intrigued by music and was determined to be getting my own guitar soon. I sat on the wall, head back, eyes closed drinking in the beat.

  “Are you okay?” a voice came from out of the gloom and frightened the hell out of me. How I didn't swear or fall backwards over the wall is anyone’s guess,

  “I did not mean to.... I did not mean to...how do you say? make you leap.”

  “Jump, you mean jump.” I said, trying to get my breath and make my eyes focus in the growing dark. The voice was smooth, sweet, young. The accent strongly Italian.

  “I'm okay, really.” I said, glad that the gloom had hidden my terror. “I'm okay.”

  “So glad. Sorry for my terrible English. I hope you understand me good?”

  “You speak it just fine.” I said, beginning to regain my composure, “Just don't ask me to speak any Italian! It's really not my strong point.”

  “I wont I promise. My name is Abrielle. I have seen you inside? With Mr and Mrs Di Noia? Do you know them well?”

  “They are my Grandparents. I am Delta. Delta Di Noia” I don't know why but I stood and reached out to shake her hand, she couldn't see me in the growing dark and so I sat back down, spared the blushes. “Who are you here with?”

  “Also my Grandparents. I have been sent here from Grosseto for the summer. I haven't met many young people yet. My family is all in Italy and my Grandparents don't know many of the young kind.”

  I smiled to myself at her English, it was wrong in a pretty way,

  “Where is Grosseto?”

  “Italy, but of course you will know this already!” she laughed and sat down beside me. She smelt of heat and flowers, “It is in Tuscany. You know this place?”

  “I have heard my Grandparents and my parents talk about it. I have seen old pictures but I have never been.”

  “You were born in England no?”

  The conversation ran on this way. She, like me had been sent away from busy working parents for the summer. We had both been sent away from the temptations of our home cities to find others in a place we did not know. We talked and we laughed. We had so much in common other than our heritage. She too loved music but her passion was art and photography. She said she loved to draw and to take photographs. Her Grandfather had been a newspaper photographer and he had a dark room at his house. He was showing her how to develop her own pictures.

  We talked so easily despite her cutely different way of saying things and before we knew it people were spilling out from the hall, the evening was over. Mrs Ricci, Abrielle's Grandmother spotted us and came to us.

  “Ah so lovely,” she said with a smile that reached her eyes, “So lovely that my Abrielle has a friend for the summer at last. A friend who is a Di Noia too. Bella, Bella, Bella.”

  She hustled us along like stray chickens and lead us back to where obligatory big Italian good-nights were being exchanged.

  “I have found our babies!” she shouted to our Grandparents and their other friends as she hustled us across the car park, “I have found our babies!”

  Abrielle looked at me as if to say how embarrassing and I rolled my eyes pulling a stupid face. She started to laugh,

  “Bella, Bella, Bella.” Said Mrs Ricci again “...and already such good friends!”

  Mrs Ricci and my Grandmother cooed and clucked in Italian briefly and finally agreed, it was explained to me, that I should go and visit Abrielle the next day,

  “This is the happiest I have seen her since she came to us.” said Mrs Ricci to everyone and so it was that I found myself following directions to the Ricci household the next morning.

  No-one had really thought to ask us if we would like to meet up again but then neither of us had protested at all so here it was. Settled.

  I can still see Abrielle as she opened the door that day. Brown hair tied back. Her hair was as sleek and straight as mine was mad and unruly. She wore a purple t-shirt and jeans, so natural. If there had ever been any doubts in my mind as whether we could be friends or not, they were dispelled immediately by her smile. A smile that lit her dark, dark eyes. We spent that first whole day just talking and talking. Playing records and laughing. That's what I remember the most about it. The laughing. We connected straight away but then I guess we had so much in common. We both had crazy Italian families to contend with. Abrielle was an amazing mimic and she could take off anybody. Music was a strong bond between us although we didn't agree on all the bands each other liked, and though photography was Abrielle's passion it became an interest for me as time went on. Her Grandfather had given over his dark room to her and they had spent many hours there together already. Him teaching and she eager to learn. Mrs Ricci had already framed and proudly displayed some of Abrielle's work around her house. Ordinary, day to day scenes made beautiful by an early eye for light and detail.

  We were inseparable from that day. We started doing odd jobs for our respective Grandparents, washing cars and windows, weeding and running errands. We gathered up a bit of money, enough to make us feel like we had the world at our feet. We took trips in to town on the bus and went shopping for clothes, records and trinkets. Sitting in a café with our milkshakes and cake bought with money we had earned made us feel so adult. Time with Abrielle was so easy. I looked forward to seeing her everyday and found myself thinking about her a lot when we were not together. I didn’t attach any meaning to it straight away but when I look back I know that I loved her very early on.

  One morning when I got to the Ricci house Abrielle seemed doubly excited to see me. She opened the door saying she had something to show me and dragged me in. While clearing out the attic her Grandfather had discovered his old guitar. It was a K260 Kay 6 string. He had also kept a couple of learn to play books. He had apparently played in a small wedding band back in Italy but since he had come to England he had thought no more about it. He gave us a rendition of songs he could remember. He could still play and the sound was incredible. I held the instrument and it felt like I already knew what to do. I knew then that I had to make my life about music in some way. Mr Ricci said I looked like a natural and showed me one or two basics. He said I could play it when ever I was there and that's where it all began. I read those lesson books but I found I could play by ear and I played and practised whenever I could.

  Abrielle took pictures of me practising and showed me how to develop them. Standing next to her in the darkroom, watching her handle the chemicals so confidently was magic. To see my face appear, seemingly from nowhere was wondrous to me. I knew then that she was good at what she loved doing which has to be one of the biggest blessings anyone can have. She took so many pictures of me over that summer. Laughing or pulling silly faces, looking serious or thoughtful, practising chords and dreaming of being Jimi Hendrix. I still have one taped to the inside of my guitar case now. She caught me holding the guitar, looking away in to the distance, looking in to the future. I look so young. So innocent. So unknowing.

  She very rarely let me loose behind the lens but once or twice I snapped her when she wasn't looking. It was a surprise to her then when she developed a film and found one of herself, alone in the garden or talking with her Grandmother. It was way, way before the days of selfies, social media or even the immediacy of digital cameras. Back in the day if you didn't have the luxury of a dark room
you sent off your used films in special little envelopes or left them at the chemist and waited for what seemed like an inordinate length of time to get your prints back. Often you would be disappointed with, or embarrassed by the results. The dawn of the digital camera has eliminated the albums full of fashion faux pas and sideways, gap toothed or goofy smiles.

  Abrielle didn't like having her own picture taken much at all and was self deprecating in a way I could not understand. She was beautiful but she could not see it. Her Grandfather took a few of us together too and there is one where he caught us just as we are laughing, just lost in laughter. Though I say it myself it's a beautiful picture. Black and white. Natural. He developed a few copies of that and I have mine in a book I keep in my personal travel stuff. I don't look at it often now but when I do I am right back there with her. She had her Grandmothers eyes. Dark, an edge of a smile always there.

  I remember one day we went to a photography exhibition. Someone, I don't remember who, had put together a collection of street photos. Pictures of real life throughout several decades. Life in the city we were living in. Abrielle was so enthralled. I could see her soaking it up. I think I watched her more than I looked at the photos. She seemed to look at them in a deeper way than anyone else in the room, like she could see what the photographer had seen, felt what he had felt. That exhibition really was one of the catalysts for the decisions she made about how she wanted her life to go.

  On sunny days we would take a blanket and lay in the park. There was a grassy bank away from the main pathways that had stunning views of the city. We would lay there together and watch the clouds, making out shapes in them or spotting people, cartoons and animals among them. We planned our whole life on that bank. I, of course was going to be a world famous rock star and she was coming along to document every second of it in stunning stills. She would design all my chart topping album covers and I would make sure she travelled free all over the world. We had it all worked out.