His fingers left the keys and the crowd erupted.
“Bravo!” “Phenomenal!” Whoops and cheers, applause, wolf-whistling.
Marlow blinked.
He was sitting at the crappy upright in the basement of the Crown and Ha’penny, with his gloved fingers an inch above the keyboard and everybody looking at him. Kim, Nasser, Benny turned to face him in complete astonishment.
What had he just been playing, again?
Will, waving his trumpet in one hand, clasped him around the shoulders. “Where the hell did that come from, huh?” he yelled into Marlow’s ear, only just audible over the noise.
Someone started a chant of “One more song!” which was picked up by the whole crowd. But Nasser shook his head and flashed a cutting gesture to the tech who booted up We Didn’t Start The Fire over the PA as a way of making everybody fuck off. Will pulled Marlow to his feet, who stumbled, momentarily light-headed.
They bowed. The crowd roared.
Kim pulled him offstage out the back door into the smoking area and said, “What was that all about?”
“What do you mean?” said Marlow. “Wasn’t it good?”
“It was incredible,” said Kim. “That’s what I mean. You’ve never played like that before. What the hell?”
“I’ve been trying some new techniques,” said Marlow, trying to remember what he’d played. September, that was it. They always finished with September. That must’ve been what they’d just played.
“I didn’t realise...” Kim started, then checked herself. “Look. The crowd loved it. Totally get that. But you’ve got to cut the rest of us a bit of slack, okay?”
Marlow looked at her. “Slack? How so?”
“Are you kidding? You completely ran off on one in the middle of Livin’ La Vida Loca. Missed the verse, just kept going. Didn’t you see Benny waving at you? We all just had to roll with it. You can’t break with what we practised and just expect us all to follow you. You’ve got to rein it in a bit.”
Marlow thought, I play the best night of my life, and you want me to rein it in a bit?
But what he said was, “OK. I’ll try.”
Kim clapped him on the back. “Good lad. Lemme get you a beer, though, you sounded great. Oh, and do you want to borrow my nail clippers?”
Marlow blinked. “What?”
“I noticed when you were playing your nails were getting long. So feel free to use these, they’re clean.”
Marlow looked at his hands. He was still wearing the gloves. Had been since he’d gotten to the pub. Didn’t want to be putting them on with the others watching, in case somebody asked.
“Thanks,” he said, still staring at his hands. He never let them get too long, couldn’t play with them going “clickety-clack” on the keys. Must’ve forgotten what with Paul and all. Let them get out of control.
After she’d gone he took one of the gloves off and examined his nails. They were trimmed short, as usual.