how to,’ admitted Dobbsy.
Ben raised his eyes to the ceiling and screamed noiselessly then, without removing the guitar from Dobbsy’s neck, carefully adjusted the tuning. Dobbsy kept quiet, not sure if the fact that Ben half-strangled him whilst tightening the D string was deliberate or not.
‘We’ll start on Sheila,’ Ben told the guitarist as he handed him back his instrument. ‘Just play it simple and don’t try to sing.’
Dobbsy nodded and watched Ben attentively for his cue to start. Ben performed a last-minute check on the tuning of his bass then played them in with a simple four beat count. Dobbsy, watching Ben’s hands intently, managed something approaching the correct timing for his strumming, but Gary, after taking several bars to work out which song they were playing, couldn’t keep the beat steady enough and ended up speeding up and slowing down like a learner driver in a traffic jam.
Ben closed his eyes, tried to blot out the sound of Gary’s drums, and channelled all of his feelings into his voice, screaming the lyrics with a raw passion born of frustration. When he opened his eyes, he caught a glimpse of colour out of the corner of his eye and turned his head slightly to see what it was. He shuddered – Mark, bereft of a musical role within the band, was attempting to dance. What was worrying was that his dancing was actually worse than his bass playing.
Ben turned his attention back to the audience, what little there was – there was something fundamentally wrong with being so embarrassed with your band that you actually appreciated having hardly anyone there to see.
In the auditorium at the Grand Theatre, the crowds chattered in lively anticipation. There wasn’t an empty seat in the room. Some of the audience were reading the glossy programmes they’d found on their seats when they arrived, others were watching the curtains expectantly. Behind the curtain, the robots gathered around Vid, who had taken one of the booklets on his way through the auditorium earlier.
‘It looks really professional, doesn’t it?’ Hal remarked. ‘Emil had programmes done for our gig this afternoon too.’
Keys nodded. ‘Did they have all these photographs and everything?’
‘Not so many,’ Hal responded. ‘Our concerts look pretty bland compared to yours.’
‘It’s how they sound that’s important,’ remarked Riff automatically.
‘I know, but it’s hard to get that in a programme.’
‘Why doesn’t your face ever come out right on these photos, Vid?’ asked Keys, poring over one of the shots of the band on their acoustic night.
Vid shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he Vid. ‘Must be something to do with the display technology interfering with the camera. Shame really – I’d like to see what some of my light shows looked like.’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Not really – I just get sort of carried away with the mood of the thing. I did think about recording them to disc, but I think I’d have to store them online somewhere – I don’t have storage for that much video.’
Keys adjusted the straps of his portable keyboard around his neck, trying desperately not to get them twisted around any of his arms. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ he asked Riff, whose suggestion the instrument had been.
‘We can’t keep you hidden behind that keyboard rack all the time,’ said Riff. ‘You need to come and play at the front of the stage with Vid and I. Besides, it saves you going backwards and forwards between guitar and keyboard songs.’
‘What about me?’ asked Hal. ‘I could strap a drum around my neck.’
‘That’d just look silly - you’d look like you were in the Rigellian army. Anyway, our audience is waiting - shall we get this show on the road?’
As if responding to his words, the house lights dimmed. Silence fell across the auditorium as the curtains opened to reveal a darkened stage. Keys adjusted his fingering and a single mournful chord welled up and spilled out across the room. As it did so, a single green spotlight shone down, casting light on the keyboardist. The robot began to pick out a lament, the lighting technicians modulating the green spotlight so that it felt almost as if Keys were playing his tune on the light itself. He played gently, unaccompanied, bringing in a choral sound with his lower left hand for the second verse of the instrumental. When the chords died away, there was a gentle applause that built in intensity as the audience gradually roused from the almost hypnotic state that the music had induced.
Keys took a small bow, the absence of a waist meaning that he simply leaned forwards, then straightened up and started to clap a pair of his hands rhythmically above his head. The audience, experienced enough to take this as a cue, began to join in and both stage and auditorium were washed in a pale blue light which span and danced in time to the clapping. After a few seconds of clapping, Vid and Hal began to carry the beat on bass and drums, then Keys and Riff turned to face each other and began to swap licks. The upbeat instrumental track energized the audience into cheers and whistling, and Vid, carried away by the intense emotional energy in the room, switched on his projection and began to play out a sequence of images - swirling clouds, a silvery guitar which reflected the light in rainbow hues, a globe with the crust peeled back to reveal a skull.
The audience in the upper circle, straining to see exactly what the images were despite the size of the Nostram projection, took up the opera glasses that were provided for each seat. Vid looked up to see a sea of lensed faces staring back at him, looking slightly blue in the light from the stage. The sight appealed to him, so he captured the image and projected it back at the crowd, eliciting a cheer from those in the stalls. Eventually, Hal brought the song to a close with a sequence of thunderous drumbeats, Vid switched off the projection and returned to his normal face and the room erupted in applause so loud that it made it impossible to play another song until it subsided.
Riff, despite his normally placid appearance, smiled: had someone told him a week before that after playing The Inferno they would be selling out a proper theatre, he’d have thought they had some of their circuits wired wrongly – now, as far as he could tell, they’d reached the absolute apex of stardom. The irony was that, whatever reasons he had had for his actions, Tony’s continual movement of the band and their enforced departure from home had actually led them to their greatest success.
Had Ben been aware of Riff’s elation, he would have seen an irony which had escaped the robot. As the most willing to follow Tony, it would have struck him that, of them all, he seemed to have benefited the least from the adventure. As the last of the evening’s drinkers nursed their glasses and chatted loudly amongst themselves in their corner, he sat on the edge of the stage plucking dejectedly at the bass guitar. The remainder of the band had gone out clubbing – Dobbsy was keen to see how his makeover went down with the girls.
The barman, polishing glasses as he took them out of the irradiator, nodded understandingly in his direction. Ben smiled wanly in response then heaved himself up and made his way over to the bar.
‘You look like death warmed up,’ said the barman, placing a pint of beer down in front of the exhausted musician.
‘Thanks,’ said Ben, taking the beer. ‘Do you think it’s worth the effort?’
‘Do you want my honest opinion?’
‘Please.’
‘I don’t think things will get any better until you ditch that band and get out of here.’
Ben leaned an elbow on the bar and supported his head in his hand. ‘I don’t think I’ve got much in the way of options,’ he said. ‘There’s not a lot of call for one-man bands these days.’
The barman nodded. ‘You should’ve gone with the robots when you had the chance.’
‘You heard them – the manager didn’t want me.’
‘He’d have come round – he’s a reasonable man.’
‘Besides,’ Ben added. ‘I didn’t want to leave Sheila.’
‘What’s to leave? You haven’t even spoken to her since Nutter died.’
‘I know. I gues
s I just haven’t had the time. I didn’t realise how hard it was being in a band before that.’
The barman wiped a glass thoughtfully. ‘I wouldn’t say it was hard just being in a band,’ he said. ‘It’s more that it’s hard being a conscientious musician surrounded by a bunch of talentless layabouts. If you were in a band, that’d be different.’
Ben nodded and took a deep drink from his beer. ‘Where did I go wrong?’ he asked, not really expecting an answer.
‘You thought too much of yourself,’ the barman volunteered. ‘You didn’t think you needed a bunch of robots to make your name.’
‘I know. I’m a fool.’
‘No, you’re just young. It’s a fault we all suffer from at some point.’
Back at the theatre, Riff, Keys and Hal were relaxing in the bar. Keys leaned on an arm or two as he listened distractedly to the pianist playing in the corner. It took him a few moments to realise the tune being played was actually Listening to Nothing. He wasn’t sure whether other people were supposed to play their songs, but it was rather flattering.
‘Good gig,’ said Riff, bringing Keys’ attention back to the table.
‘The audience seemed to like it,’ said Hal. ‘I’m sure some of them have been more than once. There can’t be many people as fat as that couple in the third row.’
‘Perhaps they just couldn’t get out of the seats,’ suggested Keys.
Hal grinned –