Candy and the Broken Biscuits

“Dude, BioDad is so not James Bond. Judging by the way you’re turning out, he’s more likely to be some freaky brainiac who’s in the jungle looking for a cure for cancer or locked in a laboratory building robots that can, like, think for themselves and do wees and stuff.”

“Why would anybody invent a robot that can do wees?” I ask incredulously.

“I’m just saying…who knows why these scientists do what they do. Anyway, don’t blame me. He’s your dad,” she huffs, taking a cross bite of her chicken wrap. We settle into a glum silence but I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe he won’t be amazing, maybe he’ll be even more of a loser than Ray. Impossible, I tell myself. Then I think maybe he’ll think I’m a loser! That thought’s much harder to shake.

Bizarrely, the very moment I am paralysed by misery, Holly has been gripped by a renewed sense of purpose, like an anti-authority Girl Guide. Within an hour of stealing Sarah Andrews’ librarian’s pass, she has photocopied a hundred of our flier advertising for band members proclaiming “WANTED FOR GLOBAL TAKEOVER BY THE AMAZING BROKEN BISCUITS: WORLD’S ACEST DRUMMER/BEATBOXER. ALSO, ANY GUITAURIST WITH OWN INSTRIMENT. WORLD DOMINASION GARUNTEED. CALL OR TEXT NOW 07977…”

She proudly unfurls a copy on top of my uneaten lunch in the canteen, seasoning my inedible curry, rice and chips with her atrocious spelling. Holly’s convinced advertising like this will find us some bandmates but I’m too miserable to work out whether I agree.

“Dude, chillax,” Hol says, placing a conciliatory arm around my shoulders, “Operation Awesome is totally the key to Operation Who’s-the-Daddy! Think about it – we get rich, famous and wildly successful, then we get the press to do the hard work for us! Put out an appeal? Or hire a private investigator or something…” she tails off and I rub my eyes, managing a weak smile.

“Sure Hol. Whatever you say.” Even though I’m shattered, I haven’t slept in days. It’s like I’ve exchanged the traditional states of awake and asleep for one, long stretch somewhere in between. At home I say as little as possible while Mum fizzes away like an asprin, chattering about her wedding plans. At night I lie awake, staring at the fake stars on my ceiling.

Mum and Ray have decided on a June wedding. Three days into their engagement, the whole house is already overrun with catalogues, magazines and books called things like Wedding Planning for Dummies. Still in my pyjamas and barely awake, I sit at the kitchen table and plonk my cereal down on the top magazine in the stack before me. Milk sloshes on to the satsuma-tanned face on Celebrity Brides Revealed! I’m not sure I’d be as chuffed if I looked that much like an Oompa-Loompa on The Happiest Day of My Life™. Mum breezes into the room with all the upbeat industriousness of Snow White mid Whistle While You Work.

“Morning, Can!” she trills, unloading the dishwasher with the clatter of a one-man-band. “There’s so much to do! Nineteen weeks is such a short lead-time these days. I’ve got some fabric swatches coming over today and I was thinking maybe I could make the favours? Something crafty and cool?”

What is she on about? This has been Mum’s tactic the whole week. Keep asking questions, don’t wait for any answers and pretend everything is hunky-dory. I stop listening to the actual words and get lost in the music of her voice until I realise she is saying my name repeatedly. “Is it, Can? Candy? Candy! You haven’t forgotten. Have you?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s Glad’s birthday! The party? This afternoon at the Day Centre. You’re playing something?”

“Mmm hmm.” I had totally forgotten but am too tired to even feel bad.

“So you’ve got it sorted, yes? What are you going to play?”

“Debussy.” I think I say it because I’m halfway through a yawn that already sounds like his name.

“Right, then. Have a lovely day. I’ll see you at Glad’s. And so will Ray.”

I smile weakly. “Bye, Mum.”. She pulls on her old fur coat and click-clacks out the door into the weekend. Four inch heels and snow outside. If she’s not careful she’ll be going up the aisle on crutches.

I look at the clock: it’s almost nine. Hol is out of the picture today – her parents make her play in the church band on Saturday and Sunday mornings, so she’ll probably be mid-Kumbaya. I flip through my mental address book of social engagements, fabulous friends and must-dos. Blank. Blank. Blank. Debussy it is. I pad through to the front room and go to the shelf with my sheet music on it, although I could play Glad’s favourite piece in my sleep. It’s an easy choice, Clair de Lune.

I trudge upstairs, back to my room. It’s dark: the curtains are still half-drawn but the pale winter sun can barely make it through the clouds this morning anyway. Thick flurries of snow billow pointlessly towards the ground. It never lies round here – there’s far too much salt in the air. I switch on the lamp on my dressing-table and that’s when I see it. Lying on the bed is a large black oblong decorated by an enormous shining scarlet ribbon. A guitar case. A guitar. Like an idiot I look around, as if somebody is going to leap out of the corner shouting “SURPRISE!” while Party Poppers explode all over the room. I catch Iggy Pop’s eye in a poster and feel sheepish. Cautiously, I step forwards like I’m creeping up on a sleeping bear. There’s a small black envelope tucked neatly under the bow. I tear it open already knowing who it’s from.

Darling Girl,

Here is something from us to help make your dreams come true like ours have, M and R xxx

The heavy bow slides apart smoothly. I spread my fingers out and brush my hand across the word indented into the pitted plastic of the pristine case. Gibson. Reaching down I find four cool metal clasps. They flip up one by one like locks on an enchanted treasure chest. I notice that I seem to have stopped breathing. The lid weighs a ton. I lift it up a fraction, slowly pulling apart the weighty body of the case, forcing myself to breathe in, out, in, out…silently praying, Please let it be beautiful. Please let it be beautiful.

My first glimpse is of the retina-scorching electric-blue fur lining, which is – pretty unnecessarily – also leopard print. It’s so bright it’s practically neon. The room fills with a heady scent – musty wet-dog with an undertone of stale tobacco. I cough. Nestling in the bed of blue fuzz is the shabbiest, oldest, most scraped, scratched and beaten up, ugliest guitar you have ever seen.

Oh crap.

The guitar, or what’s left of it, is an old Gibson SG. Three strings stretch up its warped neck (there should be six) and the figure-of-eight body appears to have been in a war. Most of the glossy cherry-red paint that once covered it long ago has gone. Patches of bare wood stare up at me, bone through wounds. A series of deep gouges run diagonally below the bridge and indecipherable marker-pen scrawl, stickers and peeling glitter glue are everywhere, giving the overall impression of a psychotic five-year-old’s art project. Its elegant curves have been chipped and dented beyond recognition and two of the four volume and tone knobs have been replaced. One with a huge leather-covered button and the other with a badge that may long ago have borne a witty slogan but is now so utterly ruined that only three letters are visible. “G US”. As in “disGUSting”.

Ick.

Gingerly, I reach down and pick it up as you might a run-over cat at the roadside. I’ve been desperate for a guitar forever and now I’ve got one. Only it’s this one. Typical. I place the beast of a thing on my lap and – awkwardly – curl my fingers into one of the chord positions I managed to learn one afternoon on Hol’s dad’s church group guitar. Being very religious, Alan would only teach me hymns. I decide to start with Victory in Jesus. I hit the first chord, an atonal G that sounds like the wail of a depressed cat. Sticking my tongue out in childish concentration, I make a B chord with my left hand and strum with my right.

KAKAKAKAKBBBLLLOOOOWWWBBBAAAABBBOOOOOMMM MMM!!!!

There is a huge explosion – a deafening blast, accompanied by a blinding flash of light that throws me back against the wall. Everything is plunged into bright white silence. I start to hear ringing in my ears. And then…a voice. So high I think it’s a noise at first – the kind of noise the neck of a balloon makes when you stretch it and let the air escape. But it’s somebody shouting – shrieking in fact. With delight.

“WOOOOAHHH! FREEEDOMMM! HALLELUJAH! I’M OUT AND PROUD, MOTHER! WINGS DON’T FAIL ME NOW!!!”

As my eyes recover from the blast of light or…whatever it was that just happened, they start to make out a figure. Zipping through the air at speed, bouncing off the walls like a rubber ball and emitting a light so brilliant it doesn’t so much shine as sing. He is a small (sort of handspan-sized), apparently flying…man. And he’s shouting at me.

“I’m out! You let me out! At last! Candy Caine! Let me have a look at you…Do you know how to take your time or…WOW. Nice outfit. You are obviously in the middle of an, um, emotional situation? Never fear, I am here now. Speaking of which, where am I?” Four tracing-paper wings crinkle and buzz as the shining creature flies over to the window. “Urgh! Snow! The worst weather for dressing well. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too hard on you, then.”

I try to speak but nothing comes out. Shakily, I push myself up to stand. I’m trying to work out whether anything hurts but if it does I’m too shocked to feel it yet. I’m in the middle of the room, goldfish-mouthed and speechless in my pyjamas, my beaten up old beast of a guitar hanging limply around my neck. The creature hovers in the window, snow swirling behind him.

“I…I…” I manage to lift my finger and point. Quite what I am hoping to indicate I don’t know.

“Don’t point, Candy Caine. Terribly rude. I can see my entrance has caused quite a stir. Can’t say I’m surprised. But can still say more than you, it appears. In which case allow me to do the introductions. Before you and about you and in fact especially for you, I am Clarence B Major at your SERVICE!”

He throws both arms open in a highly dramatic fashion. Apparently his name should be enough to elicit a reaction.

I manage a weak nod. Personally, I’m still caught up on the fact that he’s a…is he a…?

Clarence B Major flies down to the windowsill and paces up and down as if onstage. His wings bristle and hiss behind him like an old record. Although his entire person is a shimmering mass of glistening almost light, I can now see that he is in fact, wearing clothes. An elaborate outfit consisting of a tattered skin-tight jumpsuit, a headband, wrist cuffs, three belts and pixie boots. Each item is as luminous as the moon. His shining hair is immaculately tousled beneath his headband and although he’s definitely a he, he has a face that could only ever be described accurately as beautiful. He also appears to be wearing makeup in the shape of a lightning strike over one eye.

“Naturally, my dear girl, your little head will be stuffed full of questions. STUFFED! Time aplenty for each and every one of them. For now I will give you the bare bones. The facts as they are on a need-to-know basis.”

I feel as if my entire head has been dipped in glue. I shake it, trying in vain to get the cogs in my brain going again. I’m still pointing, mainly because I’m so shocked I’ve forgotten to stop. With a great effort I manage to slur, “You’re a…You’re a f…You’re a f…f…fai—”

“Hush, hush my dear. I’ll do the talking for now. And in future do try to avoid speaking with your mouth open. Most unattractive on you. As you may have noticed, I am a creature imbued with both human and superhuman traits—”

My brain and mouth simultaneously come unstuck. “A fairy! You’re a fairy!”

In a bristling flash, Clarence B Major zooms from his place on the windowsill and delivers a sharp kick to the end of my nose, then hovers at eye-level to shout. “I am not and never have been a fairy. How DARE you!”

“OW! Sorry.” I squeak through my hand. Clarence B Major looks at me as if he’s the wounded one.

“So…” I ask, checking for blood. “What are you then?”

Clarence taps his finger on his chin, thoughtfully and says, more to himself than me, “Ah. A poser. How to explain my nuanced state to one so febrile as you. Let me see…” He clears his throat and addresses me once more, “In terms you might be able to grasp, Candy Caine, I was once alive, but now I am not. I am caught between two worlds, the visible and the invisible—” “So you’re a…ghost?”

Clarence makes a face. “Oh my dear, no! The stuff of Victorian melodrama and nothing more. And they can’t do half of what I can. Look!” There’s a little flash of light and for a moment he is a dragonfly, then a further flash and he is himself again. Clarence B Major smiles a twinkling smile. “Magic, you see! I had a lot of it when I was alive and now that I am dead it has made me into something else. Let’s just say that I am an echo of a person who once was, without really being that person. I am now partly Clarence and partly…magic. But most importantly of all, I am totally and entirely here for you.”

I try and fail to think of something to say to this. Luckily, it seems that Clarence B Major is on a roll and requires no further prompting. He places his hands on his hips.

“I have been assigned and apportioned the role of your mentor, protector and guide. You have summoned me by playing the chord named in my honour.” I look at him blankly, he rolls his eyes. “B Major? It is my duty to help you fulfil your destiny. Do you wish me to provide this service?”

Clearly the sane answer is no.

“Er…yes?”

Mollified as quickly as he became enraged, Clarence taps my tender snout with his finger. It goes ting! like a bell. I cringe but the pain instantly disappears. Clarence flutters back to the windowsill, resuming his position centre-stage, hands clasped behind his back, chest puffed out like a small army general. With wings.

“But what are you doing here? What destiny?”

“As I was saying, you and I are bound together, Candy Caine. I have been charged with the task of getting you out of this…”

He looks about him, clutching for a word that will accurately encapsulate the hopeless grimitude of my freezing box room on a friendless Saturday morning.

“…this poky little life of yours and getting you one that fits.”

“A life that fits?” I ask, sarcastically. Who does this…person think he is?

Clarence B Major meets my glare, returning a look as cool and clear as iced water.

“Well? Haven’t you ever felt that your life was too small?”

“I…” I leap into speech, ready to tell him how wrong he is. Only he’s not. Every single day I have dreamed of something bigger, more, brighter, louder, faster. My life is a sleeping machine plugged in and waiting to go, switch firmly flicked to OFF. Clarence flutters closer, his light warming my face like a spotlight. It feels wonderful.

“This is not your destiny, Candy Caine. There is too much music in you.”

“Music?”

“Yes, music.” Clarence flies over to the guitar around my neck. It shimmers under the light he casts – the remaining paint on its body coming alive: an intense scarlet glow. In a weird way it sort of feels alive too, but not quite. Asleep maybe. He indicates that I should play something. This time, my hands find their place instinctively, my right across the bridge, my left lightly holding the neck. There’s a rightness to the feeling, like putting your arm around someone you love.

“My dear girl. If I told you I was the possessor of an invisible power which could change your day, your mind, your life, the world—”

“I’d believe you. You’re a flipping f—You’re…made of magic, apparently.”

“Not just I. Music, Candy. Music is magic. It is in me as it is in you. You possess this power. You have summoned me with it. The chord of B Major to be precise. And your music, your magic, is going to get us out of here and into your wildest dreams. You do have dreams you wish to come true, don’t you?”

An image leaps into my head, a scene from the dream I always have: me and Hol up onstage in front of a crowd we can’t even see the end of.

“Yes,” I say. “My band. I want to make music.” Then I think of Mum and Ray and the missing puzzle-piece that is BioDad. “And there’s…there’s someone I want to find.”

Clarence B Major leans in close, smiling. “Your father.”

I actually gasp. Then nod. Although why the fact that the magical fairy made of moonbeams that is flying round my bedroom knows I haven’t got a dad is such a shocker, I’m not sure.

“Don’t look so surprised, Candypop! I’ve never really been one for homework but I did do some research before I got here…I sense that he is intrinsic to your destiny. Whoever he is, he gave you your music. This guitar will help you find him and it will help you fulfil your wildest imaginings.”

I look down at the car-crash of metal and wood in my lap. Accidentally, a little snort of derision jumps from between my lips. Clarence is not amused. His expression clouds with anger. He brings his shining hands together and starts to rub his palms.

A luminous not-quite-liquid begins to bubble between them. A shimmering mess of every-colour light, it’s accompanied by the gelatinous hum a fat drunk bee might make. Clarence opens his palms into a circle and blows. The goop separates into six bubbles, which hover in the air for a split second before shooting towards me.

POP OP POP OP POPPOPPOPPOP!

Smashing into the guitar the bubbles explode, releasing a crackling cloud of sparks, smoking colour and noise against the bridge. It’s somewhere between a mini fireworks display and an electrical storm in a snowglobe. The instrument seems to respond, shuddering in my grasp.

Alive with the cloud’s strange energy, the guitar’s three old strings start to glow, pulling tighter and tighter against the neck which pushes out in the opposite direction until…

DONK! DAANG! DUNNNN!

The old strings snap tunelessly and flashing out of the cloud like lightening six perfectly luminous threads appear across the length of the neck. With a triumphant flourish, Clarence strums his little hand across them. They resonate with the most beautiful ear-trembling sound I have ever heard.

“This guitar is your Excalibur, Candypop. It will lead you to your destiny.”

“You wouldn’t think that noise could have come out of such a…beast of a thing,” I say, somewhat in awe.

“Not a beast,” Clarence corrects, “The Beast. Now – get those pyjamas off and let’s get started.”

5 Squashed Bananas and Stew

It transpires that Clarence B Major is a rock star. Or was. Or should have been, if he wasn’t dead. Which he is. Sort of.

“Very cross-making, you know, dying. Especially if you’re in the middle of something. Now this finger pulls back a fret and there you are…a C chord.”

Four hours after our initial meeting, I’m sitting on the bed, dressed in an outfit he handpicked (I look like Amy Winehouse in her darkest hours) being taught the guitar. Clarence is flitting back and forth checking the position of my hands as we work through chords, all the while filling me in on what it’s like to die and transmogrify into a fairy. Actually, it seems that Clarence can transmogrify into anything he likes – he gives me a demo which involves him turning himself into a kettle, a frog, a ridiculous hat and finally a tiny planet with rings that looks like Saturn. Each change is accompanied by a blinding flash of light which leaves me feeling like a welder who’s forgotten to put his goggles on. I search through the whiteout in front of me and can more or less make out Clarence, who has gone back to his original fairy-shape. “My favourite form,” he says, “is a scaled-down version of the one I inhabited on earth. With a couple of useful additions!” He buzzes his wings, momentarily lifting himself a foot or two into the air.

So my flying friend has thrown himself into the role of mentor and I have found my tongue and then some. I’m still sort of trying to figure out (a) whether this is actually happening and (b) if it is – what the heck is going on. So far, via the medium of relentless badgering, here’s what I’ve figured out:

According to Clarence, since he met his untimely end twenty-three years ago, he has been in a kind of limbo, not-quite-on, not-quite-off earth, waiting for the person to come along whose ‘music’ chimed with his. This person would become his charge and anchor him back to the land of the living. A twin soul who he could watch over, guide and protect. Someone whose successful union with all that is meant for them will override Clarence’s unfinished business and allow him to move on. “But to move on where?” I ask. “To, like, heaven?”

“My dear girl, there is no such place. Or if there is, it is strictly metaphorical. There are only two states. The visible and the invisible. I have, by dint of misfortune and truncation of life, one foot in each realm. When my work here is done I may graduate to the invisible. I spend some of my time there, but you can call me back here by playing my chord – B Major – on this fine instrument.” He pats the guitar on my lap fondly.

What’s weird is how un-weird all this feels. Maybe it’s his natural skills as a conversationalist, but it feels a bit like I’m chatting to my hairdresser. I’m also amazed by how quickly my fingers fall into place against the sparkling strings Clarence created. I barely have to think about it and they find chord after chord as Clarence shouts them out. It’s as if a bigger force than me is in control. I’ve been building up to my next question for a good half an hour. I wince in anticipation but ask it anyway.

“How did you die, Clarence?”

He sighs, but whether from real emotion or to create a bit of dramatic tension, I can’t tell. “There I was, amid the razzle-dazzle and stardust of London (well, my bedsit in Barnet to be precise) about to hit the big-time. It was Sunday night and I was all set to sign my record deal the next morning. I saw it, you know, on the way up.”

He gives me a meaningful look.

“The contract, I mean. Sitting on my A&R man’s desk, open at the page I was due to go in and make my mark on. I was due to start a new life, I just didn’t know it would be this one.” He flexes some mysterious muscle, spreading his wings even wider so that he can examine them which he does, glumly.

“Gentle pressure on the strings, my dear. Don’t grip the neck. You’re playing the guitar, not strangling it. Where was I? Oh yes, dying. So anyway that night I was, quite naturally, celebrating. 150 or so of my closest friends and I were having a costume party in the heart of Soho. Things were about to change so the theme was REVOLUTION! Naturally I had decided to go as Marie Antoinette.”

Now it’s my turn to give him a meaningful look. He ignores me.

“So there I was, face full of makeup, pearls, enormous gown fashioned from an old peach satin bedspread.” He giggles at the memory. “Anyway, I was perfecting my coiffure (that’s French for hairdo) when I fell foul of an appliance. My accommodation in those days being somewhat insalubrious, my measures for bathing were somewhat…primitive.”

He falters. I catch his eye and he looks away shyly. I stop playing for a moment. “What do you mean, primitive? Don’t be embarrassed, Clarence. In case you hadn’t noticed, I hardly live in Buckingham Palace myself.”

“I most certainly am not embarrassed, Candypop, I wouldn’t know the meaning of the word! F minor! Move those ape-like digits of yours down a string. There…Anyway Marie Antionette’s hair was terribly high and I was crafting a spectacular bouffant with the use of my hairdryer. As I mentioned, my conveniences were most inconvenient at the time. Unfortunately, I had to bathe in an…um…well…” A look of disgust clouds his pristine features, “A bucket. In any case my bucket was still sitting there and I had quite forgotten about it. I was doing the tricky part at the crown when I lost my grip and the hairdryer tumbled out of my grasp. I instinctively went to catch it. I succeeded. The very moment it hit the water, that was it,” he sighs, adding in a whisper, “Poof!”