we always need the money,’ Sal added the old joke with a faint smile. ‘Great power must be used wisely.’ Then sadness enveloped him again, because the person who used to tell that tired joke was dead.
Laszlo wondered if he should say something comforting, or change the topic – but Sal scrubbed at his face again.
‘You know we have to send half of what we make for Gretel.’
Steve shifted his bass from his knee to the floor. ‘You don’t need to worry about Gretel. We’re going to take care of her.’
‘How? Where’s she going to end up? Your niece can’t babysit her forever; nobody knows where her birth mother went after she handed Gretel to Alex and Kurt. We can’t look after her. We couldn’t keep either of her fathers alive, we certainly can’t keep a child safe on the road.’
‘I said,’ Steve said with sharp emphasis, ‘she’s gonna be fine. I got it under control.’ He met Yuka’s glare. ‘And don’t you start with me, Yuka. We heard all you and Sal had to say about the irresponsibility of Kurt and Alex wanting kids way back then. It’s done. A hundred told-you-sos won’t change the situation.’
Yuka’s challenging glare didn’t falter. ‘Being right does not make me happy, Steve. But I don’t see why Harper can’t-’
‘It ain’t on Harper to be a mom to that girl just ‘cause she’s babysittin’. Harper’s just a kid herself.’
‘Is Gretel safe?’
‘She’s takin’ good care of Gretel for the time being. Quit frettin’.’ Steve angrily pulled the bass back onto his knee. ‘So given that Gretel’s fine, and given that we have six days to pull a show together, I suggest we get on with rehearsing these songs. Laszlo, have you heard enough to start working out harmonies yet? Sheet music’s right there on the table. Sal, you get to forgettin’ the rhythm part and get to rememberin’ the lead, that’ll be a whole lot more help here.’
A brittle silence followed, then Sal swallowed and started picking out the notes of the first song. He stopped again.
‘I didn’t think they should have had Gretel. That doesn’t mean I don’t love her. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to do what’s best for her.’
Steve released a hissing breath. ‘I know that, Sal. I know Yuka loves her too, even though she don’t say so.’
Yuka narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t deny it.
Sal plucked out a simple melody on the strings. ‘She’s going to need protection.’
‘She’ll have it.’
‘From us, I mean.’
Yuka scowled at Laszlo’s startled expression. ‘From those who would use her to get to us.’
The melody Sal was playing remained gentle but strong. Steve began to play a bass line through it.
‘She’ll be protected,’ Steve said.
‘Will this have any effect from this far away?’ Yuka asked, beginning a quiet beat anyway, her hands against the skin of her smallest drum, marking a sweet-sounding rhythm.
‘It’s her song. It’ll find her,’ Steve said.
Laszlo listened to them, and to the words that the three of them began to sing.
Heave a sigh, baby girl
Don’t you cry, baby girl
Your daddies are guarding the door
He lifted the violin to his chin and raised the bow. The melody was simple, and this old instrument was full of magic. It couldn’t hurt; and he was one of them now.
Laugh out loud, baby girl
Be strong and proud, baby girl
Keeping you safe is what your daddies are for
Laszlo drew the bow across the strings, harmonising. The song was sweet and uncomplicated, as lullabies should be. It reminded him of his own long estranged children, and he poured his heart into the next two stanzas. He didn’t know if he had any music magic of his own, but the violin had enough for both of them.
Sleep after rehearsals proved a challenge in their crowded hostel room. Sal kept them awake again with muttering, reading aloud from the poems and epitaphs written in his notebook; then later, with his nightmares. He’d had them almost nightly since they’d lost Alex and Kurt. Since he’d had to behead Alex, to keep his best friend dead. Cut out his dead heart. Stuff his mouth and heart cavity with garlic. Burn the body. To be sure.
It took four days before Sal had been able to sleep at all. The nightmares were only better than the insomnia-induced hallucinations in that Sal could at least wake up from nightmares. That tiny speck of comfort was hardly enough, when Sal whimpered and cried out in his sleep and everyone woke fractious and unrested. By unspoken agreement, nobody ever talked about it. Nobody knew how to make Sal feel better. They hardly knew how to make themselves feel better.
Breakfast – toast and butter cadged from the ‘take this leftover food’ shelf in the hostel’s communal kitchen – led to rehearsals. Laszlo was getting the hang of the set list and finding his place in the music.
Sal was more confident with Alex’s old part in the lead too, but often as he was hitting his stride, he’d falter, stumble and end in a jarring mess of notes.
Steve called time out seconds before Sal began to smash his guitar to splinters.
‘I’m gonna get some air. You might want to go get your sticks, Yuka. Then we better check out the venue, see what we might need. Then we’ll try rehearsing here again,’ and Steve stalked outside.
CHAPTER SIX
Trudy Schumacher was in the embalming room when Kitty went down to the basement workroom to make the final preparations before the Driscoll funeral. She waved hello through the glass partition separating it from the area where the departed were made-up and dressed in their eternity-best for their funerals.
Kitty waved back. Trudy was beginning the embalming process for a middle aged man. Another table held Mrs Entwhistle, an elderly woman in the final embalming stages before she would be laid to rest in a family crypt. A third table bore a journalist, Meredith Lawler: a recent arrival whose face and throat were in the process of reconstruction.
Trudy peeled off her gloves and scrubbed her hands. ‘Maddie Driscoll is ready for you.’
Maddie’s body was laid out in her coffin, clad in the pretty summer dress her family had chosen for her. The dress had been cut up the back so it could be arranged properly without having to jostle her body too much. Pads in her mouth gave the girl’s face the illusion of fullness, though Maddie’s white skin had none of the glow of life about it.
‘I have to go out,’ Trudy said. ‘Will you be all right on your own?’
‘Of course,’ Kitty assured her.
‘By the way, have you heard from the institute yet?’
