The Butterfly Effect Read Free

Franklin or Tina Turner? In the end, we decided upon the old Gershwin song ‘Summertime’ as I didn’t associate it with a particular female singer who could reproach me for murdering her song. I took a deep breath.
    I didn’t know all the words, and Olga joined in with me at first, a bit like a karaoke DJ will do sometimes with a nervous singer who has been bullied into taking part. But then I got into it, felt my voice growing strong, felt the music in my ears and the vibrations in my throat. It wasn’t until later that I realised that Olga had stopped singing and left me to it after only the first verse. It was like the day I learned to swim, when Dad told me he had actually let go of the back of my costume halfway across the pool and I had swum the other half unaided. I could sing, and the smiles and ripple of applause from the other band members told me this wasn’t simply Olga being kind.
    Still, that was all I could manage on that occasion. I was shaking, with relief partly, but something else too, a kind of electric feeling as if something was about to happen to me. I told Olga about it later, as we walked out to the car park.
    “Ah, it’s the buzz,” she said, nodding sagely. “Better than drugs and even harder to kick. Now you’ve felt it, you’ll want to feel it again. How about next week? Same time, same place?”
    She was absolutely right. I couldn’t stop thinking about those few moments when my body and the music had entered into some kind of fusion; when the mic had seemed like an extension of my own arm. There was no question that I would go again, and I spent every spare minute of the days that followed trying to memorise the songs in their list so I wouldn’t have to reject so many next time round.
    And so this became almost normal. For several weeks, I would work hard on Sunday mornings, go and join the band in the afternoon and sing a song or two. Sometimes Olga and I would sing together, her much deeper voice complementing mine, but I would always sing at least one song alone. Just me and the rest of the band, with Olga standing in the middle of the room with a smile big enough for a whole audience, her approval practically tangible. I loved it, and my nerves were gradually replaced with a feeling of huge satisfaction and pleasure. I was very grateful for this experience, and I hoped they wouldn’t get tired of me taking up their time, but I had no thought of it going any further. That’s why what happened next was such a surprise, so completely out of the blue.
    “We’ve got a gig here in a couple of weeks,” said Olga, as I helped her carry equipment out to the van.
    “That’s good. You should get a decent crowd here.”
    “Yes, it’s always a good night. That’s why we thought it would be a good choice for your debut,” she said, heaving an amp into the back of the van with a grunt. She said it as if she were talking about covering a lesson or being on gate duty. Something you just did. Nothing to get excited about. For a moment I wondered if she’d actually said it at all, but she must have, for now she straightened up and carried on the conversation as if I’d already replied.
    “Just a couple of numbers, we thought. Something you know really well, so you won’t have to think about remembering the words. What do you think?”
    What did I think? Well, I thought she had probably gone mad, or maybe that she was teasing. I thought that I could never, ever, make the huge leap from singing with friends to singing to a whole room full of strangers, however nice a crowd they were, but then I had a fleeting image of the band, all lit up on the little stage, and there were people crowded at the front, some of them dancing, and I was there too, next to Olga and sharing her mic, belting it out. Aretha Franklin, ‘Say a Little Prayer’. We’d tried it out just now, just half an hour ago. Could I really do it?
    Somehow, it was agreed. I didn’t even argue much, although I regretted