William, It Was Really Nothing

the rain falls hard on a humdrum town

this town's gonna drag you down…

The summer after her sixteenth birthday, Lily Evans realised that her home town was a shithole. The realization struck her one morning in mid June, during the longest, hottest summer that she had ever experienced, as she lay on the browning grass of her front lawn, and listened to her sister, the boring and horse faced Petunia, talk on the phone to her boyfriend in the kitchen. It occurred to Lily in the haze of that summer afternoon that nothing had ever happened to her. That nothing ever happened here, in this town. It was a nice place (emphasis on the word nice) and her childhood had been pleasant, but uneventful, and everyone on her street was polite and put the bins out when they were supposed to, and she'd just finished her O Levels, and was going to college in the autumn to do secretarial skills, just like her sister and mother had done before her and it was lovely and safe and any child would be lucky to grow up there but my God, it was boring. It was mind numbingly dull, laid out on the back lawn, listening to Petunia harp on about drills and engagement rings and Lily Evans realised then that if she didn't get out of Cokeworth right now, then she never would.

The place to be, she knew, was London. It was always the place to be. It had always been the place to be. She'd heard all those stories, about the Swinging Sixties, when you could dance all night in the clubs alongside the coolest, brightest stars of the day. But that was the sixties, she realised; today was very different.

It was mid August when she realised just how badly she wanted to be in London, when she saw a glimpse of what was there.

Her old school friend, the worryingly quiet and oft picked upon Mary MacDonald, and herself, attended a concert at the local college; a 'punk band', who played Monkees covers viciously and violently, swore at the audience, and smashed their guitars. The set was just twenty minutes long, but it sparked a fire in Lily Evans, one that burned and sizzled. This, she thought to herself, arms in the air and sweat dripping down her pale face, this is what I was looking for.

At the end of the set, the girls went to get Cokes from the makeshift bar the Student Union had set up by the back door of the hall.

"What did you think?" Lily asked Mary as they sipped their drinks, "Mad, wasn't it?"

"It was…" Mary thought for a moment, "It was…I mean…there was no subtlety, was there? It was like... they weren't… they weren't Queen, were they?"

"No," Lily remarked thoughtfully, "no, they weren't. They were different though."

"Hmm…" Mary murmured, "Different isn't necessarily a good thing though."

Lily merely shrugged; there was no trying to explain it to Mary, because Mary didn't understand it. She was not bored here, in Cokeworth, and she was perfectly happy to spend the rest of her life in a semi detached suburban hell-hole, married to the first bloke who looked at her, with two kids inevitably called Tracey and Adrian.

"I wonder if they've got any demo tapes…" Lily said absentmindedly.

Mary rolled her eyes, and went back to drinking her Coke, and Lily began to look around for one of the band members. They had to be here somewhere. Where had they gone after they left the stage?

They were easily recognizable; the lead singer had spiky bleached blonde hair and wore a ripped bodice (Lily had never seen anything like it), the bassist was in a Mod suit, all skinny trousers and a Beatles mop top. The drummer had shaved all his hair off, and had an ear pierced. And the rhythm guitarist wore a denim jacket with the word HATE sewn on the back. Gosh, they were a bunch of misfits, weren't they? But where had they gone?

It was then that she noticed a girl on the side of the stage. This girl- who would change Lily Evans' life, but we'll get to that in a minute- had very long, straggly blonde hair, a heart shaped freckly face, icy blue eyes and the most bored expression Lily had ever seen in her sixteen years on the planet. She was wearing battered Doc Martens and a jumper that barely covered her thighs, and Lily thought she was the coolest person in the entire world. She just seemed so effortless, like she hadn't even thought about her hair or her clothes or the way she arranged her features so that she looked like she both hated and loved everyone in the room. You know the feeling, don't you dear reader? When you see someone with great hair, or great clothes and you fall completely and utterly in platonic love? That was how Lily felt. "Mary," she nudged her friend, "Mary, I think that girl over there's with the band…" she gestured to the Coolest Girl in the Entire World, "I'll go and ask about demo tapes…"

Mary looked over at the Coolest Girl in the Entire World, and immediately wrinkled her nose in disgust. "God, what is she wearing? She looks like some kind of two pound prostitute."

"I think she looks brilliant," Lily said sharply, "I'll see you in a minute."

And before Mary could reply, she walked off.

"S'cuse me?" Lily said to the Coolest Girl in the Entire World, "Um…are you with the band?"

The girl laughed, and Lily realised that she was Scottish. "Yeah," she smiled down at Lily, because she was standing on the edge of the stage, "yeah, I am. What d'you want?"

"Iwaswonderingifyouhadanydemotapes." Lily said quickly, not taking a breath between words.

"Woah, there, Ginge," the girl hopped off the ledge, and Lily noticed that she was remarkably tall, "say that again, but slowly."

"I was wondering," she replied, "if you had any demo tapes? Please?"

The girl laughed again. "God no, Ginge! Do they look like the kind of band who could possibly record anything? Fuck, they can't even play their instruments properly! I'll tell them you asked though, maybe that'll get them to pull their fingers out, actually start acting like a proper band." She glanced down at Lily, who was at least three inches shorter than she, "What's your name, Ginge?"

"Lily Evans," replied Lily Evans, "Are you…are you one of their girlfriends?"

The blonde girl let out a yelp of laughter, and clapped Lily on the shoulder. She seemed surprised by such a question.

"FUCK NO!" she shouted, "FUCK NO! I'm, urm, my brother's the lead singer. I'm their-" and she made speech marks in the air as she spoke- "'tour manager'. Which is bollocks because this isn't even a tour, but there you go. I'm Marlene." And she shoved Lily playfully, "We're going down the pub, d'you fancy it?"

Lily, still slightly in awe of this girl and her coolness, glanced around for Mary, thinking that perhaps she best not, it's illegal and she promised her mum she'd be home by five… but Mary was nowhere to be seen. And this girl- Marlene- was a tour manager. She was responsible. A grown up, even!

In order to check this theory, that Marlene was a responsible grown up, Lily asked; "how old are you?"

"Sixteen," came the reply, "it was my sixteenth last Thursday. You?"

"Same. In January." And it was at this moment that Lily realised that punk was neither grown up nor responsible. But even so- she felt like she just had to go. It was something interesting, something fun, happening to her in this shithole town and she would be mad to miss it.

"You coming?" Marlene asked her, picking up a sweat drenched leather jacket with the word SICK written on the back in chalk, from where it was draped over a speaker on the side of the stage.

"Yeah," Lily said with as much casualness as she could muster, "yeah, alright."

"Excellent!" Marlene grinned, "I warn you, they're children."

The summer after her sixteenth birthday, Lily Evans realised that her home town was a shithole and that angry seventeen year old boys and a blonde girl called Marlene were probably going to save her life.