Far across the continent, the North Atlantic seaboard gave way to the immensity of turbulent deep waters without limit till a foreign shore came into view, an entirely different world than the endless waves breaking on sandy beaches under balmy skies. The smaller rain soaked island huddled close to an angular larger island whose south eastern corner exposed a wide crack running close to the corner. Moving inland, the immensely peopled city of London straddled the point where the crack narrowed. In such a land, the seasons under the sun wavered erratically so that the archetypal weather forecast 'sunny periods with scattered showers' could be never too far wrong. In the two months when events moved on, the summer warmth which had caused green leaves to flourish on the trees saw changes. Even though there were periods of mild weather and sunny skies, the leaves turned golden brown and fell off the trees in profusion and miserable cold and wind blew in from the east. No one relaxed outside in open air cafes sipping coffee but scuttled round to get home from out of the cold. In one particular part of London, there was a large flat whose ancient front door was accessed by a short flight of steps and sash windows overlooked the street. One day, Nikki and Helen looked out in the still and the quiet, watching the rain beating against the glass and little rivulets trickling down the window panes.
In the same two months, back across the other side of the world, four women had slogged their way through the last of a series of gigs which had expanded beyond the lesbian network that had nurtured them. This gig was as support band at the University of California where they had played in a hot, sweaty hall full of college kids of all description. They'd taken the measure of the audience straightaway and what bothered them was the bunch of drunken jocks close to the centre of the stage. They made Simone immediately conscious that she she might have made a mistake in wearing her favourite white dress as she realised the perspective from the floor up to where she was playing on stage was way too revealing. It didn't matter when the audience consisted of women but she figured out that they saw women as eye-candy. To make it worse, they were wierdly turned on by lesbians and crude images of girl on girl action from some cheap porno film. It made them feel uncomfortable at a point when they were tired out from the emotional build up to each concert, the heart stopping moment of running out on stage and giving their all to win over a new audience and moving on to their next gig.
Simone and Annabelle had sweetly sung the love song that Annabelle had played for her a lifetime ago when she was in the audience in an attempt to instill a measure of sensitivity into the proceedings as opposed to the series of rock and roll numbers they'd felt compelled to play. It was a moot point as to whether they were revving up the audience's collective emotions with high energy music or whether they were unwilling accomplices to an audience determined to get their rocks off to some collective cheap thrills.
"Hey, why don't you two chicks make out on stage and show how you do it? You know you want to," yelled a particularly drunk youth with shaggy blond hair and wearing a sweaty red UCLA T-shirt.
"You don't talk to us that way. If you don't respect us as artists then out you go," Simone shouted angrily, pointing sideways with her arm. As Annabelle carried on tinkling away with her guitar and carrying on with the next verse and glaring down at the guy, she couldn't help smiling to herself how the dormant teacher within her lover's psyche had resurfaced yet again.
Once they'd played their encore song, they waved to the audience and made their way to the backstage changing room. They wanted to change out of their sweaty stage clothes and drive back home. Simone gulped inwardly as she strode through the rambling corridor to suddenly see the youth she'd badmouthed right up close and sensed trouble. Erin saw what was happening and pushed into the front.
"Don't mess with us, dude. I've a black belt in karate and I could tear you apart. Just back off and everything will be all right."
The youth took in the small woman wearing a sleeveless T-shirt. She looked tough and muscular and glared daggers at him. He mouthed off some smart-ass remark to cover his quick retreat and his wounded ego.
"Thank you," Simone said gratefully at their tough and tender friend who strutted along with renewed confidence.
"It's nothing. We all stick together, hey. Annabelle knows I'm best at the rough stuff. I'd do the same for any of you guys."
"Hey, you're right Erin," Annabelle admitted frankly."We need your kickass attitude around us."
Erin playfully punched the long haired woman on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. The friendship that underlay the two sets of relationships was wonderfully free-flowing and spontaneous. Since they'd spent life on the road, it meant that each of them had time to hang out with any of the others with the greatest of ease. They'd been used to their two helpful and uncomplaining workmates, Bette and Lisa who disassembled their gear after each gig, stashed it into the communal van in which they travelled and slept amongst the cramped spaces left by amplifiers and drum kit and reassembling it, the lights and their mixing board while the four musicians did their thing. The whole experience was one of a heady whirl of taking turns being half asleep at the wheel, pulling into service stations for hastily grabbed meals and then the sudden psychic surge of energy once they got on stage. They were tired out and ready for a break from the line of gigs that Miranda's sister had arranged for them.
They'd crashed out at the motel that put them up for the night and, in the morning, they were on the long road back home. The sunshine glared down at them as Lisa took the wheel of the van and powered the van along many a long mile back to hometown California.
"You don't think that Shirley will dump us while we're holidaying? Let's face it, she and her sister Miranda are two of a kind, always out for the fast buck," Annabelle asked anxiously. While they were working, the money was rolling in even as much as the credit agreements for more equipment had to be paid for. Fortunately, none of them had rock star delusions in wanting expensive costumes and expensive drugs. Their collective instinct was to pile up some money behind them into the group account that Simone set up with Sadie.
"Hey relax. Shirley knows well enough that working us like galley slaves will run us into the ground. Bad long term strategy. She gets her commission while we get paid so everything's cool,"Erin replied in her carelessly comforting fashion, passing around a bottle of cheap wine to pass the journey.
The van was jam packed with their amplifiers, mixing desk, lighting, drum kits , guitar cases and yards and yards of cabling. It was a functional unit looking like any other van from the outside. Inside, six women were crammed into the restricted space left over which contained their world. The constant humming from the engine ate up the miles they spent travelling from an out of state gig. This was what they'd dedicated their lives to and nothing existed outside it. They refuelled at a petrol station and, despite the advancing hours, decided to top up their caffeine levels at the service station. Six good looking women, looking travel worn and rumpled, didn't look outrageously like a rock group on tour and blended into the scenery. They were grateful for being left alone as they weren't in the mood for any hassle from some random guy hitting on them. Finally, Simone and Annabelle found themselves dropped off first and flopped down into the serenities of their beach-side house. They dived into the shower together to soak off all their hard travelling out of their bones and the feeling of grime from out of their skins.
They lay together, swathed in towels, curled up on their settee letting their minds decompress. The long silence was therapeutic. It wasn't till later when Simone's naked right arm stretched out and slid the Tori Amos CD onto the DVD player and the same soothing sounds that had first inspired them wended their way round their emotional systems. Though they'd covered a couple of her songs in the gigs they'd played, it did them good to go back to the originals. They existed in another place, another dimension to their versions and they expanded their minds to reach beyond their immediate present.
Back on the other side of the world, Helen and Nikki watched the world go by outside their windows. They had the vague feeling of waiting for something to happen.
Simone's mind slid down a memory hole and the image arose in her mind when she and Annabelle had been awestruck when Nikki and Helen had held forth about their experiences of prison from both sides of the barricades. It had moved both women deeply and it had been only a short week until they had played their first ever gig anywhere. They had been nervous and their performance had been raw, unpolished as they'd been feeling their way. All of a sudden, Simone had an overwhelming need for these two very special, very wise and caring friends of theirs- and time for a holiday to do what they had promised.
"I know Annabelle. We can fly out to London and hang out with Nikki and Helen like we promised," Simone exclaimed.
An image assaulted Annabelle's overheated imagination of all the miles they'd travelled and it hit home with all the force of a sledgehammer cracking open her skull. She really thought she'd spend ages lying in bed with her lover. As she opened her eyes, she realised that they'd be tourists, not performers and so the idea became more possible.
"Here's the phone, darling. You make the call."
Halfway across the world, Nikki grabbed the phone the moment it rang. A familiar softly spoken, cultured American female voice sounded over the airwaves. It felt so good.
"Hey, hello Simone. It's so great to hear from you." On the other end of the call, Simone was gratified by the Englishwoman's warm heartfelt greeting but there was something she wanted to get straight first. She couldn't believe it was two months since they'd last talked even if Nikki very nicely made it feel that the time gap was five minutes.
"We're really sorry we haven't phoned up before. We've been kind of busy and this is our first day off the road," Simone started to say at express speed when Nikki gently interjected.
"Hey, take it easy Simone. Even if you hadn't told us, Helen and I knew you'd want to get out there on the road and play your music."
"Was it that obvious?" Simone said open-mouthed before carrying on with her errand." We really wanted to hear from you even if we left it a little late."
"Better late than never. We've not gone anywhere and the offer to put you up still stands," Nikki said in her pragmatic fashion. She paused to enable Simone to work through her residual sense of guilt before accentuating the positive."We've got the tourist attractions I'm sure you've heard about but we've got museums and the Royal Academy had this great Waterhouse exhibition right now. There are paintings of all these per-Raphaelite women that'll blow your head wide open. It's a real treat for the senses."
"Mmm, art galleries," Simone murmured dreamily, knowing full well that Nikki's good taste and honest enthusiasm could be thoroughly relied upon. Annabelle smiled fondly at her partner's cultural leanings. Come to think of it, she'd grown to love the feeling of art in all its various forms being laid on her. All at once, the wear and tear of life on the road was being left behind.
"We'll make it, Simone," Annabelle said clearly into her lover's ear so Nikki could pick up on it as well. Simone grinned as the droll irony of life as a rock and roller meant that packing a suitcase and travelling anywhere had its advantages.
So it was that two excited women took themselves to passport control. They were chattering away like schoolgirls about to go on holiday. Nikki's snatched end of the conversation even cleared up one lurking question, that Helen had an old guitar stashed away in the flat that she'd not played for years.
"I phoned up Erin. She and Diane said that our holiday is cool with them as they're homebirds. She asked us to come back with a couple of songs and a postcard of Big Ben whatever that is," Annabelle observed of their easy-going friend.
"She's got our phone number in case anything happens she needs our input on," Simone answered serenely.
Pretty soon, the two women were transported high up into the sky and they sat back to room-service drinks, airline meals and the constant drone of jet engines taking them through the sky at a paralyzingly slow pace judging by the ground twenty thousand feet below them. Recent memories of being transported from gig to gig meant that the two tired women nodded off to sleep where they sat. Strange surreal dreams swirled their way through their consciousness. Simone was unbearably conscious of climbing the vertical wall of this hundred feet high amplifier, an amplifier lead clipped to her shoulder. Despite the wearisome burden and the frightening depths below her, she unclipped the lead to plug it in to its hole amidst waves of applause. She was feeling both scared and energised at the same time. Suddenly, when something prodded her on her other shoulder. She turned around, fearing to fall into the depths when she looked up into Annabelle's smiling face and the overhead lights.
"I had to wake you up Simone. We're ten thousand feet over England and we'll be descending to Heathrow in half an hour's time."
"Where, where," Simone dazedly answered, leaning over Annabelle's shoulder to the window. To her disappointment, all she could see was the unbearably blue sky, traces of high level patches of cloud overhead and an intensely white carpet of cloud. This was a real letdown- it could be anywhere in the skies.
"I thought you said we could see England," Simone said accusingly.
"No no," grinned Annabelle."It's down there. It'll be ready for us when we get down- and Nikki and Helen with them waiting for us," Annabelle said softly, kissing her lover's cheek affectionately. This news was good enough for them.