Free Just Another Angel by Mike Ripley

somewhere up above met me half-way. So she was in. I was rehearsing a line like ‘Hello, is Carol coming out to play?’ and trying to improve on it when the drumming stopped to be replaced by footsteps in the hallway.
    You must have seen the old horror films where the hero or heroine knocks on the door of the isolated, spooky house (‘completely cut off at high tide, young master …’) seeking shelter from the storm. You hear the clump of footsteps for ages before at least 60 bolts are drawn or locks turned and then Karloff’s skull peers round the door edge and he says: ‘I’m thorry I took tho long, thir, but I wath delayed at my devotionth.’ There is also the spoof version – though nobody spoofed Karloff better than Karloff – where the footsteps are really loud and echoing and then the gaunt butler eventually appears wearing carpet slippers.
    If either had happened, it couldn’t have surprised me more.
    The door opened and there was a 15-year-old schoolgirl in regulation grey pullover and knee-length pleated skirt, white, knee-length socks, sensible shoes and white shirt with a tie tied with a better knot than I could ever manage.
    When times have been hard and the cash-flow not flowing, I have been known (though not by my friends) to take orchestra-pit work in some of the provincial theatres not too hot on Musicians’ Union membership. But in all the tacky pantomime transformation scenes I’d witnessed, and you get a pretty good view from the pit, none had anything on Emma. The make-up and black nail polish could all come off easily, of course, and the clothes made an enormous difference, but it was the hair that she had worked wonders with. The salmon-pink colouring could have been just vegetable dye and easily washed out, but where had the Mohican cut gone? It took me a few seconds to work out that she’d shaved the sides of her head but had left enough length in her mousy locks to be able to comb it flat and round and into a short pony tail held at the back with an elastic band. As both schoolgirl and punk she must get through a gallon of hair gel a week to keep it in place.
    â€˜Yes?’ she said before I could think of anything remotely amusing.
    Even then, all I got out was, ‘Er, hi! I’m from the Mimosa …’ before she cut in.
    â€˜If you’re another one of Stubbly’s goons, you can just piss off back to that dungheap of his. I had more than enough of that place the other night. I wondered how long it would be before he tried a shakedown.’ She looked me in the eye. ‘Tell him to get off my case.’
    She began to close the door, so I put my right foot in the way, and when she saw that she pulled the door back, but only to get a better swing and more weight behind it.
    â€˜Hang about, darling, I was in the band with you. I’m Angel, the trumpet man.’
    The door stopped an inch from my trainers.
    â€˜Shouldn’t that be Gabriel?’ she said.
    â€˜Oh, very sharp, get in the knife drawer.’ The door moved again. ‘It really is my name. And anyway, Stubbly doesn’t employ goons,’ I finished quickly, to give her something to think about.
    â€˜Well, he bloody well had a tame gorilla in tow the other night. You might have gone by then, though. Yeah, you had.’
    â€˜So, what was the problem?’
    â€˜Oh, just Stubbly being an old fart. He came into the back room late on. I was waiting for Geoff to take me home. He’s the one who went off to find our so-called manager Lloyd with that sex-starved saxophone player. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?’
    I admitted that the description might just fit somebody I knew called Bunny, but I hadn’t seen him in years. Well, Tuesday.
    â€˜Do you think we could go inside?’ I asked. ‘I think I’m upsetting the au-pair-owning classes. I could have sworn I heard a net curtain