Free Dream On by Terry Tyler Page A

"Yes and no. Oh, you know."
    Janice knew. It was that constant inner battle between
relief that she no longer had the day-to-day stress of being her mother's sole
carer and could, thus, live her own life again - she even had a new man in her
life - and the guilt, always the guilt.
    "But you've done the right thing," Janice was always
saying to her. "She needs professional care, especially since the incontinence
started. You couldn't be expected to deal with that. She's in the
best place."
    And Linda would agree, because of course Janice was
right. Janice worked hard at not allowing the guilt to taint Linda's new found
happiness, but she wasn't always successful.
    Back at home, Harley ate a banana in front of CBeebies,
fresh from his after school bath, and Janice opened the laptop to log on to
MySpace again. Oh look, Thor had a new friend. Ariel Swan. Well, well, well.
    It was a nice photo of her, black and white,
serious; she was looking out of a window. Not a silly, pouty one.  Oh, why did
she have to come back? Why couldn't she have taken her size ten jeans and
fluttery eyelashes and slightly aloof air elsewhere?
    Janice wished she could do aloof. It was so
sexy, wasn't it?
    She scanned down the page. Ariel wasn't giving
much away. Only a couple of photos, and they weren't professionally taken. They
were all black and white, not posed. Damn, Janice thought, what must
it be like to be as pretty as that ?
    "Mummy, please can I have some milk?"
    Janice smiled at her son, so sweet in his Spiderman pyjamas
- she felt a rush of love for him, reached out to give him a cuddle, and closed
the laptop.
    Oh, bollocks to Ariel Swan, she thought. Who
cared?
    Sometimes, just sometimes, what with the plight of
her mother and grandmother and her daily worry about how going to a school in
that not particularly salubrious area was going to affect Harley, all the stuff
about Dave, worrying about who he might or might not fancy, seemed not really
very important at all.
     

***
    Their first write-up!
    Ritchie's brother Pete's marketing strategies seemed to be
working - his old school friend Neil Mann, now the entertainments editor on The
Fenland Chronicle (the 'muso journo', Pete called him), had accepted his
invitation to attend 'rock night' at Fennington Labour Club, where Thor had been
fourth on the bill - 'fourth out of four fucking bands, mind', as Ritchie
reminded them, though Pete had said it was best not to highlight this fact.
    He had bought Neil Mann several drinks during the
course of the evening, after which, Pete assured the members of Thor, he could
hardly say anything bad about them, could he?
    "Or if he does," Pete had said, "either he or you lot owe
me for six Jack and Cokes."
    Dave purchased the Chronicle when it was still warm
from the press, and saved it for band practice that evening.
    "Are we all sitting comfortably?" he said, opening
the paper with a flourish and scanning his eyes down the appropriate column. "Right! Here's what the man says. Ahem!" He swallowed.  " '.....and
then I laughed my socks off when four Vikings walked out on stage, including one
with a horned helmet; I couldn't work out if they were a send up - but they were
great! They handled the covers well, and their own stuff was surprisingly
good. During the middle of a track with the predictable name of
'Valhalla', I was almost tempted to mosh! Nice one, lads - a good start to
a great evening!'"
    Ritchie was not at all happy.
    "Makes us look like a right load of divs," he said,
approximately once an hour. "I told you we shouldn't dress up. I'm a
fucking serious musician, not a fucking comedy act."
    "Ah, hold your noise, man!" Boz said. "We stand out from
the crowd. People will remember us. And the fella says we're great. This is a good review, lads!"
    "Well, I'm not putting it on the MySpace page," said
Ritchie.
    Dave was pleased for more reasons than one; if Boz
considered them to be doing well he would stay, and not move off to