Read The Candle Dancer / The Way That You Found Me for Free Online

snare. Selima rolled her eyes. Finally he was happy, and Doll played a few dodgy chords.
    ‘Is that how you
want
it?’ asked the sound check guy, with jaded contempt.
    ‘Sounds good from up here,’ Doll called back.
    Gazing down at the light and dark faces I saw the familiar orange moustache glinting. He raised his beer to me. I’d practiced some patter but the words dried in my mouth. I bowed my legs slightly and sank my weight into my feet. I nodded to Selima and we started with “If You Can’t Give Me Love”.
----
    Well I’ve seen you before on that discotheque floor,
    You were driving me out of my mind…
----
    Doll pointed at Richard and screamed the lyrics into her microphone. Wetness broke out at the nape of my neck and slid down my back. Of all the times to lose it! Please Doll, not now. She turned her back to the crowd, and pulled herself together enough to play; but she was chalk-faced and unsteady on her feet. She was sweating even more than I was, or so it seemed. Drops stood out like ball bearings on her skin.
    We followed up with “I Bit Off More Than I Could Chew” and “Rock Hard” and worked our way up to our crescendo.
    ‘You wanna come down to Devil Gate Drive?’ I shouted into the microphone. I lifted the guitar above my head. The crowd roared. Benjy intoned in his deep bass voice:
    ‘
Welcome to the Dive!
’
    We threw our left arms out, raised our right arms in the air and jumped sideways in a brief, synchronized dance like the original band. I worried that Doll would topple over, but she kept to her feet alright. Selima jumped on keys and I sang “Devil Gate Drive” gruffly into the microphone, sealed like a cutlet in my sweaty leather.
    About halfway through the gig I sensed that magical coalescence of sound and bodies, performers and audience. The crowd danced and sang with us, their faces flashing like a bed of shining, flat rocks through fast-running water. Everything was flowing into a sparkling oneness. No wonder the Rolling Stones keep playing after decades. The feeling’s addictive.
    Afterwards the lead singer from
Tiny Purple Fishes
, Jim, wanted to talk shop about the difficulties of being a cover band. I drank a whiskey and lime and felt hot with success.
    ‘That was a great gig. Covers are tricky—punters want you to capture how the original band sounded, not the music itself—’ he said, leaning forward so his words could be heard.
    I nodded, distracted by seeing Richard with Doll at the bar. He had a hold of her wrist and was pushing her arm up behind her back. Beside him, his girlfriend couldn’t see what he was doing.
    ‘Excuse me, Jim,’ I said, reluctantly.
    As I approached, Richard glared at me. Doll’s mouth was hanging open and she seemed to have gone into some realm beyond speech.
    ‘Time to go,’ I said to Doll. ‘We’ve got to get a photo before your make-up disappears.’
    Doll blinked, and nodded.
    ‘We’re talking,’ said Richard.
    ‘You can talk to her later.’
    ‘At least let her finish her drink,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘You were great up there, Suzy!’
    ‘Well, thanks.’
    ‘You sounded better than you’ve ever sounded. And you always sound good.’
    ‘That’s nice of you to say.’
    ‘Credit where credit’s due. Sexy outfit,’ Richard’s eye fell to my hand. ‘Nice ring. Snake, is it?’
    He picked up my hand to examine the ring.
    ‘The eyes have fallen out,’ I said, withdrawing my hand.
    ‘Oh yeah, how’d that happen?’ he said, dropping his voice so that only I could hear. ‘Sticking your finger up yourself?’
    After a moment’s astonished pause I said, ‘Fuck off, you creep.’
    ‘No,
you
fuck off. I will talk to Doll if I want to, right? Don’t get in my way. I mean it.’
    ‘Oh, scary.’
    Richard’s face closed and a murky sneer, unlike anything I’d ever seen before, passed across it.
    ‘You should be scared.’
    I swallowed, my heart racing. For a moment I
was
scared, but of what, I