Untitled

Dhani brushed himself off with a little frowning look after having been climbed on, but was far too polite to upbraid the girl. He took her offering and played with it in his hands for a bit, not particularly hungry. ‘Yeah.’ he laughed. It was something of an understatement to say his dad ‘plays the guitar’. Sometimes Dhani would come downstairs and find George asleep on the sofa with one still under his arm. He had once spent the best part of a week with no sleep and no meals, trying to repair a nickel-plated resonator guitar someone had given back to him with the sound all broken. George had even got a shrine to guitars in one of the rooms in the house, which Dhani felt like he could sit in for hours just looking at them all, mounted up on the walls, and never get bored. ‘Once Uncle Rings was over, and he had a drum kit set up in that room there,’ he pointed, ‘and he called me in and tried to get me to play with him, but as soon as he started drumming I ran out the room screaming,’ he grinned; this was one of his favourite stories he’d been told about himself that he liked to repeat to people. ‘I’ve got a mini one upstairs, if you want to see it. Or we could go out to the lake in the garden.'

He waited patiently and quietly (a talent inherited from his father), eyes flitting between mother and daughter, as Scarlet took her time to decide. He hoped she would come around - it wasn’t all that often that Dhani had the chance to play with other kids who had parents like his, and it always gave him a very reassuring feeling, as if he wasn’t different at all, like he didn’t have this awkward secret to hide - but he wasn’t going to make her if she didn’t want to. He could make small talk and answer same-old questions like he always did at parties. Or he could go and sit with his grandmother. But a wide, genuine grin of relief lit up his face when the girl gave her answer. ‘Thanks,’ he said hurriedly to Charlotte, before Scarlet started to make her way off of her own accord, and Dhani hastened to step in time. ‘I’m Dhani, by the way. It’s not stealing, my mum bought all the food so it’s ours. I dunno if we have cake though…’ When they came into the kitchen, Dhani narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment, eyeing various cupboards and trolleys full of food. ‘Let me give you a leg-up, see if you can get up on that counter and see what’s on the first shelf. I think it might be the cakes.'

He’d already forgotten what exactly his mother wanted him to promise her. It was too boring to go back and make her say it again, because he knew she would elaborate the second time and try to lecture him about why he had to do whatever it was… be careful of the animals… something. And to be honest, if he did end up getting chased by a rhino on the back of a safari jeep it would be the most exciting thing to happen to him all year. It had been so stagnant and tense at home in Friar Park lately. ‘Fine, I promise,’ he said quickly, and probably not very convincingly at that, before taking off to find the only bedroom with a single bed, and throwing his suitcase onto the duvet cover. Halfway through unpacking he paused for a moment, and wondered what his dad was doing. He sort of wanted to call him and say hi. But this was supposed to be about his mum’s family, and somehow he felt like she wouldn’t appreciate Dhani bringing him up. He wasn’t sure why. Pattie just didn’t seem to like talking about George very much these days.

Dhani shrugged. ‘No, not really. Just depressed.’ He took in a deep breath, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets and pressing his lips together in the moments of quiet awkwardness that inevitably followed. He tried to think of something else to say. It was more interesting talking to this guy, however possibly unhinged or liable to suddenly lash out or have a breakdown, than any of the party games his mother had tried to suggest or the people he should be talking to who’d come to his party. His dad was usually here to do that for him, but he’d disappeared off with some guy to give a tour of the garden, which could take forever. ‘Do you know how to backwards guitar solos?’ he asked. He’d been attempting to master the practice, or at least be able to do it, mostly out of spite when his dad had mentioned offhandedly but very arrogantly that he’d been the first person to ever do one on record - but he hadn’t had much luck. And George had never showed him, either.

Dhani scribbled his number hurriedly on a piece of Royal College of Music paper, glancing over his shoulder at the band leaving and speeding up as he wrote his name - instead of writing Dhani, writing the musical notation for the two notes of the Indian musical scale his name was made from. A little private joke for his music scholar friend. With one last quick smile at the receptionist, Dhani did a little jog towards the front doors, hoping to catch the singer who had done a double-take at him (yes, he noticed) before she disappeared into Kensington. But, with the band gone on ahead, Dhani emerged from the front steps of the building just as the young woman was about to step out into the road well before the traffic lights - and a London taxi coming straight at her. Dhani knew London taxis; they didn’t stop for people crossing. You had to run. And instinct told him this woman wasn’t going to. He leapt down the bottom stair and caught her by the arm. ‘Hey! You about to just walk into the road?’ he gave her a quizzical look, half smiling in abashed disbelief.