The band I’m in is heading out for a spring tour from Edinburgh to Exeter, a dozen dates across four weekends. Two nights before we set off I leave a rehearsal room at 10pm, exhausted after a seven-hour practice. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that I am too old for this shit.
On the morning of the first gig, my wife and I have a row: she appears to be unaware that I am taking the car for the weekend.
“You said you were getting a lift,” she says.
“That’s next weekend,” I say.
“You never said you were taking the car,” she says.
“I’m sorry, but I’m sure I did,” I say, no longer entirely sure.
“You’re completely screwing me over,” she says. I think: man, she really is angry.
“This is a genuine misunderstanding,” I say.
My wife turns and walks away. I’m already running late, so I just go.
I get lost on arrival, because the venue and the venue’s backstage loading bay are two very different addresses, and my satnav has taken me to neither. Instead I find myself in a car park behind an auction house, my path blocked by a large container.
“That doesn’t sound good,” says the drummer when I call him. “How far are you from the high street?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s my first time in Bury St Edmunds.”
By the time I get to the venue and unload, the rest of the band are set up and ready to go. I still have to find somewhere to park, and my way back on foot. For more than one reason, I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t driven.
Between the sound check and the gig I call my wife. She does not pick up. At 7.30pm we take to the stage. Three hours later we are in a Travelodge room drinking white wine from coffee mugs and critiquing the set, number by number.
“By my reckoning that riff appears in the song 13 times,” I say. “Tonight I played it correctly on nine occasions.”
“Not bad,” says the fiddle player.
“A personal best,” I say.
“There were lots of first-night mistakes,” says the piano player. “The audience didn’t seem to notice.”
“That’s even more worrying,” I say. “They think it’s supposed to sound like that.”
The next day, on the way to Milton Keynes, I ring my wife. She does not pick up. I call her again when I get there – still no answer.
That night I make far fewer mistakes, possibly because I’m so preoccupied by my wife’s refusal to speak. Holding a grudge isn’t really her thing (it’s more mine) and I start to worry that her silence is a cause for alarm. Either way, I’m amazed by its efficacy as a punishment.
The next morning I ring my wife before leaving for Grantham; again it goes straight to voicemail. I send a text that says, “I get that you’re not speaking to me,” realising too late that the obvious reply is no reply.
I cannot find the loading area of the Grantham venue, and once again the drummer has to talk me in.
“You made it,” he says when I arrive. “Well done.” His drums are already set up. Something occurs to me.
“Where were you at lunch?” I say.
after newsletter promotion
“I drove home,” he says.
“You did?” I say.
“Family stuff,” he says. “Sometimes we have to make sacrifices.”
“Oh my God,” I say. “Do we?”
I ring my wife one more time: nothing. That night I am more or less beside myself on stage, and as a result note-perfect.
“It was definitely the best show so far,” says the fiddle player. We’re all back in the dressing room. The trumpet player enters, coat on.
“OK, bye,” she says.
“Where are you going?” I say.
“She’s taking, like, a 50-mile cab ride to meet her family,” says the piano player.
“There are some things you just have to do for a happy marriage,” she says.
“There are?” I say.
Half an hour later I find myself in a dark, pot-holed lorry park off the A1, as alone as I have felt in a long time.
“You have arrived,” says the satnav.
I drive in circles for 10 minutes, looking for the motel we’re booked into. In the end I have to inch backwards through a Burger King drive-thru to get to it.
In the morning I rise early and drive home, arriving at 11am.
“So you’re not speaking to me?” I say to my wife.
She stares, arms folded. I ask, in a quiet and circumspect way, if this is possibly about something more than the car.
“No,” she says. “This is about the fucking car.”
