What kind of story can we write about Margaret and Simone? We can choose whatever we want; we can force them to bow to our will, to act out our fantasy, to play the roles we create for them. Do we want a happy ending, or do we prefer to have our hankies ready? Humour, action, description, characterisation, sex? All of the above, or none? You choose, we choose, only Margaret and Simone, poor souls, have no choice. Life's a bitch, especially when you're a character in a fiction.

So here's the deal. You haven't heard from me before. This has been a story blessedly free of that cocky, know-all, been-there-done-that omniscient narrator. And all the better for that, I hear you say. So I'll keep out as much as possible. Leave it to the women to tell their own story, let them stumble unaided from crisis to crisis, allow them to ascend to the heights of happiness without any intervention from me. Allow them the luxury of fulfilling their own destiny.

So you'll hear nothing from me about what they think, or plan, or hope, or love, or despise. No emotion of theirs will be trammelled by being filtered through me. No action, however implausible, will be explicated by me. I will restrict myself to the dramatis personae minimae, the supernumeraries, the props we place around our protagonists. The rest is up to Margaret and Simone. And you. So on we go, onward, onward.

....

The Jenny Dangs stood on stage, affecting exaggerated bows and milking the applause from the sparse but enthusiastic crowd. Don O'Neill hugged his Peter Barton guitar with his left hand, his right raised aloft like Che Guevara; Marie McColville, her fiddle under her arm, blew kisses and smiled broadly; Jim Thompson, exposed and vulnerable at the front of the stage, without the shield of his percussion kit, grinned sheepishly; Paidraig Roison, laconic and diffident, struggled to hide his delight beneath the calculatedly casual wave of his right arm; and Simone Clements, standing at the far right, relieved, elated and pumped up with adrenalin, abandoned all attempts at looking sophisticated and experienced, opting instead for an expansive and delighted beam.

The gig had gone exceptionally well.

"Wow!" yelled Don, pumping his fist as they finally, reluctantly, pulled themselves offstage and into the calm of their dressing room, "that was awesome!"

"Whoo," screamed Jim, incapable, in his excitement, of a rational reply.

"Folks," added Marie, "that was the best we've ever done. Ever! Even in rehearsals. Everything was just perfect. Love," she continued, dragging an arm over Simone's shoulder and pulling her into a hug, "you were outstanding. Some of those notes you hit brought me out in goosebumps. I don't know how you do it. And your sustain... Incredible, girl, incredible."

Simone grinned broadly. "I just took my lead from you lot."

"Oh, modesty! We all know Fiddlenose is our star performer." Don leaned over and hugged Simone, kissing her gently on the brow. "Isn't that right Patrick?"

The others glanced quickly at Paidraig. Don knew he hated being called Patrick, and for that reason delighted in saying it at every opportunity. Paidraig, for all his studied laid-back air, fell for Don's bait every time, and the rest of the band waited to see what his reaction would be tonight. This time, though, the good humour of the evening refused to be punctured, and Paidraig waved him off with a rueful grin.

"We need a drink!" he said, heading for the bar in the basement of the Arts Centre, leaping down the stairs two steps at a time.

"I'll drink to that."

"Almost immediately."

"And for a fearsomely long time."

The band trooped downstairs. None of them was over twenty, and they had known each other for years. They were as much a family as a band, close-knit and protective, but subject, like all families, to stresses and tensions. They gathered round a small, oblong table in the corner of the bar, this set of soul brothers and sisters, and Paidraig swept over with a trayful of drinks.

"Cheers!" he yelled, gulping down half of his pint in one. Paidraig Roison was Irish by birth, but had lived in England since he was a baby. This was a source of constant irritation to him, since it denied him the one thing he craved: an authentic Irish accent to go with his sexy Irish name. For a while, a couple of years before, he had affected a Dublin brogue, but was mercilessly ridiculed by the rest of the band and gave it up after a month. His ongoing attempts to mimic the stereotypical, easy-going approach of the Irish were indulged by the rest of the band with good humour; it was only when, as occasionally happened, his forced demeanour spilled over into arrogance that the others felt the need to bring him back to reality.

Don proposed a toast. "To The Jenny Dangs, best band in the world; well the East Midlands of England anyway."

"The Jenny Dangs, best band in the world; well the East Midlands of England anyway," chanted the other four, glasses raised in salute. Don was the eldest - by three days - of the band, and its tacitly accepted leader. He had a precocious musical talent, but lack of ambition had frittered away much of his early promise. As a child he was a gifted violinist and cellist, working his way through the Grade examinations sufficiently easily to offer hope of a professional career in the classical field; but puberty, testosterone, girls and teenage angst intervened, and for a couple of years in his mid-teens he spiralled into a nihilistic, vacant world of glue and lager. Redemption came, in the guise of Simone, one soggy Christmas, when she found him, incapable, senseless and incontinent, in an alley near the street where they both lived. Despite the mismatch in their size she half-dragged, half-carried him to her house, cleaned him up in the bathroom and without her family knowing, let him sleep off his excesses in her bed. She phoned his mother and told her he was stopping over at hers with the rest of the band, and made elaborate attempts to cover up the episode; neither her family, nor Don's, nor any of their friends ever knew that it had happened.

The following day, long, solid and dismal as only December days can be, was a journey of the soul for Don. Without preaching or judging, Simone forced him to face up to himself; with candour and youthful honesty, she presented two paths down which his life could progress. The decision was Don's and she made no attempt to influence him; implicit in her words, though, Don realised, was the fact that of the two paths presented to him, only one would be trodden by Simone herself.

It wasn't easy; it was no overnight conversion, no Damascene moment, but gradually, over the following three or four months, Don realised how far he had drifted from his friends, how insidiously the destructive process of growing up had overtaken his senses, affected his judgement, turned him into something he wasn't. He never returned to the violin, but instead took up the guitar, instantly discovering an easy mastery of it, and with it an emotional centre for his youthful mind.

And though he never mentioned it, he harboured a deep-seated love for Simone. Simone, if she was aware of it, never alluded to it, and Don's love grew over the years, like a single snowdrop on a bare mountainside, hopeful, transforming, yielding little, but developing, blossoming, blooming. From full-on lust in the early years, it grew into a romantic love, spilled over into idolisation, matured and ripened into the most intense admiration and now sat full-square in his heart, like a kernel, an ever present awareness of perfection and beauty which alone was sufficient to nourish his spirit. Almost.

If Don was the leader, the focus of the band, then Simone was its soul. They each saw in her a delight in living, a free-spirited, whole-hearted lust for life; hers was the first voice, the loudest, the firmest, the gentlest, most assured and most understanding; hers was the full-throated laugh, the zestful notions, the gumption to get on and do. Simone breathed life into everything. She was vivacious, warm and friendly, easy with her time and generous with her emotions. Such was her importance to the others that when she went to university each of them fretted that they would lose touch, that she would drift away from them, break up their childhood fraternity. But, a year on, Simone had stayed loyal to her friends and remained the spiritual centre of the group.

She drank from her pint of lager and, fixing Jim with an amused stare, began to tease him. "So Jim, the Bulgarian tune, what time is it in again?" One of the band's speciality numbers was a Bulgarian dance tune in 9/16 time. Jim was an excellent percussionist, with a solemn, intense love of music, but this tune, alone, seemed to fox him. Generally at least once in each rendition he would lose his way momentarily and blushingly have to halt and re-enter the ferment and fury of the tune at the next available opportunity. And so he had this evening, too. Mostly, the band could carry it off as an intentional shift, and nobody minded, but it was too tempting to tease the serious Jim with it.

He started to formulate a reply, but Simone cut him off with a wave. Standing, she delved into her rear pocket and pulled out a note. "My round," she called and headed for the bar.

As she was waiting to be served, arms rested on the damp wooden counter, she felt a tap on the shoulder, and turned round.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt, but do you think we might have a word?"

Simone looked up and saw the peculiar woman who had so annoyed her on two previous occasions. "You again?" she said, stroking her empty glass and biting her lip.

"Yes, me again. I'm really sorry, I think I may have upset you in some way, and if I have I am truly, genuinely sorry. I don't understand what it is I've done, but if I have offended you in any way then I sincerely apologise."

Simone didn't know what to say. The woman seemed genuine. In the instant before she replied her brain calculated and recalculated and recalculated a thousand times. Had she made a mistake? Had she misinterpreted the woman's motives? Had she misunderstood, misread the signals? Or was she toying with her again? And why was she suddenly in her life, there at every turn? What was her game?

"Well, okay," she replied, "I accept your apology."

A look of what could only be described as intense relief waved over the older woman's face, and Simone was taken aback by the naked honesty of the unbidden gesture.

"I'm curious, though. Just one thing. That first time you saw me, you know when I'm talking about, why did you stare at me all night? Don't you know how rude that was?"

"I... well, I... I'm sorry, I didn't realise you had noticed. I had no intention of being rude. Why? Well, it's rather embarrassing really, but I'll tell you." She took a breath. "I couldn't take my eyes off you because I thought you were the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

There was a long silence. Simone looked at the other woman incredulously. The barman intervened, sparing her the need to reply just yet, and Simone placed her order. She continued to stare sightlessly in front of her for some moments.

"Well," she said, finally, "I've heard some rubbish in my time, but that takes some beating. What is your game?"

"I mean it. You seem to doubt me, but it's true. I don't mean any offence; quite the opposite."

Simone fixed her with a penetrating stare. She bit her lip again, seemingly cogitating, analysing, determining a course of action. "Okay," she said, "if you think I'm so beautiful, you can pay for these drinks and come and join us over there. And get yourself one..." With that, she turned on her heel and made her way back to her friends.

Margaret Bellamy smiled and ordered a large, dry white wine. Gathering up the tray of drinks, she headed towards The Jenny Dangs.

On to next story: The Meeting: the narrator's version