Page 151 - The Midnight Library

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Fame

She was sweating. at was the first obser vation. Her body was coursing

with adrenaline and her clothes were clinging to her. ere were people
around her, a couple of whom had guitars. She could hear noise. Vast,
powerful human noise – a roar of life slowly finding rhythm and shape.
Becoming a chant.
ere was a woman in front of her, towelling her face.

‘ anks,’ Nora said, smiling.
e woman looked startled, as if she’d just been spoken to by a god.
She recognised a man holding drumsticks. It was Ravi. His hair was dyed

white-blonde and he was dressed in a sharp-cut indigo suit with a bare chest
where his shirt should have been. He looked an entirely different person to
the one who had been looking at the music magazines in the newsagent’s in
Bedford only yesterday, or the corporate-looking guy in the blue shirt who
had sat watching her do her catastrophic talk in the InterContinental Hotel.

‘Ravi,’ she said, ‘you look amazing!’
‘What?’
He hadn’t heard her over the noise, but now she had a different question.

‘Where is Joe?’ she asked, almost as a shout.
Ravi looked momentarily confused, or scared, and Nora braced herself for
some terrible truth. But none came.
‘ e usual, I reckon. Schmoozing it up with the foreign press.’
Nora had no idea what was going on. He seemed to be still part of the

band, but also not in the band enough to be performing on stage with them.
And if he wasn’t in the band, then whatever had caused him to leave the
band hadn’t caused him to disappear completely. From what Ravi said, and