Lime Street Blues by Maureen Lee

remarkable young man, Rita found herself very much in demand, particularly by girls. They linked her arm in the playground and questioned her about her brother. What sort of food did he like? What was his favourite colour? Had he already got a girlfriend? Did he prefer blondes, brunettes, or redheads? Rita answered the questions as best as she could, wondering why they wanted such useless information.
    At going home time, a few girls often waited with her for the coach to Ailsham. They didn’t get on, but it gave them a reason for being in the vicinity of Sean McDowd, that is if he’d condescended to grace school with his presence that day. They talked to Rita in loud voices, hoping Sean would notice and give them one of his rare smiles. But Sean was as indifferent to the girls as he was to homework or anything else to do with school.
    In Rita’s second term, she wasn’t the only one who was surprised to find there was a subject in which her brother professed an interest.
    Philip Wallace was a new school, built only four years ago. So far, it wasn’t particularly well thought of. No one went out of their way to send their children there, and the Headmaster, Mr Catchpole, was always looking for ways in which his establishment could acquire a good reputation.
    At assembly one morning, he announced his intention of starting a school orchestra, presuming there were sufficient pupils who could play instruments. Anyone interested should give their name to their class teacher.
    There would be auditions during the dinner hour on Friday.
    Before commencing the first lesson, the teacher asked for names and, as she said later in the staff room, ‘I nearly died when Sean McDowd put up his hand. Apparently, he can play the drums.’
    Sean had never been near a drum kit in his life, but he knew there was one behind the stage in Ailsham Women’s Institute Hall, where concerts and dances were sometimes held.
    On the way home, instead of getting off in Holly Lane, he waited until the coach reached the village, then made his way to the hall, which was in between the Oak Tree where his mother worked at night and the school where she worked by day. It was January and pitch dark. No one noticed the tall, slight figure slope to the rear of the building.
    He entered by simply breaking a window in the gents’ toilet, leaving it open for a quick escape when someone came, which they inevitably would after a time. At first, people might not take much notice, but as soon as a member of the Women’s Institute heard the noise he was about to make and realised the sound was coming from their hall, they’d be there like a shot.
    The kit was full of dust, which didn’t matter, but there were no sticks. Sean cursed and searched for something, anything, that would do in their place. He found a small Union Jack on a thin pole, ripped off the flag, and broke the pole into two over his knee. Better than nothing.
    He sat on a stool behind the array of drums, took a deep breath, and lightly eased his foot down on the bass pedal, then tapped the snare and the tom toms, flicked the cymbals, assessing their individual sounds. Although he’d never touched a set of drums, Sean had played themhundreds of times before inside his head. He smiled in a way no one, not even his mother, had ever witnessed, a slow, dreamy, rapturous smile. At last he was making music.
    Sean had never revealed to a soul that he had his own personal wireless lodged in his brain. He switched it on and off at will. Entire orchestras played just for Sean McDowd. Violins soared, drums thundered, fingers flew over the keys of a grand piano. The sound was magnificent, soul-shattering, triumphant.
    This wasn’t all that Sean listened to while he travelled on the bus to school, sat in class as a teacher’s voice intruded irritatingly in the background, lay in bed at night, wanting to sleep, but unable to resist the Ceilidh band thumping out a jaunty jig or a woman singing a haunting Irish