The Devil's Quartet

Arabella Reeves (bass)

‘Don’t tell Matt I smoke?’ I gestured vaguely to Libby as we sat on the steps of her trailer.

‘I don’t think Matty will care to be frank with you.’ She shrugged in her no cares kind of way.

‘No he will, he doesn’t even like it when I drink,’ I shook my head adamantly.

‘Alright ‘Bella say no more, my lips are sealed.’ Libby laughed at me. I could always tell when Libby was laughing at me as opposed to with me.

‘Don’t act superior Libby it’s not a good look on you.’ I exhaled into the starry sky above us and watched as the cloud dispersed.

‘Strong words from the girl who can’t roll her own blunt.’ Her laughter’s intentions had softened.

‘How’s the vocals for tomorrow?’ Whenever I found myself on the losing end of a conversation I changed the topic swiftly away for myself.

‘They’re alright, hopefully I won’t need them much.’ Libby sang back-up and guitar to Matt who was our front man.

Liberty Kennedy was a horror of a human but she was an excellent guitar player. She smoked like a darn chimney and lived off of take-out kebabs but she was still every inch the rockstar. She was over ambitious and arrogant but she was also the only other girl of the group. Libby was the girl your man tells you not to worry about.

‘How are things with Matty anyways?’ I didn’t want to talk about Matt Kelly with anyone, least of all Libby.

‘They’re fine, he’s great.’

‘What’s going on with you and Juice?’

‘What isn’t,’ Libby flipped her cigarette and giggled infuriatingly.

‘Tall, handsome, a man who can really use his hands if you know what I mean.’ She looked at me pointedly when she said this. Juice was Justin Dunne, drummer and resident slag of the group.

‘I’ve had sex before Liberty,’ I snipped back.

Matt and Juice and I had founded the band together during high school or rather, Matt and Juice had formed it and I had been in the room at the time. Matt and I had been high school sweethearts but it hadn’t exactly been my intention to continue it after I graduated but now five years later I was here on the road, dating Matt Kelly, one of the biggest rockstars the world had ever known. In actuality Matt Kelly was not that great at sex.

Libby had come along later, an open-mic singer Matt had brought back to meet the gang after a scouting session. She was phenomenal of course, and so she became back-up vocals and guitar and I became bass. Initially it was intended for the band to just be the four of us. For us small town kids Liberty was exotic, from her name to her clothes; exotic and scandalous. She wore skirts the size of belts and drank tequila from a hip-flask, in comparison to myself she seemed to be everything a star should be.

Stars, that’s what we were to the world. Burning balls of gas and fire to be witnessed with awe and expected to burn out.

‘Arabella?’ Oh, of course, I had company.

‘Mhm?’ I said, clearing my throat and stubbing the cigarette out on the step beneath me.

‘I asked if you wanted a cherry soda, I’m going to get one?’

‘Yeah, that would be good Libby.’

Liberty Kelly (vocalist and guitar)

I meandered away towards the main trailer and the fridge. At least fifty percent of the time it felt like Bella wasn’t listening to bleeding anything I was saying. Arguably I could predict when Bella was going to turn her ears off, predominantly when someone blonde, young, or male started talking. Unfortunately for me I was two of those things. She never bloody said please or thank you either, and she called me the skank; only behind my back of course but I knew.

Since I joined the band I’d struggled to fit into the original trio’s dynamic. They had all known each other for so long and were a good three years older than me. I had long learned to over compensated for that. I knew how to carry myself in a city the first time we’d played a gig in a central bar and I wore more out-there clothing than Bella did. Initially, I only did it to garner some wow factor of my own beyond my lack of history of lyrical genius but once I found out it brought with it a newfound respect I kept upping the anti.

With this new respect came another blessing, although I wasn’t a religious gal like the rest of them. That blessing’s name was Keir Barrett and he was a keyboard player he took two very important roles from me: newbie and baby of the group if only by two months. In this vacuum of space where I reconstructed my role in the band I began sleeping on and off with Juice and that solidified my place in the original gang.

Juice was the very definition of lover boy, he would sit me on his lap in bars and light my cigarettes for me. He was perfectly arrogant and with this came confidence which infected everyone around him. Charisma oozed out of him like wine and his face was one that girls would cover in lipstick on posters on their walls. He would also ignore me for weeks on end if he found someone more interesting at a show but that barely bothered me. After all, they might have his attention for that period but he would eventually always come back to me.

I reached the trailer and pushed the door open to a relative hotbox of smoke and deodorant. My eyes stung as I pushed my way inside and over to the table where the three boys were sitting in a stupor.

‘Hey just getting some soda for Bell and I,’ I tried to edge my way round the corners of the room but Juice reached out with one arm pulling me in and gave me a big kiss.

‘Hey there baby,’ once he locks onto you its practically impossible to get away.

I glanced down at the table and realised the cause of the jovial mood.

‘Are you lot doing cocaine before a show?!’

‘Chill there baby girl it’ll wear off before the curtain goes up.’ Juice scraped me another line and handed me a dollar bill.

‘Relaaaaxxx.’

‘I don’t think that’s a great idea for my guitar abilities.’

‘Come onnn Libs don’t be a bore,’ Matty rolled his eyes at me from the other side of the table. He was looking at my boobs not my face. I ignored it, I wouldn’t grass to Bella over something so minor.

I briefly acknowledged the truth in my brain that if this was Bella they wouldn’t be doing this and then I inhaled.

Justin ‘Juice’ Dunne (drummer)

My older sister was to blame really. What two year old couldn’t say Justin? No rockstar sex symbol drummer was called Juice. I decided this was why Matt got all the fangirls as I sat there with Libby on my lap. She didn’t count, she wasn’t a groupie or a fan she was just there, if I was bored she was convenient and she did have an amazing body. Not that she wasn’t a fun person, she was, she was just too present some of the time. At least she didn’t ask to go on picnics or to watch fireflies.

She said something to me just then which I didn’t catch and got up to walk away, maybe I should have followed her but I didn’t.

‘Dude she is so god damn fine,’ Matt rubbed his eyes and stared after her. ‘You are one lucky fucker you know that.’

‘Don’t go shouting about it,’ I said with a smirk. ‘Bella will get that look on her face like she’s eaten lemons.’

‘Oi oi Bell’s great don’t go talking shite Juice.’ Matt frowned at me and I held up my hands in defeat.

‘I’m just saying mate if she’s all that why don’t you marry her.’ I raised my eyebrows at him in smug satisfaction, check mate or whatever the nerds say.

‘Woah who said anything about marrying her,’ Matt waved his hands frantically.

‘You’ve been together nearly ten years bro that’s probably what she’s expecting,’ Keir chimed in.

‘Shut up Barrett you know fuck all.’ Matt’s frustration was evident on his face and I could see I’d overstepped the line.

Occasionally I felt bad for Bella, at least Libs knew we were casual, then again she couldn’t do better than Matt so what was the harm. Well, I was better than Matt, but her good girl act was not my type.

‘Look, Bell is special okay she gets me and she’s clean. You know unlike the player here I don’t want to get chlamydia on the road.’ When Matt got annoyed he got annoyed and it was sometimes even intimidating for me despite having a good four inches on him - I'll let you decide how. Matt held our and the band’s fate in his hands and he did so like to prove it.

‘Dude she like one hundred percent does edibles behind your back or something. There’s no way she’s that uptight.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Keir cringe but I shrugged it off. Keir always thought I’d spoken out of place but ninety percent of the time I was just telling the truth and everyone needs to hear that once in a while.

Matt stood up and slammed his hands down on the table.

‘Fuck you Juice I swear to god just because you fuck whores doesn’t mean you’re anything special.’

Sometimes it was a little too easy to push his buttons, especially high. I watched as he stormed out of the trailer slamming the door so hard behind him that the whole place shook. My freshly evened out line was immediately uneven again and it made me want to scream internally.

Keir looked at me with a twisted facial expression between laughter and disapproval.

‘Always have to put your foot in it don’t you.’

Matt Kelly (front man and vocalist)

You can have the best friend in the world and they can still do your nut in sometimes. I felt like throttling Juice at least bi-weekly but he was still alive. Vaguely I remembered that Libs had come in to get a cherry soda for Bell, after the cocaine I highly doubt she remembered to do that and I could take advantage of that. I grabbed two out the fridge and headed out to find Arabella.

She was sitting on the steps of the trailer she shared with Libs staring at the sky.

‘Writing a song?’ I sat down beside her and held out the beverage. ‘Intuition told me you might be needing one of these to fuel that lyricist brain of yours.’

She smiled at me and I felt grounded for a second despite the flighty sensation brought about by the coke.

‘Wow you physic now?’ she laughed and that sound in itself was musical to my brain. Why hadn’t I realised how drop-dead beautiful she was until now? Had she always looked like this?

‘Just a really good guess,’ I sat down beside her and looked at the ground, for the first time noticing the cigarette butts littering the grass. ‘Who’s are those?’ I looked at her frowning but of course she had a calm and reasonable explanation.

‘Oh Libby was smoking, sorry about that.’ She was so reliable, so elegant, perfect in every way.

‘Are you looking forward to tonight?’ She got nervous so easily, I loved that about her.

‘A little, but we always put on a show,’ she was staring up into the sky and I nodded in response.

‘I’m off to do a sound check but I’ll come back before we get started to check on you.’ I got up off the floor and wandered away towards the back of the stage. The world was spinning around me as I walked and I blinked to clear my head. I needed a glass of water – I’d ask for one when I got in there.

Through the curtain I could already hear the distant sound of the crowd gathering. They were closer than they sounded, jostling at the barriers and the doors. The whole hall would be bursting at the seams in thirty minutes when we got started. I checked my watch - fifteen minutes when we got started. The stage was shaking beneath my feet and I propped myself up on my guitar for a second before straightening up and beckoning over the backstage staff waiting at hand.

‘Can you let the band know we’re ready to get started?’ I smiled as best I could, ‘and could I have a glass of water?’

Like the instruments of a finely tuned machine the crew moved around me like water, equipment was brought onstage and someone faceless handed me a can of beer. I turned to re-request water but they were already gone, so I downed it in a few forced gulps and turned to face the now assembled members of the band.

Keir Barret (keyboard)

Matt didn’t look good, pale as a sheet with a fine sheen of sweat on his face. His fingers were tapping unrhythmically on the edge of his guitar.

‘Alright mate?’ I put my hand on his shoulder – he had sweated through his shirt and it clung to my palm.

‘Ye bro, fine.’ His eyes focused in on me properly suddenly.

Justin waved his hand in front of Matt’s face before laughing jovially. ‘He’ll remember where he is when he see’s who’s in the front row.’

‘Who’s in the front row?’ asked Arabella quietly.

‘Who knows,’ Justin shrugged off the question, ‘but that’s the fun ay?’ He glanced at me for back-up but I clearly wasn’t performing my role because he squinted at me.

‘Your lips are blue,’ he said in his observational manner.

‘You look green,’ I said dryly and walked up the steps onto the stage to sit behind my keyboard.

‘Ay, Keir, give us a hand,’ Matt shouted after me and I glanced at the group below me each with one arm extended, hands in a circle, knuckles touching.

‘Let’s just play a good show,’ I smiled slightly.

‘Hell yea,’ Justin cheered and Arabella winced slightly.

‘Alright, let’s go out there and show them what we’ve got,’ Matt had a wild grin on his face. Justin was right, his eyes had their colour back in them.

Arabella nodded silently.

The sound of the crowd swelled, the noise behind the curtain now so loud that a lightbulb on the stage shattered into momentarily sparkling dust before dimming.

‘Let’s go, Devil’s Quartet’ Libby grinned, she was shaking in anticipation.

The five of us climbed the stage to a crescendo of applause.