Stairway To Success

Chapter Five

Heels hurriedly hit the pavement of South Kensington, under a cool night of May. It was almost eight o'clock, and Freddie was late to the concert.

Being rather excited to see Lily again, Freddie had taken way too much time choosing his most beautiful clothes and taming his black mane. He had no particular reason to be excited that much, especially when he and Lily did not know each other very well yet. It was a bit confusing for him, but it did not matter: he was determined to spend an amazing moment at a concert. When he was finally done preparing himself, the clock announced him the concert would start in no less than twelve minutes.

Therefore, he started a race against time.

Freddie soon found himself out of breath, but he knew he could not stop. When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of the frontage of the Imperial College. The two imposing statues standing by the entrance were getting closer and closer, and when he finally passed by the first one, a tremendous sensation of relief ran through his body. He dashed up the front stairs and paid his ticket at the ridiculously tiny desk behind the doors. The students who sold those tickets showed him the way to the concert hall, and Freddie thanked them.

Loud cheerings were thundering in the huge hall, as a band was appearing on the stage and waving at the audience. One of the two guitar players of the band started to talk in the microphone, introducing the band members, and thanking everybody for coming. Freddie was rather impressed by the amount of people who came to see this local band he had never heard about, and assumed the band aids were great at gathering people.

Freddie took a deep breath, as he moved forward into the thick crowd, apologising whenever he jostled someone or stepped on someone's foot. Every so often, he would stand on tiptoes and try to catch sight of Lily, or even just her hair - but there were so many people he could not even see beyond the two heads before him.

Two minutes passed before he eventually reached the front row. He was on the far left of the stage, and obviously, Lily was not there. He leant forward and looked at the faces of the people at the front row. Then, he saw her.

Lily was leaning on her elbows on the stage, looking up at the musicians with the broadest smile Freddie had ever seen. She was cheering and nodding in approval at everything the band members did. Freddie sneaked between the first and second row until he reached her. When she saw him, she gasped with joy and threw her arms around him. "Here you are, Freddie!" she screamed excitedly. "I thought you wouldn't come!"

"I told you I would," Freddie replied, trying to speak loud enough so she would hear him, "I'm just late, I'm sorry!"

"You arrived at the right moment! They were about to start! Can you see this guy with the short hair, the greyish shirt and the white trousers? The one with the red guitar?"

"Yes, yes I can."

"It's my best friend, Brian. I told you about him! And the guitarist who spoke is Dave Dilloway, by the way. There's the singer, Tim Staffell, the bassist, Jag Garnham, and the drummer, Richard Thompson."