Chapter Text
“Noelle,” Maggie says, out of breath like she’d ran all the way over to the bar where Noelle is sat, nursing a gin and tonic. “Noelle, listen. I just saw your father. Here, in the lobby.”
“Fuck off,” Noelle laughs, but Maggie isn’t smiling at all. She’s looking at Noelle in a careful kind of way, the way she figures a doctor would look at someone while telling them they only had two weeks to live or summat terrible like that. “He’s too fucking skint for a night here.”
“I heard The Sun is paying for his stay here tonight,” she says, speaking quietly and urgently, as if the man is around the corner, which Noelle supposes he is. “I’ve already asked to have him removed, but they won’t throw out a paying customer that hasn’t technically done anything wrong. I can try and find you both a different hotel, but at such late notice-”
“Where is he?” Noelle interrupts, turning in her seat to face Maggie, and that’s when she knows it’s real, ‘cos even she looks shaken up.
Maggie tilts her head in the direction of the lobby, and Noelle isn’t quite sure what she’s expecting to see, but it definitely weren’t him, sat at a table in the lobby area with a pretty bird, showing off old photos. It sends a wave of nausea through her gut to see him again, to see her features on a man that she so hates. They’re not anywhere close to the bar yet, but she can recognize his brows, his lips, his nose from a hundred feet away.
“Fuck me,” Noelle says, taking a long pull from her cigarette. “Look, don’t tell Willa, I-I’ll handle it tomorrow.”
Maggie gives Noelle a look. She doesn’t try to get in between the sister’s business, but these days, their business often gets tied up in the band, or maybe it’s the other way around. Regardless, Maggie has to get between them more and more frequently these days. “Right. But you will tell her?”
“Sure, sure,” Noelle says, smiling into her glass as she finishes off her drink and gestures for another. “I’ll tell her when she isn’t fucking pissed.”
“What is it?” Willa seems to appear out of thin air, suddenly pushing her way between Maggie and Noelle. “Tell me what?” she demands, scowling down at Noelle.
Noelle says nothing, ‘cos what is there to say? That the so called press bought their father a hotel room that he wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise, just to create the scene that is unfolding on them now?
“Noelle.” Willa turns on her, and though she can smell the booze on her, her gaze is frighteningly sober, so much so that she almost wants to let her in.
“Owt to do with you,” Noelle says instead, turning back to Maggie, hoping that will be enough to shut Willa up, even though she should know better by now. “Just go up to your room.”
“You’re here talking with Maggie, our fucking tour manager, and I’m on fucking tour, aren’t I? so whatever you have to say to her you can say to me, yeah? Because you wouldn’t fucking be here without me. Don’t fucking tell me to go to my room like I’m some fucking kid.”
“Noelle,” Maggie murmurs, giving her a look.
“Fine. Da’s here,” Noelle says nonchalantly, like those words didn’t send chills down her spine two minutes ago, like they won’t send chills down Willa’s spine. “Right over there, like.”
“Fuck d’you mean, da’s here,” Willa says dismissively, glancing between Noelle and Maggie.
“We’re trying to get them thrown out,” Maggie says patiently, explaining the situation to Willa as if she were a child, which is really the only way you can talk to Willa on the best of days anyway. “It’s a bit difficult, we were told they’ve reserved a room here and that they haven’t done anything against their policy.”
“Fuck that!” Willa shouts, her blue eyes blazing with a cold light. “I’ll throw them both out meself, won’t I, I’ll break his fucking legs. If he wants to come back in, he’ll have to crawl in on his fucking elbows in the fucking dirt, the fucking cunt.”
“You fucking won’t,” Noelle butts in, gripping Willa’s arm, pulling her close. They’re nose to nose, and Willa stinks like the whole fucking bar, so much so it makes her stomach turn. “You’ll do as I fucking say.”
This is why no one ever tells you owt, Noelle thinks, glaring at her sister, piss drunk and furious, a raging bull in a china shop, ready to destroy everything Noelle has built for them.
“Like fucking hell I won’t.” Willa says, writhing away from Noelle’s grip. “The fucking cunt, thinking that he can come here, come to our fucking show, our fucking hotel, right, like nothing happened, like he didn’t beat you, like he didn’t-”
Noelle grips her sister’s arm again, hard enough that she stops speaking, which is all that Noelle wants. “Shut the fuck up,” she growls, nails digging into Willa’s perfectly soft skin. “Just shut the fuck up for one bloody second. Yeah, I fucking know what he did to me,” Noelle spits, glaring at Willa. “And he’s fucking lucky he only did it to me, right, because he’d be fucking dead if he laid hands on the fucking star of the stage, wouldn’t he? Some geezer would have had him with a knife a year ago.”
Maggie’s faded to the background, though she’s got to be paying attention still, right, waiting to pull the sisters apart if she’s got to, which would be just as bad, ‘cos the thickest person out on the street could connect the dots between Tommy showing up and the Oasis sisters getting into another catfight.
“I was there too, ey?” Willa insists too loudly, eyes trained on Noelle, though Noelle can’t look away from the crescent shaped marks on her sisters arm, punctuated by tiny drops of blood. “Hear me, Noelly? I was fucking there too.”
Rage courses through Noelle, and it takes every bit of restraint and then some not to give Willa a smack on the mouth. Of course Willa would remember some of it; he’d tear Noelle out of bed in the middle of the night just to smack her around. But the idea of Willa watching from the staircase, watching as her father knocked her to the floor just to climb on top of her, Willa wasn’t meant to know that. No one was meant to know that, ‘cos that were hers alone, weren’t it?
Willa wrenches away from her grasp, giving her bleeding arm a glance, eyes trained on Noelle, silently begging to be acknowledged, ‘cos if she doesn’t have Noelle’s attention for two fucking seconds, it would be the end of the fucking world or summat. She feels like she’s going to hurl, and probably looks it, the way that Maggie is suddenly back in the fold, a light hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to speak to the staff again, alright? You two stay right here, I’ll get him out, I’ll get it sorted.”
Noelle nods, but Willa’s escaped from their entourage, the little gobshite, off to terrorize the polite upper class with her drunken ramblings.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” Noelle can hear her sister wailing from the other end of the room. “You fucking cunt! I’ll break your legs!”
Noelle can’t hear what her da says, but it only sets Willa off the edge, if she was ever, in her twenty-three years, ever on it in the first place.
So much for the bodyguards they pay out the ass for while they’re on tour, or fucking Patrick, who can’t be bothered to keep half an eye out for his fucking fiancée. It’s always something for her to clean up, always something that needs her attention. Before Maggie can say anything, she leaps up from her seat at the bar, and runs to the lobby, until she’s right next to Willa and her entourage of bodyguards.
She doesn’t look at her da, but she can feel his eyes on her. It takes everything in her not to falter, even though her heart is pounding out of her chest, like she’d done one line too many. “Willa. Come on. Come with me.”
“No,” Willa says, eyes fixed on their father, the arms of bodyguards all reaching towards her, but none grabbing her to drag her out.
Noelle grabs her shoulder, pulling her back as best she can, doing what those wankers are too scared to do. “Willa,” she growls, trying to pull her back away from the table,
“I’m not fucking coming with you!” Willa shouts, glaring past Noelle at their da. Noelle doesn’t need to look at the old bastard to know the sneer on his face, silently goading Willa on to put on a show for everyone at the bar, knowing full well there are cameras poised to catch the spat just in time for it to be plastered on the front page of The Sun come Monday morning.
“Come with me, right now,” Noelle repeats, growing desperate, ‘cos the longer she spends time in the vicinity of her da, the more the memory of his hands around her neck feel like the real thing, and her head is already spinning. “Willa. Willa, please.”
Miraculously, Willa listens this time, looking at Noelle like she’s the only person in the room. Willa’s acquiescence is so sudden, it feels like the thread, or whatever it is that holds them together has finally snapped.
But Willa is going with her, willingly enough, and Noelle doesn’t let go of Willa until they’re back in her room, tucked away from the rest of the world, at least for the rest of the night.
It’s late; past midnight, but once they get back to her hotel room Noelle puts her sunglasses on anyway, just to stare straight at the sterile hotel wall, every muscle in her body wound tight. Willa sits on the edge of the bed, muttering incoherently to herself, her body vibrating like a fucking live wire.
“Stop that,” Noelle says, but there’s no real bite to her words. “Shaking the whole bloody bed, you are.”
Willa doesn’t turn to look, but she does stop, and Noelle wishes she hadn’t, because the stillness and silence of the room is going to drive her completely fucking mad.
“It’s alright kidda,” Noelle says automatically, trying to fill the silence, watching her at the foot of the bed. “It’s going to be alright.”
Willa turns and moves closer, her baby blue eyes filled with tears as she stares pleadingly at Noelle. “’s not,” she mutters.
“Course it is,” Noelle scoffs, uneasy at how clearly Willa can see her. The shades are meant to block the world out, so how is it that Willa can see her exactly for what she is when she herself doesn't even know? “We’re millionaires and he’s practically on the dole, ain’t he?”
It’s some sort of sick joke, the same sort that the universe has been playing her whole life. Her da living on the dole, the same one that she pays for with all her taxes or summat.
“He can’t just come ‘round when he pleases, right, just for a laugh.”
“He weren’t having a laugh,” Noelle says, barely holding back a bitter smile. ‘Cos really, weren’t that what he’d done their whole lives? Coming ‘round whenever he pleased, just for a laugh?
“He were,” Willa protests, a fresh wave of tears spilling. “He were having a laugh at it all. The concert, you, me, us. I saw him, it’s why I jumped him, d’ya know what I mean?”
Noelle doesn’t say anything, because she knows exactly what Willa means. If their da wanted to reconcile, he would have done it ages ago, or he wouldn’t have knocked them about in the first place, or he at least would have sent them the fifty pound a month that the judge said he owed his kids.
“D’you know what he said to me? When I saw him?”
Noelle sighs. She doesn’t want to hear it, really, but she has a feeling Willa is going to tell her anyway. “No. I weren’t there, you know that.”
“D’you know what he said to me?” Willa repeats, sniffling. “’e said to me, I won’t fight you, but I’ll give you a kiss.”
Noelle’s fist tightens instinctively, and it feels like she’s been punched in the gut. She can see his grin, can hear his callous tone, and without trying, can imagine his reaction to their night at Loch Lomond the week before, which is probably what made him say that to Willa, even though she weren’t the one who stuck it to her, so to speak.
“It’s why I had to go after him,” Willa explains, staring at Noelle. "I weren't actually going to have a go at him, but someone had to say summat to him. It's not fucking right."
There ought to be a law, Noelle thinks, ever the cynic, but she says nothing. Her heart is beating out of her chest again, and her face feels funny, like burning tiny needles are pricking her skin.
Willa crawls forward, draping herself across Noelle’s lap. “‘m sorry, Noelly,” she mumbles.
“’s alright kidda,” Noelle replies, absentmindedly stroking Willa’s hair. “Not your fault. He’s a cunt.” Words are just tumbling out of her mouth now, and she hopes Willa can figure out what she's really trying to say, the way she was able to when she was little.
“Are you angry with me?”
Noelle sighs. “No.” And she’s not, because seeing her da in the flesh again has made her feel so small again, so small that she hardly has any space to feel anything else. Her body buzzes with something, but she isn’t even sure of what, or who it’s directed at.
Willa frowns. “Take off your shades,” she says as she reaches for Noelle’s face, determined as ever.
Noelle dodges her sister’s grasp. “What for?”
“Can’t see your eyes. I can’t tell if you’re angry or not.”
Noelle stills, and Willa reaches again, taking her sunglasses off with the clumsiness of a baby. It’s a lot easier to give in, sometimes, and especially on a night like this, when she doesn’t quite know how she feels herself.
Willa stares into her eyes, straight through to her soul. It’s what freaks Noelle out in the first place, right, because Willa can see right through it all, straight to her soul, and it’s unnerving at the best of times.
“So?” Noelle asks after an unblinking eternity.
Willa snaps out of her trance “What?”
Noelle smiles softly. “What d’ya think, kidda? Still angry?”
Willa smiles, leaning in to press a kiss to Noelle’s lips. “Nah,” she says, cupping Noelle’s face.
Noelle cracks a smile and peppers kisses down Willa’s tear-stained cheeks, moving down to her lips. They go like that for a while, until Noelle’s jaw aches, until she can’t right tell where she ends and where Willa begins.
Noelle is the one to break away, shedding her jacket and shirt and keks for the soft plush robe that belongs to the hotel, before sliding into bed with Willa, who’s already sleeping, because she could fall asleep anytime, anywhere, so long as Noelle is near.
Tomorrow, she’ll give a statement to an interviewer, who no doubt by now would have heard of poor Tommy Gallagher, stood up by his two superstar daughters, when all he wanted to do was reconcile. She’ll wear her sunglasses so they can’t see her eyes darting around the room, and she’ll smirk, and say something right smart about how nice it was when their da wasn’t around and leave out the details of the times he was around and then they’ll get back to the music, which is all that Noelle ever really wants to talk about to begin with.
But tonight, she’s with Willa, holding her close in bed, safely cocooned from the rest of the world, just the same as it was some odd fifteen years ago in their tiny room in Manchester.