Chapter 3: Backstage Conversations

  For nearly an hour, Jim had battled through the densely packed bodies toward the mysterious woman. Each time he carved out a path, the crowd would surge and shift, swallowing his progress. The band tore through their opening set—"A Kind of Magic," "Seven Seas of Rhye," "Hammer to Fall"—while Jim found himself dividing his attention between monitoring the sound levels and stealing glances to track her position in the crowd.

  When Freddie announced they'd take a brief intermission, Jim seized his opportunity. She'd been hovering near the bar—he'd find her there. He needed to understand why looking at her felt like staring at a photograph he'd studied a hundred times before.

  But first, the band.

  Jim reached the backstage area just as the four musicians squeezed through the narrow doorway. In the harsh fluorescent light, sweat glistened on their skin, their breathing heavy in the cramped space that reeked of decades of spilled beer and cigarettes.

  "Christ," Roger gasped, dropping onto a wooden chair that groaned beneath him. "It's like performing in a bloody sauna filled with cigarette smoke."

  He snatched a plastic cup from the folding table, filled it with beer from a pitcher, and drained half in one gulp. Jim watched him grimace slightly at the taste—neither properly cold nor warm, but that specific lukewarm temperature that collected on the sides of the cup in tepid condensation. Jim had tried it earlier and found it tasted of aluminum and disappointment.

  Freddie paced the confined space—five steps before having to turn back—his fingers drumming against his thigh. Unlike Roger, he seemed charged rather than depleted. He tugged at his sweat-darkened tank top, the fabric clinging to his chest.

  "The front row is positively feral tonight," he said, eyes gleaming. "That redhead looked ready to climb onto the stage and devour me whole. Not that I would necessarily object, mind you."

  "You might not. The rest of us would have to watch," Brian said, settling onto the edge of a worn velvet couch. What had once been burgundy had faded to the color of dried blood where fabric hadn't worn completely through to expose the yellowed padding beneath.

  Brian cradled his Red Special with the gentleness of a parent, producing a small cloth from his pocket to wipe down the neck. His fingers moved methodically while his ear tilted toward the strings, catching nuances of tone that would escape anyone else. Humidity had tightened his curls, forming compact spirals around his focused expression.

  John said nothing. He propped his bass against the wall and retreated to a corner, retrieving a thermos that had somehow remained undisturbed. The cap came off with a soft hiss of trapped steam. The subtle scent of Earl Grey cut briefly through the murkier odors of the room before disappearing.

  The air grew thick with competing smells—fresh sweat cooling on skin, ancient cigarette smoke releasing from the furniture, yeasty beer, and several brands of cologne now amplified by body heat. The walls seemed to exhale dampness, adding an underlying mustiness that made Jim think of forgotten underground stations.

  Through the thin plywood walls came the dull roar of the audience—a constant reminder that this moment of reprieve was temporary. Occasional shouts punctuated the general rumble, words indistinguishable but the energy unmistakable.

  Brian tilted his head, listening. "The mid-range acoustics are remarkable in here. When the crowd hits certain frequencies, there's almost a cathedral-like resonance."

  "Yes, well, remarkable or not, where's my throat spray?" Freddie asked, eyes scanning the cluttered surfaces. "Miami, darling, did that Terry creature hide it among his many treasures?"

  Jim withdrew a small bottle from his inside pocket and handed it over. "I've learned to keep the essentials on me in places like this. Things have a habit of wandering off otherwise."

  "What would we do without you?" Freddie administered two precise spritzes to his throat.

  "Likely be playing in car parks for loose change," Jim replied. "Or serving time for whatever contractual violation Roger would inevitably trigger."

  "Oi!" Roger protested through a foam mustache. "I only threaten legal action. Rarely follow through."

  "It's the 'rarely' that worries legal departments," Jim said. "Now, about the second set. Brian, you mentioned trying 'Who Wants to Live Forever' tonight?"

  Brian nodded, fingers still working the guitar strings. "I've rearranged it for this space. I'll use that ancient keyboard they've got. No orchestra here, but the stripped-down version might actually hit harder."

  "I'll need to adjust my approach," Freddie said, his expression shifting to something more serious. "Without all the orchestration, we'll need to build it differently."

  "John and I can handle that," Roger said, eyes narrowing in concentration. "We'll create the tension through the rhythm section."

  "Twenty minutes," Jim said, checking his watch. "I'll make sure they turn down that dreadful tape. Sounds like it's been dubbed so many times it's ninety percent hiss."

  Jim slipped back into the venue, immediately scanning for the woman in the leather jacket. Bodies pressed against him from all sides, the combined heat of hundreds of people making the air thick and hard to breathe. He worked his way toward the sound desk, sliding through gaps that seemed too narrow for even his slender frame.

  No sign of her near the stage. He changed direction toward the bar, where people three-deep shouted for Terry's attention. He scanned methodically, searching for those distinctive features that had locked onto his earlier.

  There—at the far end. She stood with a glass of what looked like water, observing the room with that same measured calm. Unlike those around her who jostled and shouted, she remained perfectly still, as if operating at a different tempo from the rest of the world.

  Jim navigated through the crush, his "excuse me's" lost in the general din. As he approached, he caught himself straightening his tie—a gesture that felt oddly formal in this setting of denim and leather.

  She spotted him before he reached her, those observant eyes tracking his approach. That slight smile returned—not overly familiar, not unwelcoming, but knowing. The silver crown pendant at her throat caught the light as she turned toward him.

  "I wondered if you'd make it over here before they returned," she said when he drew close enough to hear. Her voice carried effortlessly despite the surrounding noise. "Jim Beach, isn't it? Though they call you Miami."

  A chill ran across his shoulders. He hadn't introduced himself.

  "You have me at a disadvantage," he managed, keeping his face neutral despite the prickling sensation at the back of his neck.

  "Claudia," she said, extending her hand. Her grip was firm, skin warm and dry against his. The silver crown at her throat gleamed as she moved.

  "You seem familiar with the band," Jim said, watching her carefully. "Industry connection?"

  She laughed—a genuine sound but somehow contained, as if carefully modulated. "Not exactly. Let's say I have a professional interest in their performances. You've managed them for nine years now?"

  Jim felt his guard rise further. "Thereabouts. Not common knowledge."

  "I make it my business to know about things that interest me," Claudia sipped her water. "They're special, aren't they? The chemistry between them creates something larger than its parts."

  "An apt description," Jim agreed, studying her more carefully. Her clothing was contemporary but somehow difficult to categorize—quality materials without obvious designer signatures. "Have we met before? You seem remarkably familiar."

  Something flickered in her eyes—surprise, perhaps, or calculation. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced. But I've seen several performances. Perhaps backstage somewhere?"

  "Perhaps," Jim said, not believing it for a moment. He would have remembered her—the certainty of this struck him with unexpected force.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "They're about to play 'Who Wants to Live Forever,' aren't they?" she asked, glancing toward the stage where a keyboard was being hastily positioned.

  Jim felt his eyebrows rise before he could control his reaction. The setlist wasn't public. They'd only decided on that addition hours ago.

  "Brian's been reworking the arrangement," he confirmed, watching her closely. "Quite different from the album version."

  Claudia nodded. "That's what makes live music irreplaceable, isn't it? How it exists only in that specific moment, never to be repeated exactly the same way." She looked directly into his eyes. "There's something almost transcendent about it—how music can stretch time, make certain moments feel eternal."

  Her words struck Jim as oddly profound given their surroundings. Before he could respond, the house music faded and the crowd's attention shifted stageward. The band was returning.

  "I should get back," Jim said, strangely reluctant to end the conversation.

  "Of course." Claudia smiled. "Perhaps we can continue after the second set?"

  "I'd like that," Jim replied, surprised by how much he meant it.

  As he worked his way back toward the stage, he turned her words over in his mind. How had she known about the setlist change? And why did her observations about music and time resonate so deeply?

  More importantly, why did speaking with her feel like resuming a conversation rather than starting one?

  Jim reached his vantage point as the band took their positions. Freddie seemed even more focused now, his connection with the crowd almost palpable. He'd changed into a fresh tank top, though in the Marquee's sweltering heat, dark patches already appeared under his arms.

  "We're going to slow things down a bit," Freddie announced after two more up-tempo numbers. "This is something rather special, something we don't often perform in settings this intimate."

  Brian moved to the keyboard positioned at stage left—a battered Yamaha with several keys slightly yellowed from age. His fingers hovered momentarily before descending.

  The opening notes of "Who Wants to Live Forever" filled the club, stark and haunting without orchestral backing. The crowd, which had been a churning mass of movement, stilled perceptibly. Even the determined drinkers at the bar turned to watch.

  Brian played the extended introduction, crafting delicate patterns of sound that seemed impossibly refined for such a basic instrument in such a raw space. After establishing the foundation, he nodded to John, who entered with a bass line that felt more like a heartbeat than a musical phrase—simple, essential, inevitable.

  Roger joined with uncharacteristic restraint, his drumming so gentle it seemed to come from someone else entirely. His cymbal work created a shimmering backdrop that somehow expanded the perceived dimensions of the tiny club.

  Brian leaned toward the microphone positioned near the keyboard.

  "There's no time for us..." His voice carried a gentle melancholy, setting the emotional foundation of the song with quiet restraint. Stripped of production and orchestration, the song's vulnerability lay exposed in the raw space.

  The audience remained utterly silent. Jim swept his gaze across the room, taking in the rare spectacle of several hundred rock fans in perfect stillness. His eyes found Claudia near the bar, her expression thoughtful as she watched the stage.

  As the first verse concluded, Freddie stepped forward to take over. "There's no chance for us..." His voice erupted with newfound power, filling the small club with soaring emotion as the song built toward its chorus. Jim watched as Freddie closed his eyes, approaching the emotional peak. "Who wants to live forever? Who wants to live forever? Who—"

  He stopped. For a fragment of a second—barely noticeable to anyone who didn't know him well. A flash of blank confusion crossed Freddie's face, as if the words had simply evaporated from his memory.

  But almost immediately, he recovered, sliding seamlessly back into the melody: "—dares to love forever, when love must die?"

  Jim frowned. Freddie never forgot lyrics. Not on any song, but especially not one this emotionally significant. In nearly a decade of working with him, Jim had seen Freddie improvise, embellish, and deliberately change lyrics for effect—but never a genuine memory lapse.

  Brian had noticed too. His eyes opened briefly, concern flickering across his features before his professional discipline reasserted itself. The musical backing never faltered.

  The song continued, building toward its crescendo with Freddie's voice soaring above the instrumentation. By the final refrain, the audience stood transfixed, many visibly moved.

  As the last notes faded, a beat of perfect silence hung in the air—that rare, magical moment when hundreds of people collectively hold their breath. Then the applause crashed in, a physical wave of sound that seemed to make the ceiling tiles vibrate.

  Jim watched Freddie carefully, but saw no further signs of confusion. He had already shifted into his next performance mode, engaging the audience with cheerful banter before launching into a more upbeat number.

  The remainder of the set unfolded without incident. Jim periodically checked on Claudia, who remained in roughly the same position, those intelligent eyes missing nothing.

  When the final encore concluded and the house lights came up, Jim supervised the band's exit from the stage, dealing with immediate post-show necessities. Roger demanded a towel and fresh beer. Brian wanted confirmation about the keyboard's questionable tuning. John simply nodded and began methodically disconnecting his equipment. Freddie, still riding the performance high, bounced between animation and brief moments of introspection.

  "Freddie," Jim said when he caught him alone. "During 'Forever,' was everything alright?"

  Freddie's expression flickered, surprise quickly masked by casualness. "What do you mean, darling?"

  "You seemed to lose the lyric momentarily during the chorus."

  Freddie waved dismissively, but Jim caught genuine confusion beneath the gesture. "Oh, that. Just a momentary creativity crisis. Thought I might try something different, then decided against it mid-syllable. Very artistic, very spontaneous."

  He was lying, Jim realized. Not to be difficult, but because he couldn't explain what had happened. The momentary blank expression had been genuine bewilderment.

  "Well, it worked beautifully," Jim said, letting it go. "That arrangement was something special."

  "Brian's little stroke of genius. Remarkable how removing elements can sometimes add rather than subtract." Freddie dabbed his face with a towel. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to transform from sweaty rock god to merely exceptional human being."

  When the immediate post-show chaos had settled into routine disorder, Jim made his way back to the main area. Contrary to his expectations, Claudia hadn't left. She sat at a small table in the corner, watching the room empty with the same careful attention she'd paid earlier.

  Jim approached, irrationally pleased she had waited. "You stayed."

  "I said I would." She gestured to the empty chair across from her. "Please, join me. Unless duty calls?"

  "The band's occupied with their rituals," Jim said, taking the offered seat. "I have a few minutes."

  Up close, in the somewhat improved lighting of the now half-empty club, he could study her more carefully. Her features were striking rather than conventionally beautiful—high cheekbones, eyes that seemed to process information at unusual speed, a mouth that appeared more accustomed to observation than unnecessary speech.

  "You noticed it, didn't you?" she asked without preamble. "During 'Who Wants to Live Forever'?"

  Jim felt his guard rise instantly. "Noticed what?"

  "When Freddie forgot the lyric. Just for a moment—like a record skipping, then finding its groove again."

  Her description was uncomfortably precise. "Artists have off moments, even the best ones," he said carefully.

  "But not Freddie," she countered. "Not with lyrics. It's not in his programming—" She stopped abruptly, then smiled. "His psychological makeup, I mean."

  Jim caught the strange word choice but chose not to comment directly. "You seem to know quite a lot about him. About all of them."

  "As I said, I've seen many performances." She traced the rim of her water glass with one finger. "There's something special about witnessing music being created in real time, don't you think? The way it exists outside normal temporal boundaries."

  There it was again—that peculiar focus on time and existence. "You mentioned that earlier. Music transcending time."

  "Because it does." She leaned forward slightly. "Think about it, Jim. When you hear a piece of music that moves you deeply, doesn't it create its own reality? A moment that feels simultaneously fleeting and eternal?"

  Despite the philosophical turn, her words resonated with his experience. "I suppose it does. Particularly live music."

  "Exactly." Claudia's eyes brightened with what seemed like genuine pleasure at his understanding. "Live music creates a pocket of experience that exists somewhat outside normal time. The musicians, the audience—they're sharing something that can never be precisely duplicated."

  "Yet you mentioned having seen many performances," Jim noted. "Isn't that seeking duplication?"

  "No two performances are identical. That's what makes them worth experiencing repeatedly." She studied him with unusual intensity. "Haven't you ever had the sensation that you're simultaneously experiencing something for the first time and remembering it from before?"

  Jim felt the hairs rise on his forearms. That was precisely the feeling he'd had during sound check, and again when he'd first seen her in the crowd. "Déjà vu, you mean?"

  "Something like that, but more substantial. As if certain moments are meant to be experienced repeatedly, but with variations—like a piece of music played multiple times, each performance unique yet recognizably the same composition."

  Jim found himself momentarily speechless. Her observation cut uncomfortably close to the strange sensations he'd been experiencing all day. "That's an unusually philosophical take on concert attendance," he said finally.

  Claudia smiled, seeming to understand his deflection. "I should check on my group," she said, glancing at her watch. "I'm guiding some VIPs tonight."

  "You're a tour guide?" Jim asked, surprised by this mundane explanation.

  "In a manner of speaking," she replied with that enigmatic smile. "Though not the conventional sort. I help people experience moments that might otherwise pass them by."

  Before he could question this cryptic statement, she rose from her seat. "I'll be at the Hammersmith show, if your band's schedule takes you there next."

  "It might," Jim said carefully, though he had no recollection of a Hammersmith date on their current tour schedule. "How would I find you?"

  "You won't need to," she replied with that same knowing smile. "I'll find you."

  Jim watched her move toward the VIP area, where a small group of well-dressed patrons stood in animated conversation. As she approached them, they turned toward her with expressions of what looked like reverence mixed with excitement.

  Jim pressed his fingers against his temples, trying to dispel the lingering disorientation from their conversation. He needed to focus on practical matters—load-out, settlement with Terry, getting the band safely on their way. Yet as he turned back toward the dressing room, Claudia's words echoed in his mind.

  "Time can be less linear than we perceive it to be."

  The statement shouldn't have made sense, yet it resonated with his recent experiences in a way he found impossible to dismiss. Like a puzzle piece that didn't match the picture on the box but somehow clicked perfectly into place.

  Behind him, a roadie dropped a cymbal case, the metallic crash jarring him back to immediate concerns. Jim straightened his tie, squaring his shoulders, and headed backstage, outwardly composed while his mind continued to circle around the impossible familiarity of a woman he'd supposedly just met for the first time.

  Historical notes: The song "Who Wants to Live Forever" was indeed part of the band's repertoire in 1986, having been written for the film "Highlander" released that year. The movie premiered in the UK on August 29, 1986, making the song relatively new to British audiences in the summer of 1986.