The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(73)

Jonah screws his nose up. ‘I don’t know what I want, Lyds. I’m restless, but not for Wales. Me and Dee … we weren’t at that stage, you know? I don’t think she thought so either, to be honest, but she’s landed a permanent post in a school out there so …’ He shrugs. ‘So she’s going anyway. I guess she thought if I went too we could try to make a proper go of things.’

‘I’m sorry …’ I say, and I mean it. ‘I thought you two might go the distance.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, resigned. ‘I thought so too for a while. I feel like a twat for letting it go on for so long, she deserved better.’ He drinks his coffee, pensive, and I get the sense there’s more to come, that he hasn’t come here to tell me it’s over with Dee.

‘I’m going to LA for the summer.’

Whoa, hang on a minute.

‘LA?’ I hear the incredulous note in my higher than usual voice. Of all the places in the world I can imagine Jonah going for the summer, LA isn’t one of them. Peru, maybe. Island-hopping off the beaten track around the Greek Islands, sure. But LA? I just can’t picture him amongst the rollerblading, buff-bodied Hollywood glitterati. Yes, I know, that’s a horrible, sweeping generalization, but this is Jonah Jones.

‘I’ve been writing again,’ he says. ‘Since the accident.’

Another unexpected revelation. When we were younger, Jonah entertained the idea of becoming a journalist, but in the end he decided chasing down deadlines wasn’t the life for him. He turned instead to writing other things – songs and music – and he dabbled in novels and scripts too. He’s creative by nature, which is probably why he makes such an excellent teacher.

‘That’s good,’ I say. I don’t know how the threads of this conversation come together yet. Is he going on a writing retreat in LA? ‘What sort of stuff are you writing?’

‘That’s the thing, Lyds,’ he says, and then he stops and looks at me, really studies my face. ‘I’ve written this script and I sent it to a few agents and, to be honest, things have moved a lot faster than I could have imagined.’

His bitty delivery isn’t making a great deal of sense yet. I get the feeling there’s still more to his news.

‘Wow, Jonah,’ I laugh, blindsided. ‘This is exciting stuff.’

‘It’s pretty mad.’ He laughs too, self-conscious, and in that second I see that this matters a great deal to him.

‘So you’re going to LA to …?’

‘Three production companies are interested,’ he says, making a bad job of playing it down. ‘I’m meeting up with them, hearing what their ideas might be for it, that kind of stuff.’

‘Three studios want to make your script into a movie? Are they fighting over you?’

I’m imagining a low-calorie, no-carbs Hollywood bun fight on the sun-drenched terrace of some achingly cool restaurant.

Jonah laughs again. ‘No, it’s not like that. My agent just thinks it’s a good idea to get a feel for them, see what feels right. Who feels right, really.’

It’s a lot to take in. ‘So come on then, what’s this movie about to get everyone so hot under the collar? Have you written the next Star Wars?’ I slide my mug on to the table. ‘Oh my God, you have! You’re going to buy a house in the Hollywood Hills and be neighbours with Bruce Willis.’

I don’t know why I picked Bruce Willis. I could have gone for someone younger. I should have gone for Ryan bloody Reynolds. I’m definitely not firing on all cylinders.

‘I think you’re getting just a tiny bit carried away there,’ he says. ‘A script being optioned is a million miles away from it ever being made. It’s a foot in the door.’ And then he does that face again, the one that suggests he’s uncomfortable with what he needs to say next.

‘Thing is, Lyds, it’s sort of about Freddie,’ he says, holding my gaze steady with his own, watching me closely for a reaction. ‘In a very roundabout, generalized kind of way, anyway. I mean … it’s more about friendship, and about losing your best friend.’

‘You wrote a movie about Freddie?’ It’s such a strange idea to get my head around, and then a horrible thought strikes me. ‘Does he die in it?’ My voice is pinched, high-pitched.

‘It isn’t precisely about him,’ Jonah says. ‘It’s more about teenage boys and male friendship and how loss feels.’

I’m a monster. I must be, because all I can think is that Jonah’s found a way to articulate his own feelings more freely and accurately than I ever could, and in doing so he’s made his loss bigger than mine. Rather than be pleased for him, I can’t shake the idea that he’s profiteering from this unthinkable thing that happened to us all. That happened to Freddie, and then primarily to me, not to Jonah bloody Jones.

‘You never said anything,’ I frown. ‘You never once mentioned that you were writing again.’

‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he says. ‘Not even Dee.’

But I’m not Dee, I think, I’m Lydia, your oldest friend, and you were writing about Freddie, so you should have told me.

‘I started to write because I needed to get some of the shit out from inside my head, you know?’ He’s searching my face for reassurance. ‘It was so heavy in me.’